Free Wildlife by Fiona Wood Page B

have the energy to hike.”
    I share a discovery. “If you don’t breathe through your nose, you can’t taste it as much.”
    Lou and I finish our pasta despite its bizarre flavor andtexture (salty, chemically, spongy, and slimy), and Holly eventually eats about half of her portion.
    The sparks shoot upward, quick red threads, little help messages to the universe: Get me out of here. Let me back, civilization. Give me some real food.
    “What about some nice fireside stories,” Holly suggests, her evil smile shining red.
    “No! Lou, I’m a scary-story wimp. I’m sorry.”
    “I’m not interested, either. I think I’ll call it a night.”
    “Wait up,” says Holly. “Isn’t someone going to make cocoa?”
    Because it is so cold, we boil some dried fruit as a hot “dessert,” as well as making cocoa and toasting some marshmallows.
    “So, Lou, what’s your story?” asks Holly.
    “I really don’t have one.”
    “You’ve come here from a public school?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, how come? Is this like finishing school for you, or something? Last two-and-a-bit years at private school better than none?”
    “Holly! Lou, ignore her—she doesn’t realize how rude that is,” I say.
    “It’s not rude—what’s rude is someone who sits like a lump and never contributes anything to the conversation,” says Holly. “Come on—make an effort. Are you going outwith anyone? Do you play a sport? Where do you live in Melbourne? Why have you chosen our school?”
    Lou gives her a long look. Is she thinking of taking her on? Please don’t, Lou; she bites. And I don’t want to be the one in the middle.
    “I’m off to bed. Night,” says Lou.
    She stops.
    “I’m not going out with anyone. I live in Fitzroy. I’ve left a school I like just fine to come here because this was my mum’s school, and my grandfather also came here. Not that it’s any of your business.”
    Holly and I go down to the stream to get washing-up water, which we should have done when it was light. We’re not supposed to leave any food traces overnight because it attracts—
gah!
—hideous creatures like bush rats and possums. I cling to Holly’s arm, slender protection—but better than none—from the lurking teen-stalking axe-wielding psychomurderers, drunken gun-toting hunters, and sundry angry undead from various eras past waiting at the inky edges of flashlight puddle.
    Holly is honestly not scared. My mother used to tell me that not being scared was a sign of a small imagination, when I got teased for being the party pooper on sleepovers who couldn’t hack the prospect of scary movies. But that was just to make me feel better. I’m sure Holly can imagine. But it doesn’t cross her mind that
it might be about to happen to her
.
    We fill the (foldable) washbowl and head back.
    “Why do you have to be such a bitch to Lou?” I’m only talking in an attempt to make myself settle down.
    “She’s not even trying to fit in,” Holly says, in her ringing
Going on a Bear Hunt
voice. The dark makes me want to whisper,
in case someone’s listening
, but Holly could not care less. “She’s lucky to even be here. It’s really hard to get a place just to come for camp year. My friend Penny from St. Cath’s couldn’t get a place, and her dad came here. And Lou
is
going out with someone. Her bookmark is a photostrip of her and some dud-looking guy with matching glasses. And she stares at it like a lot.”
    “It’s really not our business.”
    “It really is if she’s living in our house.”
    The flashlight hits a pair of bright eyes, and I scream. Which makes Holly scream. We run back up the rest of the path and spill most of the water. By now we are both laughing, me, not so much with amusement as with terror-induced hysteria.
    “You are a massive wimp, Sib.”
    We keep setting each other off again, as we have countless times in the past, laughing till we cry.
    “Shut up,” Lou yells from her tent.
    Even though there is probably