Free Vulture's Gate by Kirsty Murray

and you have any way of getting word to us, know that we’ll come running for you, son.’
    Callum played the message over and over again until Bo could mime every word his fathers spoke and she longed for him to turn it off. Finally, he tore open the bag of donuts and handed one to Bo. ‘I knew they wouldn’t give up on me,’ he said, crowing between mouthfuls.
    Bo took a bite of her donut and spat it into the dirt.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ asked Callum, snatching the treat away from her.
    â€˜It tasted queer. It made my teeth tingle. That crunchy white stuff, it burns.’
    â€˜That’s sugar. And it tastes fantastic,’ said Callum, through a crowded mouthful. ‘This is the sort of food those kids in your storybooks eat all the time. Not crocodile and weeds.’
    Cautiously, Bo leant forward and took another small bite from the ring of sugar and dough that Callum held in his fist. She scrunched up her nose in distaste and Callum laughed. He stuffed the rest of the donut into his mouth and dusted sugar from his fingers.
    â€˜Callum, I think we should go now,’ said Bo. ‘There’s nothing else here.’
    â€˜I want to camp until they come back.’
    â€˜We can’t,’ said Bo. ‘There is no shelter, no good hunting, and it’s too close to the road.’
    Callum bowed his head and played the iPenguin message again, holding the small toy close to his face and studying his fathers’ image. Bo remembered the way she had gazed at Poppy’s picture, hopelessly longing for him. But it was different
    for Callum. His fathers were alive. Somewhere out there, they were waiting for him.
    â€˜If only the old-tech ways still worked, we could get a message to them,’ he said. ‘But everything’s broken. It’s hopeless.’ He glanced around the barren landscape and the wreck of his old home. ‘I don’t know how to reach them.’
    â€˜I do,’ said Bo. ‘We’re going to deliver the message ourselves. We’re going to Vulture’s Gate.’

12
    EVIL ANGELS
    Callum watched Bo from across the campfire. He didn’t understand her. He’d always imagined that girls must have been sickly, unreliable creatures that spent a lot of time screaming and crying. But Callum hadn’t seen Bo cry once and he couldn’t help but trust her.
    Now, as he pushed at the coals with a stick, he felt something kindling deep inside, a beacon of hope rising from the wreckage of his old life. Bo drew a map in the dry desert soil and using the GPS in the Daisy-May and the notes that Callum’s dads had left in the security box, she mapped out a route across the continent to the city on the far east coast.
    â€˜The Daisy-May runs on cactus juice,’ she said. ‘She has a mini-still built into her so we can feed her and make some fuel. But I don’t know if she will get us all the way across the country. She’s more of a show pony than a workhorse. We need to find succulents for her every day and we’ll have to take her slow and steady. She’ll burn out if we push her too hard.’
    Callum looked down at the map in the dust. Then he turned on the iPenguin and watched his fathers’ message again. ‘We have to make it. With or without the Daisy-May.’
    The next morning, Callum packed what useful things he’d managed to salvage from the ashes of the Refuge. He made sure Peggy the iPenguin was stored in the pannier opposite Mr Pinkwhistle and tucked the other things in around her. He didn’t like the way the raptor swivelled his skull-like head towards Peggy and bared his shiny, sharp teeth every time Ruff and Rusty’s message played.
    Callum didn’t look back as the Daisy-May sped away from the Refuge but he knew that part of who he used to be was behind him in the ashes, the best of his childhood lost to him. He hooked his arms tightly around Bo. Even if she was a