Free Bella's Run by Margareta Osborn

the way home.’
    ‘A little holiday? Neither of us is due back to work until January, although I wouldn’t mind getting home earlier.’ Patty’s dark eyes turned dreamy and Bella knew she was thinking of Macca.
    ‘I wouldn’t mind getting home either, so how about we check out the coast and make it home in time for the Burrindal B&S and Christmas – what do you reckon? If we’re careful with our money we might be able to do it.’
    ‘It sounds like a plan,’ said Patty. ‘But . . .’
    ‘But what?’
    ‘Maybe we should try and be a little bit responsible here. Go west and get another job?’
    ‘Responsible? Since when have you been responsible?’
    ‘C’mon. I’ve been very responsible since we made our last bet.’
    ‘Bullshit! You slept with Macca!’
    ‘And you should have slept with Will. Maybe you wouldn’t be so bloody cranky if you had. Although why anyone would want to get down and dirty with my brother . . . Yuck!’
    ‘The bet was no sleeping with anyone until six weeks after you met them.’ Bella was indignant. ‘You just gave in, Patty. How could you? We were trying to save your soul, after all.’
    ‘I’ve known Macca for years, so he doesn’t count.’
    ‘You’re splitting hairs, Pat Me Tuffet.’

    ‘You’re just dirty you didn’t work out the loophole first.’
    Yep, she was. Totally. ‘You owe me a slab of rum-and-coke and fifty dollars, girl.’
    Patty ignored her and pulled a coin from the ashtray. ‘Heads we go left to the coast and a holiday; tails we go right and inland to find a job out west for a while. We’ll head home in time for the B&S, though; I can feel those Ariat boots on my feet already.’
    ‘No way, sunshine. You didn’t clean the guest quarters.’
    ‘I did so. I helped you clean up the grog. Doesn’t that count?’
    ‘No.’
    Patty looked momentarily disappointed.
    ‘Heads for the holiday.’ Bella wanted a decision.
    Patty spun the coin in the air and slammed it down on the back of her fist.
    They both held their breath as Patty lifted her hand.
    ‘Heads,’ she said, a grin lighting up her face. ‘Who needs to be responsible?’
    ‘Yee ha!’ yelled Bella. ‘Watch out, coast, here we come.’

Chapter 9
    It was five weeks later, on a sunny Friday afternoon. They’d just left Tamworth, having decided no trip for two country girls was complete without a visit to the Australian capital of country music. They’d swung in from the coast on their way home.
    It was Bella’s turn to drive, and she was struck by the sight of hundreds of umbrella-like grass seed heads rolling across the ground, piling up against fence posts, chasing each other over the paddocks and along the roadsides, looking for all the world like tumbleweed.
    Sara Storer’s tumbleweed.
    ‘Tumbleweeds!’ she yelled.
    Slouched in the passenger seat, hat pulled over her eyes, Patty roused from a doze.
    ‘Look at them go,’ said Bella. She jabbed at the ute’s accelerator in an attempt to outrun one that was rolling in the grassy long paddock beside her.

    ‘That’s flaming windmill grass, you dill, not tumbleweed, and it’s got a tailwind, so unless you want a speeding ticket I suggest you give up the chase now.’
    ‘It looks close enough to tumbleweed to me. Where’s that CD?’
    ‘What CD?’
    ‘Sara Storer. Silver Skies . With the tumbleweed song she played in Gundolin. Where did we put it? . . . Oh here it is.’ Bella found the CD right where it should be, in the CD holder. One-handed, she shook it free from its cover, then went to jam it into the CD player.
    ‘Hang on a minute.’ Patty stopped Bella from killing the radio. Jacking up the volume, the Americanised country twang of the radio announcer filled the cabin of the ute.
    ‘For anyone interested in crossing the border, the Nunkeri Muster will now be held this weekend. Usually held in February or March, the organisers have moved the event forward because of concerns about bushfires later on in summer