Walkabout - James Vance Marshall [2]
The girl lay against the rock, bolstered up by its support. But the boy had moved in the night; he lay sprawled on his back now, arms and legs akimbo. Both slept soundly, unconscious of the growing beauty of the Australian dawn.
On the topmost branch of a gum tree that overhung the gully, there alighted a bird: a large, grey-backed bird, with tufted poll and outsized beak. Its eyes, swivelling separately, searched the gully for food; but instead of the hoped-for frog or snake sunning itself on the rock, it saw the children. The kookaburra was puzzled. The presence of these strange interlopers, it decided, deserved to be announced. It opened wide its beak, and a continuous flow of grating, unmelodious notes shattered the calm of the gully.
The girl leapt to her feet. Her heart pounded. The sweat broke out on the palms of her hands. Terrified, she stared round the sunlit gully.
High above, the kookaburra noted her reactions. Its curiosity was piqued. With another ear-splitting shriek it came swooping down. The girl relaxed. It was only a bird. Its scream was nothing to be frightened of; more to be laughed at really.
She turned to Peter. The kookaburra hadn’t disturbed his sleep. Lying beneath the great slab of rock, he looked small and helpless, dwarfed by the immensity of his surroundings. Once again pity and tenderness welled up inside her; brought a pricking feeling to the back of her eyes. How utterly he depended on her now. When he wakes, she thought, he’ll be hungry; as hungry as I am. Feeling in the pocket of her frock, she took out the last half-stick of barley sugar; gently she slipped it into her brother’s pocket.
Food, she realized, was their immediate problem. Water they could get from the stream, but what could they eat? She knew that people who didn’t eat died. She’d read about an explorer once … it didn’t take many days. She looked at the kookaburra. As if sensing her thoughts, he gave a great piercing shriek and went winging down the gully.
But other birds soon took his place: big, black-bodied cockatoos with yellow tails, ripping bark off the eucalyptus in search of grubs; gang-gangs dangling upside-down from the flowers of the Ian tana; and iridescent painted-finches, splashing merrily in the shallow waters of the creek. The girl watched them. She envied the finches. Already the sun was warm; her dress was dirty and clammy with dew; and the water looked cool and crystal-dear: cool and crystal-dear and tempting. She looked carefully around. Peter was asleep; there was probably no one else within a hundred miles. Impulsively she kicked off her sandals, pulled her frock over her head, stepped out of her panties and ran naked down to the water. The finches darted away. She had the creek to herself.
She found a shallow pool, immediately below a miniature waterfall. Here she slid into the water, watching the ripples lap slowly higher, over her knees, thighs and waist. She was breast deep before her toes touched bottom. Looking down she could see her underwater-self with startling clarity; could even see the bruise on her hip – where she’d crashed against the side of the plane – standing out darkly against the white of her skin. She ducked down till only her floating hair showed on the surface: her long golden hair, the colour of ripening corn, which she started to swirl around and about her like