Free Thirteen Pearls by Melaina Faranda

called again. Which way to go – right or left? To my right, pushing up against the muddy red-blue sea was another shed, made from timber and rusting iron. I figured it was the work shed. Best to avoid it.
    My walk took me instead around a small dirt path no wider than an animal track that twisted to the other side of the island in about three minutes. I peered anxiously into the shallow lapping water. The tide was out, exposing reddish sand pocked with shells and stones.
    Rounding a little inlet, I literally stumbled into a ring of five giant termite mounds. I’d seen termite mounds before at Litchfield National Park. Though they look like eerie tombstones, they actually function as huge compasses for hapless bushwalkers. I noted the position of the sun in the sky. Yep. These were magnetic ones too. They were perfectly orientated – the thin edges pointed north–south, while their breadth stretched from east to west. It meant that the termites would cop minimum exposure to the northern sun and stay cooler inside. Dad reckoned that if people could be more like termites and work together for the common good, he wouldn’t have to work at DoCS, and, in fact, that there wouldn’t even be a DoCS. He also reckoned that while everyone hated termites, if they didn’t exist we’d all be buried under hundreds of metres of rubbish.
    Dust puffed up from behind one of the sun-baked edifices.
    I tiptoed over.
    Aran huddled behind it – poking one of the smooth clay ridges with a sharp stick and causing drifts of chewed-up mud to powder the earth. ‘There you are,’ I said, plastering on a bright, fake Mary Poppins-what-a-jolly-lark-now-that-I’ve-found-you-we’re-going-to-have-so-much-fun smile.
    Aran wasn’t buying it.
    â€˜Maybe you could show me the island?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll bet there ’re all sorts of excellent hiding places.’
    Black eyes regarded me suspiciously. He snaked a hand around the ridge of the termite mound and tightened his grip, as if expecting me to reach down and prise him away.
    Dad had always said that when I was little bribery and corruption had worked a treat. ‘I found a whole pile of strawberry milks in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘And there’s a pack of Tiny Teddys as well. You can have the whole lot if you come with me now.’
    Maybe he didn’t speak English, but the kid certainly understood it. Aran sprang up like a jack-in-a-box and tore along the path ahead of me.
    Racing to keep up, I entered the shed, panting, just as he dived into the cupboard, dug out the Tiny Teddys and tore at the packet with his small, disturbingly capable hands.
    â€˜Not so fast, Mister!’ I pulled the box from his grip and half-carried him out to the washhouse where someone had refilled the blue water drum.
    I yanked Aran’s stinking T-shirt and shorts off, with him aiming kicks and punches at me the whole while, and tipped a bucket of water over his head. Then another. He yowled and screamed and broke away to dash naked like a dunked puppy back into the home–shed, where he huddled over the bag of biscuits.
    I hurried into the bedroom and hunted around for some clean clothes. I managed to tug the T-shirt over his head, but gave up on trying to get his shorts on. He was cramming fistfuls of Tiny Teddys into his mouth, crumbs spraying onto the newly swept floor.
    I made myself peanut butter on pizza biscuits for breakfast before sinking beside Aran. Day One of my job as a nanny and I was feeding a half-naked kid strawberry milk and chocolate biscuits for breakfast.
    Aran’s hand swung out and clopped my ear.
    â€˜Ouch!’ I snatched the pack of biscuits out of his hand.
    â€˜Aran, you can’t keep hitting me,’ I said, trying to stay calm even though I was itching to whack him.
    Aran’s eyes widened and his mouth quivered, revealing clumps of chewed chocolate biscuit that showered my arm as he