Burning for Revenge by John Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

into my jeans pocket, and then, despite what I'd said to the others, I slid the knife down inside my sock. I figured if we were busted I'd try to dump it fast.
    It was such an impossible situation. We could be on the road for ten minutes or ten hours. I was getting fairly desperate to go to the loo, but I had to tell myself firmly that there was no way. It was just nerves, I knew that.
    My mind started to wander, like it always does. It's very annoying sometimes. And dangerous. I remember when I was leading the New Zealand soldiers up the track to Tailor's Stitch and on into Hell. I'd spent half that time daydreaming, and then realised I could have had them killed by being so casual.

    Dad used to yell at me across the paddock all the time: "Ellie, are you still in the land of the living?"
    Still, there wasn't much danger in daydreaming now. There was nothing we could do to help ourselves for the moment. No way out of this dark and musty cell. I tried to picture what the country outside would look like. End of November, moving fast into December, it'd be pretty busy out there. Irrigation'd be in full swing, milkers letting down milk by the tanker-full, and summer crops like soybean and sunflower going in. On our place we'd be dipping the sheep.
    I wondered if they were still doing those things. I guess the trees would still produce their fruit and the sheep would definitely be mating and having babies, that wouldn't stop, war or no war. I never tired of the sight of new lambs. They were one of the best things about life on the land. They looked like they were made from pipe cleaners, tottering around, trying to pretend they could do gymnastics when all they could manage was to stand up straight.
    One thing I wondered about was the irrigation. BTW—before the war—you were allowed to take a certain amount of water from the river, or from the irrigation channels. It was strictly limited, so people further down the river didn't run out and the dams didn't go dry. Everyone had meters on their pipes, for the Commission to check that farmers only took what they were allowed. If no one was checking any more it'd be a huge mess, with some people having great crops and others having droughts.

    Our place was quite a way from the irrigation properties, but we had fairly good rainfall. Four years ago was the last bad dry spell. We usually averaged 500 millimetres a year.
    This season looked good so far. There was a lot of good spring pasture around.
    And now we were the spring lambs, maybe on a premature trip to the abattoir.
    My daydreams suddenly got interrupted. The truck started to slow down. I felt the brakes come on, then I heard their squealing noise. They gripped hard and the truck stopped. The engine rumbled away but I couldn't hear anything else. By then I was buried under the felt anyway, hoping the others had the sense to do the same.
    There was a pause. Above the rumbling bass of the engine I heard human voices, calling to each other. It was a conversation between three voices, one of them a woman. It lasted only about a minute, probably even less. Their voices were so light and cheerful they might have been talking about the weather.
    Clunk, suddenly we were in gear again and moving. But we didn't gather speed like we had when we left the tip. We rolled along on a very smooth road, much smoother than the one before, but much slower too. I stayed under the felt. We went maybe a kilometre. Then we stopped again. The engine was switched off. There was a long and terrible silence. There were no sounds from the other trucks. All I could hear was the clicking noises as the engine cooled. They seemed magnified, which made me think we were in a shed or garage. After a few minutes I heard the driver cough. He cleared his throat and spat. I felt a little sick. I've always hated it when people do that, always hated the noise, let alone the sight.

    Then the man got out of the truck and slammed the door. I heard his footsteps.