Free The Third Day, The Frost by John Marsden Page B

Geez, there’s enough food in the
Wirrawee district to feed a zillion. But these buggers got lazy –
they couldn’t be bothered going to a lot of trouble to get three
course meals for us. Fair enough, I suppose. But it wasn’t really
the food that was the problem.’
    ‘What was it then?’
    Kevin searched his mind, trying to figure out
what had caused the build-up of tension. ‘It was a mixture of
everything, really,’ he said slowly. ‘The crowding, that was
terrible. Not being able to have showers. Especially when we had
those thirty-five degree days. And all those dickheads trying to
tell everyone else what to do. You know, Mr Rodd and Mr Nelson and
Troy South? And Mrs Olsen? Geez, they drove me crazy. I suppose
everyone was under stress and that made for a lot of arguments. But
some people didn’t make any effort. That bloody Mr Rodd, seemed
like he was following me around, trying to pick me. I think that’s
how he got his thrills. I can see why he’s had two wives leave
him.’
    Kevin paused again and sat thinking. We all
waited in silence, not liking to interrupt.
    ‘No, that’s not what it was,’ he said at last.
‘It was the boredom, that was the worst thing. Day after day after
day, nothing to do. Absolutely totally nothing. People tried
organising a few things, but there wasn’t much that appealed to me,
I guess. They got a school going, for instance, and that was good
for the little kids, but for people our age – well, school didn’t
seem like much of a go. Then some people started classes for adults
in a few things. There were cattle-judging lessons, and Chinese,
and Indonesian. Old Doc Robbo took first-aid classes – they weren’t
bad.
    ‘No,’ he said, leaning back against the wall
with his hands behind his head. ‘There was only one interesting
thing I learned, the whole time I was there.’
    ‘What was that?’
    ‘Explosives.’

Chapter
Eight

    ‘Explosives?’ Homer asked politely. ‘Did you
say explosives?’
    ‘Mmm. I thought you might find that
interesting.’
    ‘Explosives.’ Homer rolled the word around his
tongue, like he was trying it out, to see how it tasted. ‘So how
far did you get?’
    ‘Well, quite a way. Jock Hubbard taught us.
He’s got his ticket, his shot-firer’s ticket. He got the idea that
the time might come when we could use a bit of knowledge. He made
up dummies and we practised on them. It would have been better with
the real things, of course, but the soldiers weren’t too keen to
lend us those.’
    ‘OK,’ Homer said. ‘I know it’s possible to
make a bomb using fertiliser and diesel, because I remember Dad
blowing up tree stumps. The trouble is I never bothered to ask him
how to do it. I’ve often regretted that.’
    ‘Yeah, well that’s easy. Ammonium nitrate. For
us, in our situation, that’s probably the easiest and best way to
go.’ Kevin had suddenly become transformed. It was the first time
I’d seen him like that. It was interesting to see how being an
expert changed someone. ‘We could expect to find a lot of other
stuff in farm buildings too, like gunpowder and dynamite. But the
soldiers have probably taken most of that. Yeah, anfo’s the way to
go.’
    ‘Anfo?’
    ‘Yeah, anfo. It stands for ammonium nitrate
fuel oil. That’s the stuff Homer’s talking about. It’s perfect for
us because most farms have heaps of ammonium nitrate for
fertiliser. It produces oxygen, so it’s better even than petrol,
cos the more oxygen the better, for a really big bang.’
    ‘So that’s all we need? Ammonium nitrate and
diesel?’ Homer asked.
    ‘It doesn’t have to be diesel. Any fuel’ll do
the job. Charcoal even.’
    ‘But is that all we need?’
    ‘Well, a detonator of course. But again, if we
check out the farms we’ll find a stack of them somewhere. Jock
worked for ICI and he said they sold over a thousand plain
detonators every month in Wirrawee alone. What I can do is make a
small bomb from anfo, with a detonator, and if