Free The Audrey of the Outback Collection by Christine Harris

it?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I might only be your dad, but I didn’t come down in the last shower.’
    He waited quietly for her to go on.
    ‘Stumpy’s gone,’ she said.
    Her dad took his pipe from his top pocket and went to put it in his mouth. He changed his mind and returned it to his pocket. ‘Thought it was quiet. Where is he?’
    Audrey shrugged. ‘I let him go.’
    Dad made a dry sound in his throat like a small cough. ‘Fair dinkum?’
    She told him why.
    ‘ Mmm. It’s hard,’ he said. ‘Just like it’ll be hard for your mum and me when you kids leave home. Stumpy will be all right.’
    Maybe. But Audrey felt like she wasn’t all right. What if Stumpy had forgotten her?

Twenty-nine
    Dad looked as though he had no legs. The hole he was digging was already waist-deep. He stopped, leaned on the shovel and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
    Audrey swiped at the ground with her stick.
    ‘I hope you and Price don’t blow this dunny up,’ said Dad. ‘It’s going to have real walls.’
    ‘ Aargh ,’ growled Audrey.
    ‘What’s the matter with your eye?’
    Audrey screwed her left eye up even tighter. ‘ Aargh . Cut out by a sword, old fellow.’
    ‘I thought you had something in your eye.’
    ‘Well, it ain’t an eyeball, that’s for sure. Aarrgh! I’ll have yer guts fer garters.’
    ‘I wouldn’t say guts in front of your mother. Don’t reckon that’s on her good-word list.’ Dad resumed shovelling. ‘You’re a long way from the sea for a pirate.’
    ‘I’m shipwrecked,’ said Audrey.
    ‘Hope you won’t rob me.’
    Audrey stopped slashing with her stick. ‘I’m a kind pirate. Aargh . I help people.’
    She relaxed her pirate’s eye. It was starting to ache.
    Playing games like this was usually so much fun that she never wanted to stop. A while back, when she had decided to be a dog, she had barked for three days. No words. Just panting, barking and licking. It was the licking that made her mother put her foot down. Mum didn’t like having wet streaks on the back of her hand. But it had taken a whole week for Douglas to stop patting Audrey.
    Today, no matter how hard she tried, being a pirate didn’t seem fun. Or real. She dropped her sword-stick and turned to look out over the flat, red sand to where the scrub began. The place where she last saw Stumpy.
    ‘What can you see out there, pirate?’ Dad stretched his aching back.
    ‘I’m not a pirate any more.’
    ‘That was quick.’
    Audrey sat on the ground beside her stick. ‘It’s not much fun without St … on my own. Price reckons he’s too big for games now, and Douglas is too little.’
    ‘You made a hard choice in letting Stumpy go,’ said Dad. ‘But don’t grow up too quickly, Two-Bob.’
    ‘I won’t be grown-up for a long time. Maybe forever. Is forever the longest time? Or is there a bigger time?’
    ‘Forever sounds mighty long to me.’
    ‘Do watches make time?’
    ‘Watches count time,’ said Dad. ‘They don’t make it.’
    ‘So where does it start?’
    ‘Even when you’re a grown-up, there are some things you just don’t know.’
    Audrey picked up the stick that used to be a sword and scraped it across the sand, making a wide, smooth track. ‘When you were away I tried doing grown-up things like being a swaggie, a man and even a teacher.’
    ‘I see. You were busy, then.’
    ‘Reckon I’ll stay a girl for a while.’
    ‘I think you make a bonzer girl, Audrey.’
    ‘But I didn’t know girls could be so lonely.’

    ‘It’s not the same without you.’

Thirty
    Audrey stood alone at the back of the house. She heard the crack of a ball hitting wood. Her family were out the front playing cricket.
    Dad had brought home a cricket ball from Beltana, and Price had made a bat from a lump of wood. It was thicker in some spots than others. Price’s woodwork was like his dad’s. Solid, but crooked.
    There was a shout from Dad. Douglas squealed.
    Dad’s dog, Grease, was barking. He didn’t like being