Thyla by Kate Gordon Read Free Book Online

electronic equipment (the operation of which I would have to sneakily ascertain at a later time), a deep-red rug on the floor, two small wooden bedside tables, two charcoal reading lamps, a wood-framed mirror on the wall, two tall wooden wardrobes and a strange, misshapen black splodge in the corner.
    ‘A beanbag,’ Ms Hindmarsh said, as if reading my mind. ‘For your guests to sit on. I’m afraid we couldn’t quite spring for three armchairs per room, and a beanbag is more comfortable than a plastic chair, I suppose. I don’t know; it was the interior decorator’s idea.’
    A ‘beanbag’?
    The word squeezed into my mind with the other words, but it looked uncomfortable there. As if it wasn’t sure of its place or purpose. As if it knew it looked a bit funny and silly.
    I wondered whose idea it was that chairs were a less than ideal apparatus for sitting on, and that a wonky, bean-filled splodge might be a more sensible idea. The thought made me smile. I wondered if the gentleman who had created it was now very rich and famous, like the man who invented the refrigerator, or mechanical sheep clippers!
    My eyes moved away from the funny beanbag to other features of the room. There was one picture on the wall – a painting of a Tasmanian devil. The image looked as though the creature might be slightly fearsome, but I didn’t feel scared by it. In fact, I thought it was strangely beautiful.
    ‘Yes, she does love her devils,’ said Ms Hindmarsh when she saw me looking at the picture. ‘But she calls them purinina , which is the Aboriginal name for them.’
    Purinina.
    That was the word that had been trying to squeeze into my head before, when I was talking to Rhiannah.
    Strange that the word I had been trying to think of would turn out to be the name of Rhiannah’s favourite thing.
    ‘She’s always drawing them in art class,’ Ms Hindmarsh went on. ‘And she helps out at the market, selling scarves and badges and things to raise money for them. It’s very important to her. Maybe you can talk to her about it? I’m sure she’d love to tell you. I hope you’ll be happy here with her, Tessa.’
    Later, staring through the darkness at Rhiannah’s empty bed, I hoped so too.
    And niggling in the back of my mind was another hope.
    If Rhiannah liked bushwalking, maybe she knew Cat. Maybe she was there on the bushwalk when Cat went missing. Maybe she knew something about what happened.
    I wondered if she might tell me what she knew, and if it might be the first clue to finding Cat.
    I also wondered about the pair of shiny brown hiking boots sitting neatly side by side beside Rhiannah’s bed. If Rhiannah was on a bushwalk, why hadn’t she taken her boots with her? I pictured her, running through the trees, barefoot and wild. My stomach pulsed with yearning.

It was too hot in the room. It was like the hospital – heated far too well, though nobody else ever seemed to notice. I was sweating.
    I looked over at the window on Rhiannah’s side of the room. The crack in the dark-red curtain gifted me a beguiling glimpse of the cool night sky. I felt the hairs on my back stand up; my pulse quicken. I wanted to jump out. I wanted to run through the playground, through the sporting fields, through the high metal gates and away, into the bush that surrounded Cascade Falls, into the trees and moss and bracken and dirt and rocks and wild water.
    I padded across the room and perched on the corner of Rhiannah’s armchair. I pressed my hand against the window. It was cool to my touch.
    I opened it just a little bit, and then turned the latch backwards to lock it. I didn’t want my instincts to take over my logic; to allow my body to follow my longing to push the window wide open and leap. I knew my instincts to be powerful. In the days since I had been rescued I had, many times, felt compelled to do things my brain told me were illogical or even dangerous. I remembered biting the nurse. I remembered the fire that sometimes