

First published 2014

Copyright © Mark Mann 2014

Cover Art & Interior Design by Indie Designz

Smashwords Edition

Stebbing Lane Press

6 Stebbing Lane

Woy Woy, NSW 2256

Australia

Phone: (61)2 4342 6589

http://www.thestonegate.net

All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictional; any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Similarly, the "Aboriginal" culture in this book is fictional. While it draws on generally available descriptions of Australian Aboriginal life prior to 1788, as well as practices found in hunter-gatherer societies elsewhere and generic wilderness survival techniques, it does not depict any specific tribe or culture past or present. The "Aboriginal" mythology and stories in this book are also fictional.

Table of Contents

Part One: Alone

Part Two: Dunjini

Part Three: Noah & Sara

Part Four: Beth

Part Five: The Stone Gate

Afterword: Imaginaries

## Baytown

Baytown could be any small seaside town. Not too big, not too small. Just the usual: neat suburban streets, parks, sports fields, two schools, a shopping mall. The only thing that's special is its setting, which is beautiful. The town lies on a strip of flat land behind the golden sands of Bay Beach, facing east toward the ocean. Behind the town, to the west, the Escarpment rises like a giant green wall (in fact it's a more of a slope) of crumbling sandstone cliffs, giant tumbled-down boulders and dense forest.

Halfway up this slope, at the top of Hillview Street, is Castle Heights, Baytown's most expensive suburb. From here a rough track leads into the woods then climbs a steep gully called the Stony Stairway to the High Plateau, a vast tableland of wild forest that stretches inland to the distant horizon.

# Part One: Alone

## K  
A  
Y  
A

The path emerges from the dark woods into a moonlit clearing. I love this place. I've been coming up here—to the High Plateau above the cliffs, to the forest—for years. At first with my parents. Then on my own, ever since I was old enough. But never at night. Until tonight.

In the middle of the clearing is the Stone Gate. Of course it's not a real gate. Just a large boulder that's been worn into a natural arch. There are a lot of strange rock formations like this up here on the High Plateau, because the rocks are sandstone and crumble easily. People have given them names: the Castle, the Pyramid, the Stone Gate, and so on.

The thing is, right now something weird is happening to the Stone Gate.

Something very weird.

The moon—it's a full moon tonight—is still low in the sky. From where we stand it's behind the Stone Gate, and as we watch it fills its arch with a white light so bright you can't even see through it. Yet—and this is the really strange bit—the whiteness is only inside the Stone Gate. All around, the sky is clear and black. Not a cloud in sight.

The four of us stop and stare.

I suppose I should explain what we're doing up here in the first place. I mean, our parents would freak if they knew we were up here on the High Plateau, in the forest, at night, on our own. But they don't, because they went out to dinner and left me and Jack at home. (That's Jack, my twin brother, by the way.) Then Jayden James phones. "Hi Kaya, want to come up to the Castle and watch the full moon with me?" he asks. I try to sound all casual, as if super-hot, super-cool boys like Jayden phone me all the time asking me to go on moonlit walks in the woods, but instead I let out a little squeal that sounds more like Popcorn, my guinea pig.

"Okay, sh ... sh ... sure," I squeak.

But then I panic and wonder if it's a good idea. I mean, going to the forest at night with an older boy I hardly know? I can see the headlines now: "Body of girl, sixteen, found in woods." So to my horror I hear myself ask "Can Jack come too?" Jayden just laughs and says "Sure, I'll bring Debbie". Which is good, as otherwise I don't know how I'm going to get Jack away from his computer anyway. But when he hears Debbie James is coming, Jack lets out a little squeak too (because Debbie James is as hot as her brother; they're a genetically gifted family) and rushes off to raid Dad's aftershave cabinet.

I just hope Debbie James likes computer games, because that's all Jack can talk about. That or football.

When Jayden and Debbie turn up, Jack and I giggle like idiots before Debbie says how much she likes my crystal (it's on my necklace; everyone notices it), and Jayden drives us up Hillview Street to Castle Heights and we park the car and climb the Stony Stairway to the High Plateau, and walk into the forest.

And we come to the Stone Gate, which is on the path to the Castle.

The four of us stare at the rock arch and the strange, dazzling light. Jack, ever the computer geek, says, "Hey, it's like that Xbox game, Portal." He starts riffing on that idea. "Come with me, if you dare, into the Portal," he says in a mock-dramatic voice. He puts his daypack down and steps forward. I know he really wants to take Debbie James's hand but at the last minute he chickens out and grabs my hand instead (otherwise all this would be Debbie James's story, not mine) and we step forward into the archway. Into the light.

And that's how it begins.

The light is dazzling. Blinding. All I can see is whiteness. There's no up or down, no ground or sky, no anything. There's the roar, too. Roar isn't even the right word. There is no word for it, because it's like a pure rush of noise, louder than anything I've ever heard. Maybe it's like being inside thunder.

As suddenly as it started, it stops. The noise and the light are gone.

Everything is as it was.

The Stone Gate stands in the clearing. It's just a large rock with a hole in it. The sky is black again, except for the white orb of the moon and the twinkling stars. The only sound is some frogs croaking.

Everything is as it was.

Except Jayden and Debbie are gone.

Jack and I look at one another. I can see he's shaken too. We look around. Jack's daypack has also vanished. It had some snacks and drinks in it. And our phones.

We call out to Jayden and Debbie but there's no answer. We call again. And again.

Nothing.

Surely they wouldn't have run off and left us. Is this some strange prank they're playing on us?

I listen. I know this forest. (I come here bushwalking a lot. My friends think I'm weird.) And I'm good at hearing things, like animals moving in the bush—wallabies hopping off or lizards darting under rocks. If Jayden and Debbie are running away, or hiding nearby, I'll hear them. They'll snap a twig or rustle a bush when they move.

Yet I hear nothing. Just the distant hoot of an owl. And those frogs.

Something is wrong.

Where are Jayden and Debbie?

And that flash ...

"I think we should get out of here," Jack says nervously.

We start walking back. Before we know it, we're running. But the path seems different. Narrower, more overgrown. In fact it's hardly even there at all. Bushes brush our arms and faces. By the time we get back to the lookout at the top of the cliffs, I'm gasping for breath.

"Shit," Jack says.

Still sucking in air, I look down over Baytown.

"What? I can't see anything," I say.

"Exactly. That's the problem."

I look again. I can see the surf breaking off the beach. But Baytown is in darkness.

"There must be a power cut," I say.

"No, look closer. It's not just the lights. The buildings are gone too." Jack points. "Look, the hotel. It's not there."

I do look closer. I look for the Bayview Resort. It's Baytown's tallest building. Normally it stands out like a sore thumb. But now it's not there. Nor is the swimming pool, or the Plaza. The houses are gone too.

Baytown is nothing but trees.

I sit on a rock and try to think. There has to be a simple explanation, something staring us in the face. Was the flash a nuclear bomb? A meteorite? No, that's not right. Either of those would have wiped out everything, including us. A meteor would have left a crater. Instead, everything looks peaceful. Normal.

Except Baytown is gone.

Except Jayden and Debbie are gone.

"We can't stay here all night," I say. "Mum and Dad will go mental if we're not home when they get back."

"You haven't got it yet, have you? There is no Mum and Dad."

"But ... a whole town can't just vanish."

 For a moment, we stare in silence at the plain below us; wooded, empty of buildings.

"It must be some sort of optical illusion," Jack says eventually.

I consider this. A weird trick of the light? It seems unlikely. But I can't think of a better explanation.

"Okay, maybe you're right," I say. "The only way to find out is to go back down and check it out."

So we climb down the Stony Stairway. But at the bottom of the gully, instead of emerging from the woods at the top of Hillview Street, the forest keeps going. There are no big flashy houses, no Hillview Street, no sign of Jayden's car. Just more trees.

We keep going downhill, but now there isn't even a hint of a footpath. In fact, it's like a full-on jungle. The moonlight barely penetrates the trees and the forest becomes a mass of dark shapes and shadows. We get tangled in curtains of hanging vines. Spiky bushes scratch our arms, making them bleed. Each step is a struggle.

This doesn't feel like an illusion.

We slip and slide and fight our way down the steep slope for what seems like hours. We must be almost down on the plain by now. This should all be streets and houses.

But it isn't.

Jack stops in a small clearing and sits down in the dirt. He rests his head in his hands.

"I'm tired," Jack says. He sounds close to tears. "I can't go on anymore, Kaya. I just want to go home."

Me too, I'm exhausted. And it's pretty clear we aren't going to get 'home' tonight.

"Let's stop here. Try to get some sleep," I say. "Maybe this will make more sense in the morning."

Jack nods weakly. We push some leaves together for a bed and lie down. It's damp and twigs and sticks stab us in the back and I don't even want to think about all the bugs and spiders crawling around us, but we're both too worn out to care.

Soon I hear Jack's breathing slow. He's already asleep, curled up in the damp leaves, the hood of his jumper pulled up for warmth.

I feel myself drifting off.

The next thing I know, it's morning. The pale sky is streaked with pink. Birds whoop and chirp and squawk. I don't think I've ever heard such a loud dawn chorus. The sound makes my heart sink. I mean, I love birds, but this is _not_ what was meant to happen. What _was_ meant to happen was that I wake up back at home, in my own bed, to find this was all a dream.

But if it's a dream, I'm still dreaming.

I go to the toilet behind some bushes (not that anyone is watching). I'd like to clean my teeth and have a shower too. Instead, I nudge Jack awake. He sits up and rubs his eyes and ruffles his hair. He groans as he realises we're still where we were last night, sitting in a pile of damp leaves in the forest. We discuss what to do. It's obvious we can't stay here, so we decide to keep going into Baytown—or where Baytown should be—and see what we find.

There's got to be something that will tell us what's going on.

We battle our way through the thick bushes for maybe an hour (without our phones it's hard to keep track of time) before the slope levels out and we come to a stream lined with tall reeds. The water is only knee-deep so we wade across. On the other side the forest is different—more open, like walking through a shady park. But there's still no sign of any houses or people.

We walk into a clearing and startle a mob of kangaroos. They hop away into the woods. That's odd. There are wallabies up on the High Plateau but I've never seen kangaroos around Baytown before.

"The trees are all burnt," Jack says. "Maybe there was some sort of blast last night after all."

"I don't think so. See how only the lower trunks are burnt? And they're only scorched. The higher branches are almost untouched. This was a cool ground fire. A blast big enough to have destroyed every building in Baytown would have burned these trees to the ground."

I point out the fresh green shoots emerging from the blackened ground. "Anyway, these young plants are a few weeks old. This fire happened weeks ago, not last night."

"If you say so, Nature Girl." Jack forces a smile. "I hope you're enjoying the bushwalk, by the way."

Nature Girl. That's what Jack calls me. So what? I admit it. I love animals. I'm fascinated by plants. My perfect day is a walk in the forest. Everyone teases me about it. ("It's just not natural, being so into nature," Jack likes to say, thinking he's clever.) So you'd think I'd be loving all this. And perhaps I would be—if I knew what was going on. But I don't, and right now I just want to go home.

However, my limited bush tucker knowledge proves useful when we come across some heath banksia trees, because I know you can suck the nectar out of their flowers. I show Jack what to do. The sweet sugary syrup is the first thing we've eaten since we left home last night. It's not much of a breakfast but it will give us some energy.

Another patch of burnt forest. Again it's a cool fire; the tree trunks are scorched black but the higher branches have not been affected. This time there are no green shoots and the earth is bare and covered in grey ash. When Jack brushes against a tree trunk it leaves a smudge of black charcoal on his T-shirt.

"Now _this_ fire happened in the last couple of days," I point out. "Nothing has had time to grow back." I scuff the ashes with the toe of my running shoe. There's something odd. These fires were no bigger than a football pitch. Natural wildfires would have burned a wider area. I mean, it can take firefighters days to bring a bushfire under control. But something—or someone—put these fires out, really quickly, before they even got going.

It reminds me of something Dad told me. He says Aboriginal people burned small fires to clear the forest. The ash enriched the soil, helping fresh new plants to grow, and these juicy young plants attracted kangaroos for them to hunt.

"Instead of going looking for animals to hunt, they brought the animals to them. Smart, eh?" Dad said.

I'm pleased with my detective work. Forensic ecology. (Did I just make that phrase up?)

"Just one problem," Jack says when I explain this to him. "Aboriginal people stopped burning the forest round here two hundred years ago. Whatever happened to Baytown happened last night. Until yesterday, this was all streets, and if people were running around the streets of Baytown setting fire to things, I think we'd have noticed."

Jack's right, obviously. Before last night this was all streets and houses. Now it's nothing but trees.

But a forest can't just appear overnight. And houses can't just disappear.

We stop to drink at a small stream. Without cups or water bottles, we decide the easiest way to drink is to lie flat on our stomachs and slurp the water like wild animals. Jack is worried the water will make us sick, but we're thirsty and we've got to drink. Especially as it's getting hot now.

As I lie drinking I notice something on the ground beside me. It's the outline of a fish, scratched into the rock. It looks like an Aboriginal carving. There are hundreds of rock carvings up on the High Plateau, if you know where to look. Fish and whales and wallabies and men with spears. But this one is different. The lines are too clean, not overgrown with moss and lichen.

I show Jack. "This must mean there are other people," I say.

"Or were? This carving could be thousands of years old, for all we know."

"I don't think so. It's so clear. This was done recently."

Jack thinks about this for a few seconds then shrugs. "So what? Recently could mean last week. Yesterday even. _Before_ the flash, anyway. So it still doesn't tell us if anyone apart from us has ... survived."

Survived.

Jack lets the word linger.

Survived what? We still have no idea.

We finally stumble out of the woods onto Bay Beach. The sun is high so I'm guessing it's around midday. The beach is so familiar. I come here every Sunday for surf lifesaving. I recognise the surf break at the far end of the bay. And yet it's so different. There's no surf club, no safety flags, no little kids paddling at the water's edge, no surfers in black wetsuits out on the break.

We flop down on the sand. I close my eyes. For a minute, I focus on my breathing and the sound of the surf rolling in. Maybe the answer to our mystery will come to me if I clear my mind.

It's peaceful.

Jack's voice, impatient, snaps me out of my mood. "Wake up, Kaya. We can't stay here. There's no shade and we'll get sunburnt. And I'm thirsty."

I open my eyes again. The surf sparkles in the sunlight as it breaks into white foam crests in front of the beach. Water washes up the sand and sucks out again. It's like watching the planet breathing. In and out, in and out. Out in the bay three dolphins leap out of the water and splash down. They're so graceful. Without any people or buildings the beach feels magical, full of nature's energy.

But I still don't know what's going on.

Jack's right though. We need to drink. I point to the stream at the southern end of the beach. "We can follow the creek until we come to fresh water," I say.

As we walk down the beach, I notice something else.

"Look how clean the beach is. There's no rubbish. No plastic. Nothing."

"Well, that's nice," Jack says.

"Actually, it might not be such good news. All those bits of plastic you find on beaches, they can wash up from thousands of miles away. They say if you go to some tiny uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean you'll still find bits of plastic on the beach."

"So what?"

"So ... if there's no plastic on this beach, that means there's no plastic in the whole world. Whatever happened last night didn't just happen in Baytown. It's changed the whole world."

The stream at the end of the beach is called Rock Creek. Until yesterday it flowed out to the sea through the Bayview Caravan Park. Now it's running through forest. We follow the creek until we come to a small waterhole surrounded by reeds. I taste the water. It's murky, but no longer salty. We lie on our stomachs, cup our hands and drink.

I see a shape glide by beneath the surface.

"Jack, there are fish in here," I say. "We should try to catch one." We need to eat.

The question is, how. I scan the banks of the stream.

"That vine over there. We can use it to make a fishing line. I've seen Wolf Meares do it on Wild Survival. We can use a thorn as a hook."

Wild Survival. That's my favourite television show. Its star, Eddie "Wolf" Meares, is an ex-army survival expert who parachutes into different types of wilderness and shows you how to survive, which usually involves drinking his own pee. (Fortunately we haven't got to that stage yet.)

I rip off a stretch of vine and run my hand along it to strip off the leaves. Next I find a thorny bush, break off the tip of one of its prickly branches and tie the end of the vine to it. The vine is young and green and bends easily without breaking, as long as I don't pull it too hard.

It's not the strongest fishing line ever but, like Wolf Meares says, you've got to improvise.

"Let's see if that holds. Now we need bait."

We scrape around in the dirt looking for something to use as bait. Eventually I notice a rotting log and kick it open. Inside there are some fat white grubs.

"Yuck!" Jack looks disgusted.

"No, they're perfect."

I take one of the wriggling grubs between my fingers and push it onto the thorn. Brown goo shoots out of its body where the thorn pierces it. I have another idea. I quickly grab a second grub and stuff it into my mouth. Some of the brown goo trickles down my chin as I try to swallow it. It's disgusting. Wolf Meares would be proud of me.

"I think I'm going to throw up," Jack says.

"You haven't even eaten one yet."

"Just watching you makes me feel sick."

Mind you, for a moment I really do feel like throwing up. The grub leaves a revolting aftertaste.

"They gave us one to eat on our school excursion to Wilderness Camp. Only me and Cassie had the guts to try one," I say.

"Guts—is that a joke? Does it taste as bad as it looks?"

"Yeah. But at least we know they're edible." I hold out a grub.

Jack pulls a face. "No way."

"Suit yourself. But remember it's food. And food means energy. We've got to eat. The trick is not to think about it."

"Maybe later," Jack says.

I take the baited end of the vine and cast it into the creek.

"What now?" Jack asks.

"We wait."

We sit beside the creek and watch the vine drift gently in the water. Jack's just sitting there doing nothing, so I hand the end of the vine to him while I make another fishing line. When it's ready, I hold out the end with the thorn on it. "Here Jack, you do it. Put some bait on it."

Jack looks nervously at the wriggling grubs in the rotten log.

"Come on, Jack. Don't be such a wimp."

Jack still won't touch the grubs.

"For heaven's sake Jack, I'll do it," I say. I find a fat grub and spear it with Jack's thorn. Goo squirts out. I have to admit: it _is_ disgusting.

"You've got to do the next one, though," I say.

Jack casts his line into the pool and sits down beside me. "Thank you," he says. "For not mentioning Wolf Meares, I mean." We laugh. It's the first time we've laughed since the flash.

We wait. Jack thinks he's got a nibble, but when he tugs on the vine there's nothing there. Then I get a bite, but when I pull in the vine the thorn breaks off. (It is a pretty flimsy fishing rod, after all.)

I find another thorn and tie it onto the vine. Then Jack gets another nibble but the same thing happens. It's frustrating, but encouraging too. I mean, at least we're getting bites.

Suddenly my vine goes taut. I tug—and this time it stays tight. Carefully, I pull it towards me until the hook rises out of the water.

Dangling on the end of the line is a small silver fish. I throw it onto the bank. Its body flaps on the ground.

"It worked! I don't believe it, Kaya! You're a genius!" Jack shouts, jumping up in triumph. He stops (maybe he thinks he's overdone the praise for his sister) and looks at the fish. "But how do we cook it?" he asks.

"We don't. It'll take too long to make a fire. I don't even know if we can make a fire without matches. We'll just eat it raw. Like sushi. I saw it on ..."

"Let me guess, Wolf ..."

I nod and laugh. I pick up the fish in both hands. Its body is still twitching. Poor fish. I'm just about to bite into its side when I realise it's still covered in scales, so I find a stick and try to scrape them off. I'm sorry, I think to the fish, but we've got to eat. Finally I take a bite. The flesh is moist and tender.

I hold it out for Jack.

"Eat it while it's fresh," I say.

Jack hesitates.

"It's that or the grubs," I point out.

Jack screws up his face and bites into the fish. "Hey, this actually tastes good," he says. He takes another bite and picks a scale from his teeth.

I catch Jack's eye and we burst out laughing again.

"This is crazy. A whole afternoon to catch one fish," Jack says.

"Teach a man to fish ..." I say.

Jack looks blank.

"It's a saying. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach him to fish and he eats forever. The point is, now we know how to catch fish. So now we can eat. And there's fresh water to drink here too."

By the time we get back to the beach the sun is setting and the sky is streaked with pink and orange. We fall asleep watching the blue sky fade to black and the stars appear.

Just the two of us, all alone in the world.

I wake to see the sun rising over the ocean. By the time Jack stirs, I've collected a pile of driftwood from the back of the beach.

"We need to make fire. I've seen Wolf Meares do it by rubbing two sticks together."

"What would we do without Wolf Meares?" Jack mumbles sleepily. He pulls the hood of his jumper down over his face and curls up in the sand, waiting for the sun to chase off the early-morning chill.

The trouble is I've never actually done this before; just seen it on television.

On TV, Wolf Meares made it look so simple. He made a hole in a bit of wood and laid it on the ground. Then he put one end of a stick in the hole and rubbed it backwards and forwards between the palms of his hands. Its tip spun so fast that it got hot enough to set fire to a ball of dry grass. And hey presto—fire!

But when I try it, every step is a challenge. Especially without tools. Like, without a knife, how do I cut a hole in the bit of wood. And how do I get the upright stick to spin fast enough without giving my hands blisters?

After a while I manage to scrape a sort of hole in the wood by using a stone. I put the end of a stick in it and twirl, but it keeps coming out of the hole and I can't generate any heat. I stop. I don't want to rub my hands raw.

"Looks like we'll be living off raw fish for a bit longer," Jack says.

"Don't forget those tasty grubs," I reply.

We sit silently for a while, listening to the surf, trying not to think about how hungry we are.

"What if we're the only people left alive and we have to spend the rest of our lives alone like this?" I say.

"Perhaps it's all a dream?" Jack suggests.

"We can't both be having the same dream."

Jack thinks for a moment. "That's true. But if it's my dream, then you only exist in my imagination. And if it's your dream, I only exist in your imagination. So one of us could be dreaming. We just can't tell which one."

"Even if that makes sense, have you ever had a dream that lasted so long?"

I examine my palms for signs of blisters. None of it makes sense.

"I say we go back up to the High Plateau. This all began when we went through the Stone Gate. If we go back through the Stone Gate again, maybe everything will go back to normal."

"Okay," Jack says. "Meanwhile, what does Wolf Meares say about having a ... you know, a ...?"

"Just bury it in the sand. I think. Use some leaves to wipe your bum. Not spiky ones. And please go somewhere I can't see you."

Before heading up to the High Plateau, we go back to the waterhole to fish. It takes half the morning before I catch one. I force down some of those grubs too. Jack still can't bring himself to eat one.

I notice a few purple berries on a low vine on the ground. They're native sarsaparilla, one of the few wild berries I know are safe to eat. You can tell it's the right plant because the leaves have three veins instead of one. They taught us that at Wilderness Camp. I eat one. It's tasteless. (After the grubs, that's not a bad thing.) We eat the rest of the berries, then start to walk through the forest towards the escarpment. After a while we pick up what seems like a faint trail and start to climb the slope towards the cliffs.

"I reckon this is Hillview Street," I say. "You know, where Hillview Street should be."

I must have been right, because after walking for a while we come to the foot of the Stony Stairway. We climb it to the top of the cliffs. Again, there seems to be a faint trail leading into the High Plateau. A startled wallaby crashes off into the undergrowth as we pass. Soon we find ourselves back at the Stone Gate.

But when we step through the arch, nothing happens. No flash. No roar. Nothing. And when we return to the top of the cliffs, there are still no buildings on the plain below. I feel like crying. I want this nightmare to end.

Pull yourself together, I tell myself. Stay practical. Just focus on the next step. That's what Wolf Meares says.

I look at the sky.

"Those are storm clouds," I say. "We have to find shelter. And fast. The Castle will do."

The Castle. That's where we were going in the first place, with Jayden and Debbie James, to watch the full moon. It's a big pile of boulders that looks a bit like a ruined castle. There's a cave there where we can stay dry.

We're just in time, because as soon as we reach the Castle the heavens open. Fat raindrops pound the earth in front of us.

"I guess we're here for the night," Jack says.

The rocky overhang protects us from the rain. We lie next to each other and use our body heat and jumpers to keep warm.

The boy leans over me. He is tall and skinny with thick curly hair. His body is naked and black as coal. He is looking down at me, his white eyes wide with wonder. In one hand he holds a long thin stick. A spear.

The boy is saying something in a language I can't understand.

"Binjin."

I wake with a start. But there's no one. Only Jack, still sleeping, his body curled up for warmth. Last night's storm has passed and the stars are fading into the early dawn sky. The birds are noisy this morning. There are screeching cockatoos and laughing kookaburras and other birds I don't recognise.

Lying on a leaf are the sarsaparilla berries we collected last night. We saved a few for breakfast, because it's depressing to wake up with nothing to eat. But the pile looks larger than I remember. Did we really pick so many last night? I guess we must have.

We eat the berries and slurp water from a puddle. We suck some flowers from a nearby banksia tree.

"There's nothing like a big breakfast," I joke.

"And that _was_ nothing like a big breakfast," Jack jokes back. I've noticed Jack has already lost weight. I must have too, because I can feel the bones in my ribs. We can carry on like this for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but sooner or later we've got to eat more. We're slowly starving.

The crazy thing is, I know we're surrounded by food. There are kangaroos and wallabies and possums and so on, if only we knew how to catch them and could make a fire to cook them. There's bracken fern everywhere, but I'm pretty sure you've got to cook that. I remember reading that Aboriginal people ate the sap of acacia trees. And seaweed. You can definitely eat that raw. The only problem is, I think some types of seaweed and acacia sap might be poisonous and we can't risk eating the wrong ones. I mean, there doesn't seem to be too many doctors around here if we do get sick.

"What I'd give for a fried egg right now," Jack says.

"Eggs! That's it."

"Yeah, with some sizzling rashers of bacon and hot buttery toast and ..."

"No, seriously, you can eat eggs raw. I've seen it on Wolf Meares." I'm excited now. "And there's no shortage of birds, so there must be eggs. We've just got to find them." I think for a moment. "Most of the birds up here make their nests in trees, but down on the plain there are all the water birds, like ducks. I remember finding a nest last spring, in the reeds by Rock Creek. The mother duck must have been off feeding. There were about ten eggs. We should look down there."

So we walk back down to the plain again. We head east through the bush, using the morning sun as a rough guide, until we reach Rock Creek. I can tell roughly where we are because the stream widens into a small lake or billabong, lined with reeds. I'm guessing it's Rock Creek Lagoon. We wade out into the water up to our knees and slosh around among the reeds. There are plenty of birds around—ducks, pelicans, magpies and waterbirds like herons and cormorants, with their long thin legs for walking in the mudflats, and long thin beaks for fishing. But there's no sign of any nests.

"This is getting boring," Jack says after a while.

As he speaks, a duck half-runs and half-swims out of the reeds. The duck is all brown, which means she's a female. She's quacking and flapping her wings, but it looks like one of her wings is injured.

Suddenly I remember something from a Wolf Meares episode. A mother duck sitting on eggs will pretend to be injured and run away from the nest to distract predators. To find the nest, look where the duck has just come from.

I wade over to where we first saw the duck and, sure enough, after poking around for a while, I find a little bed of down with about ten white eggs nestled in the middle.

I feel guilty, stealing the eggs with the mother duck just over there, but we're hungry and we have to eat. We take an egg each and crack the shells, taking care not to spill anything. I throw my head back and gulp down the contents of the egg. It tastes pretty good. Jack hesitates then does the same. A dribble of yolk trickles down his cheek. Then we take a second one each. And a third. Jack wants to finish them all off, but I feel sorry for the poor mother duck and say we should leave the others for her. There are loads of ducks around so there must be plenty of other nests.

So now we've got fish and sarsaparilla berries and duck eggs and banksia flower nectar. And those disgusting gooey grubs.

I lick the last trace of yolk from my lips. "You know what I'm thinking?" I say. "Oysters. We should look for oysters. On the rocks at the end of the beach. We can knock them open with a stone."

How many days is it now? I've lost count. Jack thinks six, maybe seven. It's hard to keep track of time.

On the other hand, it's getting easier to find our way around. We're learning to recognise landmarks, such as waterholes and streams and even big trees. We notice we can move faster if we follow the corridors of grass that seem to slice through the forest.

We're getting into a routine—fishing at the creek, looking for berries and banksia flowers, hunting for duck eggs, collecting oysters from the rocks. Some of the oyster shells are already split open. I wonder if birds can break them open with their beaks. We've started fishing from the beach too. We spend most of each day looking for food, but we're still not eating enough. It can take us a whole afternoon to catch a fish or find a nest full of eggs. We're slowly getting better at everything. But we need to, because we're also slowly starving.

We're tired, hungry, dirty and covered in mosquito bites. Sometimes we get on each other's nerves. In the middle of the day, to save energy and avoid getting sunburnt, we find a shady tree and rest underneath it.

We've set up camp in a small cave near the beach. It's just big enough to keep us dry when it rains. We've piled some branches in front of the cave to keep the wind out. It kind of works.

I'm experimenting with twisting the reeds by the waterhole into string. And I'm still trying to make fire. I can get the tip of the stick warm, but I still can't get a spark.

We don't talk much about what's happened to us. There's nothing to say—no new information. Our best guess is we've gone back in time, even though that sounds insane. Often we don't talk at all for hours. When we do talk, it's mainly about practical things, like where to look for eggs. Jack's taking more of an interest now. At first he just left it all to me. I think he was hoping there'd be another flash and things would go back to normal. But now it's like he realises we could be stuck here for ...

For how long? For the rest of our lives?

It's a terrifying thought. And yet I can't help thinking how beautiful it is. The forest, the beach, the birds. Yesterday (I think it was yesterday) we saw a koala, asleep in a gum tree. And today we startled two emus. They twisted their long necks to gaze at us then trotted off into the bushes.

Ever since the dream I've had the funny feeling we're being watched. The forest makes noises. Leaves rustle. Twigs snap. But all we see are skinks or lizards scurrying for cover. Or kangaroos bouncing off into the bushes.

Also, we keep finding small piles of sarsaparilla berries. I try to think: what animal makes piles of berries like that? There's a bird called a bower bird that's famous for collecting blue things, and the berries are purple, which is almost blue, so maybe that's it. We eat the berries anyway.

Yesterday we found a fish beside a waterhole, like it had just leapt out of the water onto the land. It smelled fresh but we didn't eat it. Just in case. We can't afford to get sick. And today we found some duck eggs right out in the open, which was odd. But they smelled okay so we ate them.

# Part Two: Dunjini

## J  
A  
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K

I wake up. It's those bloody birds again. Why are there so many birds? Just like I've done every morning since the flash, I open one eye, hoping to see my X-Men poster, the one that's been on my bedroom wall since I was, like, twelve years old. But there's Kaya, curled up on her bed of dry leaves. She even looks comfortable. I reckon she's almost enjoying this. It's like a great big Wolf Meares adventure to her. Me? I just want this nightmare to end. If we _are_ going to be stuck here for ever, I think I'll kill myself. Seriously. I mean, what's the point of living like this for the rest of our lives? Just surviving. Would that be unfair to Kaya, leaving her all alone? I'm no use to her, anyway. I mean, what survival skills have I got? On a good day I can just about make toast without burning the house down.

I'm still debating whether or not to kill myself as I roll over and look out of the camp.

What I see changes everything.

There's a boy standing in front of our shelter. Staring right at us.

I feel my heart thump. I quickly shut my eyes and pretend to be still asleep, which is probably a dumb thing to do but I need time to think.

I blink and sneak a glance at the boy. He's tall and thin, with skinny legs and black curly hair and the darkest skin I've ever seen. He's naked except for a cord around his waist. In one hand he's holding what I think is a spear and he's got a small stone axe, or knife or something, hanging from his waist cord. His dark body glistens with sweat. He looks about our age.

How long has he been there? Does he know I'm awake?

Is he friendly?

I nudge Kaya with my toe. She'll know what to do. She's good like that.

"Wake up, quick," I hiss.

Kaya opens one eye.

When she sees the boy she lets out a shriek. The boy leaps back in alarm.

Without hesitating, Kaya sits up and smiles. "Hello," she says. She points to herself.

"I'm Kaya. And this is Jack, my brother."

I sit up slowly. I'm glad Kaya has taken charge. Saves me making a decision. Anyway, she's better at dealing with people. Girls always are. The boy keeps staring, so Kaya points to herself and me again, repeating our names, smiling, trying to sound friendly.

The boy just stands there with his eyes wide and his mouth open. I'd say he's as scared of us as we are of him. (On the other hand, he's got a spear and we haven't.) Finally, he taps his chest.

"Pullawarra," he says. He points to us. "Binjin."

He repeats the words. Then he spins around and suddenly he's gone.

Seconds later he reappears with a handful of sarsaparilla berries. He puts them on the ground, steps back and points to us and the berries. "Mway, mway," he says. He puts his fingers to his mouth to mime eating. We eat some of the berries and Kaya smiles. The boy—Pullawarra, if that's his name—grins.

He takes a few steps into the woods, then turns and waits. He wants us to follow him. I look at Kaya. Can we trust him? Kaya says we should go with him. I say he could be leading us into a trap. But Kaya says if he wanted to kill us, he would have done it while we slept.

At least now we know we're not alone. That's a relief. Or is it? Pullawarra doesn't look like someone from Baytown. Does that mean we really have gone back in time?

We follow Pullawarra. He moves lightly and silently, stopping to wait when we fall behind, which is often. At a waterhole Pullawarra digs up a small palm plant that's growing beside the water. He hacks off the hard outer layers with his axe. There's a soft white centre. He holds it out.

"Mway," he says, pointing to his mouth. I take a bite. It's watery and tasteless. Pullawarra watches me while I chew.

Further on, Pullawarra breaks open a log and finds some of the fat white grubs. He wants us to eat them.

Kaya takes a grub and pops it into her mouth. She swallows it, gives Pullawarra a big smile and rubs her tummy. Pullawarra grins. Now it's my turn. I've resisted the grubs until now but I don't want to look like a wimp in front of our new friend so I take one and swallow it quickly before I can chicken out. It's all pus and gunk and sludge. I feel sick but I force myself to smile. "Hmm, delicious," I say. Kaya laughs.

That seems to break the ice, because Pullawarra laughs too then begins to talk. Words tumble out like music but we understand nothing. This doesn't seem to matter to Pullawarra, who leads us off again through the forest until we come to a stream.

Pullawarra wades into the knee-deep water, draws his spear back and freezes. Only his eyes move, darting back and forth, scanning the water. Suddenly he hurls the spear into the water. When he pulls it out again there's a silver fish on the tip. He drops the fish on the ground and darts into the bush and returns with two sticks, which he scrapes smooth with his axe. Then he does what Kaya's been trying to do—he cuts a hole in one stick with his axe, puts some dry reeds in the hole, then the end of the other stick. He spins the second stick between his palms. In minutes, the dry reeds catch fire. Kaya watches him like a hawk, studying every detail.

Once the fire is going, Pullawarra skewers the fish on a stick and cooks it over the flames. It's the first hot food we've had since the flash, and I don't think I've ever tasted anything better.

We keep walking. We're walking towards the sun, which is high in the sky so we must be heading roughly north. (Even I can work that out.) We walk for what seems like hours. I'm pretty sure we haven't come this far north before.

All of a sudden we step out of the woods into a sandy clearing beside a lake. It's Big Lake. There's the small island in front of us where the pelicans gather, called Wally's Bar. That means we must be standing in what should be Memorial Park, at the northern tip of Baytown.

Memorial Park isn't here now. What is here is a low round hut made of branches and mud. A campfire glows by its entrance.

Pullawarra points to the shelter. He puts his head on his hands to mime sleep. He disappears into the bush again and returns holding a cooked animal by the tail. It's a lizard, about a foot long, its skin blackened by fire. The smell of barbecued meat fills the air.

"Panga," he says. He holds the lizard to his mouth and bites into its side, then offers it to Kaya.

"I wonder where he got that," Kaya says. "I mean, ready-cooked like that."

"Maybe there's a lizard takeaway shop round the corner," I joke. I know what she means, of course. She means Pullawarra isn't alone. But right now the smell of the cooked meat is all I can focus on. I watch Kaya bite into the lizard's belly.

"Mmm, that tastes beautiful," she says, wiping her lips with the back of her arm. She hands me the lizard and I bite into the side. If you'd told me a week ago I'd be eating roast lizard I'd have said you were crazy, but now I don't give it a second thought. The skin is tough but the flesh underneath flakes off like cooked fish. It's delicious. We devour the animal greedily, biting into its belly and pulling chunks of meat off with our fingers.

After we've eaten, Pullawarra repeats his earlier sleeping mime, then he's off into the bush. We wait for him to return but he doesn't. It's almost dark now and it seems clear the shelter is for us, so we crawl in.

Inside, the floor is covered with soft grass. The fire warms the shelter, and the smoke also keeps the evening mosquitoes at bay. For the first time since the flash we're almost comfortable.

We talk about Pullawarra and debate whether we should venture off into the bush to see if we can find where he's gone. But it's dark now and we're tired, so we decide against it. We stretch out and watch the fire and I feel myself drifting off.

"Jack, get out here. Quick."

I can hear the excitement in Kaya's voice. I rub sleep from my eyes. It's light outside, and for a second all I can hear are birds singing. Then, above the chirping and squawking, I hear it. Someone is talking to Kaya.

In English.

In an instant I'm wide awake. I scramble out of the shelter. Kaya and Pullawarra are sitting on the ground. And there's another man with them. An old man. He's short and, not fat exactly, but he looks well-fed. His black skin is wrinkled and lined, and he has a bushy white beard. Like Pullawarra, he's naked except for a cord around his waist.

"Morning. I'm Billy. Nice to meet you."

"You ... you can speak English?" I stammer.

"Yeah, little bit. You like football?" He nods at my Baytown United football shirt.

Kaya breaks in. She sounds proud, like she's somehow discovered this English-speaking man herself. "We haven't gone back in time," she announces. "Billy knows about our ... world."

"Baytown, you mean?"

"Yeah, Baytown," Billy says. "Well, this is Baytown too, see. Same place. Same time too. Just different Dreaming. You call it Baytown, we call it Dunjini-pula. Dunjini country. Dunjini, that's us, see."

I don't see.

Billy draws an arch in the dirt with his finger.

"You came through that big stone arch, like this, yeah? Big flash, noise like thunder too?" We nod. "Well, we call that one the binjin rock. Binjin means gateway, see, 'cos it's like a gate between different Dreamings. A stone gate."

Billy breaks off. He's staring at Kaya's necklace.

"Can I see that one?" he asks.

Kaya slips the necklace over her head and passes it to him. The crystal glints in the sun. Billy examines it carefully, feeling it and holding it up to the light.

"You know what this is?"

"Some type of crystal," Kaya says. "I don't know what it's called. Mum gave it to me for my birthday. She bought it from that hippie shop in Baytown. Earth Visions."

Billy strokes his beard. "And what were you doin' up at the binjin rock? In your Dreaming, people don't usually go wanderin' about in the bush at night, do they. Especially not young 'uns like you."

"Well, yeah, I guess it is unusual," Kaya agrees. "This boy Jayden ... it was just ... we just thought it would be nice to ..." she trails off, not quite knowing what to say. It's not often Kaya is lost for words.

Billy looks at her and nods as if her answer made perfect sense. "I see. But how did you know about the binjin rock?" he asks.

"We didn't," I say. "We were walking up to the Castle and we were passing it, and there was this strange light shining through the arch and I thought it would be sort of cool to walk through it. We certainly didn't expect ... this."

Billy considers our story in silence for a while. Then, all of a sudden, he bursts out laughing. Pullawarra smiles too.

"Ha! When I heard two whitefella binjin spirits were walkin' about in the bush, I got a big surprise. See, binjin knowledge was lost in your Dreaming a long time ago."

"I don't understand," Kaya says.

"You see, binjin is secret business. Only binjin men like me learn the secret knowledge, of how to travel through the binjin rock. A long time ago there were binjin men in your Dreaming too. Blackfellas like us. They'd visit us and we'd visit them. But after whitefellas came to your Dreaming, all your binjin men died. Blackfellas forgot binjin. And whitefellas never found out about it. No more binjin spirits came from your Dreaming."

Billy hands the necklace back to Kaya.

"That crystal, we call it maala. Without a maala crystal, the binjin rock won't open." Billy pauses. "Make sure you look after this one. Maala crystals are very rare. They come from only one place, far away. Lose this one and you won't have time to get another."

I don't like the sound of that. "Why not?" I ask.

"'Well, see, when you go through a binjin gate your mullabay stays in your own Dreaming. Your mullabay is your power. In your Dreaming some people call it your soul or spirit. When you're away from your mullabay in another Dreaming, you get weaker. Stay away for too long and you'll die."

I _really_ don't like the sound of that.

"How long ... have we got?" Kaya asks.

"Everybody is different. Me, I can stay a long time away from my mullabay. One time I stayed a whole year in your whitefella Dreaming. That's when I learnt English, see. Other people, though, they get sick fast. They can die in two moons. Even one moon. There's no way of telling. But it's worse for women. That's why binjin is men's business."

"Great," Kaya says. "The whole universe is sexist."

Billy nods. "Women got a deeper connection to their own Dreaming, see. Their mullabay goes down deep into the earth, like the roots of a tree. If a tree is torn out of the ground, it will die. Same for a woman. A man's connection to his Dreaming is different, weaker, up in the air. So he can live longer away from his Dreaming, see."

"So that means Kaya ..." I begin.

"Don't worry," Billy says. "We'll get you back to your Dreaming at the next full moon. That's when the binjin rock opens, on the full moon. Until then you will stay here with us. It's risky business for women to come through the binjin rock. But Kaya will be alright. As long as she don't stay away from her Dreaming for more than one moon."

Gateways to alternate realities, life forces, magic crystals. My mind is officially boggled.

But the important thing for us is that Baytown—our Baytown—still exists.

And we can go back.

We've just got to make it to the next full moon.

Billy tells us to follow him into the forest. He leads us to a larger clearing, a little way along the lake shore. In the clearing are six round huts, just like ours.

And there are people. Men, women and children, huddled together, watching in silence as we walk into the camp. They too are dark-skinned and curly-haired and naked except for cords around their waists. Some of the women have shell necklaces and plaited hair. Some carry wicker baskets strapped to their backs.

"Looks like we're today's big attraction," Kaya whispers.

We stop in the middle of the clearing. Everyone stares. No one makes a sound, until a small boy bursts into tears and runs to hide behind his mother's legs. It breaks the spell and everyone laughs.

Billy holds up his hand and everyone is quiet again. He begins to speak. He talks and talks, but everyone seems spellbound. There are gasps and nervous laughter, and people keep sneaking glances at us.

Billy stops and another man steps forward. Like Billy he has the loose wrinkled skin of an old man but still looks strong and fit. His dark face, with its wide flat nose, is surrounded by a mass of bushy white hair and bushy white beard. He too delivers a long speech. He presses his hand to his chest and his voice soars dramatically.

"He says he is Bambalaroo, chief of the Dunjini," Billy translates, once the old man stops. "He welcomes the binjin spirits—that's you two—to Dunjini country. He says we Dunjini will protect you with our lives."

Billy stops. I guess he's giving us the condensed version.

Bambalaroo stands like he's waiting for a response. Kaya presses her hand against her chest like he did and smiles and says, "Thank you, Bambalaroo".

At the sound of her voice a murmur ripples through the crowd of onlookers.

Billy tells us to sit down on the ground then begins to chant. He shuffles slowly in the dust. The other Dunjini join in, shuffling and chanting, stamping their feet. They chant and stamp, chant and stamp, kicking up a cloud of dust that makes us cough until Billy holds up his hands and everyone stops.

One by one, the Dunjini women approach us. Each woman puts some food down in front of us, on large leaves; berries and seeds and strips of dried meat. The women stare at the ground to avoid eye contact.

"Now eat," Billy says. "Giving you food, that's saying you're part of our tribe now."

As well as the nuts and berries there are fish, and tubers that look like potatoes, burnt on the outside but white inside. It's hard trying to eat with so many eyes watching us.

And I guess that's the end of the ceremony, because Billy gets up and says "follow me" and leads us back to the other clearing.

"What were you saying?" Kaya asks Billy.

"I told 'em you were binjin spirits come to visit us. Told 'em our law says we gotta look after you. To let harm come to a binjin spirit is bad luck, see."

"They seemed afraid of us," Kaya says.

"Yeah. They've never seen a binjin spirit before. Never seen a whitefella neither," Billy says.

We spend the rest of the day at our camp. Just sitting or lying down. We're still weak and exhausted after all those days of hardly eating. Sometimes we doze. From time to time Pullawarra brings us food, or water in a rough wooden bowl.

At dusk Pullawarra makes a fire and Billy comes to sit with us.

"I'm sorry you had to go walkabout for so long," Billy says as we watch the flames flicker, "but I was far away collecting medicine plants. When Pullawarra saw you, they sent a boy to fetch me. But I'm old. I can't walk fast no more. Took me four days to get back. Then I told Pullawarra to bring you here."

"But why did Pullawarra hide from us?" I wonder.

Billy strokes his thick white beard. "It's been many generations since the last binjin spirit came through the binjin rock, see. Now everyone thinks that old binjin story is just that ... a story. When you appeared, everyone was amazed. And frightened. That's why they hid from you, see, waiting for me to get back."

Billy says Pullawarra has been chosen by the spirits to be the next binjin man—Billy's apprentice, so to speak—but he was too scared to meet us until Billy got back.

"But he left you food," Billy says.

"Those piles of berries?" Kaya asks.

"Yeah, he didn't know what binjin spirits ate, so he just left what he'd seen you eat. He left you fish too, but you didn't eat it. And eggs."

I look at Pullawarra. He's watching us talk.

"Does Pullawarra speak English?"

"Not yet. Maybe you can teach 'im."

We spend the next days at our camp. Billy and Pullawarra sleep next to us. It seems the Dunjini are still too spooked to let us move into the main camp but we're free to visit during the day.

At first they back away and gawp at us as if we're aliens from another planet. I guess we are, in a way. From another world, anyway. Children run to hide behind a hut or a tree when we look at them. But slowly they get more used to us. We get a few shy smiles. A little boy called Jumaji starts to follows us around. He likes to sit next to us and touch our soft pale skin. He obviously doesn't realise we're meant to be ghosts, or spirits, or whatever we are.

I feel much better now we know we're going home. And we don't have to worry about finding food either. I wouldn't say I'm enjoying myself exactly, but it's interesting. I mean, it's not often you get to hang out in a parallel universe—although personally I'd have preferred one with more cool gadgets and sci-fi stuff. It's perfect for Kaya, though. She loves all the bushtucker business. Especially when Pullawarra takes us for walks and shows us stuff, like animal footprints and what plants to eat and how to make spears and axes.

I wonder if there are cool gadget sci-fi worlds. Or is this the only other reality?

One evening we ask Billy how the Dunjini found out about the Stone Gate.

"Nobody knows for sure. Binjin knowledge is real old. It goes right back to the ancestors. I reckon they found it by accident, like you. That's the thing, see. In your Dreaming, living in them cities and big houses, you've lost your feeling for the _real_ world. You don't feel the power things no more. But the binjin rock, the Stone Gate ... anyone can feel it's a power place. It would have been a ceremony place, for sure. The maala crystal too, you just gotta hold it to know it's got power. Something like that would have been prized, traded all over. I reckon some ancestor was up there doing ceremony with his maala crystal on a full moon and, like you, he seen the light ..."

## K  
A  
Y  
A

Pullawarra shows us how to make glue by heating the sap from an acacia tree, and how to shape a stone into a spear tip and, best of all, how to make fire. Even Jack finds it interesting, although he won't admit it.

Today, while Jack is off somewhere with Pullawarra, a girl of about my age comes and sits next to me. Like everyone she's naked except for her waist string and the little woven shoulder bag that all the girls and women carry. Her curly black hair is coloured red with clay and there are three lines of scars above her bare breasts.

She sits quietly for a while, watching me try to plait some grass together into cord. I try to remember what Pullawarra showed me. Finally the girl says something and reaches out and takes the lengths of grass. She carefully weaves them together, shows me and smiles shyly. I smile back.

"Mullimby," the girl says, tapping herself. I guess that's her name. She smiles again, takes some berries from her bag and holds them out. I take a few and eat them.

"Miya," I say. It means thank you. Billy taught us. Mullimby laughs and claps her hands. She reaches out cautiously and strokes my T-shirt. She snatches her hand away. Now it's my turn to laugh. I realise she's never touched clothes before. Not these sorts of clothes, anyway, although at night some of the Dunjini wear loose coats made from animal skins.

Mullimby, who is barefoot like all the Dunjini, stares at my running shoes. I take one off and hand it to her. She touches it, lets out a shriek and drops it. We both laugh. Mullimby hesitates, then plucks up courage and picks up the shoe again. She turns it around in her hands, fascinated.

I point to it. "Shoe," I say. I lift up my leg and show her my foot. "Obviously, I've got feet too," I say. Mullimby pokes the soft sole of my foot with her finger. Again, she snatches her hand back in surprise. She shows me her own foot. Her sole is as hard as leather. We both laugh.

An older woman calls out something to Mullimby. She puts my shoe down and runs off to join the other women.

Mullimby has become my regular companion. It's like she's decided Pullawarra can look after Jack, but I need to learn all the women's business, like which plants you can eat, and how to make string and baskets from reeds. Of course I don't _need_ to learn any of this stuff. I mean, we're going home in a couple of weeks and in the meantime we're getting waited on hand and foot. But I _want_ to learn about it.

The Dunjini are getting more used to us now. They're starting to treat us as human beings instead of aliens. The women start taking me out into the forest with them. The children come too, playing while their mums and older sisters gather plants. The women break open rotting branches with their digging sticks and scoop out fat grubs, or dig up thin white tubers to roast on the fire. In the middle of the day we rest or swim at a waterhole, or sit beneath a shady tree and weave long grass into baskets and string. We return to camp with baskets full of berries and seeds and duck eggs.

I'd like to go naked like everyone else, but I know my lighter skin will burn quickly.

We dig for mud crabs in the mangrove swamps that line the shore of the lake and the banks of the river that flows from the lake to the ocean. We collect oysters from the rocks around the headland. Sometimes the women go out into the lake or the ocean in canoes made from scooped-out tree trunks, and catch fish in reed nets. There seem to be more fish than in our Baytown. Every day the women set fire to small area of forest, then quickly beat the flames out with giant palm leaves before the fire can get out of control.

Back in camp, in the afternoons, we prepare food. We cook any animals the men have hunted. We roast the tubers or grind them between stones into a flour. Mullimby shows me how to mix this flour with water to make dough. Cooked on the ashes of the fire, it makes a sort of hot bread.

I'm learning so much. Who needs Wolf Meares when you've got the real thing?

## J  
A  
C  
K

While Kaya goes out with Mullimby and the women, the men take me hunting. They fish with spears at the lake, or track animals. They light fires to drive kangaroos into ambushes, and spear large lizards. One day we dig a pit and cover it with thin sticks and leaves. In the morning we return to find a kangaroo has fallen in. One of the men spears it. We scare ducks into a wide net strung between two trees.

Another time, one of the men climbs a tree and puts smouldering grass into a beehive, then scoops out the honeycomb while the bees are stunned by the smoke. He throws it to the ground and we each take a fistful of honey. It's sweet and delicious.

I'm learning how to throw a spear, and how to use a sling to make the spear go farther.

In the afternoons we march proudly back into camp with our catch, for the women to cook on the fire.

At first the men all laugh at my attempts to throw a spear, but with practice I get a little better and on what feels like my ten-thousandth try I actually hit a kangaroo. It's part of a mob we've been stalking, nibbling grass in a clearing. We approach downwind so our smell is carried away from the kangaroos. To my amazement, my throw goes straight and fast and buries itself in the animal's side and it falls to the ground. Pullawarra spears another before the rest of the mob bounds away to safety.

It's probably the first animal I've killed in my life, if you don't count things like ants and mosquitoes. I'm sort of sad for the kangaroo, but it makes me feel like a real hunter.

Billy tells Kaya and me about visiting our Dreaming, as he calls it. He says a local Aboriginal man called Steve found him wandering the streets. Steve let him stay with his family and taught him English. Billy lived with Steve for many months, and returned many times.

"I brought Steve back 'ere once," Billy adds. "He wanted to see where I came from. Because he was a blackfella, nobody knew he was a binjin spirit. Best to keep that a secret. I told everyone he was a binjin man from up north. But with your white skin everyone knew you had to be binjin spirits."

"Why didn't you want anyone to know Steve was a binjin spirit?" Kaya asks.

"Because of the sickness."

Billy pauses to stir the fire before continuing.

"See, whitefellas brought a sickness to your Dreaming. Plants and animals began to die. Something was broken. Our binjin men saw it when they visited your Dreaming. So they held a great meeting out in the desert and agreed we mustn't bring anything—or anyone—back from your Dreaming. That became part of the binjin law. They didn't want the sickness to come to our Dreaming."

"So ... we shouldn't be here," I say.

"Maybe. But you are, so we gotta look after you."

"Will we make everyone sick?"

"No. It's not whitefellas who are sick. It's the Whitefella Dreaming."

We wait for Billy to explain, but the old man just stares at the fire. He's said all he's going to say today.

Kaya is off with the women when I walk into the main camp to find two men arguing with Billy, Bambalaroo and the other Dunjini men. The strangers turn and stare at me wild-eyed, like they've seen a ghost. Their whole bodies, including their faces, are smeared in some sort of white chalk or paint.

They don't look friendly.

One of the strangers is a real giant. He's got a deep scar on one cheek, as if he's been slashed with an axe. The other man is younger and skinny. His eyes dart nervously while his companion speaks.

I don't like this. It feels wrong.

The man with the scar turns back to Billy. He speaks again. He points at me then jabs his finger into Billy's chest.

"Jack, go back to your camp," Billy says.

I retreat into the forest. As soon as I'm out of sight, I hide behind a tree and watch through the bushes.

The strangers and the Dunjini stand toe to toe. The giant stranger, the one with the scarred cheek, is talking. He sounds agitated, angry. Suddenly he jumps back and raises his axe. The Dunjini raise their weapons too. Axes and spears and clubs.

For a moment no one moves. But, seeing he's outnumbered, the stranger lowers his axe. He mutters something to his skinny companion and they turn and march out of camp.

The Dunjini watch them go in silence.

"Jack, you can come out now," Billy says.

Sheepishly, I step out of the bushes. This breaks the tension and the Dunjini men laugh.

"That was about us, wasn't it?" I ask Billy.

"Don't worry," Billy says. "It was nothing."

Billy is holding something back from me. What I saw wasn't nothing.

Last night Billy made Kaya and me sleep in the main camp. They've built a new hut for us here. And when we wake up everyone's busy. The women and girls have their baskets packed and the men have their axes and boomerangs tucked into their waistbands.

"Time to move," Billy says.

Bambalaroo leads the tribe into the forest. As we walk the Dunjini sing. First the men sing, then the women. Billy says it's a walking song.

We march across the Baytown plain until we can hear the surf pounding on Bay Beach. The bush looks familiar. We're back near the end of the beach where the creek flows into the ocean, near where we camped when we were alone.

Bambalaroo stops and claps his hands and calls out something and everyone sets to work. The women hack away the low scrub with their stone axes. They burn away the stumps and roots and use leafy branches to sweep the ground clear. The men cut down branches and lash them together to make the frames of dome-shaped huts, which they cover with large leaves.

"Why have we moved?" Kaya asks. "It's those two strangers, isn't it?" I've told her about the argument.

Billy nods. "Yeah. Those men are Girrokool. The big man is Bantara. Their country is to the north, across the lake, but sometimes they come here to hunt. That's when they saw you. Now some of their tribe are sick and they think you brought the sickness. They think you are binjin spirits 'cos you're white, see. And they know the story, that binjin spirits have a sickness. Now they want me to do a healing ceremony. But they're wrong. You didn't bring that sickness."

"Couldn't you just do the ceremony anyway?" Kaya suggests.

"I'm afraid not," Billy says. "That ceremony involves putting a medicine spear through your heart, see. They think we've got to kill you—at least one of you—to stop the sickness."

"Whoa, that's not good," I say.

"Those Girrokool don't understand. The law says we must _protect_ binjin spirits, not kill 'em. To kill a binjin spirit is forbidden. It will bring bad luck. But they wouldn't listen. That Bantara, he's a hothead. He don't listen to anybody."

I think of the way Bantara looked at me and shudder.

"They could have killed me right then," I say.

"Nah, we'd have got 'em first. There were too many of us. Anyway, a healing ceremony can only be done by a medicine man like me. Bantara can't do it himself. And I _won't_ do it. That's what we was arguing about. They'd have to take you back to their own medicine man."

At the new camp, the mood is different. Life goes on as normal but everyone seems more alert and ready for action. The men carry their spears and clubs all the time. At night some men sit by the fire, keeping watch, their spears by their sides. Billy warns us not to wander off alone. We even need an armed guard to go to the toilet at night.

That doesn't mean Kaya and I are confined to camp. If anything, it's the opposite. Now I go everywhere with the men, even when they're stalking kangaroos and I clearly slow them down. And Kaya still goes out with the women and children to gather food. Except now, two of the young men—the warriors, I guess you'd call them—go everywhere with them as guards.

It's been four days now since we moved camp. It's amazing how the time has passed. It's starting to feel almost like we belong here. But the moon will be full in two days and we will be going home. Billy says the Dunjini will hold a ceremony to see us off.

"We'll dance all night to ask the spirits to guide you safely back through the binjin rock to your Dreaming," Billy says. "We'll get painted up and cook kangaroo and fish and maybe a goanna."

I notice the mood has changed yet again. Everyone is getting ready for the big ceremony. The women plait grass into bracelets. Two men return with baskets full of coloured rocks; the women grind them up and mix the powder with water to make orange and white and brown body paint. Other men return with white cockatoos and green lorikeets; their colourful feathers are used for headdresses. The children seem to sense the excitement and run around playing chase and practising dances.

## K  
A  
Y  
A

Jack says I'd stay here for ever if I could. That's not true. Of course I want to go home. But I'll still be sad to leave. It's exciting being here and learning all this stuff about living off nature. And I've become good friends with Mullimby. Even though we can't speak each other's language, somehow we make each other laugh. I'll be sorry to say goodbye to her.

Right now I'm down by the lake with the women, sitting in the grass making baskets. The women are in a playful mood. There's been no further sign of the Girrokool men who Jack saw, and everyone seems excited about the big ceremony to see us off. It's sort of like the last days of school before summer holidays.

Mullimby takes my hand and pulls me away from the rest of the group. I think she wants to show me something. One of our guards, a boy called Mabaya, sees us walking away and hurries over to join us. The other guard, Namallaba, is too busy flirting with one of the other girls. Mabaya calls out something to him and everyone laughs.

The three of us—me, Mullimby and Mabaya—head into the forest. Mullimby chats away in her sing-song voice and points out flowers and animal footprints. But now I'm starting to worry that we've strayed too far. We can no longer hear the chatter of the other women. We should go back.

Suddenly there's a crash in the bushes. I spin round and see a man charging towards us. He strikes Mabaya with his club. The Dunjini boy crumples to the ground.

Before I can react, someone else grabs me from behind. He's got his arm around me, pinning my arms to my sides. I try to struggle but he's too strong. I feel his powerful body pressing against my back. I can smell his sweat. He puts his other hand over my mouth.

The man who hit Mabaya now has Mullimby. He's still a boy, really, probably not much older than me. He's tall and lean and his body and face are smeared with white paint. It gives him a strange, ghostly appearance. I can see Mullimby struggling and twisting, trying to break free.

My attacker pushes me down, forcing me onto my stomach. I can feel one of his knees in my back. He's too strong and heavy for me to push off. I might as well try to lift a car off my back. He pulls my arms behind my back and I feel him tie my wrists together with rough cord. I cry out in pain as he tightens the cord and it cuts into my skin. I can taste blood in my mouth, mixed with the taste of earth and dry leaves as he presses my face into the ground.

I hear a shout. I manage to twist my head just enough to see Mullimby run off into the forest. The man holding me barks an order at the tall skinny boy, who races off after Mullimby.

The man's knee digs into my back. I feel like he's breaking my ribs, squeezing the air out of me. It's hard to breathe. Now he's binding my ankles. His hands feel big and rough. I feel his hot breath on my back.

I can't move. I lie on the ground, face pressed down in the dirt, my wrists and ankles bound.

The tall thin boy has returned from the bush. I can hear his voice. My captor stands up and the two men talk in urgent tones. I twist my head slightly until I can see them out of the corner of my eye. The man who tied me up is a giant, big and powerful, with wild eyes and a scar running down his cheek. He's angry, shouting at the boy and waving his axe.

The boy lifts me up and throws me over his shoulder like I'm a sack of potatoes or an animal from the hunt. My face presses against his back. His sweat rubs into my eyes.

The men start to walk. They move fast, almost running. Spiky branches scratch my back and sides as we push through the bushes. Every step makes me bounce on the boy's shoulder, so my nose keeps smacking into his back. It hurts. I'm not exactly travelling first-class here. I scream for help.

I feel a blow to the side of my head.

It's the last thing I remember.

## J  
A  
C  
K

Kaya and the women aren't back yet, so I sit by our hut and watch the men cut up the two kangaroos we caught today. I've eaten meat all my life, but until two weeks ago I'd never seen an animal being killed or butchered. Yet now it seems almost normal. Some of the little boys are kicking a rolled-up ball of reeds around camp. They want me to join in but I'm too tired. It was hard work keeping up with the hunt today.

Suddenly there's a crash and Mullimby rushes out of the bushes. She's hysterical, shouting and crying, waving her arms and gasping for breath all at once. Blood runs down one cheek.

I know right away it's Kaya. Mullimby and Kaya are always together. I feel sick in my stomach. I look round for Billy to translate but before I can find him everyone springs into action. Bambalaroo leaps to his feet and gives orders. Men grab spears and clubs. Bambalaroo lets out a strange howl and the men run into the forest. There's just me, Billy and Pullawarra left.

 "Come on," Billy says. Pullawarra sets off at a jog, the sweat glistening on his bare black back as he runs. It's all I can do to keep up with him. I can hear Billy breathing hard behind me but Bambalaroo and the other men are already out of sight.

"They've got Kaya, haven't they?" I gasp as we run.

"Yeah," Billy says. He stops and gulps down a couple of deep breaths. "Gotta ... rest ... can't keep up with you young fellas anymore."

Pullawarra waits for us. He's not even out of breath.

"Will they kill her?" I ask. I have a terrible thought. "What if she's dead already?"

"Nah, they won't kill her," Billy says. "Not yet. They gotta take her to the Girrokool medicine man to do that ceremony, remember. We can still catch 'em."

"But they've got a head start."

"Yeah, but they got to carry Kaya. That'll slow 'em down." Billy has got his breath back now, and we move off again. We're heading towards the cliffs. "The only way back to their country is across the river. The one that flows into the lake. If we can stop 'em getting back to the river, they'll be trapped. Then our men will hunt 'em down."

"But how will you stop them reaching the river?"

"Fire. We're gonna burn along the river. Make a wall of fire. We been planning it, see. Had two boys stay up there all the time, waiting for Bambalaroo's signal. But now we got to get you up above them cliffs. This fire's gonna be a big one. Dangerous one. We don't want you getting caught up in it, do we? The women and kids too."

We're across the wetlands now and climbing the slope towards the Stony Stairway.

"That Mullimby, she's no good at listening," Billy mutters. "I told her not to take Kaya off like that."

We keep climbing. Pullawarra leads the way, moving effortlessly, while Billy wheezes behind me. Down below, I can see orange flames and smoke rising from the north end of the Baytown plain.

We're at the foot of the Stony Stairway. We start to climb.

Suddenly there's a sharp snap behind us. Someone stepping on a fallen branch.

Someone's coming.

"Hurry," Billy mutters. He says something in Dunjini to Pullawarra.

We're halfway up the Stony Stairway now, clambering over the rocks that form the stairs. Pullawarra skips easily from one boulder to the next but Billy is struggling.

We hear more twigs break below us.

We're almost at the top of the gully when I look back and see them. It's the same two Girrokool, the ones I saw arguing with Billy and the others. There's Bantara, the giant with the scarred face. And behind him the tall skinny Girrokool boy.

This wasn't in the plan.

The Dunjini men were meant to trap the two Girrokool down on the plain and hunt them down. That's what Billy said. Somehow they must have given them the slip. Maybe they guessed the Dunjini would try to cut them off at the river and decided to escape this way, over the High Plateau instead.

The Girrokool boy carries what looks like a sack slung over his shoulder. With a jolt, I realise the sack is Kaya. Her body flops limply, her legs slapping against the boy's stomach as he springs from rock to rock. It's impossible to tell if she's dead or alive.

Bantara looks up and sees us. He growls something at Billy. His voice is deep and harsh.

The Girrokool are getting closer. Any second now they'll catch us. I look at Billy and Pullawarra. We can't let them pass or they'll get away with Kaya. But the three of us are no match for Bantara. He must be seven feet tall, and he's built like a character from Ultimate Fighter 6. It will take more than a lame old man and two kids like us to stop him. (And did I mention that I'm a wimp. My twelve-year-old cousin beats me at sock wrestling. What chance have I got in a real fight with axes and clubs and spears?)

Billy turns and says something to Bantara but the giant Girrokool just grunts. He pushes Billy to the ground with one sweep of his arm and raises his axe to strike him.

But now a strange thing happens.

Bantara freezes.

Seeing his chance, Pullawarra throws himself at Bantara. He must be half the weight of the Girrokool, but he has the advantage of being higher up the slope. Bantara stumbles backwards and loses his footing. His axe clatters to the ground as he falls.

Now it's Pullawarra's turn to strike. He swings his axe. But even on the ground, Bantara is too strong. He throws up his arm and catches Pullawarra's wrist. It's enough to deflect the blow. Instead of burying itself in Bantara's skull, the axe thuds into the ground beside him. Pullawarra, already unbalanced by the force of his swing, topples forward. He cartwheels down the rocky slope and lands with a thud.

Bantara springs to his feet. He's quick for such a big man. He looks around for his axe.

Except I see it first. Lying on the ground between us. And suddenly some basic survival instinct takes over me and I swoop down and grab the axe before Bantara can reach it.

And I hurl it as hard as I can.

The stone blade of the axe hits Bantara's left shoulder and stays there. He roars in agony and looks down in surprise at the blade stuck in his shoulder, then back up at me. Dark blood oozes around the sides of the axe. Bantara sways. To my horror, he begins to stagger towards me, his bloodshot eyes open wide like a zombie. He's so close I can feel his breath on my face. He raises his hand to strike me. But as he's about to bring his fist down, I see his eyes glaze over and roll in their sockets. His hand swipes the air in front of me and he slumps to the ground with a mighty crash, like a tree being felled.

I'm too shocked to move.

Seeing Bantara fall, the Girrokool boy drops Kaya. I hear her groan as she hits the ground. Thank God, she's still alive. The boy reaches for his axe. Our eyes meet and I realise he's scared too. Like me.

There's more crashing and Bambalaroo and the other Dunjini men emerge from the bushes at the bottom of the gully.

The Girrokool boy casts around for an escape route. The sides of the Stony Stairway are sheer walls of rock. The only two ways out of the gully are up or down. But the Dunjini are below him and I'm blocking his way up. I'm obviously the weakest link. He takes a step towards me, axe raised. I'm defenceless.

I press myself against the side of the gully. It's enough to give him an opening. Now he has a choice. He can fight me. He'll kill me, no doubt, but it will slow him down long enough for the Dunjini to reach him.

Or he can run.

He has to decide fast. The Dunjini are closing in behind him. Our eyes meet again and he gives me a tiny nod—of thanks, it feels like—and pushes past me into the forest above.

One of the Dunjini men raises his spear but before he can hurl it into the boy's back, Billy calls out. The man stops his throw. And the boy is gone.

Three of the Dunjini stand over Bantara, who is still lying where he fell. The axe is still stuck in his shoulder. Blood runs down his chest.

Kaya! I race over to her, but Pullawarra is there first. With quick flicks of his axe he cuts the vines binding her ankles and wrists. Kaya sits up and groans. She wipes some blood from her forehead.

"I felt like a dead kangaroo, being carried around like ..." She trails off and looks across to where Billy is kneeling beside Bantara. Billy speaks urgently to Bambalaroo then in one swift movement jerks the axe out of the man's shoulder. Blood spurts out of the wound. Bambalaroo presses down, trying to stem the blood. Bantara moans. Someone hands Billy a clump of leaves and Billy spits on them and rubs them between his palms into a sticky wad and presses it down onto Bantara's wound. He holds it there until the bleeding stops.

"I thought I'd killed him," I say.

"Will he live?" Kaya asks.

"Yeah," Billy says. "With the right medicine plants, he should recover. He's lucky. The axe just missed his heart."

"What will you do with him?" Kaya asks.

"That's up to you, Kaya," Billy replies. "He was going to kill you, so the law says you must decide what happens to him. If you want, Bambalaroo will spear him through the heart."

"I don't want _anyone_ to die," Kaya says.

"Thank you," Billy says. "He's not a bad man. He was just trying to help his people. He believed you were making them sick. Also ..." Billy pauses, "... he's my son. He grew up here with us, but he married a Girrokool girl and went to live with them. The boy is Lampulu, his son. My grandson."

"So _that's_ why he didn't kill you when he had the chance," Kaya says.

"I'm sorry," I tell Billy. "I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I didn't know what to do."

"You did the only thing you could. He would have killed Pullawarra," Billy says. "And they would have got away with Kaya."

Grey smoke covers the plain below so we continue up to the High Plateau. It takes four men to carry Bantara, who is barely conscious. Every so often he groans softly. We walk through the forest until we come to a large rock overhang that will provide shelter from any rain. The women and children are already there, busy building campfires and sweeping the ground. The men lay Bantara down and some of them head off to hunt.

Mullimby shrieks with relief when she sees Kaya, and rushes over and gives her a long hug. She has a large bruise on her forehead and a cut on her cheek. Everyone talks at once, asking questions and pointing at us and Bantara.

After a while the hunters return with a wallaby. They cut it up and put the pieces on the fire and there's the sickly smell of burning animal hair. I'm used to that now. It mixes with the smoky smell rising from the plain below. The sky over Baytown has turned grey with smoke.

Our corner of the camp is like a sick bay. I'm okay but Kaya, Pullawarra, Billy and Mullimby are covered in bruises and cuts. And there's Mabaya, the boy who was guarding Kaya. He's got a big gash on his head. Kaya tells me he was clubbed when the Girrokool seized her. Kaya has sore wrists and ankles where they were tied, and a red lump on her forehead. She vaguely remembers being hit on the head.

But Bantara is the worst of all. Billy sits beside him, cleaning his wound and whispering gently to his barely conscious son.

When the wallaby is cooked we sit by our fire and eat. Billy says the bushfire on the plain will be good. It will clear the forest and the ash will fertilise the soil, bringing new growth, which will bring animals to feed.

But by then we'll be gone. Because tomorrow the moon will be full again.

I wake up feeling nervous. Today is the day. The full moon. But what if it doesn't work? What if we don't get home? Well, I guess we've got to trust Billy. What choice do we have?

It's rained overnight. There are puddles in front of our cave. Billy says the rain will have dampened the fire, but the air is still hazy with smoke. No one seems too worried though; everyone is busy preparing for tonight's ceremony. They spend all day painting their bodies red and white. Dots and circles and lines. Mullimby paints Kaya and Pullawarra paints me. The men make masks from tree bark while the women make headdresses and bracelets and ankle decorations using sea shells and brightly coloured parrot feathers.

"If only we had our phones. We could take some amazing pictures to show people when we get home," Kaya says.

" _If_ we get home," I correct her. Let's not tempt fate.

The ceremony begins at dusk. Naturally we're the guests of honour. Billy leads us into the middle of the clearing and the Dunjini surround us. Billy makes one of his long sing-song speeches. Then he puts on his mask and begins to chant.

"Binjin pulla banja, binjin pulla binja, binjin pulla banja ..."

He begins to stamp his feet in rhythm with the chant. The other Dunjini join in, chanting and stomping, slowly circling around us. They shake sticks decorated with feathers and leaves. The women sit on the ground and clap pairs of short sticks together.

Clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack ...

Binjin pulla banja, binjin pulla binja, binjin pulla ...

I'm watching for the moon to rise, trying to stay focused. We can't risk missing the portal. But as hard as I try, I feel my mind drifting. The chanting and clap-clap-clap of the sticks are too hypnotic. I'm losing track of time. It's dark now and the colour has drained from the sky. There's nothing but dancing and clapping and chanting. In the dust and smoke and orange flicker of the fire the dancers become Dreamtime spirits summoned by the ceremony.

Billy's voice snaps me out of my trance. "Jack. Kaya. Let's go."

How long has it been?

But there it is. The moon. Big and white, sitting low in the sky just above the trees.

The chanting rises to a crescendo and the circle of dancers parts and lets us through—Pullawarra, Billy, Kaya and me. Binjin is secret business, Billy has told us. None of the other Dunjini are allowed to see us go through the Stone Gate.

I take one last look back at the Dunjini, lost in their hypnotic, swaying dance, still chanting and stomping.

Binjin pulla banja, binjin pulla binja, binjin pulla ...

To my surprise, I realise I'm sad to leave them.

Billy leads us into the bush. After the orange glow of the fire the moonlight is silver and cold. As we walk, the chanting fades slowly into the night. After a while, Billy stops at a pool and tells us to wash.

"You don't want to go home with all that fancy paint," he says.

Once we've washed, we continue along the narrow forest path until we reach the Stone Gate.

Kaya takes Billy's hand and squeezes it. "Thank you, Billy," she says. "We'll never forget you. And Pullawarra and Mullimby. Everyone. You've been so kind to us."

"We gotta look after binjin spirits," Billy says. "It's the law."

I'm no good at speeches so I give Billy a quick, awkward hug instead. And Pullawarra.

"See you, mate," I say to Pullawarra.

It's more than an expression: he _has_ become my mate. I'll miss him. He hugs me back. He grins. "Mate," he says. I laugh. I taught him that.

"You must find us if you come to our world again," Kaya tells Billy. "We live in Koolibar Street—number six."

"I don't know. I'm gettin' too old. Maybe I'll come one more time, to show Pullawarra." Billy hesitates. "One last thing," he says. "When you get home, best not to tell anyone about this, eh? You're good kids but there are many bad people in your Dreaming. People who might use the binjin rock wrong."

He points towards the moon.

"Now," he says. "It's time."

As he speaks, moonlight floods into the Stone Gate. The space inside the arch turns a blinding white, just like the first time.

"Go," Billy says. "Quick."

We run towards the Stone Gate. The light is dazzling.

For a second, Kaya hesitates. She turns to look at Billy and Pullawarra one last time.

"Don't stop, Kaya," I yell. I grab her hand and pull her into the Stone Gate.

We step into the light.

# Part Three: Noah & Sara

## K  
A  
Y  
A

Jack grabs my hand and pulls me into the light. I know what's coming but it's still a shock. There's an ear-shattering roar and everything is a dazzling, brilliant white, like when we were caught in a snowstorm on our ski trip. Only whiter.

And suddenly we're standing in the forest again, next to the Stone Gate. I look around. Jack's beside me. Billy and Pullawarra are gone. I notice an empty beer can lying on the ground. _Welcome home!_

"What do you think?" Jack asks. "Are we back?"

"Yeah, I think we must be ..." I stop and look around. Are we back? There's a lot of rubbish. Empty cans, plastic wrappers. I've always thought of the High Plateau as "unspoilt". After all, it is a national park. Now it's like a dustbin. I guess it's because we've just come back from the Dunjini world, where there's no such thing as litter.

The forest is in a bad way, too. Trees with all their branches hacked off. Thick tangles of lantana vines and other weeds. Graffiti scrawled on tree trunks.

In fact there's too much of it. Too much rubbish, too many weeds, too much graffiti. Even in our world, the High Plateau isn't overrun with weeds like this. This is wrong.

There's a crash. And another. Something, or someone, is running through the forest, heading towards us. They must have heard us talking.

Before either of us can react, two men burst out of the bushes. They shine their flashlights right into our faces. I throw my hands up to shield my eyes.

"Don't move," one of the men barks. "Hands on your heads."

We do as we're told. The glare of the torches is blinding. I screw up my eyes. I can just make out the shapes of the two men in the darkness behind the torchlight.

"What d'ya reckon we got here Boss? Refos?" one of them says.

"Nah, probably just some feral kids. Right you two, show us your papers."

The men lower their torches slightly, so they're not shining directly in our eyes. Now I can see them a bit better. The men are wearing dark uniforms. One looks young. The other is older, chubbier. Who would be walking around the High Plateau in uniforms? Soldiers? Police? Security guards? Why?

They're both holding something. It takes me a second to realise they're guns.

Guns pointed at us.

"Papers?" Jack asks blankly.

"No papers, eh? McCain, search 'em."

The younger man steps forward. He keeps his gun trained on us. He pats us down, running his hand around our bodies.

"Nothing boss. No weapons. No ID. Must be refos."

The older man turns to Jack. "Where are you kids from? Where do you live?" His tone is stern but friendlier, less threatening than the younger man.

"Baytown," Jack stammers. "Six Koolibar Street."

The man raises an eyebrow. "Koolibar Street, eh? That's interesting. Anyway, you don't sound like refos. You speak proper English at least. No funny accents." He speaks softly, like he's thinking out loud. Then, to us again: "But if you _are_ from Baytown, surely you know you're not allowed outside the Fence without papers."

"Refos, ferals, gangbangers, who cares," the younger one, McCain, sneers. "If they're poking around up here without papers, they're up to no good. Let's just get rid of 'em now. No one will miss 'em."

"Put your gun away McCain. I told you before, we're not killing kids in cold blood," the older man says.

"Well, let's have some fun then. Give them two minutes' start, say. Fifty bucks says I can hunt them down in five minutes. One shot each. If I miss we'll take 'em back to town. If I get 'em ... well, it's resisting arrest, ain't it?"

"You're a psycho McCain." the older man says. "When we get back I'm having you transferred. Anyway, we've got to take the other two back to town."

The other two? Did Billy and Pullawarra follow us through the portal? Could he mean Jayden and Debbie James?

McCain shrugs. "You're going soft Boss."

"Okay you two, let's get you to the van," the older man says, giving Jack a push. "And no funny stuff. You don't want to give my friend McCain here any excuses, do you."

We're lucky he's the one in charge.

He leads us down the path. Jack follows, then me. McCain walks behind us, which makes me nervous. The path is familiar, back down the Stony Stairway towards Castle Heights. But as we get closer to town the forest is even more damaged. Trees have been hacked apart. Many are no more than stumps. There are tangled weeds everywhere, and cans and rubbish. And now there's the stench of rotting garbage.

This is all wrong.

We reach the end of the forest path. There's a gate, complete with barbed wire on top, and on either side of the gate there's a wire fence, about two metres tall. The older cop unlocks the gate and we walk through into Hillview Street.

But it's different from the Hillview Street we know. For a start, all the houses at the top of the street look burnt-out, with broken windows and fire-blackened walls. Then a block ahead of us there's a concrete wall, twice as high as a person, running down the left side of the road. On the other side of the wall I can see rooftops and the glow of bright lights. It's the first electricity we've seen in a month, apart from the torches. To the right of the road, on the other hand, the houses are abandoned.

There's a grey van parked by the roadside. McCain opens the back door of the vehicle. Inside, a boy and girl are sitting on the bare metal floor. They look about our age, maybe a little older. Seventeen or eighteen, I'd guess. Both have long dreadlocked hair and ragged clothes and black boots that come almost to their knees.

"Found a couple of your mates," McCain says. He shoves us into the van.

As soon as we're inside the van we hear the heavy bolt of the back door thud shut. Inside, it's too dark to see anything. We hear the two guards climb into the van and the engine start. The van moves off. With nothing to hold on to, the four of us in the back are thrown from side to side as the van lurches over bumps and potholes.

After a while a small grill opens and the older man peers through.

"Friends of yours Noah? They say they're from Koolibar Street."

"Yeah," the boy grunts. "We know 'em."

The grill closes. It's pitch black again.

"Thanks," I whisper. He doesn't reply.

I can tell we're going downhill, because I feel myself sliding forward across the metal floor of the van. We must be heading down Hillview Street into Baytown.

After a few minutes the van stops and we hear the heavy thud of the door being unbolted again.

"Ride's over," McCain says. He grabs Noah by the collar of his jacket and throws him out of the van into the middle of the road, like he's throwing out a bag of trash. The rest of us jump out of the van. McCain looks at Jack and me and makes a shooting gesture with his fingers. He smirks. "Next time," he says. Then he slams the van door shut and drives off.

The street is deserted. The moonlight makes it easy to see, even though the street lights aren't working. It's a typical Baytown street, lined with single-storey weatherboard houses set back behind low fences and small front gardens. But this is not our Baytown, of neat suburban homes and tidy lawns. Now the fences are broken, the gardens overgrown and the windows boarded up. Unless this has all happened since the flash.

Inside the houses, orange lights flicker like candles, not the steady white glow of electric lights. There must be a power cut.

Noah stands up and rubs his elbow. "Cop bastard," he mutters. He turns to the girl. "Let's go," he says. He starts walking. The girl begins to follow. They ignore us, like we're not even there.

"Hey, wait," I call out.

The girl glances back. She looks as if she's about to say something but then changes her mind and keeps walking. The two of them turn down a side street. And suddenly they're gone and we're alone.

Or maybe we're not. Jack taps my arm. He nods his head and I follow the direction of his gaze to where, further up the street, a half-dozen hooded figures lounge against a garden wall.

"Don't stare," Jack says. "But they're watching us. And they don't look friendly."

Yeah, and they're starting to walk towards us. Their jacket hoods are pulled low to hide their faces. They stroll casually but I notice they're spreading out across the street so we can't get past them.

I also notice they've got what look like baseball bats.

"Let's get out of here," Jack hisses.

We turn and run. Behind us, we hear a shout.

"Get 'em, boys!"

Like a pack of wolves, the gang gives chase. They're gaining on us. I grab Jack's arm and pull him into an alley. This part of Baytown is a maze of narrow back lanes; we duck left into another lane, then left again, then right, then another right. Maybe we can lose them this way, if we keep twisting and turning. Another left, across a road, into another lane. I glance back.

No one. Have we lost them? Still, it's best to keep moving. We turn another corner.

Without warning something smashes into my legs. The next thing I know I'm lying on the ground. The gravel rips the skin of my palms as I throw my hands out to break my fall. It takes a second for the pain to register. Someone is standing over me. I look up. A boy is looking down at me. He looks about eighteen or nineteen. He's got a shaved scalp and a spider web tattooed across his face.

"No refo scum gonna give us the slip," he sneers. "Not on our turf."

Two of the other thugs have grabbed Jack. Their hoods have come off and I can see they've got the same shaved hair and spider web tattoos. One of them has Jack in an armlock, pinning his arms behind his back. Jack struggles but the other one hits him in the stomach. Jack gasps in pain.

They must have gone a different way to the others, taken a short cut. And ... their turf? I bet McCain dumped us in their territory deliberately, knowing what would happen. That's probably why Noah and the girl were so keen to get away. My leg throbs. The youth raises his baseball bat. Instinctively I fling my arms up to protect my head and brace my body for the impact.

It doesn't come.

Instead, the youth is staggering back.

"Aaagh, my eyes," he screams, clutching his face.

I look round. It's the girl with the dreadlocks from the van. She's got a small canister in her outstretched hand.

The boy, Noah, is running behind her. I see him swing something—a bat or a stick. Without breaking stride, he smashes the weapon into the skull of the youth holding Jack, who drops like a stone. The third youth turns and flees.

"Get up," the girl says. She grabs my hand and yanks me to my feet. "Let's get out of here before the rest of 'em catch up."

We don't need telling twice. We turn and run after Noah and the girl. Jack is still winded from the blow to his stomach. He groans as he runs.

"Down here." Noah points to a narrow lane. I look back. The rest of the spider-tattoo gang are there now, but they've stopped. A couple of them are bending over the boy Noah hit.

"Did you kill him?" I ask.

"Dunno ... don't think so ... just keep running."

We run and turn and run and turn, until Noah waves to us to stop. We gasp for breath, hands on knees. My heart is pumping from the adrenaline of the chase. I feel a stabbing pain in my leg every time I put my foot down.

"Will they follow us?"

Noah shrugs. "Doubt it. They've got no reason to."

"Then why did they attack us?

"Boredom, I guess. Bashing refos, that's what we do for fun round here. Our way of welcoming new arrivals to Baytown."

Well, thanks for saving us," I say.

"Thank Sara. She's the one who came back for you. I just came back to get _her_ out of trouble. What do I care about a couple of refos?"

"Thanks Sara," I say. "But we're not ... what _are_ refos, anyway?"

"Refos? Refugees. Like you two," Noah says. "And how do I know you're refos? Because you have to ask what a refo is, that's how. Any Coastie would know what a refo is."

"But if they are refos, how come they don't have an accent?" Sara asks. "They sound like locals. And how do they know about Koolibar Street?"

"Because we live there," Jack says.

"You can't live in Koolibar Street," Noah says. "There's no such place."

"Okay," Sara says. "If you live in Koolibar Street, prove it. Take us there. Show us the way."

I look around to get my bearings. The street is familiar. It's Balaclava Road. Near our school. My friend Emma lives here. In fact we're passing right by her house now, except it's all smashed up and covered in graffiti. Across the road, a man with tattooed arms sits on his porch on a broken sofa, watching us.

Jack looks at me and raises his eyebrows, like he's wondering what I make of it all. I shrug back. I don't know. We set off. The houses are damaged and run down, but at least the streets are still in the same places.

At the corner of each block, Noah calls a halt and looks around. But the coast seems clear and we soon reach Koolibar Street.

As we turn into the lane, we see it. Our house.

Except ...

Except it isn't. Isn't ours, I mean. For a start, the building is largely hidden by a high wooden fence, topped with barbed wire. There's a wooden gate with a chunky padlock. The fence is covered with graffiti, but good graffiti, if you know what I mean. Artistic.

"Who lives here? It's like a fort," I say.

"Funny you should ask," Sara says. "We do."

"So how do you know about it?" Noah asks. "Because, you see, this isn't Koolibar Street. Not any more. It's Ambler Road now, since they changed the name. Renamed it after some local councillor, I think. But that was years ago. Only someone who grew up in Baytown would remember it used to be Koolibar Street."

"You know your way around Baytown too, which means you aren't refos," Sara says. "But you don't live here either. Not now, at least. Or we'd know you. So what does that leave?" Sara considers her own question for a moment. "My guess is you used to live here but moved away. And now you're back. Which means you're probably on the run. Come back to where you know. Am I right?"

"Well, not really ..." Jack begins, but I interrupt him.

"Yeah, that's right," I say. "Kind of. And we could really do with somewhere to hide out for a while. We'll make ourselves useful."

I see Sara glance at Noah, who rolls his eyes.

"I guess you can stay," she says. "Only for a couple of days, mind. Just while you sort yourselves out. But you'd better mean what you said, about making yourselves useful. There are no free meals around here."

"Thank you, thank you," I gush. "We won't be any trouble. We're happy to work in return."

I'm just relieved to have somewhere to stay. I get the feeling we don't want to be out on the streets with nowhere to go in this version of Baytown.

Noah unlocks the gate and ushers us through. Inside, the front garden is covered with pumpkin vines. On one side, vegetables grow in old car tyres filled with earth. I recognise beans and sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Our mum grows them in our own garden. Right here. Except not here.

The house itself is like a half-wrecked version of our own house, the same two-storey building but with boarded-up windows and flaking paint.

We're home, but we're not home.

Noah unlocks the front door. For some reason the ground floor looks abandoned. Noah leads us upstairs into what is, in our version of this house, our parents' bedroom. Noah removes two planks of wood from one of the boarded-up windows. In the faint early-dawn light we can see the room is now a sort of living area. There are a couple of battered sofas, an old table and makeshift shelves made from planks of wood on bricks. On the shelves are a few basic items—books, saucepans, plates, cups, candles, and so on. Everything is old and worn. There's no carpet, only floorboards. Paint flakes off the walls.

I turn to Sara. "Thanks for letting us stay. I'm Kaya, by the way. And this is my brother Jack."

"Sara. And Noah." Sara replies, completing the introductions. She takes off her faded brown jacket and heavy black boots and shakes out her long dreadlocked hair. Barefoot, with worn-out clothes and no makeup, she's beautiful. "Make yourselves comfortable," she says.

We sit on one of the old sofas. I feel odd sitting in a chair again, after our time with the Dunjini. It's strange to be back inside a building, too. But most of all I feel a crushing sense of despair. We're not home. Billy didn't tell us anything about other worlds, apart from his and ours. Something has gone wrong. And if there are many realities, not just two, how do we know the portal will ever take us back to our own world?

Sara hands us each a glass of water and sits down opposite us.

"That's a pretty stone," she says, looking at my necklace and the maala crystal. (Like I said, everyone notices it.) "Can I see it?" she asks. I take it off and hand it to her and she examines it admiringly. I suddenly realise how tired I am. It's been a big night. I feel a bit dizzy, too, almost like I'm floating.

Noah's clearly not interested in this girly jewellery stuff. "Anyway, what's your story?" he asks. "Who's after you? Why have you come back here?"

I glance at Jack. Neither of us knows what to say. The only thing we know is Noah and Sara aren't going to believe the truth.

"I ... we ... well ..." I begin. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Fortunately, Sara interrupts me.

"If you don't want to tell us yet, that's cool. Afraid we'll turn you in, are you?"

"Maybe we will if the price is right," Noah mutters. He's building a small fire in an old metal oil drum in the middle of the room.

"Ignore him. He's just winding you up. We're not grasses. You can stay here for now, no questions asked. Tell us your story when you're ready. But we'll have to get you some ID papers. We'll go to see Leo in the morning." She hands the necklace back. I slip in over my neck and tuck the maala crystal under my T-shirt. My dizzy spell seems to have passed.

Noah scoops some water from a large bucket into an old saucepan. He stands the saucepan on a wire rack on top of the fire. The fire is filling the room with smoke.

When the water is boiling Sara adds a few dried leaves and fills four cups. Noah takes a loaf of bread from the shelf, cuts four slices and spreads a thin smear of jam on each slice.

I take a bite. The bread is hard and stale.

Noah chews thoughtfully. "Not bad. Dandelion tea and strawberry jam. Dandelions and strawberries from the garden. Rainwater from the roof. Homemade bread too. Of course, we still have to buy the flour."

After we've eaten Sara leads us into another room. There's an old double mattress on the floor.

"How are you two feeling?" she asks. "You took a bit of a beating back there." She presses Jack's rib and he winces. Sara presses a couple more times. "I think it's just bruised," she says. "You'd be in a lot more pain if it was broken." She turns to me. "Now let's look at your leg," she says. She makes me roll up my trousers. My shin is bloody with a deep purple bruise. Sara presses the bruise with her thumb. It's painful but not too bad. She gets a bowl of water and a cloth and washes the wound.

"You're lucky. The way you went down, I thought he'd broken your leg for sure. Anyway, get some rest." Sara shows us how to flush the toilet by scooping water into it from a bucket, then leaves us to sleep.

"Shit," Jack says. He buries his head in his hands. "Shit, shit, shit."

"I know," I reply. There's nothing to say really. We're home, but we're not home. But we're going to have to deal with it. At least we know what we have to do this time. Survive until the next full moon and get back to the portal. Although I've got a terrible feeling that surviving in this world won't be easy.

The mattress is old and lumpy, but it's the softest thing we've slept on for a month. I fall asleep almost as soon as I lie down. It's been a big night.

Sara shakes us awake. Jack sits up and yawns sleepily. Sunlight shines through the gaps in the boarded-up window. I know this window faces west, so it must be afternoon. Sara takes us out into the back garden and puts us to work building up one of the vegetable beds, piling soil on top of large stones. She says the vegetables need to be raised because the tides are getting higher. It's a hot afternoon and it's hard work. Sara wasn't joking about making us earn our keep.

Noah, who's been out somewhere, returns at dusk. He starts the fire in the metal drum and puts a handful of potatoes and carrots on to boil. He unwraps a cloth. Inside is a chunk of ham. He shaves a few thin slices into the pot.

"Don't suppose you know anything about preserving meat, do you?" he asks.

"Since we lost electricity we need to learn all that stuff," Sara says. "Well, re-learn it really. How they used to store food in the days before electricity. Pickling, smoking, drying, curing, salting ... with all these heatwaves, food goes off so quickly.

"But without electricity, of course, we can't use the internet to look things up. And most of the books at the library got destroyed in the big flood last year. Old Mrs Lipardi, down the road, still remembers some of that stuff from when she was a girl back in Italy.

"What happened to the electricity?" Jack asks.

"Can't afford it any more, like everyone else. Even if we could, they've stopped repairing the power lines. The power is out more often than it's on. The only places you still get regular electricity are the Plaza and up in the Fortress."

"The Fortress?" I ask.

"The Heights. It's where the rich people live," Noah says. "It's high enough that it doesn't flood, you see. Everyone calls it the Fortress now, since they built that wall around it. Didn't you notice the wall when you got into the van?"

"The people in the Fortress aren't really rich, of course," Sara explains. "Anyone with real money moved Inland ages ago. But they're rich for Coasties. That's to say they've got jobs. Government jobs, mainly—they're just about the only real jobs left on the Coast."

"Even they won't last long," Noah says. "The government is slowly closing services on the Coast. They're just focusing on Inland now. Scarce resources and all that. At the same time, they're beefing up security. There are the Fences that cut the Coast off from Inland. More patrols. Soon the Coast—all of us down here—will simply be left to die."

"Mind you," Sara says, "inside the Fortress it's like the old days. Electricity, computers, fridges. With food in them. Things get fixed."

"Though less so now," Noah says, more to Sara than us. "Even up there things are starting to fall apart."

Sara gives us a quizzical look. "Of course if you're not refos then you already know all this. Don't you?"

Not really. None of it makes much sense.

In the morning we find out why the ground floor of the house is abandoned, and why Sara wanted the vegetable beds raised, because the ground floor is ankle-deep in water. The garden is flooded too, except for the raised beds. Yet I didn't hear any rain last night. I check with Jack. He didn't hear rain either.

We find Noah and Sara in the garden, standing in the water, examining the vegetable beds.

"That must have been a big storm last night," I say, wading over to join them.

Noah snorts. "Storm? Taste the water."

I scoop some water in my palm and wet my lips. The water is salty.

"See," Noah says. "It's the sea, not rain. It's a king tide. All of Baytown floods on these big tides now. All of the Coast." He looks at me curiously. "Surely you know that," he says.

He inspects the vegetables. "The water will go down in a day or so. The problem is it leaves salt behind, and too much salt will kill the plants. That's why we're raising the vegetable beds, so their roots are above the salt water. But if the sea keeps rising, soon nobody in Baytown will be able to grow food."

Noah pauses to slap a mosquito against his arm. It leaves a squidgy mess on his skin. "It gets worse," he says. "The salt water soaks down into the soil where the trees draw their water. So they'll die too. Including the fruit trees."

Sara looks up. "We've got to grow food to survive. It's just too expensive to buy it. All the droughts and crop failures Inland have pushed food prices up. Even bread's a luxury now, since the wheat harvest failed."

"The salt will make the underground aquifer undrinkable too," Noah points out. "We need that water. Every time there's a power cut, town water stops because all the pumping stations run on electricity. And rainwater tanks don't hold enough to get us through the droughts. And ... well, you can't live without water, can you?"

He shrugs. "Anyway, we can't do much in the garden until the water goes down, so we might as well get your identity papers."

Outside Noah and Sara's gate, the streets are all flooded. It's tiring to wade through the water, but after a few blocks we come to a house with two giant scrap-metal sculptures of dragons out front. Some metal birds hang from a tree. We slosh through the water to the front door, which is opened by a thin man with small round glasses and a ponytail.

"Noah, Sara," he notices us, "and friends ... pleased to meet you. The name's Leo. Come in. Jill's in the garden."

Sara goes through into the garden while Leo takes us upstairs to a disorganised artist's den of papers, pens and half-finished paintings. He waves us to the sofa and Noah says we need Resident Permits.

"No problem," Leo says. "Want some tea? I've got some real green tea leaves. Put your thumb in the ink and press here. I'll need names, birthdates, place of birth..."

Leo puts a saucepan of water on the fire then scrabbles around on his desk for the right materials and sets to work.

"Did you measure the tide Noah?" he asks as he works.

"Yeah. A metre twenty. It's higher, of course."

Leo pauses. "Yeah, that's what I got, roughly. A rise of six centimetres this year, eh?"

Leo holds one of the permits up to the light to examine it.

"So, one metre twenty. That's ... erm ..." he scribbles some figures. "I'd say we're on track for a three-metre rise within thirty years. My front step is two metres above sea level. Yours?"

Noah nods. "About the same. Maybe less."

"And of course that's just the start. Who knows how high it will go if all the ice in Greenland and West Antarctica melts. It's just a question of time before Baytown is uninhabitable. The whole Coast too."

"Let's hope they get a move on with the Resettlement Program," Noah says.

"Yeah, right," Leo snorts. "Maybe we'll all be sent to live on Mars. Anyway, you two, stand against that wall so I can take your pictures. I can't use a digital camera at the moment because I've got no electricity to run the printer. I've had to go back to the old method—you know, using film and a darkroom—so you'll have to collect the permits tomorrow when I've had time to develop the film. Puts the price up too, I'm afraid. You can't imagine how hard it is to get hold of rolls of film nowadays. Right, let's have some tea."

This morning Sara takes me with her up to the Fortress to help her clean. That's her job, or one of them. Cleaning. "You have to take what you can get," she says. "It's so hard to find a real job now that all the businesses have moved Inland."

It's early but it's already warm. It feels like it's going to be another hot day. As we walk across town there are still puddles everywhere from the king tide. Rats scurry for cover and a man lies sprawled on the pavement. I can't tell if he's dead or alive. We walk up Hillview Street. When we get to the Heights—Castle Heights—there's the wall again, topped with barbed wire, running along the street to our right. Big metal security gates block the entrance. Beside them, a guard stares blankly out of his booth.

I can see why they call it the Fortress.

"Hi George." Sara smiles at the guard. "Just coming to clean Mrs Peterson's. This is my cousin Kaya. She's giving me a hand."

The guard looks at me.

"Don't recall seeing you before, love," he says.

"I, erm, no I..."

"Her parents don't let her out much. I've promised I'll take care of her," Sara says.

"I'm sure she's in good hands then," the guard says. He presses a button and the gate swings open.

Sara leans into the booth. "Noah's made some smoked possum. Thought you'd like some." She gives the guard a small bag. "We trapped a possum in our roof. Old Fred Hoskins showed us how to smoke it."

The guard pulls a face. "Possum, eh? Who'd have thought? But we got to take what we can these days, don't we." He slips the bag into his pocket. "Okay, in you go."

I notice Kaya glance at the guard's security camera screen. She frowns slightly and looks like she's about to say something, but she quickly changes her mind and smiles sweetly. "Thanks George. You're a darling."

Inside the gate it's a different world. Or rather, it's like being back in our world. The windows still have glass. The trees haven't been ripped apart for firewood. It's all tidy houses and neat gardens. There are cars in the driveways. A middle-aged man passes by, walking his dog. He reminds me of someone but I can't quite place him.

"Hi Mr Jones," Sara says. The man glances round and nods, then keeps walking.

_That's_ who it is. Mr Jones. His daughter Emma is in my class at school. Dad chats to him sometimes.

"Excuse me, Mr Jones," I call after him. "I'm Kaya Johnson. I go to school with Emma."

Mr Jones turns round. He looks puzzled.

"You must be mistaken, my dear," he says. "I don't know anyone called Emma."

"I... erm, I'm... sorry, I thought you were someone else for a moment," I mumble. The man carries on walking his dog. But I know I'm right. He is Emma's dad. Except, in this world, it seems he isn't.

Sara looks at me curiously.

"What were you looking at on the guard's screen?" I ask, to change the subject.

"Nothing. Literally. Nothing at all. Here we are."

A slim middle-aged woman in a tracksuit opens the door. A draft of cool air escapes from inside the house. A small dog hides behind the woman's legs and yaps at us.

"Shush Milo. Silly dog. Come in Sara. Who's your friend?"

"Hello Mrs Peterson. This is Kaya. She's going to help me."

We follow Mrs Peterson into the kitchen. It's what I'd have called, until recently, an ordinary kitchen. Oven, fridge, microwave, cream floor tiles, spices in a rack and a coffee machine on the counter. A television turned on in the corner. There's an air-conditioning unit on the wall and the room is wonderfully cool.

"Well," Mrs Peterson is saying. "If she's as good a cleaner as you... but I can't pay you more, you know. We're having to tighten our belts as it is. They're cutting the Coastal Living Allowance."

"We don't expect more money. I was just thinking we could do more houses. If you know anyone else who needs some cleaning ..."

Mrs Peterson promises to ask around for us. She pauses to watch a news bulletin on the television.

"... the US has suspended wheat exports following the failure of its wheat harvest," the newsreader says. "Experts fear the move will spark a food crisis in countries that now rely on US wheat after the failures of their own harvests. US Secretary of Agriculture Isaac Abrams blamed global warming for the poor harvest and says 'America must feed its own citizens first' ..."

Mrs Peterson turns the television off and picks up her car keys.

"We're one of those countries, aren't we? That needs American wheat."

Sara nods. "I think so. I don't know."

"They'll have to consider food rationing now," Mrs Peterson continues. "Otherwise we'll all end up fighting for food. Don't you agree?"

"Yes, Mrs Peterson."

"Okay, I'm off to the gym. You know where everything is. And remember to feed Milo."

Sara watches Mrs Peterson leave. "End up fighting for food!" she snorts, once we're alone. "We already are. She's got no idea."

"I thought she was quite nice," I say.

"She is. But she rarely leaves the Fortress these days. They've got their own gym and cafe and school and swimming pool up here. She's driving three blocks to the gym. Can you imagine? The only time they see life outside is at the Plaza. They don't realise what it's like now for the rest of us."

"She must see it on the news?"

"Somehow the news is always about somewhere else. Look..."

Sara turns the television back on. The news is still on.

"... India has closed its border with Bangladesh, saying it can't cope with the estimated twenty million refugees after Bangladesh's worst floods yet, as aid agencies warn rising seas mean Bangladesh 'may need to be abandoned entirely' ..."

We watch the report for a few minutes. There are pictures of streets flooded with dirty brown water and people living in overcrowded tent cities and staring through wire fences with blank, exhausted expressions. There's another report about fighting in a country called Somalia. Then we're on to the sports news. Sara turns the television off. "See. Bangladesh. India. Somalia. I don't even know where half these places are. Terrible stuff, of course. But nothing about what's going on _here_."

Sara gets a packet of dog biscuits from the cupboard. She eats some and gives some to the dog. She offers me the packet but I decline. "Suit yourself," Sara says. She pats the dog. "We used to have a dog when we were kids. After Mum and Dad died it got too expensive to feed him."

"I'm sorry," I say. "What happened?"

"We took him to the woods. Maybe he's still out there."

Sara doesn't say what happened to her parents. She fetches the cleaning stuff from the laundry and we set to work. The house is already spotless but we go through the motions of wiping and dusting. After we've finished, Sara goes up to the bathroom.

"Fancy a shower?" she asks. She gets undressed and steps into the shower cubicle.

"Are we allowed ..."

"Who cares. It's hot water."

I shower after Sara. It feels wonderful. Hot water and soap. The towel is soft and fluffy and comforting. I close my eyes and imagine myself back in my own bathroom. Then I open them again and look in the mirror.

I blink and look again.

I'm not there. I have no reflection.

Maybe it isn't a mirror but a trick window or something. No, that's not it, because I can see Sara's reflection.

"Hey Sara ..." I stop. Maybe I should keep quiet about this, at least until I figure out what it means. I move away from the mirror.

"What?" Sara says.

"Oh, nothing. I was just ... thinking it's the first hot shower I've had in ages. It feels nice."

"It sure does," Sara says. She dresses, tosses our towels into the laundry basket and takes it downstairs. While we wait for the laundry to run, she goes through the pantry in the kitchen, taking a biscuit from one jar and a cracker from another and putting them in her bag.

"Don't worry, she never notices," Sara says.

We step out of Mrs Peterson's house into the street and the hot air hits us like we've opened the door of an oven. On our way back, Sara smiles at the security guard and gives him a couple of biscuits.

We step back into the broken world outside the Fortress.

It's late in the afternoon when we get back. Jack and Noah have just returned from gathering firewood.

Once we're all inside, Sara's mood changes.

"Sit down. We need to talk," she says. She sounds tense.

"What's wrong?" Jack asks.

Sara takes a small mirror from the shelf and hands it to me.

"Explain that," she says.

I look in the mirror. I know what to expect. Just like in Mrs Peterson's bathroom, I have no reflection. I hand the mirror to Jack. He stares into it with wide eyes. This is the first time he's seen it. There were no mirrors with the Dunjini, no reflections.

"See?" Sara says. "Or rather, you don't see, do you? Because you're not there. You've got no reflections."

She hands the mirror to Noah, who angles it so he can see us in it. Or _should_ be able to see us. He stares at the mirror, turning it this way and that, unable to believe what he's seeing. Or not seeing.

"What are you? Vampires?" he demands.

I'm so surprised I burst out laughing.

"Sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to laugh. It's just ... I've never been mistaken for a vampire before. But if we tell you the truth you won't believe us."

"But don't worry," Jack adds hastily. "We're not dangerous or anything. We're just ordinary kids."

"Yeah, right. Ordinary kids with no reflections," Sara says. "I saw it at Mrs Peterson's, in the bathroom. You thought I'd missed it, didn't you? And another thing. You didn't show up on the guard's security camera either. You're lucky _he_ didn't notice it."

Noah is sitting upright now, alert, on the edge of his seat. I notice he's also produced a knife from somewhere. He holds it down by his side.

"Leo told me you didn't show up on your photographs either," he adds. "When I went to collect them. He thought the film must have been damaged. Except he says all the other pictures on that roll of film were fine. It was just you two who were missing." It's the first time I've seen him flustered.

"So what's the story?" he asks.

I take a deep breath. "You want the truth? Okay then. We _are_ from Baytown. But a different version of Baytown. A parallel universe or something. We don't know exactly. Billy called it a different Dreaming."

Noah and Sara look at me as if I'm mad.

"Believe me, it makes no sense to us either," I say.

Jack gives it a try. "It seems we accidentally found a portal between different realities. The Stone Gate. Up on the High Plateau. In our world, Baytown doesn't flood and nobody attacks you for being a refo and everyone has food. Well, almost everyone. But the portal only opens on the full moon so we have to wait until then to go back."

"But we didn't even know about the mirrors, or the cameras, until today," I say. "The Dunjini didn't have mirrors. But I guess it makes sense, in a way. Billy says when you visit another reality your life force or spirit remains in your own world. Maybe we're sort of like ghosts."

I stop. I realise we must sound insane. I see Noah and Sara exchange a look that says "we've got a couple of nutters here".

"So you're telling us you're not vampires but you are ghosts," Sara says eventually.

"Not real ghosts, I mean ..." I hesitate. We're not doing a very good job of this. Mind you, it's not an easy thing to explain.

"Who's Billy?" Sara asks.

"The first time we went through the portal we came out in another version of Baytown, like a version with only Aboriginal people. Billy is their binjin man. That's what they call the portal. Binjin. Billy knows all about the portal. And he's been to our world and speaks English. He explained it to us."

"Lucky for us too," Jack says. "Without Billy we'd have been lost there. Billy showed us how to get back through the portal. Except ..."

"Except something went wrong and we came out in _your_ Baytown instead," I say.

There's a long silence.

Finally Sara says: "And you expect us to believe that?"

"I know it sounds crazy," I say. "It is crazy. We wouldn't believe it ourselves if it wasn't happening to us.

"I'd say you're a couple of lunatics," Sara says slowly, "if it wasn't for the mirrors and the camera and the photographs. And you don't _seem_ like crazies. And you know your way around Baytown, yet you don't know what's going on in Baytown."

"They could have memorised a map," Noah points out.

"But there's still the mirrors," Sara repeats.

"Come to the portal with us at the next full moon and you'll see we're telling the truth," I say.

Sara runs a hand through her dreadlocked hair. "I don't know ... it's crazy, but at least you sound like you believe it."

Suddenly Noah jumps up. "Hold on a second," he says. He sounds excited. "If you're telling the truth, we can go back to your world with you. It could be our ticket out of here."

"I'm afraid not," I say. "Billy says you can't live for more than two or three months away from your own reality. Like I said, your life force stays in your own world. When you visit another world it's like ..." I search for a way to describe it. "It's like you're running on batteries but when they run out you can't recharge them."

"Oh," Noah says softly. He sounds disappointed. I feel bad for him. It would be great to give Sara and Noah a way out of this Baytown, to take them home with us. But also, I think, it's good because if he's disappointed then he can't have totally dismissed our story. And I've got a feeling we're going to need Sara and Noah's help to get back to the Stone Gate.

"That's why we've got to get back through the portal," Jack adds. "This will be our second moon away from our world. We don't know how long we can last. Especially Kaya. Billy said it hits women more quickly."

"But how do you know this portal will take you back to your reality? You just said it brought you here instead last time," Sara says.

That question has been worrying us too.

"We have to hope, I guess. What choice do we have? Billy says your life force pulls you back to your own world. I don't know why it didn't last time."

Next morning we find Noah and Sara in the garden, cooking porridge over a small firepit. The porridge is watery and there's no milk or sugar or sultanas to sweeten it, but at least it fills us up. Noah rakes grey ash over the embers of the fire and smoke drifts around us. "Keeps the mosquitoes away," he says. He pauses. "Sara and I have discussed it. You can stay. Until the full moon. We'll help you get back to your portal thingy."

Relief floods through me. "So you do believe us?"

"I'm not sure I'd put it that strongly," Noah says.

Sara laughs. "Let's just say that if by some miracle you do vanish into thin air ... well, we don't want to miss seeing _that,_ do we?" she says. She takes the kettle off the fire and pours dandelion tea into our mugs. "But remember, you've still got to earn your keep."

Sara and Noah are as good as their word. About making us work, that is. I go with Sara to clean homes at the Fortress, and we work in the garden, and Jack helps Noah find firewood. We work in other people's gardens too. Because we don't show up in photographs Leo can't make our Resident's Permits so we have to move carefully, keeping an eye out for cops. Luckily George, the guard up at the Fortress, doesn't ever seem to look at his screen. I guess he knows Sara. Now he recognises me too, he just waves us in. Sara always has a little present for him, a piece of fruit or some smoked meat. In the Fortress, we get paid in cash. Outside the Fortress most people trade us stuff in return for our work, like clothes or jam or potatoes.

Noah disappears for hours. He never tells us where he's been.

We eat thin potato soup and porridge and dandelion tea and stale bread, and thin slices of smoked possum and rabbit, and any food Sara and I can steal.

Do Noah and Sara believe our story? I'm sure they think we're mad. On the other hand they keep asking us about our world, and Billy's. Or maybe our stories just help pass the time. I mean, without electricity they've got no television or internet to watch.

The important thing is, they're letting us stay.

It's hot. It must be forty degrees today. Noah wants to know if our world is getting hotter too. I say it is, but it doesn't seem as bad as here. Noah says the Arctic ice is gone and Greenland is melting fast. He says when all of Greenland melts it will raise the sea seven metres. The sea is already up more than a metre. Eventually all of Baytown—all of the Coast—will be under water.

"That's why the government introduced the Coastal Retreat Plan," Sara says.

"But it's not only sea levels," Noah explains. "Global warming has changed the weather too. There are more heatwaves, droughts, storms. Droughts and heatwaves cause the harvests to fail, which means people starve, which leads to riots and wars, which creates refugees. Millions of them. And rising seas also means millions more refugees as people abandon coastal towns and cities. And refugees create even more riots and war, because there's nowhere for them to go that has spare food and jobs and houses for them."

"Which explains the welcome you got," Sara adds.

"Anyway," Noah says, getting to his feet. "You get the idea. When there was time to do something about global warming, nobody took it seriously. Maybe people thought it just meant a few hot days in summer, or wearing T-shirts in winter. What they didn't understand was that a few degrees hotter and everything falls apart. You see it in Baytown but it's happening everywhere. Civilisation is crumbling. Now everyone realises it but it's too late."

It's another hot day. It's like a heatwave, except Sara says it's always like this now. Sara and I go up to clean at Mrs Peterson's. While we're there, I have a dizzy spell. Everything becomes fuzzy. I lose my sense of balance and feel the energy drain from my body. I stumble over to a chair and sit down. It takes about twenty minutes for my head to clear.

When we get home I tell Jack. "I think it's started. Like Billy said."

"How bad is it?"

"Comes and goes. Most of the time I feel normal. Then suddenly it hits me and I've hardly got enough energy to stand up. How about you?"

Jack shrugs. "No, I'm fine. Nothing a big plate of chips and a shower wouldn't fix. Otherwise I feel normal."

"Billy did say it affects girls more. What if I can't make it to the end of the month?"

"You've got to," Jack says. "Or I'm stuffed. You know I'd be no good at surviving on my own."

"Yeah, how selfish of me, to think about dying and leaving you all alone."

But I guess if I am going to fade away and die there's nothing I can do about it, so why think about it? Like Wolf Meares says, just focus on the things you can control.

I'm feeling better this morning but Sara thinks I should take it easy. She suggests we go to the beach. She says the salt air will do me good. I don't know what makes her think that.

Bay Beach is a half-hour walk down Trafalgar Street. Near the beach the puddles in the street are larger and the houses look abandoned. Sara says east Baytown, near the beach, floods every high tide now. It's uninhabitable. Even now, at low tide, the beach is no more than a narrow strip of sand.

As soon as we reach the beach I see the boats. Hundreds of them, lining the horizon.

"Are they fishing boats?" I ask.

Sara shakes her head. "Not likely. There's no fish left to catch anyway. They're refugee boats."

"But there are so many. Are there people on them?"

"Bodies rather than people, I'd imagine. Not that I _want_ to imagine. But they can't get ashore. The navy stops them. It's the same all along the Coast. The refugees die of thirst or starvation or disease. It must be horrific. I saw a report about it once. Sometimes a few refugees slip past the navy patrols and make it to shore on a raft or clinging to driftwood or whatever. But ... well, you know the welcome refos get. It's terrible, but if we let the refugees in we'll end up like Europe."

"What happened in Europe?" I ask.

"Millions of refugees. From Africa, the Middle East, Asia. But Europe already had droughts and food shortages. It couldn't cope. There was no food or jobs or houses for the newcomers. Europe fell into chaos."

Sara says the boats we're looking at are from Asia, where rising sea levels are forcing people to leave the coast. Maybe Bangladesh or Vietnam. Or China. She says there are two billion refugees around the world, a quarter of all the people on Earth. And there's nowhere for them to go.

"How can you have fun with those boats there?" I say. "Knowing what's happening to those poor people."

Still, we go for a swim. The ocean feels good: at least it cools me down. I float on my back and look up at the blue sky and pretend I'm back in my own Baytown, having a swim after school on a hot summer's day.

Afterwards we walk along the beach. We pass a fenced-off area that Sara says is reserved for people from the Fortress, and an unfinished sea wall jutting halfway across the mouth of the river, which Sara says was meant to stop Baytown flooding.

"Officially, it's still being built," she says. "But that's a joke. They haven't done any work on it for five years."

The moon is about half gone. So we've been here, in Noah and Sara's world, for a week.

This morning I have a dizzy turn as I get up from my mattress-bed. I sit down until it passes.

"We'd better take you to meet the boss," Noah says over breakfast. "Blaster. He's been asking about you. He's heard we've got guests."

"Blaster runs Bad Boyz," Sara explains. "Bad Boyz Security. He protects people's businesses or homes."

"Protects them from who?" Jack asks.

"Anyone. Thieves, other gangs, bent cops ... himself."

"You mean it's a protection racket," Jack says.

"Sort of. Basically, Blaster runs Baytown. If you pay him off, nobody will dare attack you. If you don't then you're fair game as far as he's concerned. What Blaster wants, he takes."

"Why did you call him boss?" I ask.

Noah hesitates. "Sara cleans his place. Cooks sometimes. I do deliveries. Cash and drugs. Blaster runs the drug business in Baytown too. And I get information for him. Talk to people, find out what's going on around town. Blaster never leaves his house. He's got agoraphobia or something. But he likes to keep himself informed."

"And he pays you?"

Noah shakes his head. "He ... protects us. As long as we're with Blaster, everyone leaves us alone. That's why we can live in this house, on our own, without joining a gang. Anyway, let's go."

Blaster's place is only a few blocks away. It's a large two-storey brick house protected by a high steel fence topped with barbed wire.

Noah presses the bell at the gate and looks into the security camera. A buzzer rings and the gate clicks open. We cross the yard and the front door of the house buzzes open automatically. Inside, we enter a narrow hallway. It's ankle-deep in water and planks have been laid on top of piles of bricks to make a raised walkway. The doors to the rooms are shut. Everything smells damp. I guess the ground floor floods just like Sarah and Noah's house.

We climb the stairs to another narrow hallway with two doors on each side. Noah turns into the first room on the left. Inside it's cool. Air-conditioning! Three men sit at a table playing cards. Behind them, a giant of a man sits on a red leather sofa, watching the news on a huge TV screen. His head is shaved smooth. Tattoos cover his powerful arms and his thick neck.

"Hi Blaster," Sara says. "These are our cousins Jack and Kaya. They've moved up from Sydney. We're teaching them the ropes."

Without taking his gaze off the television the man points at the other sofa.

"Sit down," he says. He jabs the remote to change channel. On the screen, a reporter is standing on a beach. Waves crash behind him.

_"Scientists say sea rises will soon reach the two-metre mark ..."_ the reporter is saying.

Headlines scroll across the bottom of the screen: _Drought in east Africa enters fourth year: four million dead from starvation, disease ... riots in Pakistan as rice harvest fails again ... tiger declared officially extinct ... forest fires devastate Europe ... football: US 2 Brazil 1 ... gossip: K.Lo marriage sham ..._

"Dunno why you watch this stuff Blaster," one of the men says. "It's depressing. Why don't you put on the footy instead?"

"We gotta get off the Coast soon, Blaster," one of the other men says. "Go Inland."

Blaster changes channel. Another reporter is standing in a bare brown field.

"... without rain soon, farmers predict more crop failures ..."

Blaster jabs the remote again and the television goes dead.

"See? It ain't no paradise Inland neither. Even if it rains, they ain't got no soil left. It's all dried up and blown away. Dust and sunshine, that's all they got. They'll starve before we drown."

Blaster turns to examine Jack and me.

"Noah and Sara's cousins, are you? If you're as smart as Noah and Sara then I'm sure I can find work for you. It's hard to find people with brains around here." He winks at me. If a wink can feel threatening, this one does. "Brains _and_ beauty. Must run in the family. Maybe you can help Sara out round the place. Cleaning, like, and other ... duties."

Blaster laughs. I don't know what other duties he means, but I don't like the way he says it. Or the way he looks at me. Suddenly his mood changes. "Now get out of here," he snaps. "I'm a busy man. Ain't got time for chit-chat. Come back tomorrow." He turns the television back on. And with that it seems we're dismissed.

Once we're out of Blaster's house, I ask Sara what Blaster meant by other duties.

"You'll find out," is all Sara says.

"Just remember, anything Blaster asks you to do, you do it," Noah advises. "Anything."

Jack's been quiet, like he is when he's thinking about something.

"Did you notice the date on the television?" he says. "September 30."

"And ...?"

"Well, when we first went through the portal it was September 21. Nine days ago. And we've been in this Baytown for nine days."

"Yeah, so?" I must be missing something.

"So we've lost a month. Twenty-eight days to be exact. Think about it. We spent one moon cycle—that's twenty-eight days, isn't it?—with the Dunjini. So it should be the end of October by now. Do you see? That means each time we go back into the portal it goes back to the same date as when we first entered the portal."

Not only are we trapped in an alternative reality, but we're trapped in time too.

It's another sweltering day. The heat has been relentless all week and without electricity there's no air-conditioning or fans. We work in the garden at dawn and dusk and try to rest during the middle of the day, although it's hard even to sleep when it's so hot.

The air is smoky too, the smell of a bushfire. It's been burning for days. Sara says the fire is probably far inland. She says it's much worse than this when the fires are close.

Since we bumped into Mr Jones I've seen two more familiar faces; Mrs Li, who works in the library, and Mr Stone, a teacher at my school. In our world, that is. In this world neither of them recognises me. It happened to Jack too, when he was going to get some wood with Noah. They walked past Jeanette Walker, who's one of Mum's friends. Jack said she looked right through him. Jeanette's even been to our house a few times. In our world, Jeanette Walker would definitely recognise Jack.

Jack and I discuss it. The same people can exist in two different realities. That's a weird thought. Are there millions of versions of each person out there somewhere? What if those people came through the portal and met themselves? What if we bump into ourselves? We can't answer those questions. But all the familiar people we've seen so far have been older. Jack's theory (Jack's good at this stuff) is that this reality and our own world used to be the same but they split apart before we were born but after people like Jeanette and Mrs Li were born. Jack says if we knew all the people who exist in both worlds we could work out exactly what year people stopped having doubles, and that would tell us when the split happened.

Not that it would help us.

Noah comes home with a bag containing what looks like a shapeless blob of transparent jelly.

"Jellyfish," he says. "Everything else was fished out years ago. There's no shortage of _these_ though. They don't taste of much, but they're protein." He soaks the jellyfish in a bucket of water all afternoon, then slices them into strips and throws them into the stew. He's right: they taste of nothing. A bit salty, that's all.

This evening some of Sara and Noah's friends come round and there's laughing and singing and guitar playing. Even Noah lightens up and seems to be enjoying himself.

We tell the others we're Sara and Noah's cousins from Sydney. After our parents died we lived with our aunt for a couple of years but now we've decided to come here. That's the story Sara made up for us. Sara and Noah's friends want to know how things are in Sydney. We tell them it's the same as Baytown. We try to avoid too many details.

Tonight is the new moon. We've been here two weeks. Two weeks to go.

 Why don't you just move Inland?" I ask Noah and Sara. "Surely it's better than staying here."

Noah stirs the fire with his stick. "Once it was obvious the seas were rising, millions did flee the Coast. But the Inland towns can't cope. They've got bushfires, droughts up there. Fields have turned to dust. Cattle are dying. There are no jobs or houses.

"With no work and nowhere to live, the Coasties who moved Inland became desperate. They formed gangs and began to attack Inlanders. Robbing them, seizing their homes. So the Inlanders formed their own gangs and fought back. Things came to a head with the Canberra Riots. They say 20,000 people died. That was nothing compared to the riots in Europe but we'd never had anything like it here. The country was falling into anarchy. The government had to act."

"That's when they introduced the zones," Sara says. "Coast and Inland. At first it was just checkpoints. Then the Fences appeared, and the patrols. Suddenly, the Coast was cut off from Inland. You can get past the Fence—that's not impossible—but if you don't have an Inland Permit you'll be picked up and dumped back on the Coast. And you can't get an Inland Permit unless you've got a job or own property Inland. The official line is everyone will be resettled Inland eventually. But we all know that's not going to happen."

Noah pokes a knife though a potato on the fire. He decides it's ready and scoops the rest of the potatoes onto a plate. He gazes into the fire for a while.

"The government's plan is to let everyone on the Coast die—from disease, starvation or whatever—then hope there's enough food left for those Inland. Of course that's not what they say, but everyone knows it."

Sara and I are on our way to the Fortress when we see a woman walking on the other side of the road. Like most people here she shuffles along with her head down, trying not to be noticed. But I know her instantly.

"Mum," I shout. "Mum, it's me, Kaya." I start to run across the road towards her. She sees me coming and backs away. She looks scared. I think she'd run if she could, but she's limping slightly and I guess she knows she can't outrun me.

"Please ..." she whimpers. She fumbles in her pocket and produces a piece of paper, which she flings towards me. It's a ten-dollar note. "It's all I've got. Take it. Please ..."

"Mum, it's me. Kaya. Don't you ..." I begin. But it's no use. I can see from her blank look that she doesn't recognise me. I feel numb. In this world, I'm not her daughter. I guess that means in this world I was never born.

"Please, keep the money. I don't want to hurt you," I say. I pick up the note and hold it out for her. She looks confused, then nervously reaches out and takes the note from my hand. "Thank you," she mumbles. For a second our eyes meet and I search in vain for any faint glimmer of recognition. But all I can see is fear and confusion.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I thought you were ... someone else."

I turn and run back across the road. I'm crying. I can't bear to see Mum like this, so scared and pathetic, her spirit broken. My mum is a strong woman, not scared of anything.

The next day the air is thick with smoke, blotting out the sun. At least that means it's not so hot, but it makes you cough if you go outdoors. I tell Jack about Mum and he wants to find her but I say what's the point. In this world she's not our mum but just a frail, frightened woman trying to survive. Anyway I don't know where she lives. Sara and I go to Blaster's house. Sara says Noah and Jack are not invited, which makes me nervous.

Blaster is sitting on the red sofa, watching the news again. He's alone.

"Ah, my two Baytown beauties," he says without looking up. "Brighten up the place, don't you." Sara glances at me and rolls her eyes.

"Get cleaning then," Blaster says. On the television men in suits are going into a meeting. The reporter is saying something about a border dispute between the United States and Canada. Blaster seems fascinated.

"Canada, eh? That's the place. Especially now they've got that whole new north coast, what with the Arctic ice gone and all. They say there's still fish up there. Nice an' cool up in the north, too. The Yanks will invade soon. Bound to. Won't be able to keep their hands off it."

Blaster stretches back. He has arms like tree trunks and a neck like a bull. So far I haven't seen him leave the sofa, but he must lift a lot of weights or something.

"Make us an omelette babe," he says to Sara. Sara turns to go to the kitchen. I start to follow but Blaster calls me back.

"Not you. You wait here." He's a real charmer, is Blaster. I see Sara glance back and frown. But she goes out, leaving me alone with Blaster, who puts his feet up on a stool.

"Come over here and give me a foot massage," he says. It's an order, not a request, and I do what I'm told. I've no idea how to do a foot massage so I just press the soles of his giant feet with my thumbs.

Blaster gives me that look again. "You're a good-lookin' girl Kaya. I might have some opportunities for someone like you. Maybe you'd like to come round on your own next time. To discuss it, like. When Sara's up at the Fortress ..."

I pray for Sara to come back. I can see where this is heading. At what point do I say no to Blaster? Like Noah said, he doesn't strike me as a man who takes no for an answer.

But Blaster stops talking. Something has caught his eye.

"Nice necklace you got there. Let me see it."

I feel a knot of panic in my stomach at the mention of the necklace. Because of course it's not the necklace that Blaster is looking at. It's the crystal hanging from it. The maala crystal. I know I should probably leave it at Noah and Sara's house, but somehow I don't feel right without it, so I wear it everywhere. But normally I make sure I keep it hidden beneath my T-shirt. It must have slipped out. I curse my carelessness as I lean forward to let Blaster see the crystal. Maybe he just wants to perv down my T-shirt at my boobs. I think I'd prefer that right now.

"No, no, take it off. Give it to me." He holds out his hand.

Reluctantly I slip the necklace over my head and hand it to Blaster. He turns it over in his hands. Like everyone, he's fascinated by the way it changes colour as it catches the light.

"Beautiful," he murmurs. "What sort of crystal is this? I ain't never seen one like this before."

"I'm not sure, Blaster," I say. I can feel the sweat on my forehead as I wait for Blaster to give the necklace back.

But Blaster doesn't. Instead he slips the necklace, with the maala crystal, into his pocket. His mood has changed too. He seems to have lost interest in me.

"Go and help Sara in the kitchen," he says, turning back to the television. I open my mouth to ask for the crystal back, but no words come. I'm afraid, or in shock. Maybe both.

What Blaster wants, he takes. Isn't that what Sara said?

"You still here?" Blaster mutters, his eyes on the television. He's unpredictable. And scary. I find myself walking to the kitchen. I feel the room swirl around me as I walk.

In the kitchen, Sara looks at me in concern.

"Are you all right Kaya? You're very pale. What's wrong?" she asks. "Did Blaster ..."

"The ... crystal. Blaster took the crystal."

Sara looks puzzled. I realise I haven't told her about the maala crystal. As far as she's concerned it's just a pretty stone.

I'm in a daze. Sara takes Blaster his omelette but Blaster takes no further interest in us. He's right into this news report about Canada and America. He just grunts when Sara tells him we're leaving.

"So?" Sara says when we're out of Blaster's place. "What's the big deal with this crystal? A present from your boyfriend or something?"

"No, it's ... we need it to get home. It's some sort of key to the portal. The Stone Gate."

Sara raises an eyebrow.

"I thought you said the Stone Gate is just a big rock. You didn't tell us there's an actual door."

"It's not. It's not a real key. But the portal only works if you're holding one of these crystals. Billy called it a maala crystal. Without a maala crystal, the Stone Gate is just a big rock."

"How do you know all this?"

"Well, Billy says so. And Billy's the only person we've met so far who knows anything about the portal. All I know is I was wearing the crystal when we went through the portal ..."

Sara looks at me warily.

"You still believe me, don't you?" I ask.

"I dunno. I think I do. God knows why. Logically you're mad, of course. Me too, for listening to you. But I _want_ to believe you. And there's definitely something weird about you two."

We're almost home. At the corner of the street a group of youths watch us pass. Noah's right. No one seems to hassle him or Sara.

"I'll ask Blaster to give you back the necklace. Or maybe Noah can persuade him if I can't." Sara thinks for a while. "Or maybe if you lay out the whole story about the portal, show him your invisible mirror trick, he might believe you. Tell him he can come and watch you go through the portal. But don't get your hopes up. Blaster never gives things back. That's not his style."

The smoke today makes it hard to breathe.

Sara is worried she hasn't seen Mrs Lipardi, the elderly lady who lives a few doors down the street, for a week. We go to check if she's all right. We knock but there's no answer. Sara tries the door. It's locked, but Sara levers it open with her hunting knife. As soon as she opens the door, there's a terrible smell. It's all I can do not to throw up. Sara pushes open the living room door and there's Mrs Lipardi, lying on the floor, not moving.

I've never seen a dead person before. But I know immediately that I'm looking at one now.

Sara kneels and takes Mrs Lipardi's pulse, although there's no point. The stench is too much for me. I run outside and throw up. A short while later Sara comes out.

"Poor Mrs Lipardi. She's probably been dead a few days, judging from the smell. We'd better go and tell the registry."

"What caused her ..."

"I don't know. Heatstroke, maybe. A lot of old people die that way nowadays. Or it might have been the smoke. She had breathing difficulties anyway. It's not uncommon. An elderly person living alone, no phone to call an ambulance. Anyway, she knew she'd end up like this. She hasn't been able to get her medication since the doctor left. Doctors are in demand Inland, so why would they stay on the Coast? Nurses too. The hospitals on the Coast barely function nowadays. Next time we get an outbreak of malaria or Ross River fever or something, it's going to kill people like a medieval plague."

The four of us go to see Blaster to ask for the crystal back. I feel lightheaded as we walk to his place. My heart is thumping. This time, however, it's nothing to do with my life force fading or anything like that. It's fear. The fear that Blaster won't give us the crystal back. We need that crystal or we're dead.

As always, we find Blaster sitting on his red sofa watching television. On the screen firefighters are battling a bushfire. Three of Blaster's men sit around the table playing cards.

_"... strong winds continue to fan the flames as the fire front sweeps across ..."_ the announcer says.

"This fire's a real big 'un," Blaster says. "Even worse than last year." He turns to me. "Sara says you want to ask me something."

I take a deep breath and launch into our story.

"I know this is hard to believe, but the crystal you took yesterday is a sort of magic stone that acts like a key to unlock a ... erm, a portal between different realities, which opens every full moon."

I realise I must sound insane but I press on.

"It's up in the forest above Hillview Street. We came through the portal from our own reality and ended up here, but we need the crystal to get back again. If we can't get back we'll ..."

I keep going, spilling out the whole story about the portal and the Dunjini and what Billy said about our life force fading and how the crystal opens the portal. I pause. Blaster is staring at me in astonishment.

"What sort of bullshit is this?" he asks.

"It's not bullshit. We can prove it. Have you got a mirror?"

Blaster nods at one of his men, who scurries off and returns moments later with a mirror.

"Now, hold it up towards us," I tell him. "Look at our reflections."

Blaster's eyes open even wider.

"What the ..."

"We don't show up in mirrors because we're from a parallel reality. Our life energy is still in our world." I can hear how silly my words sound even as I say them. We're from a parallel universe. Yeah, right, course you are.

"That's why we won't show up on the security cameras," Jack adds, pointing to the camera on the ceiling. Blaster looks at him for a moment. We've got his attention now. He gets up and walks across to the computer. He fiddles with the mouse and the overhead camera swivels to face Jack. Blaster stares at the screen.

"Connor, sit next to the boy," he tells one of the men.

Connor does as he's told and goes to sit next to Jack. Blaster stares at his computer again.

"Paddy, get Frankie in here," Blaster barks. Paddy scurries off and returns with another man.

Blaster walks slowly over to the man, until their noses are almost touching.

"Remind me Frankie, what's your job round here?"

"Sec ... security, Blaster," the man stammers. He's a big man, with bulging forearms and a tattoo of a dragon climbing his neck. But he's shaking.

"Noticed anything unusual recently, Frankie, have you?" Blaster presses his face even closer to Frankie's.

"N ... no boss."

"For instance, how two kids on the gate camera turn into four kids once they get inside?"

Without warning, Blaster slams his fist into the man's stomach. It's a short, hard punch with no backswing. Frankie groans as the air is knocked out of him, then his legs buckle and he drops to his knees, gasping for breath. Blaster grabs the baseball bat that's propped up against the table and brings it down on the man's skull. There's a sickening crunch and Frankie slumps forward, then silence.

"Get him out of here," Blaster snaps. Paddy drags Frankie's limp body out of the room.

No one makes a sound.

"Get someone on security who can keep their eyes open," Blaster says. He turns back to us.

"Right. Nice story. About the parallel realities and all that. You don't expect me to believe it, of course. You kids got some nerve, coming in here and giving me bullshit like that."

I brace myself. I can feel myself shaking. Then Blaster throws his head back and lets out a roar of laughter.

"That's good. That's funny. I like kids with a bit of nerve. And that's quite a trick you got there. Care to tell me how you do it?"

"We're ... I know it sounds mad, but we're telling the truth Blaster. Honestly," I stammer. "And we'll do anything you say to get the necklace back."

Blaster stares at us. I look down to avoid eye contact. Blaster's sudden changes of mood are unnerving. Plus he's just battered a man to death.

Finally Blaster breaks the silence.

"You'll do anything I say, will you?" he says slowly. "That's what I like to hear. We'll see if you mean it." He moves up close to us. "If you won't tell me how you do your invisible thing, that's fine. For now. You'll tell me eventually, of course. Everyone does. But I like your guts. You kids might have a future in my organisation. Just like Noah and Sara."

Blaster's voice softens. "I know the score. Sentimental value, ain't it. Belonged to your mum, now deceased, or whatever." He pauses, like he's thinking about something private. "We've all lost people," he says. Then the moment passes and he's back to his normal self.

"Maybe I'll give your precious crystal back," he says, "if you do a little job for me. Call it a sign of good faith. How does that sound?"

"Yes, yes, that's fine," Jack blurts out. Well, we've got no choice. Without the crystal we're dead.

Blaster smiles like we're all best buddies. "Good boy. That's what I like to hear," he says. He puts a giant tattooed arm around Jack's shoulders. "Right, then. There's a gang down in South Bay. Call themselves the Spiders. Stupid name, eh? They all got spiders webs tattooed on their 'eads, ain't they. Just a bunch of kids, really. But kids grow up, think they can play with the big boys. Been givin' some of my clients a hard time."

Blaster frowns. "Now a little birdie tells me they're havin' a party. But I ain't been invited. That hurts my feelings. I like to be invited to parties, see. Makes me feel popular. They've got some interesting guests, too. The D-Daze Crew. More kids. But my little birdie tells me they're talkin' about joining forces. Against me."

Blaster spits out this last word, and suddenly smashes his fist hard against the palm of his other hand. He stops to let his words sink in. No one else dares make a sound. Eventually Blaster continues.

"Anyway, I'd like to give 'em a little present. To welcome them to the big league. But seeing as I'm not invited, I need someone to deliver it for me. The thing is, it's a surprise present. Needs to be dropped off without them knowing. And seeing as Jack here is the Invisible Man, I reckon he could be just the man to do it. They got security, see, but if you don't show up on their cameras you could walk straight in the back gate. Because, as it happens, we got the keys to that gate."

"What if they catch me?" Jack asks.

"You just get in, drop off the parcel and run back out the gate. They'll be too busy enjoying my little present to worry about you. And if anyone does come running after you, Noah will be waiting just outside the gate with another little ... gift."

"When is this party?" Noah asks Blaster.

"Saturday. The night of the full moon." He snorts. "Full-moon parties ... like bloody hippies, ain't they."

My heart thumps. The full moon. "But ... but we need the necklace in time for the full moon, to go through the portal," I stammer.

Blaster stares at me like he's just noticed me for the first time.

"You're a bit demanding aren't you, young lady? When your brother's done my little delivery, come back here and I'll give you the necklace. Now get out. All of you."

We're in shock all the way home.

"That didn't go too well, did it?" Noah says.

"It's a bomb, isn't it?" Jack asks. Or says, really, because we've all figured that one out. Noah nods anyway. We walk in silence for a while.

"How many people will be at this party, or meeting, or whatever it is?" Jack says eventually.

Noah shrugs. "Twenty. Maybe thirty."

"I can't do it," Jack says.

"But we've got no choice," I point out. "We've got to get the crystal back—and in time for the full moon too. I might not last another month. If you're scared, I'll do it."

"Of course I'm scared. But that's not what I mean. The thing is, it's a bomb. It will kill people. Thirty people. That's murder. I can't do that, even if it is the only way to save ourselves. They're still real people, even if they do live in a different reality."

"If it helps, they're pretty nasty people," Noah says. "You've already met a few of them, remember. And they didn't seem too worried about _you_ , did they?"

My heart sinks. Why did Jack have to complicate things? Because immediately he says it, I know he's right. We can't do it. I mean sure, we can do what Blaster wants then disappear through the portal and never hear about it again. We'll never open the newspaper or turn on the television and see dead bodies being carried out or victims with horrific injuries. Back in our world, nobody will even know what we've done.

Except us. We'll know.

"You're right. Of course you're right. But where does that leave us?"

"We'll just have to ask Blaster again. Appeal to his better nature," Jack says.

Noah snorts. "Blaster hasn't got a better nature."

"I'll ask him," Sara says. She doesn't sound too hopeful.

Sara comes home and shakes her head. "Blaster's not interested," she says. She's been at Blaster's since the morning.

"I'm sorry," Sara says. "I tried. But Blaster runs Baytown because he's a hard, ruthless bastard. You saw what he did to Frankie. He says if you want the crystal you'll have to do what he wants. But he's obsessed with how you don't show up on cameras. He can't stop talking about it. He reckons you've stolen some secret new military technology, like an invisibility cloak. He wants it for himself."

"I guess he doesn't believe our story then," Jack says.

"It was a mistake to let him see how much you want the crystal," Sara continues. "Maybe if we'd been all casual about it he might have just given it back. Now he can use it as a bargaining chip. To make you tell him how your invisibility thing works."

"Although," Noah says, "if you don't tell him he'll probably just beat it out of you anyway."

I feel like crying. I curse myself for not leaving the necklace at Noah and Sara's house.

"There is one other way," Sara says. She hesitates. "But it's dangerous."

"What choice do we have? Without the crystal we'll die anyway," I say.

"Okay, then. We can _steal_ the necklace. Noah and I discussed it last night. We think it's possible. But your portal better exist. Because when Blaster finds the necklace is gone and you haven't set off his bomb, he'll be furious. He'll be coming after you."

Sara outlines the plan. Noah will collect the bomb from Blaster. He and Jack will detonate it somewhere safe. Meanwhile Sara and I will go to Blaster's. I won't show up on the security camera so I can simply walk in the front door beside her. I'll hide downstairs. Sara says there's never anyone downstairs. It's just used to store stuff. Sara will go upstairs and distract Blaster and the security guard while I sneak upstairs into the back office, steal the necklace, go back downstairs and wait for Sara. Then I simply walk out the front door with her. Then we run for the portal.

Walk in, pick up the necklace, walk out. Yeah, right, like that'll work. If you ignore the fact that Blaster's a bear-sized armed-and-dangerous psycho murderer who will most likely bash us to death if he catches me. Which he probably will.

On the other hand, I haven't got a better plan.

Sara turns to me. "Once we're in I'll show you where to hide. I'll keep Blaster busy. When you hear me sing, that's your signal."

I'm puzzled. "But how will you keep Blaster busy? By singing?"

Sara looks at me like I'm a simpleton. "Let's just say I'm a bit more than Blaster's cleaner."

"You're his girlfriend?" Jack says. Of course. That explains why Sara always seems to know what Blaster is doing. Why she spends so much time at his place.

"Girlfriend? I wouldn't say that, exactly. But ... well, you don't say no to Blaster." Sara's tone is neither warm nor angry. It gives nothing away.

"Anyway, the necklace is in the safe in the back office. I've got the combination. I'll be in the bedroom with Blaster. When you hear me sing, you slip past to the office. But keep your ears open. I'm not going to be singing an entire opera. Just a random line of some pop song, like I'm just in a good mood."

She leans forward. "And you'll need to be quiet. The office is only one room from both Blaster's room and the security guard in the control room."

"What about the rest of Blaster's men?"

"At night he just keeps one security guard on the premises. I'll make sure the guard's door is shut before you come upstairs."

"Blaster knows no one would dare attack him," Noah explains. "Besides, the place is attack-proof—high walls, electric fence, cameras, only one way in and out."

"At night the rest of Blaster's men are out and about, collecting payments, doing deliveries, protecting clients' properties," Sara adds. "Most of Blaster's business takes place at night, you see."

Noah hesitates, then leans forward. "If we do this," he says, "you've got to help us. Blaster is no fool. He'll know we helped you take the necklace. That means we need to get out of Baytown too. You don't cross Blaster and live to tell the tale."

"Even though you're his ... girlfriend?"

Sara shakes her head. "That won't help me. You've seen Blaster's temper. He hates being scammed."

"Anyway," Noah says, "this isn't only about you. It's also a test for us. For me. In fact, I've been waiting for something like this. You see, everyone who works for Blaster has to carry out a hit—has to kill someone—before they work for him. Until now I've just been a smart kid running errands. I guess now he thinks I'm ready to take the next step. He wants to know if I'll kill when I'm ordered. If not, I'm no use to him."

Noah pauses.

"And I won't do it. I won't become a cold-blooded killer like Blaster."

"Why don't you just tell him you can't do it?" I ask.

"Because that's not an option. We know too much about Blaster's business for him to let us walk away. If we try to get out now he'll have us killed for sure."

Noah adds another log to the fire and watches it catch and crackle.

"So we're going to run for it. Try to find Sanctuary. But Sanctuary is Inland, so if we're going to look for Sanctuary we need to get through the checkpoints. And to do that we need Inland Permits. And to get those we need to break into the Security Department office in the Plaza. And to do that we need you, because ..."

"... because we don't show up on security cameras, right?" Jack says.

"Right."

Noah tells us about Sanctuary. It's a place deep in the Wollemi Wilderness. Not even a place, really, he says. More like a tribe. People living off the land, hunting kangaroos and possums and wild pigs. Coasties escaping the Coast. Some Inlanders too. They move camp all the time and the country up there is dense forest, vast and wild and remote and full of deep gorges, with no towns or roads, so the government leaves them alone. Noah says the Wollemi is one of the few wild places left.

"It'll be tough to survive there," Noah says. "We'll have to live off the land. They say the heat is almost unbearable in summer. Bushfires are a big danger too. It won't be easy, but you're free and it's off the Coast."

"How do you even know this Sanctuary exists?" I ask.

"It doesn't," Noah admits. "Not officially. They never mention it on the news. But you hear rumours. And there's one guy in Baytown who's been there. He told us about it."

"You mean, he came back again?"

"Yeah. It was too tough for him. He walked out of the Wollemi then got picked up Inland and sent back here. He didn't have the skills to survive. You've got to be able to hunt, find bushtucker."

That gives me an idea. "Hey, maybe we can help you. We learnt some of those things with the Dunjini. You know, which plants you can eat, healing plants. How to make rope and fire. We can teach you."

"You can?" Noah sounds excited.

"I mean, obviously we're not experts. We were only with the Dunjini for three weeks. But they showed us a few things."

"I can teach you how to make a spear," Jack says. "Pullawarra showed me."

"But we'll need to get up to the High Plateau," I point out. "To find the right plants and stuff."

Noah nods eagerly. "We can do that," he says.

It's already hot when we wake up. It's going to be another baking day. Noah says he wants to get the Inland Permits as soon as possible so Leo has time to fix them up with their photographs. We'll have to break in to the Plaza at night when everything is closed, but first Noah wants us to go and look around, so we're familiar with the layout. We can't afford to waste time finding our way around when we break in for real.

We walk down to the Plaza. It's familiar, because it's the same shopping centre as in our Baytown, a big windowless concrete slab surrounded by parking lots. But of course it's different too. The car parks are almost empty, except for one fenced-off section at the end, which Noah says is reserved for people from the Fortress. Weeds grow through the cracks.

As we get close, Noah points to a metal ladder fixed to the concrete wall of the shopping centre. "That's the maintenance ladder. Gives you access to the roof. There's an air-conditioning shaft that goes from the roof into the building. Big enough to climb through. That's your way in. And out."

Two armed guards stand at the doors. They fix us with cold stares as we enter.

Inside, it's refreshingly cool. A few dozen customers wander around a supermarket with half-empty shelves, and a handful of tatty smaller stores. Other shops are boarded up. A woman in a fairy costume is painting children's faces at a table.

Sara buys a bag of flour in the supermarket and a loaf of reduced-price stale bread in the bakery.

As we walk, Noah points things out. Like, the far end of the mall is cordoned off. There's a checkpoint and guards. Noah says the Security Department office is down there, past the checkpoint.

"The government moved the Security Department in here a few years ago," Sara says. "It makes sense. The Plaza still has electricity, and it's secure. Concrete walls, no windows, only one entrance."

Noah turns into a side corridor, which leads to the toilets. As we pass, he points to what looks like a large grill or air vent in the wall.

"That's where the air-conditioning shaft from the roof comes out," he says. He stops walking. "Shit," he mutters. He glances around to check no one is watching. "The screws."

Noah sees our blank looks. "Don't you see? The screws are on _this_ side of the grill. When you climb down the shaft, you'll be on the _other_ side. You won't be able to undo them."

It's obvious, really. The screws are on this side because maintenance workers would come from this side, from inside the Plaza, whereas we'll be coming from the other direction, from the roof. But if we can't get the grill off then Noah's plan collapses. There's no other way in except the front entrance, which is guarded.

"What if we unscrew it now?" I say. "Then replace the screws loosely without tightening them. It should hold in place but we'll still be able to push the grill out tonight."

Noah considers my suggestion. He examines the grill.

"Yeah, it might work, as long as no one bangs into it. Anyway, I can't think of a better plan. So ... first we need a screwdriver."

Noah buys one in the two-dollar store and puts it into Sara's shopping bag and we stroll back to the toilet corridor, trying to look casual. Noah nods at the ceiling.

"Security camera," he says. "Keep walking. One of you two will have to come back and unscrew it."

"I'll do it," I say. "Jack, you be lookout."

Noah hands me the screwdriver. We've tested this in the mirror at home. If Jack or I are touching something it becomes invisible like us. There's a weird moment where things seem to disappear into thin air as we pick them up.

The corridor is empty so I drop to my knees and set to work. The first screw loosens easily. And the second.

Jack hisses to me. Someone is coming. I jump up and slip the screwdriver into my pocket. A fat bald man walks past us and goes into the men's toilets at the end of the corridor. He nods as he passes. I smile back.

Once he's gone I drop down to work on the next screw. Now the door of the women's toilet opens. Jack hisses again. I spring to my feet and pocket the screwdriver.

"Oh, hello Kaya." I start at the sound of my name. It's Mrs Peterson, walking towards us.

I glance down. Behind me, the grill of the air vent is hanging away from the wall, half-open.

"Hello Kaya. Fancy bumping into you," Mrs Peterson says. She looks at Jack. "And you must be Kaya's brother."

Jack confirms he is. "Are you following the news?" Mrs Peterson asks. "India and Pakistan are on the verge of war. Pakistan has bombed the Indus River dam. Worrying, isn't it?" I nod and mumble something about how terrible it is. Jack has noticed the grill too. He edges in front of it so Mrs Peterson can't see it.

"Well, I'd better be getting on," Mrs Peterson says. "I've got a Residents Association meeting. We're demanding the government finish building the sea wall." She starts to walk away. Then she stops. She's spotted the half-open air vent. She tuts. "That cover is coming undone. The maintenance in this place is going downhill. I'll report it to the desk on the way out."

"No, don't ..." Jack blurts out.

Mrs Peterson looks at him curiously.

"No need, Mrs Peterson," I say quickly. "What Jack means is, we told them already. Someone's coming to fix it. That's why we're waiting here, to show them which one it is."

Mrs Peterson looks surprised. "Oh, very good. Nice to see some of you youngsters still care about these things. We can't just give in and let everything fall apart, can we?" She smiles and walks off into the mall.

We both breathe a sigh of relief.

I quickly loosen the last screw then press the grill back into place and replace the screws without tightening them. We hold our breath, waiting to see if it will stay upright. It does. On close inspection, you can see the screws are loose but as long as no one looks too hard it should do.

The bald man reappears from the men's toilets. He takes no notice of us as he walks past. We follow him out of the corridor into the main mall, where Sara and Noah are waiting, and the four of us stroll casually out of the Plaza. The security guards give us the same cold stares as we leave.

"Will it hold?" Noah asks as we walk home.

"I think so," I say. "Like you said, as long as no one bashes into it."

"I guess you'll find out tonight," Sara says.

Sara is gently shaking my shoulder and telling me to wake up. I must have dozed off. It's dark now. Time to go.

Noah leads Jack and me back to the Plaza. At night Baytown is deserted, except for occasional groups of hooded figures. Noah says they're Bad Boyz or the Spiders or D-Daze. He recognises all the gangs, but we don't want to run into any of them, so we hide behind walls or down alleyways until they pass. When we reach it, the Plaza and its carpark are bathed in floodlights, an island of brightness in a sea of dark streets. We stop in the shadow of the last houses and wait.

A security guard appears. He strolls across the floodlit carpark, circling the building, whistling to himself. When he's gone round the corner, Noah whispers to us.

"Now. Go."

We run across the empty car park. If the guard comes back now we're totally exposed in the floodlights. But no one comes. We reach the concrete wall of the shopping centre and climb the ladder. On the roof, above the glare of the floodlights, it's darker. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to readjust.

Suddenly it hits me.

I put my hands on my knees and gasp for air.

"Are you okay?" Jack asks.

I shake my head. I'm dizzy. I kneel down on the roof and try to focus on my breathing.

"Shit Kaya, what do we do? We can't hang around up here."

I take a few more deep breaths. "I'll be all right," I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel.

Jack looks at me like he's not sure what to do.

"Don't just stand there like a stuffed toy," I say. "Let's go."

We find where the air vent comes out and remove the cover, working together, two screws each. We peer in. The shaft drops a few metres, but there's a ladder fixed to its side.

Jack hesitates. "I ... I don't ..." He seems frozen to the spot. Jack hates small spaces. Caves, tunnels. He keeps his bedroom door open at night. Even as a baby, he never liked cubby houses. (He's like the opposite of Blaster, who's afraid of big spaces.)

It's not a good start.

"Come on Jack, it's literally going to take five seconds. Here, I'll go first." I climb into the shaft. I have to concentrate hard on holding on to each rung. I've got no strength. My arms and legs shake. Above me, I see Jack follow. His legs are shaking too, with fear in his case.

Luckily it does only take a few seconds before the ladder drops us down into a sort of low tunnel. We crawl towards the fluorescent white light at the end. And now we're at the grill where we were earlier today. Except this time we're on the inside.

We sit and wait for the guard. Once he's past, we'll have fifteen minutes until he comes round again. That's how long his circuit takes, according to Noah. We listen. All I can hear is our breathing and my heart going thud-thud. Jack peers through the grill.

"Okay, here he comes. Keep quiet."

I can hear footsteps. Unhurried. A man's voice, humming to himself. The footsteps grow louder then stop. Suddenly Jack presses himself against the side of the tunnel. He motions to me to do the same and puts his finger to his lips. The guard has stopped right in front of us. We can see his legs through the grill. Heavy black boots, thick black work trousers. His belt. He fingers his gun absent-mindedly.

If he glances down, he'll notice the grill is loose.

But he doesn't, because he begins walking again.

We hear a door open. I'm guessing he's gone to the toilet. That seems right, because a moment later we hear the door again, then we see the guard's legs as he walks past. The footsteps fade. We wait and listen. Finally it's quiet again. We wait another minute, just to be safe, then I gently push the grill. The screws pop out. I catch the grill before it falls, but the screws tinkle as they land on the floor.

The sound seems to echo around the empty corridor. Has the guard heard?

Silence.

He must be out of earshot.

We ease ourselves through the opening into the corridor. Jack replaces the grill and the screws. We tiptoe to the end of the corridor and peer cautiously into the main hall. In the fluorescent glare you can't tell night from day, except of course now there are no people and the shops have their shutters down and doors locked.

Sara has given me her watch. I check the time. We've got twelve minutes until the guard returns. We run through the empty mall to the offices at the far end. We pass the security desk and come to a frosted glass window with _Department of Security_ written on it. Jack fishes Noah's key from his pocket and opens the door.

We know the door is a weak spot in our plan. There's a second guard sitting in the office at the front of the mall, monitoring the security cameras. He'll be able to see the door open on his screen. We have to gamble the guard won't notice. Noah has done security at Blaster's place. He says after a while nobody watches the screens. It's just too boring. Let's hope so.

Jack eases the door open slowly. Noah says a sudden movement will catch the guard's eye but slow is good. The door squeaks. That doesn't matter; there's no sound on the cameras. When the door's just wide enough, Jack squeezes through. He slowly pushes the door shut behind him. I stay outside as lookout.

I glance at Sara's watch. Nine minutes left.

I can see Jack through the glass window. He goes to the computer and turns it on. He's waiting for it to boot up. The printer too. He enters the password Noah has given him (Noah clearly has inside contacts because he's got passwords and keys for everything). Jack hunches over the computer and clicks away with the mouse. This is Jack's speciality. I'm hopeless with computers but Jack's a freak. He can get anything to work. (That's why he's in the office and I'm on lookout.) I can see him frowning at the screen. He clicks again and waits. More clicks. We don't have much time. Four minutes, to be precise.

What's taking him so long?

I can hear footsteps. Distant, but the click-clop of hard boots on the concrete floor is unmistakable. It echoes in the empty mall.

I tap the window and point. Jack shrugs and points to the computer. He stares down at the screen and clicks the mouse.

The footsteps stop. The guard must be looking at something. Let's hope it's not the air vent.

I see sheets of paper emerge from the printer.

The footsteps start again. Closer now.

Jack grabs the papers. More mouse clicks. More footsteps. I tap the window again. The guard will be coming round the corner any second now. We've got to move. What's Jack waiting for?

The screen fades and Jack darts across the office and slips through the door, pulling it shut behind him. The lock clicks as it shuts. Too loudly for my liking. The footsteps are louder too.

"You took your time," I whisper. "What were you doing, playing WarCraft?"

"Yeah, well, they've got a different operating system," Jack whispers back. "Never thought I'd wish for Windows. Anyway, let's go."

It's too late. Judging by his footsteps, the guard will be coming round the corner any second now. We look around desperately, but the other way is a dead end.

I point at the security desk. It has a curtain of black fabric that reaches to the floor.

"Under there," I whisper.

"Great," Jack whispers back. "A cubby house. Just what I need."

We dive under the desk. It's just big enough for the two of us.

I peer through a small rip in the fabric. I can see the guard, walking towards us. He's out of shape. Overweight. Maybe we could overpower him. He stops right in front of us.

Jack is pressed against me. His heart is thumping so hard I'm afraid it's shaking the desk.

The guard leans on the desk, breathing heavily. The curtain of fabric around us shakes. I can see his shiny black boots under the bottom of the curtain, just centimetres away.

I'm sure he'll hear Jack's heart beating. I can even smell him—the smell of middle-aged man and after-shave. Can he smell us? We've been washing with one scoop of water and no soap, so we must stink. Or maybe we don't have any body odour outside our own world either. Let's hope so.

Why is he still here? Why doesn't he go away?

At last the guard clears his throat and walks past us to the Department of Security. He tries the door. It's locked. He peers through the glass. I watch through the hole in the curtain. The guard looks puzzled. He looks around again, scratches his head then turns and walks back past our desk. After a few steps he stops and looks around again. Then he shrugs and walks on.

We listen to his footsteps fading into the distance.

"Let's get out of here," I whisper when I'm sure he's out of earshot.

We break cover and sprint across the empty mall. Suddenly I feel my head spin. The corridor feels like it's tipping sideways.

A moment later and I'm on the floor.

Jack is leaning over me, looking frantic. "C'mon Kaya, you can do it," he hisses.

I climb to my feet. My legs feel wobbly.

"Can you walk?" he whispers.

I nod. But I'm still in a daze. I know I should be running, but my legs won't move.

"Just hold my hand and follow me," I hear Jack say, still whispering. There's panic in his voice.

I take a couple of deep breaths. I have to move.

"I'm all right now. Let's go," I say.

At least everything has stopped spinning. Jack more or less drags me across the mall to the air vent. Once we're inside, we pull the grill back into place as best we can. It's just balanced there; there's no way we can get the screws back in from this side. Tomorrow someone will notice it's loose but that doesn't matter. Even if they watch the security tape, we won't be on it. All they'll see is a door opening and closing by itself. Let them figure that one out.

"Can you climb the ladder?" Jack asks. I nod. My head has cleared. We crawl along the tunnel and climb the ladder and come out onto the roof, and wait for the outside security guard to pass. As soon as he's gone, we're down the ladder and across the carpark to where Noah is waiting.

"Two Inland Permits," Jack says, handing them to Noah. "As requested."

Noah slips the Permits into his pocket. "Great work. Any problems?"

Jack grins. "Nah. Piece of cake."

Back home, I slump onto Sara and Noah's battered sofa. Once the adrenaline fades, I realise I'm exhausted. My energy levels are up and down like a yo-yo at the moment. Sara looks worried and makes me some dandelion tea but I'm asleep before I can drink it.

Breakfast is a treat today, because Sara has done a trade for some eggs. She fries them in her old blackened frying pan. They're delicious.

Jack and I are still buzzing from our raid on the Plaza last night, but Noah is keen to get up to the High Plateau. There are five days until the full moon and we're going to spend them teaching Noah and Sara our Dunjini survival skills. There's no time to waste: Noah and Sara's lives will depend on how much they can learn.

As we walk across town, Noah is full of questions about the Dunjini. What weapons did they use? How did they hunt? What did they eat? How did they make fire? Sara too. We tell them as much as we can.

We walk up to Castle Heights but near the top we turn off Hillview Street and make our way through the abandoned streets outside the Fortress. When we reach the end of the houses Noah tells us to stop. Between the last house and the forest is a clearing. And running along the middle of the clearing is a wire fence, about two metres tall.

"The Fence," Noah says. "It's electrified. Enough juice to kill an elephant, if elephants still exist. It's to stop people heading Inland. Runs along the whole Coast."

Noah picks up a stick and throws it at the wire fence. The stick hits the fence and bursts into flame. Its charred stump falls to the ground.

"See what I mean. Luckily for us the Fence is already falling apart, like everything else. There are gaps. Follow me." He leads us to the left for a few hundred metres.

"There," he says. I look where he's pointing. There's a small rip in the fence, big enough to crawl through.

"Okay, be careful. If you touch the wire you'll fry. I'll go first."

Noah gets down on his stomach and crawls like a lizard through the gap in the fence. He waits for us to follow—first Sara, then me, then Jack. Once we're all through, we run across the clearing into the woods. Noah says it's too dangerous to go up the Stony Stairway because the police patrols use that route, but he knows another way, climbing up the cliffs. It's tricky, though. At one point we step across a rock face with a sheer drop below us. But we all make it to the top in one piece and hike into the forest until Noah thinks we are beyond the police patrols.

Up on the High Plateau, the air is even thicker with smoke from the bushfires Inland.

Now we can begin our lessons. We find a bush called a grass tree and Jack cuts off its tall stem and shows Noah how the Dunjini use it as a spear shaft. Meanwhile I show Sara how to cut away the outside of the grass plant to get to the white flesh inside. I tell her about sucking the banksia nectar, and how the sticky red sap of the bloodwood tree is good for healing cuts, and I show Noah and Sara how to make fire. Just like Wolf Meares.

Eventually Noah says we need to go back. He knows the time of the patrols (like I said, Noah seems to know everything) and he doesn't want to run into McCain again. Noah says most of the other cops are okay. If they catch you they'll take a bribe to let you go, like if you've trapped a rabbit or something they'll take that. But not McCain. Noah says he killed a boy last year. Shot him in the back.

We climb carefully down the cliffs and return to Baytown through the gap in the Fence.

Two days to go. It rained overnight and today is cooler.

We return to the High Plateau. We've been coming up here for the past three days now, for as long as we can. There's no point Noah and Sara doing any other jobs, like cleaning or gardening, although Noah still has to do his deliveries for Blaster every night. Noah is careful to avoid the security patrols around the Fence, especially when McCain is on duty. We go deep into the forest, far away from the patrols and where the trees and plants aren't all hacked to bits for firewood. Noah and Sara want to—need to—learn as much as they can before they head for Sanctuary.

We find creeks with yabbies, and I teach them how to weave grass into cord for string and rope and baskets and nets, and we show them the right stones to make spear tips and stone knives, and I get Noah and Sara to practise making fire again and again until I'm sure they've got it. I show them how to make glue from the sap of grass trees by heating it. They practise throwing spears with Jack.

Cord, spear, knife, fire, glue ... the essential survival tools.

I have another dizzy turn. They're happening all the time now. It lasts about half an hour this time. I sit and rest for a while under the shade of a large red-barked gum tree.

When it gets dark we go to the Stone Gate and watch the moon. We wait until it's lined up with the Stone Gate. Half past eight. So we know that's roughly when the portal will open on the full moon.

In two days time.

We go home. As always Noah is careful to avoid the patrols but on the way back I have a scare. We're climbing down from the cliffs in the dark when I have another dizzy spell and tumble about twenty or thirty metres down a slope, bumping over rocks and tree roots. I'm okay, apart from a few bruises, but I'm rattled. If I'd been on a steeper section of the cliff I would have fallen to my death.

Tomorrow is the full moon.

Today we go back to the High Plateau. There are still so many things for Noah and Sara to learn, and so many things we don't even know ourselves. For instance, I know there must be hundreds more edible plants, but you can only risk eating the ones you're totally sure about. (Because I'm guessing there won't be any doctors in Sanctuary either, if Noah or Sara get sick.) If only Pullawarra or Mullimby were here, imagine how much more they could show them. Noah says that, if they do make it to Sanctuary, maybe they can find someone there who can teach them some more of this stuff.

I'm sore from yesterday's fall. I have a few more dizzy spells, and often have to sit and rest, but nothing really serious.

Tomorrow is the full moon.

I've just got to get through one more day.

Tonight is the full moon.

It all comes down to tonight.

I wake and sit up on the mattress. How am I feeling? I go downstairs and walk around the garden. The sky is clear and the smell of smoke is fainter. I'm steady on my feet and I don't feel dizzy. So far so good.

We spend the morning with Noah and Sara, going over some of the things we've taught them, like making fire and string.

In the afternoon I try to rest, but I'm too nervous. I lie on the mattress and stare up at the flaking paint on the ceiling. This time tomorrow we could be back home. Or ...

Or what? I try not to think about that. Be positive. In my mind I run through the plan for tonight's raid on Blaster's. Hiding downstairs. Sneaking past Blaster. But I remember what Blaster did to the security guard, Frankie, and it's hard to be positive.

I try to clear my mind by focusing on my breathing. It sort of works.

It's late afternoon and the sun is low when Noah and Jack come back from Blaster's. Jack looks like he's in shock. His face is a ghostly white and he can hardly speak. Even Noah looks nervous. He says there are two hand grenades inside his backpack. One for Jack to throw into the Spiders' headquarters, and one for Noah, to get anyone who chases Jack out of the gate. That's what Blaster meant when he said Noah would have an extra little gift.

We all feel pretty spooked. Noah says the hand grenades can't go off unless you pull out the pin, but what if one of them is faulty? Or maybe they're booby-trapped? What if there's no Spiders party and the grenades are meant to take us out? Noah says he wouldn't put that past Blaster.

Just in case, Noah leaves the pack outside in the yard.

Noah's plan is to let off the bombs in an abandoned house near the Spiders' base, for two reasons. Firstly, Blaster will expect to hear the explosions from that direction. Secondly, the blast will bring the Spiders crew out onto the streets to investigate. Noah reckons Blaster will have some of his men up there to finish off any survivors. With luck they'll get into a fight, which will distract Blaster's men while we're trying to get across town on our way to the Stone Gate.

Noah turns to Sara and me. "Blaster will find out pretty quickly Jack didn't blow up the Spiders' headquarters," Noah says. "He'll realise we're up to something. So you need to be out of Blaster's place _before_ the bomb goes off."

Which means the clock is ticking.

Jack is meant to detonate the bomb at seven o'clock. It's six now. We've got an hour to get to Blaster's, get the crystal and get out. Then we'll have an hour and a half to get up to the Stone Gate before the portal opens.

The timing is tight. Too tight for my liking. For a start it takes an hour to get up to the Stone Gate. In theory we'll just make it—as long as nothing goes wrong.

"Okay, time to go. Meet us back here as soon as you're out of Blaster's," Noah says.

Noah looks down at his pack, with the hand grenades in it.

"In a few hours we'll be out of Baytown forever. Who knows where we'll end up. And all because of your crazy story. Alternative realities? It's the most insane thing I've ever heard. Yet we _must_ believe you or we wouldn't be doing this."

"It's not too late to pull out," I say. "You don't have to do this for us."

"No," Sara replies. "It _is_ too late. Like we said, this is Blaster's test for Noah. If we stay here we'll be sucked into Blaster's world. Turned into his killing machines. Whatever future we've got in Baytown is not worth having. It's time for us to leave."

Noah taps his watch.

"We're wasting time," he says. "You've got to get to Blaster's now."

Sara and I walk out of the gate. The sunset sky is pink and orange. I catch Sara's eye.

"You okay?" she asks. I nod, but I'm not okay. I feel light-headed. The short walk to Blaster's seems to take twice as long as normal. It's as if the streets are covered with glue, sticking my feet to the road, making each step a struggle. I tell myself to fight it.

One last effort.

Sara, perhaps preoccupied with her own thoughts, doesn't seem to notice I'm struggling. That's a good sign. It means I must be walking normally, even if it doesn't feel like it from the inside. Maybe I'm just nervous.

We reach Blaster's front gate.

"Ready?" Sara asks.

"No. But let's do it."

"Okay. Remember, once I press the buzzer we can't talk. I can't even look at you. It has to look like I'm on my own."

Sara presses the buzzer and gives a little wave into the security camera. The gate unlocks with a sharp click. Sara pushes it open and we walk through the yard and get buzzed in at the front door of the house.

Inside, the downstairs corridor is flooded with water and we walk across the raised planks. There's my door. I open it and slip inside. I'm to wait here until I hear Sara sing. That will be my signal that it's safe to go upstairs. (Safe, in this case, being a relative term.)

I glance around. I'm in some sort of store room. The floor is covered with sandbags, with murky water seeping around their edges. It smells damp. It's full of old furniture and boxes piled on top of the sandbags. I stand on a sandbag just inside the door and listen.

I hear Sara's footsteps, climbing the stairs. Then Blaster's voice. "... I wasn't expectin' to see you tonight," he says. But he sounds relaxed, not annoyed. Then I hear Sara, saying how she just wanted to see Blaster. Sounding all casual.

I strain to hear. Blaster says something. I can't make it out. I listen for other voices. I can't hear anyone else. My mind is racing. Surely Sara wouldn't be talking like that if someone else was in the room? But there must be a guard in the control room, unless Blaster buzzed us—Sara—in himself. But then Blaster wouldn't have been surprised to see Sara, so there must be a guard.

Sara and Blaster are still talking but I can only make out the odd word. Blaster saying, "... teach 'em to mess with me ..." and "... the boys will finish off any survivors ..." and so on. And Sara talking about relaxing and taking his mind off things for a while. Flirting.

Suddenly there's a rustle next to me. It startles me. But it's only a rat, scurrying for cover. I don't mind rats. They get a bad press. I can feel the room spinning slightly. I blink and tell myself to fight it. I'm not going to faint. Not now. I can't afford to. But Sara had better hurry up.

Now there's the sound of footsteps in the upstairs corridor. Sara is talking to someone else. It must be the guard. Her voice sounds louder so I guess she's out in the corridor rather than in a room. "Blaster and I just need a little privacy," she's saying. I imagine her giving the guard one of her winning smiles. I hear a door shut. Then a silence that seems to last forever.

Then I hear it. Sara singing.

" _You've got the love I need_ ..." I don't recognise the song. It probably doesn't exist in my world.

The singing stops. I keep listening for a moment just to be sure (or maybe because I'm scared). Now everything is quiet. All I can hear is my heart thumping. I tiptoe out of the room and start to climb the stairs. A stair creaks and I freeze. I can hear Blaster and Sara's voices but they sound faint and muffled. I can hear laughter. Otherwise, nothing. Slowly, gently, I start to climb again.

At the top of the stairs there's another long corridor with five doors. They're all shut. On the left are the guard's room and Blaster's room. On the right there's the main living room, where Blaster and his men hang out and watch television. Then there's a bathroom. Then, at the far end of the corridor, the office.

The crystal is in the safe in the office.

I edge forward. I'm totally exposed now. If Blaster or the guard come out of their rooms I have nowhere to hide. I need to move quickly, but quietly. The door to the guard's room is slightly ajar and I can see the back of the guard's shaved head through the narrow opening. He's sitting in front of three television screens showing images from the security cameras. I hold my breath and step past the door.

I'm outside Blaster's room now.

Boom!

Jack's hand grenade! It must be. Noah must have detonated it. Then there's another blast. The second hand grenade.

But it's too soon. Sara and I should have been out of Blaster's place _before_ the hand grenades went off. Has Noah set them off early? Or are we behind schedule?

Things will kick off now. Any moment now one of Blaster's men will call Blaster and tell him the hand grenades didn't destroy the Spiders' headquarters. And then Blaster will know ... so we need to be out of the house before that happens. In any case, Blaster will have heard the explosions. Will he stay in the bedroom with Sara, or come out to take control of operations?

Inside the bedroom, I can hear Blaster laugh. Sara speaks too, but too softly for me to make out what she's saying. I take two more steps and I'm outside the office door. I turn the handle. The door swings open. I take two more quick steps across the room to the safe. I kneel down and turn the dial on the lock. My hands are shaking.

Sara has given me the combination.

5-0-9-7-6-6.

Click.

The door springs open. Inside are piles of bank notes, envelopes, some guns and a box. I open the box. It's stuffed with rings, necklaces and so on. Gold, silver, diamonds.

Then a familiar shimmer catches my eye.

My necklace. With the maala crystal!

I stuff the necklace into my pocket. The combination has to be reset to keep the door shut so Blaster doesn't notice. I begin to turn the dial through the numbers.

5-0 ...

A voice in my head is telling me to forget the safe and run, but for some reason I can't tear myself away. I can hear Blaster's voice from the other room. Any moment now, Sara and Blaster will walk out into the corridor. Sara will—at least, this is the plan—kiss Blaster goodbye and head down the stairs. By which time I need to be down there waiting for her.

9-7 ...

I'm starting to panic. My hands are shaking. This only makes it harder to work the dial on the safe. We must have been mad to think we could walk into Blaster's house and steal the crystal from right under his nose. But what other choice did we have? We need the crystal.

I can hear Sara saying goodbye. I have to get out before Sara opens the door. I abandon the safe and run towards the door of the office. Behind me, the safe door swings open.

As it does so, the hinges squeak.

"What was that?" Blaster's voice. Then the sound of a door opening.

The door to the corridor. I'm too late. Blaster is in the corridor. I'm trapped inside the office.

I look around frantically, wondering what to do. But before I can think of a plan the door flies open. And there, towering over me, blocking my escape, is Blaster.

We gape at each other in shock.

"What the bloody hell ..." Blaster bellows. His face turns red with rage. He grabs my throat with one of his giant hands and pushes me back into the room, lifting me almost off the ground. I can't breathe. I paw at Blaster's arms, trying to break free, but I might as well be a fly for all the impression I make on Blaster's granite forearms.

"Rip me off? Think you can outsmart me?" Blaster roars, pressing his face right into mine. I can feel his grip tightening around my neck. He's choking me. I can't breathe.

I feel the room spin. I'm starting to black out.

I'm fighting for air. It hurts.

Everything is fading.

I can't breathe.

All of a sudden, Blaster's grip relaxes and he slumps forward on top of me.

Blaster's weight sends me tumbling backwards. I hit the ground with a thud. Blaster's limp body falls on top of me and pins me to the floor. I gasp and suck down some air. I feel something wet running across my forehead, trickling into my eyes. I wipe it away and see my hand is covered in blood.

Then, above me, over Blaster's shoulder, I see Sara. She's holding a baseball bat.

And behind Sara in the doorway ...

"Look out," I scream. Sara spins around, bringing the baseball bat with her in a fast wide circle that connects flush on the security guard's jaw. He's unconscious long before he hits the ground.

It takes both of us to roll Blaster's giant body off me. Blood is oozing from the back of his head. He groans as he thumps onto the ground. So he's still alive. Sara looks down at Blaster for a moment and hesitates.

"Have you got your crystal?" she asks. I nod.

"Good, let's get out of here before he wakes up."

We race down the stairs, across the planks in the downstairs corridor and out of the front door, then through the front garden. Sara grips my hand.

"Can you run?"

I nod. My neck hurts where Blaster grabbed it. I'm collecting bruises like they're going out of fashion. We run out of the front gate into the street.

"Oi!"

It's Blaster, at the front gate. His shaved scalp is streaked with blood.

"You devious bitches. No one steals from me. No one! Not even you Sara. You're dead! Do you hear me? Both of you."

"Good to see he's okay," Sara mutters. She tugs me into an alleyway. We can still hear Blaster, but his voice is fading. He doesn't appear to be chasing us. Maybe it's the blow to his head, or maybe he's afraid to go outside. Agoraphobia, Noah called it. Funny to think of someone like Blaster being scared like that.

We emerge from the alleyway onto another deserted street.

"Hey, Sara."

A man blocks our way. He too has cropped hair and arms covered in tattoos. He looks at us curiously.

"I just got a call from Blaster. Sounded pretty upset about something. Told me to find you and ..."

Sara doesn't skip a beat.

"Yeah, Jez. Blaster's injured. Fell on some glass. Freak accident. But he's cut bad. Really bad. I think he's severed an artery. Look." Sara holds up her hands, red with Blaster's blood. "We tried to stop the bleeding. Terry's still with him, but we need a doctor. Fast. We'll try the Baytown doctors. You try North Bay surgery."

Jez looks confused. "No. Blaster said ... bring you to him."

"No, he said bring a _doctor_ to him. This is serious Jez. We've got to act fast. Blaster could die. For heaven's sake, get moving!"

Sara starts running again, pulling me with her.

Jez hesitates, not sure if he should grab Sara or do what she says. Then he makes up his mind. He starts running in the opposite direction. Suddenly, Sara stops.

"Hey Jez, wait."

The man stops.

"Go to 230 Concord Street," Sara calls out. "Jana. She's a nurse. Try her first. She's closer."

Jez nods again and sets off again at full pace. I look back in time to see him disappear round the corner.

"Hey, nice work. He totally bought it," I say. I'm impressed.

"Thanks," Sara says. "It's lucky for us that most of Blaster's boys aren't too bright. He could have just phoned Blaster to check."

We sprint the remaining few blocks back to Noah and Sara's house. A few people glance up as we run by but no one challenges us.

I struggle for breath. I'm running on empty.

Just one more hour. That's all I need.

We're almost back at the house.

"Sara. Kaya. Over here."

We spin around to see Noah and Jack hiding in an alley.

"Blaster's men are at the house already," Noah says. "Turning it over. We heard them coming and got out the back. We need to go."

"What about our stuff?" Sara asks.

"I got the knife and one of the packs. We'll have to forget the rest. Quick, this way."

We start to run. The alleyway goes between two houses and comes out in the next street. We keep running until we've put five or six streets between us and the house. Noah pauses.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah." I feel in my pocket for the crystal, just to be sure.

"And ... how are you feeling?"

"Good," I say. Suddenly I _do_ feel better.

"Blaster's men were round pretty quick," Noah says. "I thought something must have gone wrong."

"He caught us," Sara says. "I'll tell you later. Let's just say I'm not Blaster's favourite girl any more. Not since I reshaped his head with a baseball bat."

"Is he still alive?"

"'Yeah, unfortunately. I should have finished him off but ... I couldn't bring myself to do it."

"Blaster's boys will be crawling the streets looking for us," Noah says. He points to the moon. "It's half past seven. We've got an hour to get to the High Plateau."

The moon sits just above the houses. It looks yellow and big, the way a full moon does when it's still low in the sky. High above us the electric lights of the Fortress begin to glow, like a hilltop castle in a fairytale. People shuffle past us with their hoods up and eyes down, hurrying home to safety before night sets in. The low moon gives them long shadows.

Each time we come to a new road, Noah scans the street carefully.

"Avoid anyone who doesn't look scared," he says. "Most people keep their heads down at night, but Blaster's men walk around like they own the place. The Spiders are the same."

Noah waves us forward. "Walk slowly. Hoods up and avoid eye contact," he says.

We cross Ocean Road. A car speeds by and screeches round a corner. Then a group of men run past us. We turn down a side street. We can hear more cars. And shouting. Then a series of sharp cracks.

"Sounds like gunfire," Noah says. "Things must be kicking off between Bad Boyz and the Spiders."

That's good. That's what we'd hoped for. The more Blaster's men are distracted, the less time they'll have to look for us. But then Noah stops.

"Those are Blaster's men ahead," he whispers. "Turn round slowly and go left." I lift my hood a faction and peek ahead. Three men are standing in the middle of the road. They're staring at us. Now they're coming towards us.

"Shit, they've recognised us," Noah says. "Run."

He sprints down an alleyway. The rest of us follow. My legs feel like they're made of stone. I can't keep up. Blaster's men are about thirty metres away, getting closer.

"This way," Noah says, pointing to another alley. The men are so close I can hear them puffing as they run. They're big men, built for power not speed.

"Oi, Sara, Noah," one of the men puffs.

We burst out of the lane into another street and run straight into a gang of about a dozen men. Men with shaved hair and spider web tattoos on their foreheads.

The men look up in surprise just as Blaster's men emerge from the alley.

Someone shouts: "Hey, they're Bad Boyz." Blaster's men stop in their tracks. They're outnumbered. They turn and flee back into the alleyway. The other men chase after them. They're not interested in us.

We keep running.

"Over here." Noah indicates another alley. Baytown is full of alleyways and back lanes. You can go from lane to lane, avoiding all the larger roads. So that's what we do. Noah says it's too risky to go up Hillview Street. The route is too obvious. Blaster's men will be patrolling it. Noah says he knows another way up the cliffs although it's a longer climb, and harder.

This part of Baytown is quiet and there's no sign of Blaster's men so Noah signals a rest. We're all breathing hard but I feel like collapsing. Not long now, I tell myself. Just keep going.

At the end of the next street the houses stop. In front of us is a cleared strip of grass, with the Fence running down the middle. Beyond that, a wooded slope rises to the foot of the cliffs.

"I haven't used this crossing point for ages," Noah mutters. "Let's hope they haven't fixed it." He leads us to the right for a little while. "No, good, it's still here," he says. He points to a gap in the fencing.

One by one, we get down on our stomachs and crawl through.

Beyond the Fence the ground rises steeply. It's darker in the woods and it's slower going, with lots of tangled weeds. But the weeds thin out as the slope gets steeper until we find ourselves at the foot of the cliffs. Almost without breaking stride, Noah begins to climb. We don't have time for a rest.

The Baytown escarpment is made of sandstone, which is literally compressed sand so it crumbles easily and if you're not careful it breaks off in your hand. But the good thing is it means the cliffs are all broken and tumbled-down, rather than a smooth wall of rock, and you can usually find a way up through the maze of cracks, gullies and ledges. Trees and bushes grow from every crevice. Their roots and branches give us extra handholds.

We can hear shouting, screeching cars, motorbikes. Sharp cracks that I think are guns. It sounds like gang war has broken out: Bad Boyz against the Spiders. But that's behind us now. All that matters is reaching the portal in time for the full moon.

We're a long way up now. A slip here could be fatal.

I'm struggling. My arms are too weak to pull myself up.

"I can't make it. I need to rest." I hardly have the energy to speak. My fingers feel numb.

"Can you get to the ledge?" Noah asks. He points to where Jack and Sara are waiting.

I grab a knob of rock and drag myself up. My legs are shaking. Summoning all my remaining strength, I pull myself onto the ledge.

I slump to the ground and gasp for breath. The ledge is about two metres wide, flat and sandy.

"Okay," Noah says, "take a couple of minutes. But then we need to keep climbing or you'll miss your portal."

I look up. All I can see is rocks and bushes. It's impossible to see where the cliffs end.

"How much further?"

"Hard to tell. But we must be near the top. These cliffs aren't that high."

"Maybe another five minutes," Sara guesses.

"One last effort," Jack urges. "Come on Kaya. After all we've been through we're not going to fail now."

But I can't. Not even another five minutes. Not even another five steps. I tell myself to stand but my body won't respond. My energy is gone. All I want is to lie down and sleep.

I can't go on.

I need to give my necklace to Jack so he can get home even if I can't. I fumble for it in my pocket and my hand closes around the crystal. My maala crystal, my beautiful rainbow crystal, which I love so much and which has brought me here. To die.

Then a strange thing happens. As I hold the maala crystal, I feel energy flood through my body. Am I imagining it? I stand up. No, suddenly I feel okay. Strong, even. There's no doubt about it. I feel lighter, stronger, like someone has removed a set of weights from my arms and legs. Like I've been plugged into a power point. I start climbing.

After twenty metres, I look back. The others are staring at me in amazement. Then they too start climbing.

"What just happened?" Jack asks when he catches up with me. "You were out on your feet."

"It must be the crystal," I say. That's the only explanation. The burst of energy came when I squeezed the crystal. Come to think of it, that's what happened earlier too.

I climb as fast as I can. Every couple of minutes I put my hand in my pocket and squeeze the crystal.

Sara was right. In a few minutes we find ourselves at the top of the cliffs. Away to our right, the Fortress glows. Below us, in Baytown, smoke rises from a building. We can still hear shouts and cars, but more distant now.

Noah looks at his watch. "Ten past eight. You've got twenty minutes."

We work our way along the top of the cliffs towards the top of the Stony Stairway, where we pick up the path into the High Plateau. The forest seems quiet enough. There's nothing to suggest anyone is following us, so we run up the path until we reach it. The Stone Gate. The portal.

The moon is still low and large. It's almost behind the Stone Gate.

"Either we're just in time or we've just missed it," Jack says.

Let's hope it's the first one.

We stand in front of the Stone Gate, waiting. I stare at the moon and try to work out which way it's moving.

"You should go," I tell Sara and Noah. "Put some distance between you and Baytown."

"No way," Sara says. "If you're about to disappear into thin air we want to see it." She laughs. "And if you're just a couple of nutters who made this whole portal thing up, you might need to tag along with us. I don't think any of us will be too welcome back in Baytown."

"As soon as you're gone we'll get moving," Noah says. "Then find a cave to sleep in." He speaks quietly, almost to himself. I can tell he's already thinking about the challenges ahead. For us the adventure is almost over. In a few minutes we will be—should be—back in our own world. But for Noah and Sara the journey is only just beginning.

The moon is definitely getting closer to the portal. I breathe a sigh of relief. We're in time.

Noah taps his bag. "We've got enough dried meat to last a week, if we're careful. After that, thanks to you, we should be able to find food. I've heard there are feral pigs up around Sanctuary. Plus goats, kangaroos, wallabies. And if I can't hit anything with a spear, I can always set traps for rabbits. I know how to do that. Once we get Inland, finding water will be our big problem. I've heard it's bone dry up there."

Noah smiles. "You know, Sara and I have talked for years about looking for Sanctuary. But we didn't have the courage to go for it. And we didn't have the skills to survive in the wild until you showed us all that stuff. Now maybe we've got half a chance."

"What if you don't find Sanctuary?" I ask.

"Then we'll die trying," Noah says softly. "Or maybe we can survive on our own in the forest. But we're all gonna die sometime, right ..."

Suddenly his tone changes.

"Did you hear that?"

There it is again. The sound of people. Crashing through the forest. They're still some way off but from the amount of noise they're making it sounds like they're running.

"Shit," Noah says.

"What?" Jack asks

"It must be McCain. It's his patrol tonight. Nothing we could do about that but I was hoping we'd slipped past him."

I turn to Noah and Sara. "You've got to go right now or it will be too late."

"No, we've got to wait. Make sure you get through the portal first."

I feel almost angry. They _don't_ have to wait. Why don't they run while they've still got a chance?

The crashing is getting louder. It's definitely coming towards us. Now we can hear voices too. Men's voices.

"Please go. Don't wait for us ..."

The men are close now. Why couldn't they have come ten minutes later? We'd have been gone by then. The moon is almost behind the Stone Gate.

"Quick, over here," Noah whispers. We dive into the bushes as a man emerges from the path into the clearing. I recognise him at once. It's McCain. He stops in the clearing and scans the sandy ground with his torch.

"These your footprints Noah? Sara? I know it's you. I know you're here somewhere."

He stands still, listening. He's only about twenty metres from us. He sweeps his torch around. Luckily Noah has picked a good spot. The bushes are thick enough to hide us. I hold my breath.

"Better run for it, kids," McCain says. "Can't shoot you all, can I? If you're lucky I'll only get one of you. Once the others catch up, none of you will make it."

He pauses, listening to see if his words provoke a reaction.

"What's the matter Noah? Afraid, are you? Lost your balls?"

We can hear other people approaching. At least two or three, judging by the noise they're making. McCain's actually got a point. If Noah and Sara don't move now, before the other men get here, they'll have no hope of escaping. Right now we're four against one. That's the best odds we're going to get. Even if the one does have a gun.

I make up my mind. We've got to give Noah and Sara a chance. I've got to distract McCain.

I jump up and rush out of the bushes.

"Sara, Noah, go now," I shout.

Noah and Sara realise what I'm doing. They leap out of the bushes and run in the other direction. McCain spins round, not knowing which way to go, trying to work out who is where.

I can see the white orb of the full moon slipping behind the Stone Gate.

Any second now, the portal will open.

Noah is almost across the clearing. Sara too, a step behind him. McCain spins round. He's got his gun in his hand, but before he can pick up their direction well enough to take aim, they're into the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing, arms up to protect their faces from the thorny branches.

But then Sara falls forward. She crashes to the ground face first.

"My foot's stuck," she calls out. She tries to kick free. Her foot must have got tangled in some tree roots or something.

McCain looks at her in triumph. He raises his gun and takes aim. There's a sharp crack, then Sara's body twitches and she stops struggling. A patch of darkness spreads across the back of her T-shirt.

"No," Noah cries. He abandons the cover of the bushes and sprints back to Sara.

McCain watches Noah. He's in no hurry now. This is the moment he's been waiting for. He means to enjoy it. Slowly, he raises his gun and trains it on Noah. I can see his finger close around the trigger.

I've got to do something. I turn and race back towards McCain. He's so focused on Sara and Noah that for a moment he's forgotten about me and Jack. I throw myself through the air and hit him from behind in the small of the back. McCain isn't expecting it. The force of the collision knocks him to his knees and jolts the gun from his hand. The weapon clatters across the ground.

"Kaya, the portal," Jack screams. "We've got to go."

The moon is behind the Stone Gate now, flooding it with brilliant white light.

McCain stares in astonishment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see two figures disappear into the bushes. Noah and Sara. So Sara is still alive. She must be badly hurt though.

I race towards the Stone Gate. Jack runs out from the bushes and grabs my hand.

McCain scrambles across the rocky ground on all fours, reaching for his gun.

Just a few more steps. We hurl ourselves into the blinding whiteness.

I hear a thud. Dull, muffled, like someone punching a cushion. Then I feel it. Between my shoulders, as if I've been hit with a baseball bat.

Time has stopped. I hear a girl cry out. It's my voice, but the sound doesn't seem to belong to me.

"Got ya," McCain's voice now. Gloating, triumphant, no trace of pity. "One less scrounger." The words seem to come from nowhere.

Everything blurs into one. Bushes, trees, rocky ground, stars—they all swirl and spin and merge and disappear inside the white light.

My back is wet. Blood. _My blood_.

I can hear Jack. "Kaya," he's saying. It sounds like his voice is in slow motion. Kaaaaayaaaaa. I feel his hand. I hear the thump, thump, thump of my heartbeat.

Another dull thud in my back. I brace myself for the pain.

But it doesn't come. Because everything—the forest, McCain, Jack, Noah and Sara—has vanished. There's nothing. Nothing but light.

But this time it's different. Instead of whiteness there's an explosion of colours, like a cosmic dance of pure energy.

Then ...

Nothing.

# Part Four: Beth

## J  
A  
C  
K

Silence.

I open my eyes. Kaya is lying on the ground next to me. Nearby, a parrot squawks. I sit up and look across at Kaya. She's stirring now, sitting up.

"I thought I saw him ... shoot you," I say.

Kaya stretches her hand round and feels her back. "I thought so too. I felt something hit me. But I feel fine now." Kaya stands up and examines herself.

"There's no blood, is there?"

I shake my head.

"My bruises have gone too," she says.

Well, that's what Billy told us. Injuries disappear when you go back through the portal. It's as if the last month—the last two months—never happened.

Anyway, let's take stock. The first thing is, we're through the portal. That's clear. The trees don't have their branches hacked off for firewood. We're in a different place. It feels calm. There's no McCain standing there about to kill us. And no Noah and Sara.

Sara! I feel a knot in my stomach as I recall Sara falling. The blood turning her T-shirt red. I look at Kaya. She looks worried. She's feeling her necklace.

"What's the matter?" I ask.

"The crystal. It's ... gone."

"What? It can't be."

Kaya shows me the necklace. Like she said, the crystal is missing.

"Okay, don't panic. You had it as we entered the portal, or we wouldn't have come through. And we are through, aren't we? So you must have dropped it _after_ we emerged. It's probably just fallen on the ground around here somewhere."

Although it's hard to explain how it came off her necklace, which isn't broken.

"There's something else," Kaya says. "The portal. It was ... different. All those colours. Did you see it too?"

I nod. Yeah, I saw the colours.

We look for the crystal. The clearing around the Stone Gate is flat rock, like a natural pavement, and the moon is so bright it's almost like daylight. If Kaya has dropped the crystal it should be easy to spot. But there's no sign of it.

"Anyway, I don't even know why we're looking for it," I say. "If we're back home we won't need the crystal again."

But are we back home?

There's no sign of Jayden and Debbie James. Should there be? They were here when we went into the portal. If the portal exists outside time and we've come out at the same moment as we went in, they'd be standing here now. Or are we two months into the future? It's confusing, this portal stuff.

Also, Billy told us the portal would take us back to our own reality. But it didn't last time.

"Let's check out the Castle," Kaya suggests. "If we're back in our world the graffiti will be there." I nod. I know what she means. In our world, some kids have tagged a big boulder up at the Castle. The graffiti wasn't there in Noah and Sara's world. Or Billy's.

The Castle is clean. No graffiti.

We look around. There's a gang of Baytown kids who hang out up here, who do the graffiti. They leave other traces too, like discarded cigarette butts and beer cans. And there's always a blackened circle of ground where they make their camp fire.

Now there's nothing. No evidence people have ever been here.

Neither of us speaks. I don't even want to catch Kaya's eye. We both know what this means. We're not home. I feel hollow inside. We've been building up to this moment all month ... just a few more days, just keep going until the full moon, the adrenaline rushes of the last few days, breaking into the Plaza and the hand grenades and stealing the necklace and racing across town and c'mon Kaya, we'll soon be home.

And now we're not.

Instead, we've got to do it all again in another strange reality we know nothing about.

"At least there's no gun-crazed cops trying to kill us," I say. Kaya forces a smile.

But we know one thing. Now we _have_ to find the maala crystal. Without it we're stuck here.

And if we're stuck here, we die.

We retrace our steps to the portal. The moon is no longer shining though the Stone Gate; it's simply a giant boulder with a big hole in it. We get down on our hands and knees and crawl over the clearing, slowly, inch by inch, like forensic police searching a crime scene. We lift every little rock and pebble. Kaya tells me to watch out for scorpions as we do so. When we've searched every speck of ground, we go back and start searching all over again. And again. But there's no crystal.

Kaya sits down. "There's no point kidding ourselves. We've been over the whole area three times now. It's not here."

I nod. "Yeah. I've been thinking. The crystal is gone, but your necklace isn't broken, is it"

Kaya shakes her head.

"And you were shot by that cop McCain as we entered the portal. But now you're fine."

Kaya nods. "But injuries don't go through the portal. Billy told us that."

"Yeah, but I think this might be different. You were shot _at the exact moment_ we went through the portal. I think the bullet, the portal... look, I can't give you a scientific explanation but here's my guess. I think somehow all that energy sort of overloaded the crystal. Destroyed it. I mean, if you were shot you should have died but instead the crystal just sort of ... absorbed the bullet's energy and, I don't know, dissolved or exploded or something."

Kaya shrugs. "Maybe. It sounds crazy. But then this whole thing is crazy."

I sit down on the rocky ground next to Kaya. Suddenly I feel like crying.

"I've had enough of all this, Kaya. I just wish ... I just want to go home."

And there's also what Billy said. That you can't survive outside your own Dreaming for long. Especially girls. Even if we can find a new crystal to get out of this world, will we—will Kaya—last another month?

"Okay," Kaya says. "There's no point sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. If this isn't our world we'll just have to find another maala crystal. There must be more somewhere. But we won't find one just sitting here."

Kaya gets to her feet. As she does so, she stumbles. She grabs onto the side of the Stone Gate to steady herself. She seems okay, but it's a worrying sign. I wonder if being shot as she went into the portal has affected her.

We walk down the path—that's still there—to the clifftop lookout at the top of the Stony Stairway.

What we see confirms our fears. In our world the buildings of Baytown cover all of the flat ground between the Escarpment and the ocean. Now we can see three or four distinct clusters of buildings, like separate villages, with dark patches of forest between them. In the villages, a few house lights twinkle.

"Look over there," Kaya says. She points further along the clifftop. I look and see a line of what look like wind turbines. They're tall and slim, each one with three white blades turning gently in the breeze.

This definitely isn't our Baytown.

"What if each time we go through the portal we're moving further away from our world?" I say. "What if it never takes us back?"

"Billy says the portal takes you back to your own world."

"Well, it didn't this time. Or last time," I snap.

"I don't know. But there's no point giving up, is there?"

I wish I could be more like Kaya. Always determined to stay positive.

"We'll just have to go down and find out what's there," she says. "At least there are people. Maybe they know all about the portal. But it's probably best not to turn up in the middle of the night. We might scare someone. Not to mention that we're pretty tired. Let's get some sleep and we'll go down in the morning."

We find a patch of flat ground and lie down. Kaya is soon asleep. Curled up like a baby. I find it harder; it's not exactly comfortable lying on bare ground and I'm still buzzing from our race to the portal. I look at the stars and listen to the frogs croaking. An owl hoots. Tomorrow we'll have to take our chances.

When I open my eyes it's dawn and the woods are full of the screeches and chirps of birds. Out beyond the bay the sun is rising over the ocean. I nudge Kaya. "Rise and shine," I say. "Time to find out what's down there." Kaya sits up and rubs sleep from her eyes.

We follow the path down the Stony Stairway to the top of Hillview Street. There's the road but no houses. There are no people either, so we begin to walk down the hill. Daylight confirms what we saw last night; that Baytown is divided into villages, with a mix of forest and fields between them.

I think I can hear voices in the distance.

We're almost at the bottom of the hill when we round a corner and see a girl walking towards us. She's about our age and pretty, with long golden hair. She's carrying a basket. My first instinct is to hide. I grab Kaya's hand and, pulling her with me, I dive behind some bushes.

Should we show ourselves?

"What do you think?" I whisper.

Kaya doesn't answer but, as the girl passes, she steps out onto the road.

"Excuse me ..." Kaya begins. The girl looks surprised, but not scared. I step out of the bushes behind Kaya.

"Oh," the girl says. She peers at us. "Do I know you? I don't think so. You're not locals, are you?"

"No," says Kaya. "We're from ..." she trails off. We've had this discussion before. We _are_ locals, but not in the way the girl means.

"Please, we need help," I blurt out.

The girl looks at us calmly, as if people jump out of bushes begging her for help every morning.

"Very mysterious. Are you on the run or something?" She laughs. She doesn't try to shoot us either, which is good.

"So," the girl asks, "what terrible crimes have you committed?" She laughs again to let us know she doesn't really take us for a couple of murderers on the run.

"We haven't done anything wrong," I insist. "Honestly."

"It's a bit complicated," Kaya says. "But we're not dangerous or anything."

The girl smiles. "No, you don't _look_ dangerous, if you don't mind me saying so. I'm Beth, by the way."

"Hi, Beth. I'm Kaya. And this is Jack," Kaya says. "We need to find someone who knows about the binjin portal." I can see what Kaya's doing. Hit her with the truth straight away and see if she knows what we're talking about. Because it will make life a lot easier if she does. But from her blank expression it's clear she has no idea what a binjin portal is.

"Why don't you come home with me," she says eventually. "We can ask my mum. If anyone knows about this ... erm, portal, or whatever you called it, she will. You'd better not really be criminals, of course."

"What do you mean?" Kaya asks.

"Mum's the Baytown police officer. If you _are_ on the run, you might not want to meet her. Come on, then."

She turns and walks back down the hill. We follow. The road passes small orchards and vegetable gardens. A few goats and kangaroos graze in paddocks. It seems peaceful.

A man approaches. "Hi Beth, hope you left a few mushrooms for me," he says, nodding towards her basket. He pauses. "Who are your friends?"

"My cousins from Canberra, visiting for a couple of weeks," Beth says. She gives us a little wink as she says it.

"Okay, see you around." The man says. He carries on, whistling to himself.

We reach one of the clusters of buildings we saw from the clifftop. The street names are familiar: Alpha Street, Billabong Street, Phillip Street, Brisbane Avenue. My best friend Kyle lives in Billabong Street. And the houses look similar, except there are solar panels on every roof. But the roads themselves have all been replaced by green spaces: vegetable gardens, fruit trees, small parks. There's a tennis court on Alpha Street and a football pitch on Brisbane Avenue, where the road used to be, with proper goals and everything. Chickens peck away in enclosures, and on Phillip Street three women sit and chat on a bench beneath a mango tree. There are footpaths but no cars. Bicycles lean against the houses.

We come to a sort of housing complex, a circle of small houses around a large central building. There are bushes and lawns and footpaths and more bicycles leaning against walls.

"Here we are," Beth says. She takes us into one of the houses. Inside it looks kind of Japanese, with little furniture except for a low table. Beth sits on the floor beside the table.

"Take your shoes off and sit down," she says. "Mum, are you still here?"

A woman's voice calls out from another room. "Why aren't you at school, darling? Did you forget something?" A moment later the woman appears in a doorway, holding a toothbrush. She sees us and stops. "Hello. Who do we have here?"

"I don't know. I found them up on Hillview Street. They say they need help. Say they came through a portal or something"

Kaya tries again. "The binjin portal, the Stone Gate, up on the High Plateau," she says. But Beth's mum looks as blank as Beth did.

"Give me a minute, will you?" she says, leaving the room. A few seconds later she returns without her toothbrush. She sits down cross-legged next to Beth and extends a hand. "I'm Barbara Dunning. Beth's mum. Also Officer Dunning, Baytown police, as Beth may have told you. So ... where have you come from, again? Do you have your papers? Identity cards?"

"We don't have any papers, ," Kaya says. "And I'm afraid you're going to think we're crazy when we tell you where we're from. But I promise you it's true."

"I guess you'd better tell us then," Mrs Dunning says.

So Kaya tells them about the Stone Gate and the binjin business, and our world, and the two other versions of Baytown we've visited, and Billy telling us how the portal worked, and how we need to find another maala crystal.

When Kaya finishes, there's silence. Mrs Dunning strokes her chin. Her expression gives nothing away.

"Well," she says finally. "I've heard some strange stories in my line of work but I must say that is the strangest. You do know wasting police time is an offence, don't you?"

"Honestly, it's all true," I say. "We're not trying to waste anyone's time. I promise."

"But why would they make up such a story?" Beth asks. "And their clothes are odd too. I've never seen shoes like that before."

"There's one more thing," I say. "You'll notice soon enough, in any case. Have you got a mirror?"

The mirror changes things, of course. Mrs Dunning and Beth gape open-mouthed at the nothingness where our reflections should be.

"It's the same with cameras too, or any other recording device. We won't show up. It's like we're not fully here. Something about us—I don't know, our spirit or something—stays in our own world," Kaya explains.

I watch Mrs Dunning and Beth to see how they react.

Beth looks nervous. She's not smiling any more. She seems spooked.

"Are you ... vampires?" she asks.

Kaya rolls her eyes. "Not vampires again!" she says.

"Vampires are just a fairytale," I say. "At least, I think they are."

"And you being from another reality—that's perfectly normal, is it?" Beth asks.

"Look, we're not vampires. I promise," Kaya says. "See, we haven't got pointy teeth." She pulls back her top lip to show her teeth. "And vampires can't come out in daylight, remember."

Mrs Dunning gets out her phone and takes some pictures of us. She examines the screen.

"You're right. You don't show up on the camera." She scratches his head. "That is weird, I must admit. I'm going to check the police databases. What are your names?"

We tell her and she types our names into his phone. She must be able to access the police files using the phone. I'm curious to see if we show up too—if there are already versions of us in this world.

Mrs Dunning thumbs away on her phone for a while then looks up. "Okay, I've searched the missing and wanted persons databases. And the births register and hospital records and school enrolments. You're not in any of those. But you could be giving us false names. I've also searched the recent crimes database. Nobody's looking for anyone fitting your descriptions."

She's got a phone app that takes fingerprints too, and she gets us to press our fingers onto the screen of the phone.

"No matches. Still, we'd only have your fingerprints if you've been in trouble with the police before. But this camera business is certainly peculiar."

Suddenly she gets up and hurries out of the room. She returns a moment later carrying what looks like a laptop computer with four cables attached.

"A cardiac machine. Checks your heart. Police issue." She makes me take off my T-shirt and fixes the sticky pads on the end of the cables to my bare chest and watches the screen. She looks puzzled. She fiddles with the dials and checks the pads are properly stuck to my chest, then tries again.

"According to this, Jack, you have no heartbeat," she says. "You're not alive."

"If this binjin stuff is Aboriginal business like you say, maybe we should visit Uncle Bob," Beth says.

"Who's Uncle Bob?" I ask.

"A Dunjini elder," Mrs Dunning says. "His full name is Bob Turner. Uncle is just an Aboriginal term of respect. I'll call to see if he's home."

It turns out Uncle Bob is over at Gosport and won't be back until the afternoon. Mrs Dunning says we both look tired and suggests we have a rest while we wait. She takes two mats and blankets out of a cupboard, pushes the table to one side of the room and spreads the mats out on the floor.

"There you are. We'll wake you when it's time to go."

"Do you think they believe us?" Kaya asks after Mrs Dunning and Beth have left.

I shrug. "I doubt it. Would you? But at least they seem friendly."

Mrs Dunning is right. We are both tired. The mats are comfortable and I fall asleep almost as soon as I lie down. The next thing I know, Beth is gently shaking my shoulder.

"Time to go," she says.

Uncle Bob lives a few blocks away, in another circle of houses. We ring and an older man with light brown skin and dark curly hair opens the door.

"Hello Barbara. Hello Beth. What can I do for you?"

"Hi Bob," Mrs Dunning says. "Our two young friends here, Jack and Kaya, have got a strange story to tell you about a binjin rock. We were wondering if that means anything to you."

Uncle Bob looks startled. So the binjin rock—the Stone Gate— _does_ mean something to him. I allow myself a mental whoop of joy. Someone here knows about the portal.

"How ... how do you ...?" Uncle Bob splutters. He stands in the doorway and stares at us, then pulls himself together.

"You'd better come in," he says.

Uncle Bob invites us to sit down at a low table like the one in Beth's house.

"If I told you Jack and Kaya here had come through the binjin rock from another Dreaming, what would you say?" Mrs Dunning begins.

"I'd be surprised," Uncle Bob says. "Very surprised. I've never heard of anyone coming through that rock."

"But you _have_ heard of the binjin rock?" I ask anxiously.

"Yes, I know the binjin story, but ... okay, you'd better tell me the whole story."

We repeat what we told Mrs Dunning and Beth. Then Mrs Dunning takes out her mirror and her camera and she shows Uncle Bob how we don't show up on either. Mrs Dunning has brought the cardiac machine too, and wires me up again for Uncle Bob's benefit.

After she's finished, Uncle Bob sits in silence.

"Well I never," he says eventually, shaking his head. "Can I see your maala crystal?"

"That's the problem," Kaya says. "We've lost it. Not lost, exactly. We think the crystal got destroyed when I got shot as we came through the portal. Like an energy overload or something. We've got to find another one or we can't get back. In fact we're hoping _you've_ got one."

I hold my breath. Please let him have a crystal.

"I'm afraid not," Uncle Bob says. "To be honest I've never even seen one. All I can tell you is that according to the story the crystals come from a place called the Five Termite Sisters."

"Can you take us there?" I ask. But again Uncle Bob shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know where it is. The story says it's a mountain with five giant rock towers along a long, narrow ridge. That's as much as I know. It could be anywhere in Australia."

Uncle Bob must see the disappointment on our faces. "I wish I could be more help," he says, "but the deep binjin knowledge is long gone. We lost so much of our culture when the Europeans came."

"But you believe their story?" Mrs Dunning asks. "I mean, it's pretty incredible."

Uncle Bob considers. He seems shaken. "Well, to be honest, I always assumed the binjin story was just a fairytale. But Uncle Mick, who passed the knowledge on to me, always insisted it was true. And how would these kids even know about it? Since Uncle Mick died I'm the only person in Baytown who knows about the binjin rock. It's secret business, you see. Then there's the camera and the mirror. Binjin _are_ said to be ghost-like spirits."

Mrs Dunning scratches her head again. "So you're saying... their story could be true?"

Uncle Bob nods slowly. "Yeah, it could be."

"Wow," Beth says.

"Do you have any idea how we can find another maala crystal?" Kaya asks again. "Unless we find one, we'll die here. That's what Billy told us."

"I really wish I could help you," Uncle Bob says again. "A few years ago I looked into the binjin story a bit. I went up to the Stone Gate on the full moon. But of course the portal doesn't open unless someone's got a maala crystal nearby. I tried to find out if anyone knew about the binjin rock, like the government or the army. I searched the internet and library records but I couldn't find anything. It was the same with the Five Termite Sisters mountain. Nothing. It's probably called something different now, you see. A whitefella name."

As we walk back, Beth can hardly contain herself. "I can't believe you're from another ... reality," she says. "It's ... mindblowing."

I can understand her excitement. I mean, it's not every day you meet people from another reality. Mrs Dunning seems excited too, in a more restrained way.

I'm not sure what to feel. On the one hand, things could definitely be worse. This version of Baytown is a lot friendlier than the last one. We've found somewhere to stay, and people who might just believe our story, and someone who knows about the binjin rock. But things could definitely be better too, because none of that will matter if we can't find another maala crystal.

Actually, I feel like crying. Why can't we just be home?

"Don't give up," Beth says, sensing our mood. "We'll find your crystal. We'll search the internet."

"We usually eat in the Hub with everyone else," Mrs Dunning says. "But we can eat here tonight. We'll leave introducing you to everyone until later."

Beth goes out and comes back a few minutes later with a pot of a vegetable stew and some bread. After we've eaten Beth and her mum quiz us some more about the portal, and our world and the other Baytowns we've visited, until Mrs Dunning says it's time for bed and gets out the sleeping mats again.

Before breakfast, Uncle Bob visits and we all sit round the table and have a sort of meeting. Mrs Dunning says we can stay with her and Beth until the full moon. But we've still got to find a crystal. Uncle Bob is sure no one else in Baytown knows about the binjin business, so where do we start?

Our only hope, as far as I can see, is to search the internet, even though Uncle Bob says he's tried this himself. I guess we'll just have to look harder than he did. No one can think of any other way.

Mrs Dunning says the computers—and the kitchen and dining room and televisions and living rooms—are all in the Hub, shared by everyone. She says sharing rooms like this in the Hub means people's actual houses are smaller so they need less energy to heat and cool.

But if we're going to the Hub we'll have to explain who we are, unless we tell people the truth. And Uncle Bob doesn't want us to do that because it's secret business. Anyway, like I said, Uncle Bob is sure no one else in Baytown knows about the portal.

We decide to stick to Beth's story that we're her cousins, down from Canberra for a seaside holiday.

"You'll need to know a bit about our, erm, reality, or no one will believe you," Mrs Dunning points out. So once Uncle Bob has gone Beth and Mrs Dunning tell us about the latest pop stars and blockbuster movies and television programmes and the name of the prime minister and last year's big earthquake in Indonesia, and random stuff doing the rounds on the internet, like Octopussy the cat with six legs. (Yeah, I know, an octopus has eight legs. Whatever.)

"Let's see, what else?" Beth wonders.

"Tell them about global warming. The Green New Deal," Mrs Dunning says. "Everyone knows about that, because of all the changes. And you're studying it at school, aren't you?"

Beth nods. "Right, the Green New Deal is ..." She stops. "You do know what global warming is, don't you?" she asks.

Kaya nods. She's always keen to show what a greenie she is. "Yeah, it's when carbon dioxide molecules from burning oil and gas and coal go into the sky and trap heat, making the planet warm up, which melts the ice in Greenland and places so sea levels rise and ..."

"Okay, so you _do_ have it in your world too. Is it bad?"

"I don't know," Kaya says. "Scientists say it is but nobody's doing much about it. But it was _really_ bad in Noah and Sara's world."

"Anyway, what's this Green New Deal?" I ask. I'm impatient to get on with things so we can get over to the Hub and start searching for the crystal.

"Well, the Green New Deal is to stop global warming. It was introduced by Arnie Ness, the American president. We'd just had the seven-year drought. All the crops failed and the cattle died and millions of people starved, and there were huge bushfires everywhere. That made people take global warming seriously. Millions of people all over the world joined the Climate Action marches. Then China launched the Great Green Leap, under Chairman Lao Tzu, to switch to renewable energy within twenty years. They started building gigantic solar power stations in the Gobi desert. And in America, President Ness introduced the Green New Deal ..."

Beth goes on about how, in America, Arnie Ness also started building giant solar and wind power stations and put solar panels on every roof. How the Ocean Power Project made electricity from tides and waves.

Beth pauses. I hope she's finished but after a couple of seconds she continues.

"Ness realised we also had to use _less_ energy. So he set up the Smarter Living Project, which brought together all these top brainy scientists to work out ways to live "smarter". Ironically, most of the Smarter Living proposals were simple things, like using the internet to work from home, and smaller houses with shared living areas, and recycling waste, and cycling instead of driving, and growing our own food."

"After America, Green New Deals were introduced in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan. Pretty much everywhere, really," Mrs Dunning adds. "There were some protests at first but people gradually got used to the new ways."

"So has global warming been stopped?" Kaya asks.

"We hope so," Beth says. "Of course, there are still droughts and heatwaves, because all that extra carbon dioxide from before the changes is still up there in the atmosphere. They say planting more forests will soak it up but it could take a century or longer."

"That'll do for now," Mrs Dunning decides, to my relief. "Any tricky questions, let Beth do the talking. And remember to stay away from mirrors."

Beth takes us to the computer room in the Hub. There are about twenty people sitting at computers, working, reading, talking to people on the screen. Some kids are playing computer games. A few people look up and say hi to Beth.

Kaya logs on to the computer next to me. That way we can check twice as many sites.

I type _stone gate_ into the search box. The search produces thirty-eight million results. There are pictures of grand entrances to old mansions, and the entrance gates to medieval walled towns, and Chinese gates with dragons and roofs that curl up at the edges, and doors to stone huts in remote Himalayan villages, and so on. There are natural rock arches, too, mainly in deserts. I search for two hours but there's nothing about _our_ Stone Gate, the one up on the High Plateau.

Next I type the word _binjin_ into the search box. It brings up 385 results. I click through to each websites. There are people called Bin Jin, which seems to be a Chinese name, and a town in Nigeria. But no mention of portals and different Dreamings.

Beth watches us for a while, then goes off to help make dinner in the community kitchen.

I type in _binjin rock._

Your search has produced no results.

I try other variations. _Binjin portal. Binjin Dreaming. Binjin gateway._

Nothing.

Kaya's been searching for _maala,_ but she can't find anything either. Just a town in Algeria and people in places like India and North Africa.

I try a different approach.

Gateway to alternative reality.

Half a million results. I scroll through the first few pages. It's all hippie stuff. Meditation, yoga, strange plants with names like ayuahuasca and peyote, mind-expanding this and that. I keep searching. Websites about aliens.

"Found anything?" Kaya asks.

"No. Nothing that even looks close. How about you?"

"Nothing."

I watch her search. She types _Aboriginal Dreaming gateway_. Ninety thousand results. There's a concrete arch in Alice Springs called the Dreaming Gateway, painted with Aboriginal designs. Other websites are for tour companies specialising in Aboriginal culture. _Dreaming Tours_ and the like.

I lean back and close my eyes. We've been searching for hours and we've found nothing.

"Hey, Jack, Kaya."

I start. I've been so absorbed in our search I didn't even notice Beth come back.

"You guys look exhausted. Why don't you get some sleep? You can try again tomorrow."

There's no electricity this morning. There won't be any all day, according to Mrs Dunning. She says they're upgrading the storage batteries for the solar panels. No electricity means no internet. No internet means we can't search for the maala crystal.

We can't afford the delay but there's nothing we can do about it.

Beth suggests we kill time by coming to school with her. Kaya is happy to go. It's either that or sit here doing nothing, she says. Beth arranges for us to borrow a couple of bikes and we cycle past small shops and people jogging and working in the vegetable gardens. We meet a bunch of Beth's friends and cycle together.

Beth's school is our school. I mean, it's the same building, apart from the solar panels on the roof, and the same name. Baytown High School. One of the teachers is familiar, too, an old maths teacher called Mr Anderson. He's thinner than the Mr Anderson in our world but I'm sure it's him. He even wears a bow tie, like the Mr Anderson we know. He doesn't recognise us, though, because he stops and asks Beth who we are. "Enjoy your stay in Baytown," he says.

Beth's classmates don't seem surprised to see us. One girl says she's never heard Beth mention her cousins before, but that's all. Beth has fun making up details of our imaginary lives in Canberra, and Kaya plays along too, but all I can think about is getting back onto the internet so we can keep looking for the crystal.

In the morning we do maths and chemistry. The classes take place outside in the shade of some trees. But two plus two still equals four and maths is still boring.

The afternoon is better because there's a class called Natural Healing, which is stuff like first aid and massage, and a girl called Ruth has to practise massage on me. She's got soft hands and beautiful brown eyes. It beats maths.

The final class is called Local Living. It's part of a study unit about the Smarter Living Project. The teacher talks about how, instead of driving for hours to and from work, most people now work in their local neighbourhood. He says the government has put in high-speed internet so people can work and shop from home, and has reintroduced local services such as milkmen and corner shops. All this means people don't have to travel so much, which he says is good because cars use petrol, which gives off carbon dioxide, which causes global warming. For the same reason everyone now grows more of their own food, which means fewer delivery trucks on the roads.

The class discusses other benefits of Local Living. One boy says it's good because you spend less time travelling to work or school or the shops, so you get more time to hang out with your friends, or play football, or be in rock bands. A girl says you get to know your neighbours better, so everyone is friendlier and there's less crime.

When we get home the computers are still out of action so we help Beth do her shift in the community garden, digging up potatoes. Then we do a shift in the kitchens, making a salad for dinner.

"It's a pain, I know," Beth says. "But everyone has to work in the gardens. Guests included. But you only do one shift a week. Cooking too. The rest of the time you just turn up and eat. Dad normally does all the cooking shifts for our family. I'm only doing it while he's away."

"I thought your dad was ..." Kaya begins.

"What ... dead?" Beth laughs. "No, he's in Africa for six months, training villagers in permaculture. That's part of the Green New Deal too. Sharing skills and technology with poorer countries."

We spend another couple of hours weeding and watering and feeding the chickens.

When we've finished, we go to the Hub to eat. The power is still out so everyone eats by candlelight. No one seems to doubt we're Beth's cousins. When anyone asks me anything about Canberra, I nod or smile and Beth jumps in and answers the question. Beth is like Kaya, never lost for words. Girls are just better at talking, I guess.

We get an early night.

The power is back this morning and the computers are working again, and Beth takes the day off school to help us search.

"Why don't you try some forums?" she suggests. "You know, people discussing weird unexplained stuff."

She leans over and types in forums: _unexplained mysteries_. Ten thousand results. That's ten thousand different discussion groups, each with potentially hundreds or thousands of topic threads. I try the first one, called _Unexplained Forum_. There are discussion threads about aliens and ancient prophecies and so on. I try a few different forums. More of the same.

"This is hopeless. It will take months to read through all these forums. And we haven't got months. It could take all night just to look through all the topics on this first one alone."

"Why not try leaving questions instead?" Kaya says. "Ask if anyone knows about the binjin rock."

I nod. That's not a bad idea. "But which forums ... there are so many."

"Let's just try as many as possible. Start from the top. The search results normally put the most popular sites first. Most sites will send you an alert if you get a reply," Beth says. "We can take it in turns."

She leans over and types: _I'm seeking information about the binjin rock and/or maala crystal. Very urgent. Please email me immediately; bethc@baytowncommunity.net_

She submits the message to the forum, then copies the message, returns to the search results and copies the same question to the next forum.

"Let's see. I reckon we can do about three a minute ... that's, erm, a hundred and eighty an hour. So in four hours you can do seven hundred forums," she says. "There are three of us, so that's about two thousand forums. Then we wait to see if we get any replies."

We take a computer each and cut and paste the question into forum after forum. It's mind-numbingly boring but we're not doing it for fun. Well, Beth might be, but for Kaya and me it's a matter of life and death.

We keep going until we can barely keep our eyes open.

This morning Kaya collapses. She's walking out of the bathroom when her eyes glaze over and she crashes to the ground. She's lucky she doesn't hit her head on anything as she falls. For a moment she's out cold. Then she opens her eyes and sits up. She still looks groggy. Mrs Dunning feels her forehead and shines a torch into her eyes and takes her pulse and asks her what her name is and how many fingers she's holding up. Kaya can answer the questions but she's slurring her words, like she's still in a daze.

Mrs Dunning looks puzzled. "I can't find anything wrong. But I think we should take her to the doctor."

Mrs Dunning drives us to the doctor's surgery in the police car. She asks if I can come in too, to answer questions, because Kaya still seems in a daze.

The doctor, a young Chinese woman called Dr Li, repeats Mrs Dunning's tests. She takes Kaya's pulse and shines a torch in her eyes and looks at her tongue and taps her chest. She straps one of those armband things that you pump up onto Kaya's arm and takes her blood pressure. I see Dr Li look at the monitor and scratch her head. She adjusts the armband and tries again. Again she looks puzzled. Then she puts a thermometer under Kaya's tongue and takes her temperature. She takes the thermometer out and stares at the little electronic display on the side. Then she puts a needle in Kaya's arm and takes some blood. She clips the vial of blood into some sort of machine, and looks at the screen. Her eyes open wide.

"Can I talk to you in private?" she asks Mrs Dunning.

"It's okay, you can talk in front of everyone," Mrs Dunning says. "They know."

Dr Li looks at us uncertainly. "Well, if you're sure ... the thing is, it makes no sense, but nothing is working. And her blood ..." She lowers her voice. "The computer can't identify her blood group. And the thermometer isn't working either. Nor is the blood pressure gauge. But there's nothing wrong with the equipment. They've been working fine all morning. I don't understand it."

"Now listen Suzie," Mrs Dunning says to the doctor, "it's important that you don't tell anyone else about this. It's police business. I can't tell you more right now, but there's a perfectly good explanation. But using your judgement as a doctor, without the equipment, how does she seem to you?"

Dr Li thinks for a moment. "Well, she's clearly weak, but I can't find anything specific wrong with her. She doesn't feel like she's got a temperature and her pulse feels normal. Her eyes and tongue look okay. I'd like to do more tests."

Mrs Dunning says that isn't necessary. Dr Li looks unsure but lets us go.

"So there's a perfectly good explanation, is there?" Beth says to her mum as we drive home.

Mrs Dunning grins. "Yeah, she's from a parallel universe. Didn't you know?"

Kaya seems to have recovered, so we go across to the Hub again. We find a couple of spare computers and resume our search for the crystal. Beth and Kaya use one computer and I take the other.

I visit more forums and chat groups full of unexplained mysteries: aliens, ancient Egyptians, UFOs, yetis, dinosaurs surviving in remote jungles, famous people who faked their deaths.

None of them mentions the portal.

It's the same for Kaya and Beth. They can't find anyone who sounds like they know about the portal.

It's getting late. I sit back for a moment and try to think. What are we missing? The only person we've found so far who's heard of the portal is Uncle Bob.

Uncle Bob. That's it! We've been looking in the wrong place.

I try again.

forums: Aboriginal mythology

There are only a handful of forums this time. This time there's no wacky stuff about aliens. Instead, the chat threads have serious titles like Concepts of Time in the _Aboriginal Dreaming or Mythology as Geography; Singing the Land._

I post my question about the binjin rock, then spend some time browsing the forums. It's academic stuff, full of university students and professors. I notice one name keeps appearing over and over. Dr William Collins. Everyone keeps quoting him and referring to him like he's the big expert. It's all Dr Collins says this and Dr Collins writes that. I click on his online profile.

Dr William Collins, Professor of Ecological Anthropology, Canberra University. Author of Aboriginal Mythology: A guide to Aboriginal traditional stories.

A quote from a review calls the book "the essential reference work for students of Aboriginal culture". I've no idea what Ecological Anthropology is, but if anyone will know about the binjin story, Dr Collins sounds like the man. His email address is listed at the bottom of his profile.

I open a new email message and write:

Dear Dr Collins,

Have you heard of the binjin rock or the maala crystal? If so, please, please reply to this email asap. It's very urgent. I will explain more when you contact me. Yours, Jack Johnson.

It's after midnight so we call it a day. We walk back through the gardens to Beth's house.

"What if Uncle Bob is the only person in the world who knows about the binjin business?" I say. It's hard to stay positive when you're tired. "After all, Billy said the binjin knowledge has been lost completely in our world. And even if we find someone who knows about it, they probably won't have a crystal."

"We're not giving up yet," Kaya says. "We'll keep trying in the morning."

The first thing I do after I wake up is run over to the Hub and check the email. But there's no reply from Dr Collins. There's also no school today so Beth suggests we take a short break from our search and go for a swim. "It'll freshen you up, help you think better," she says.

We borrow some bikes and ride down to the beach. The water's cool and the refugee ships from Sara and Noah's world are gone. We bump into some of Beth's school friends, including Ruth, the girl who gave me a massage at school. She looks sexy in her swimmers and when she smiles at me I feel myself blushing and stumbling over my words.

We get an ice-cream from a cafe behind the beach before cycling home. Beth and Kaya tease me about fancying Ruth.

"Little Jack's got a crush," Kaya sings in an annoying voice.

"No I haven't ... well, okay, maybe, but we can't afford to get distracted. We've got to find the crystal, remember?" (Which is true.)

Kaya snorts. "Yeah, right, as if you could chat her up anyway. You couldn't even say hello to her properly." (Which is equally true.)

We cycle past some workmen who seem to be pulling a house apart. To change the subject (before Kaya can start telling Beth what a no-hoper I am with girls) I ask Beth what they're doing. Beth says they're DeCons, short for Deconstruction workers. They take old houses apart brick by brick so everything can be recycled. "Large houses need too much energy to heat and cool, so they're being replaced with smaller homes like the one we live in," Beth explains. She says the new houses have better insulation, too, and solar panels, and lots of other ways to save energy.

"Then you've got Roadies. Road Deconstruction gangs. They turn roads into gardens and parks and so on," Beth says. "A lot of the guys who lost their jobs when the Gosport car factory shut down now work in the DeCon gangs."

"It's amazing ... all these changes have happened in, what, ten years," Kaya says.

Beth nods. "Isn't it. People said it was impossible. But President Ness said Britain and America changed even faster to win the World War Two. He said if they could do it, so could we. And we have."

(Beth loves President Ness.)

There are lots of small differences between this world and ours. There are the new houses, and solar panels everywhere, and wind turbines on the clifftops, and all the veggie gardens, and cyclists everywhere, and the fact Baytown is now three villages with farms in between.

There are things I didn't notice at first, too. Like how without cars it's more peaceful but at the same time there seem to be more people around, walking and cycling and stopping to chat. And there's no litter, because when you buy food from the store you bring your own containers and fill them up, so there's hardly any plastic bags or packaging, and people grow their own food anyway so there's less canned food, and the few cans and bottles are recycled. There are drinking fountains everywhere, but no bottled water or fizzy drinks. And anything that's old or broken is collected to be repaired or taken apart so the bits can be reused. Beth says any leftover food is made into compost to fertilise the veggie gardens.

Talking of food, it turns out we've been eating bread made from ground-up insects and jellyfish spaghetti and seaweed. Beth says before the Green New Deal they were using up all the fish in the ocean, and cutting down all the forests to make room for cattle. (Beth says you need forests because trees absorb the carbon dioxide that causes global warming.) So the Smarter Living Project came up with all these new foods.

The insect bread is sort of nutty and quite tasty if you don't think about it too much.

Oh, and the toilets don't flush. You think they'd smell but they don't. Beth says the poo is dried and used to fertilise the gardens.

When we get back to Beth's house we go straight to the Hub. A few people glance up and say hi as we sit down. I boot up a free computer. Beth looks at the screen.

"Jack, look, you've got a message. From Dr Collins."

I open the email. I'm shaking. It's like opening exam results. Except this is much more important. The email consists of two lines.

Yes I've heard of the binjin story. An intriguing story. Unusual. How do you know about it? What do you want to know? Yours, Collins.

Yes! As soon as I see that first word my heart starts racing. I read the message about ten times just to be sure. Finally, we've found someone who knows about the portal!

Beth points to the icon at the foot of his message, indicating his current status.

"Hey, he's online. We can do a video linkup."

"Except we don't show up on camera, remember," Kaya points out.

"Oh. Well, we can phone him then."

"I'm pretty sure we'll have the same problem with phones," Kaya says. "I guess we'd better just email him."

"You could use LiveChat," Beth suggests.

I type a message into the LiveChat box at the bottom of the screen.

Hi, my name is Jack. Thanks for replying to my email ...

I decide to plunge straight in, like we did with Uncle Bob. Let's find out what this Dr Collins knows. So I write: _This may sound crazy but we have come through the binjin gateway from another Dreaming. We are binjin spirits. We need help to return to our own Dreaming. But we have lost our maala crystal. We need help to find another._

I send the message. The three of us stare at the blinking cursor at the foot of the screen.

Blink, blink, blink.

I hold my breath. Nothing. I glance at Dr Collins' status. He's still online. So why doesn't he answer?

After what seems like forever, a reply flashes onto the screen.

Hi Jack, the binjin story is just that—a story. People can't really travel to different realities. It's not real. Is it???? Yours, Collins.

My heart sinks. Dr Collins doesn't know about the portal. I type back.

Hi Dr Collins, YES!!! The binjin portal IS REAL!!!!!!! People CAN go through it. We HAVE!!!!! Now we need help or we will DIE. How much do you know about the binjin story? Yours Jack.

On second thoughts I go back and remove some of the capital letters and exclamation marks. I send the message. A reply comes instantly this time.

Hi Jack, you can call me Doc. Shall we talk on a video linkup? Collins.

Hi Doc, binjin spirits do not show up on cameras, mirrors, etc. We ARE here but won't appear on video. Jack.

Hi Jack, if this is a joke and you are wasting my time I shall be v.annoyed. I'm a busy man. However, if you're telling the truth it would be extraordinary. I don't know how to find a maala crystal but I do have some contacts. Maybe we can do some detective work. Where are you? How many of you are there? Can you come to me in Canberra? Collins.

Can we get to Canberra? I look at Beth. She nods. "You take the East Coast Bullet Train. You'll be in Canberra in a couple of hours." She opens another window on the computer and calls up the train timetables. "You're too late today, but there's a train at 8.15 tomorrow morning."

Hi Doc, I promise it's no joke. I'm with my sister Kaya. We are in Baytown. We can come to Canberra tomorrow. Jack.

Hi Jack. Good, get the tram from the station to the university. Ask for me at reception. I have to teach but we can talk after my lectures. Collins.

We turn off the computers and go back to Beth's house. I'm both excited and a little deflated. On the one hand, we've finally found someone who might know something. But Dr Collins doesn't know where to find a crystal. And time is running out. Still, right now Dr Collins is our best hope. Our only hope.

"We don't have money for train tickets," Kaya points out as we walk into the house.

Mrs Dunning looks up from the book she's reading. "And why would you need train tickets?" she asks.

"Jack's found someone in Canberra who knows about the portal," Beth says. "He's a professor at Canberra University. And he's invited them to go to meet him. Can I go with them, Mum? Please. I can help look after them."

Mrs Dunning laughs. "I suppose so. I'd come too if I wasn't on duty." She turns to us. "You don't have to worry about train tickets, you know. Trains are free nowadays. And trams and buses. But I'd better give you some money for food and a hotel."

We catch the 8.15am train from Baytown to Sydney. It's just an old suburban train, but we change trains in Sydney and the bullet train to Canberra is a much sleeker affair. It's pointed at the front like the tip of a plane, and it pulls out of the station smoothly and silently. We glide slowly past a couple of inner-city stops before picking up speed. Suddenly the countryside is flying past the window.

"How fast are we going?" I ask.

"About three hundred kilometres an hour," Beth says. "This is nothing. There's one in China that goes twice as fast."

I watch the fields and forests and small towns flash by. We pass hills covered with more wind turbines. In what seems like no time, we're pulling in to Canberra.

We get on a tram from the station to the university. Canberra is much bigger than Baytown, with tall apartment buildings and office blocks near the station. But once we leave the town centre it becomes like Baytown, with vegetable gardens and parks where roads used to be, and lots of cyclists instead of cars.

The tram driver tells us when we reach the university, and at the front desk a receptionist directs us to a building signposted Ecology Centre. Inside, we follow her directions through corridors until we reach a door marked _Dr Collins: Ecological Anthropology_. Beth knocks.

We hear someone say "come in," and we open the door and walk into what seems to be an empty room. For a second I'm confused, until I notice the man on the ceiling, clinging to some brightly coloured lumps of plastic like Spider-Man. There are more plastic lumps fixed to two of the office walls.

The man swings his legs down until he's hanging by his fingertips, then lets himself drop the last metre or so to the ground. He looks about forty or so. He's tall and thin, with short red hair. "Do you like my climbing wall?" he asks. "Took months to get the university to approve it. But it keeps me fit—and takes my mind off all those darned essays I've got to mark."

"Dr Collins?" I ask.

"That's what it says on the door. But like I said, call me Doc," Dr Collins says. "Everyone else does. Actually the students call me Doc Rock. Because of the rock climbing, you see. And you must be our mysterious binjin visitors."

We introduce ourselves and Dr Collins points to a sofa, up against one of the two walls without the plastic lumps. "Have a seat," he says.

"By the way, what's Ecological Anthropology?" Kaya asks.

"Ah, well ... it's the study of how societies and cultures are shaped by their environments. I specialise in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. You see, many Dreamtime stories describe how animals behave, what food grows where, where to find water and so on. There's sixty thousand years of priceless environmental knowledge in those stories. But anyway, let's get down to business, shall we?"

Dr Collins takes a small mirror out of his drawer and angles it towards us. He raises his eyebrows.

"I'll be darned ..." he scratches his head. "Your mum, Beth, sent me some information about Jack and Kaya this morning. Including Kaya's medical tests. It's rather mindboggling, isn't it? If you really have come from another dimension this isn't just an Aboriginal story. Why, it changes our whole picture of the universe. Multiple dimensions! Gosh!"

He walks over to a small fridge in the corner of the room. "Would you like a drink? Assuming binjin spirits can drink, that is. Then you'd better tell me everything."

Dr Collins pours us some juice and we tell him the whole story: how we stumbled across the portal, about meeting Billy and the Dunjini, about Noah and Sara's world. We tell him what Uncle Bob said, that the crystal comes from a mountain called Five Termite Sisters. And we tell him how we must find a new maala crystal quickly. It's already two weeks since we came through the portal; we only have another fortnight to find the crystal.

Dr Collins listens with interest, especially the part about the Dunjini and Billy. When we've finished he leans forward on his desk, presses his fingers together and peers at us.

"I assume, of course, you'll recognise a maala crystal if you see one?" he asks.

Kaya nods.

"Good, then I think a call to Dr Palmer is in order," Dr Collins says.

He picks up the phone: "Hi Ian ... yes, I'm well, thank you ... no, probably not this weekend ... I'm calling about something different ... yes, I'm looking to identify a stone ... yes, very rare ... connected to an Aboriginal story I'm researching ... that would be super ... okay, see you soon ... "

Dr Collins scribbles some numbers on his notepad, ends the call and goes to his computer. "Dr Palmer is head of the geology department. He also happens to be my climbing buddy. We pioneered a grade 31 route together at Mt Roberts last year. Showed those youngsters a thing or two. Anyway, he's given me his password to get into the university minerals catalogue. The database gives us access to all the universities in the country. If your maala crystal is in any collection, we should find it."

Dr Collins enters the password and selects a catalogue called Rare Stones, then begins scrolling down the page, past endless photographs of different stones.

"Stop me if you see your maala crystal," he says. "Of course it would be quicker if we knew what your stone was called in English. Or Latin. I'm afraid science doesn't use Aboriginal words like binjin or maala."

Dr Collins scrolls on. There are hundreds of pictures; rocks and gems and crystals of every shape and colour: smooth like beads, or jagged and sharp, or dull black lumps. There are yellows and greens and blacks and reds. There are clear crystals like cut glass. But nothing looks like the maala crystal. Dr Collins reaches the end of the university's own collection and moves on to collections from other universities. But still nothing looks like the maala crystal.

He reaches the last collection, from the University of Western Australia.

"That's it!" Kaya cries.

There's no doubt. The crystal in the picture is the same as Kaya's. A maala crystal.

There are some notes below the picture.

Rainbow opal crystal. V. rare. Photograph 1964. Source: unknown, probably Kimberley region of northwest Australia. Cultural note: Prized as a magic power stone by the Pinjat people of the northwestern ranges. Believed to have been used in Aboriginal ceremonies. No known specimens.

"No known specimens," I whisper. My heart sinks.

"That doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all," Dr Collins says. "Just that there are none of these stones in any of the university collections."

"Oh," Kaya says. We're back to square one, no nearer finding a maala crystal.

"The cultural note is interesting, though," Dr Collins continues. "Prized by the Pinjat people."

The Pinjat, Dr Collins explains, live in a remote region in northwest Australia. They still live on their traditional land, where their ancestors lived for thousands of years. It's now part of the vast West Australian Sanctuary wilderness zone, which covers the western half of Australia.

"I spent some time up there a few years ago, helping them recover their stories. That's one of the things our department does—help Aboriginal communities to piece together traditional knowledge that was lost when white people came. Repairing the knowledge chain, we call it.

"Now I think about it, that's where I heard the binjin story. If we ask the elders up there, one of them might have a maala crystal. Or at least know where they come from. I'll give Elvis a call."

"Elvis?" I say. "Don't tell me, in your world he's alive and living on the moon."

"Hmm, you've lost me there. Elvis is a former student of mine, a young Pinjat lad. He came down here to study for three years. Now he works back up in the community."

Dr Collins dials a number. He spends some time asking after the health of a long list of people, and whether they're now married, or have more children, or have grown up, since he was there last. Finally he gets round to the reason for his call.

"Anyway, Elvis, I'm looking for some information about a story called binjin. Someone told me about it when I was there, but I can't remember who. Probably one of the old fellas. There's a type of stone associated with the story ... a type of crystal, very pretty, reflects the light in a strange way."

Dr Collins flicks the phone to loudspeaker so we can all hear the person at the other end.

"Binjin?" The voice is that of a youngish man. The line crackles so we have to listen closely to hear him. "Sorry Doc, doesn't ring any bells."

"Oh ... well, we believe the stone comes from a place called Five Termite Sisters. We don't know where that is but we're hoping it might be up your way."

"Sorry Doc, I don't know no Five Termite Sisters either. But I can ask around for you. Is it urgent?"

"Actually it is. I ... erm, I can't explain why right now, but it is. Very urgent."

"Okay, I'll ask the old mob. Everyone's out right now, though, hunting ducks. Can you give me a few hours? I'll call you back at six o'clock."

"Thanks Elvis," Dr Collins says. He ends the call. He sees our anxious looks. "Don't give up yet. One of the old men might know about it."

While we wait for Elvis to call back Dr Collins takes us to the university office, where he organises a room for us for the night. Then he takes us to dinner in the university canteen, bustling with students.

"I'd like to get someone to run some tests on you, if we get time," Dr Collins says. "You do realise you're scientific marvels, don't you?"

Kaya tells him how both Billy and Uncle Bob said binjin was secret business. For a while we discuss it. Kaya thinks we should keep the whole alternative reality thing secret. Dr Collins shakes his head slowly and chuckles.

"You mean, the greatest discovery in scientific history and I'm not allowed to tell anyone about it?"

We finish our meals and go back to Dr Collins' office to wait. At six o'clock precisely, Elvis rings. Dr Collins puts him on speaker phone again.

"Sorry Doc, I can't find anyone who's heard about any binjin story. But I might have something about the Five Termite Sisters. Auntie Julie says that's one of Uncle Percy's places. Its whitefella name is Mt Albert. It's about a day's walk from here."

"That's great, Elvis. Can I speak to Uncle Percy?"

"Not on the phone, Doc. He lives out in the bush. Traditional fella, gone back to the old ways. He won't even come into the Centre when he's sick. Cranky old bugger too. You'd like him though. He knows all the old stories, all the bush medicine, all that stuff."

"Yes, I remember Uncle Percy from my field trips," Dr Collins says.

"Yeah, well, if you want to talk to him you'll have to come up here and walk out to him."

"Thanks Elvis. We might do just that."

Dr Collins hangs up and turns to us. "Looks like we're going on a little trip. We'll need to get the train to Sanctuary. That's the headquarters for the wilderness sanctuary. From there we can fly to Pinjat. It's pretty remote, takes a week to drive there, but there's a daily flight that does the rounds of the communities up there. Now, let me see ..." Dr Collins looks up something on his computer. "We can go tomorrow. The train leaves at lunchtime. We'll need to go into town in the morning to buy supplies. I'll get Dr Singh to take my classes. She can cover for me next week too, if I'm not back by Monday."

Dr Collins spends the next half-hour making phone calls. Finally, he sits back and puffs out his cheeks.

"Everything organised," he says.

In the morning we walk into town with the Doc to buy supplies for our trip. The town centre bustles with shoppers and cyclists and people drinking coffee and chatting in pavement cafes. In the food store we buy flour plus dried fruit, strips of dried meat, nuts, biscuits, chocolate, instant noodles and so on. Good backpacking foods, Dr Collins says, light to carry but high in energy.

When we've finished shopping Dr Collins suggests we visit the Canberra Treaty Centre.

"We've got a couple of hours to kill," he says. And you can't come to Canberra and not visit the Centre. I mean, the treaty is what Canberra is famous for."

The Centre is a modern building, like a museum or art gallery, with glass walls looking out onto the lake and a high white ceiling. It was here, Dr Collins explains, that world leaders met to sign the Canberra Treaty on Climate Change. Dr Collins says the treaty was a turning point in history—the moment when the planet was saved.

Display boards outline the key features of the Treaty. Led by Chairman Lao Tzu of China and America's President Ness, all countries agreed to stop using fossil fuels within twenty years. The Treaty also set up the Global Clean Energy Fund to pay for solar power stations and wind farms; and the Smaller Families Program to reduce the world's population; and the Wilderness Pact to create great wild regions where nature could thrive away from people.

"I remember when they announced the details of the treaty," Dr Collins says. "It was the only thing anyone could talk about. All around the world, crowds danced in the streets like they'd won the World Cup.

"But other people said it was a terrible mistake. They said it would lead to chaos. You see, everyone knew it wouldn't be easy to change. We were addicted to energy, to using fossil fuels. But that—burning oil, gas, coal—was exactly what was causing global warming. So everything had to change. And it certainly wasn't easy. There was chaos. Oil companies went out of business, which sent the stock markets into a panic. The car industry collapsed too. People lost their jobs. We all had to learn new skills. Without cheap power from oil and gas and coal everything cost more to make, so the price of everything went through the roof. People hated giving up their cars and their plane trips overseas. There were riots and protests.

"But President Ness and Chairman Lao Tzu inspired people to stick with it and not give up. President Ness said we must either change now or have much worse changes forced on us ... Kaya, are you all right?"

Dr Collins stops talking and looks with concern at Kaya. The colour has drained from her face. She sways unsteadily. Dr Collins is first to react. He lunges forward to catch her. But he's too late. Kaya's eyes roll back in her head. Her knees buckle and she slumps to the floor.

"Kaya!" I shout. I drop to my knees beside her. Dr Collins is quickly beside me, and Beth too. Other visitors to the Centre have stopped to see what's going on. A woman in uniform squeezes through the crowd. Dr Collins feels Kaya's wrist.

"Pulse a bit slow but steady," he notes. "Breathing okay. Can you hear me Kaya?"

Kaya opens her eyes and gazes up in confusion at the faces looking down at her. Slowly, she sits up.

"You fainted," Dr Collins explains. The uniformed woman asks her a few questions and takes her pulse and pronounces her okay. "Just sit down on the chair and rest for a while, love," she advises. We help Kaya to the chair and the woman goes away and reappears a moment later with a glass of water. The crowd of onlookers drift away, back to their tours of the Centre.

Kaya runs her fingers through her hair and rubs her eyes. She says she feels better. But when she tries to walk her legs wobble so Dr Collins flags down a rickshaw to take us back to the university.

Kaya insists she's fine, but we all know she isn't. This was her worst turn yet.

Her energy is fading.

There's one week until the full moon.

Kaya is feeling a little better by the time we catch the tram to the station. The train to Sanctuary is another bullet train but even at three hundred kilometres an hour it still takes half the day. At each small country town passengers get on and off and parcels are loaded and unloaded. In between towns we pass wide plains of wheat dotted with scattered trees. Kaya dozes while Dr Collins gives us a running commentary on everything.

Beyond the wheat plains we speed through a vast forest of low trees.

"This used to be wheat too," Dr Collins says. "But the soil this far inland is too poor for farming so they replanted the original mallee forests instead. They're used for fuel."

We leave the mallee forest and cross a wide plain of dry red earth and yellow grass and tough green bushes, beneath a cloudless blue sky.

At one point we pass row upon row of giant curved mirrors sparkling in the sun.

"Ah, look," Dr Collins says. "SunPower One. Or Two. Whichever it is. It's one of the big solar power stations."

The man sitting in the next seat looks up. "It's SunPower One," he says. "I should know. I helped build the place. Worked there for five years."

"It's so big," Beth says. "It goes on forever."

"It was a sensation when it opened," the man continues. "Back then it was the largest solar power station in the world. Of course there are bigger ones now, like Desertec in the Sahara or Southwest Solar in America or China's Gobi Desert Sun Project."

He points out of the window. "But ours was first," he says proudly.

The train glides on across the red-soil plain. The sun is low in the sky when we go through a set of giant gates. A high wire fence stretches into the distance on either side of the railway.

"We're almost there now," Dr Collins says. "Everything west of here is the West Australian Wilderness Sanctuary."

With daylight fading, the train pulls into Sanctuary Township.

Sanctuary Township is no more than a half-dozen dirt streets, made of the same sandy orange earth as the surrounding countryside. A solitary tall building looms over a handful of small stores and cafes, a couple of adventure tourism companies and some small buildings with hotel signs outside them.

"Hey Doc, where does everyone live?" Kaya asks.

"Underground," Dr Collins says. We walk to the large building. "Okay, here we are. The park office. Amazing, isn't it? From this one building they manage the whole West Australian Wilderness Sanctuary, which I believe is the size of Western Europe."

Inside, there are display boards about the Sanctuary. We read them while we wait for Dr Collins to collect our wilderness permits. One board says the West Australian Sanctuary is a vast region of forests, deserts, tropical grasslands, swamps and wild empty coastlines. A map shows all the sanctuaries around the world: the Amazon, the Rockies, Siberia and others. Another display board says the sanctuaries are all part of the Global Re-Wilding Scheme, a plan to let large chunks of the planet "go wild" again so nature can flourish. A third board explains how more forests, like the mallee trees we passed earlier, help reverse global warming by soaking up carbon dioxide.

Kaya is fascinated by it all.

Dr Collins returns with the permits and we head off to find our hotel for the night.

"Do people still live in the sanctuaries?" Kaya asks Dr Collins.

"Some. There are tourist lodges and a few wilderness communes and a scattering of loners. But they have to follow the wilderness rules. No electricity, no engines and so on. Except for the daily supply plane—that's what we're catching, by the way. And of course tribal groups can stay on their traditional land."

Our hotel is no bigger than a small shop and I wonder where the bedrooms are, until the receptionist opens the door behind her to reveal a flight of steps.

"You'll be cool down here," she says, leading us down the stairs into a long underground corridor. "In summer you can fry eggs on the ground up there but down here under the ground the temperature hardly changes." She unlocks one of the doors that line the corridor. Inside, a room has been dug out of the earth, with four beds. A skylight in the ceiling lets in light.

The rough rock walls and lack of windows makes me want to run back upstairs. I don't like being shut in like this. I mean, I _really_ don't like it. Claustrophobia, they call it. And I definitely don't like being underground. Caves make me think of being buried alive. I'm glad when Dr Collins says we need to go out again, to organise our flight to Pinjat.

The airstrip is five minutes away on the edge of the town. We sit on a bench while Dr Collins goes into the office to book our seats. Kaya looks pale, like she did in Canberra at the Treaty Centre.

Suddenly she's got that distant look in her eyes and I know she's going to collapse again.

Beth sees it too. "We'd better get her back to the hotel," she says. But before either of us can catch Kaya her eyes glaze over, her head lolls to the side and she rolls off the bench. She lands in a puff of red dust.

Dr Collins comes running out of the airline office. He must have seen her through the window. Beth is already kneeling beside Kaya, feeling her pulse.

"Kaya, can you hear me?" Dr Collins asks. No response. "Pulse is weak, breathing is shallow," he says. He tells me to lift her legs up. "It will get more blood flowing to her heart," he explains. He takes her pulse again, then bends his head close to her face.

"Damn," he mutters. "She's stopped breathing. I'm going to do compressions. Beth, can you do the breaths?" Beth nods. With his arms locked straight, Dr Collins starts pumping the palm of his hands down on Kaya's chest. Pumping fast, counting ... he gets to thirty and stops and Beth leans down and pinches Kaya's nose and blows sharply into her mouth. Three quick breaths. Then Dr Collins pumps and counts again, and Beth blows into her mouth again.

Dr Collins leans forward and checks her breathing.

"Still nothing. Let's go again." He pumps her chest again.

All I can do is pray. _Come back to us, Kaya_.

She does. She splutters and her eyes jolt open and she gasps for breath. We all let out a long sigh of relief.

Kaya looks confused. "What are you lot looking so happy about?" she asks.

"You collapsed again," I say. "Only this time you stopped breathing. Dr Collins and Beth just saved your life."

Kaya smiles. "Thanks, guys," she whispers. She tries to sit up. "Ouch, my chest hurts."

"Yes, sorry about that," Dr Collins says. "It'll be bruised, for sure. You might even have a broken rib."

We let Kaya sit in the dirt for a while. The man from the airport desk comes out and talks to Dr Collins, then goes off to phone a doctor. Slowly, we help Kaya to her feet. With me on one side and Beth on the other, we half-walk and half-carry her back to the hotel and lay her down on her bed. Dr Collins goes to reception and returns with the doctor, who feels her forehead and listens to her chest with his stethoscope and shines lights into her eyes and her mouth. He presses gently on her chest and she winces.

"Her pulse is a bit slow," the doctor says. "I don't think her ribs are broken but you should get an X-ray. But I can't find anything wrong with her. She hasn't got a fever. No sign of bites or rashes."

The doctor offers to arrange the X-ray but Dr Collins makes an excuse, saying we're flying out first thing in the morning and we'll get it done at home, and the doctor leaves.

"She should rest," he says as he goes. "Call me immediately if her condition gets worse during the night."

Once the doctor is gone we discuss what to do. Elvis said the Five Termite Sisters mountain was a day's walk from Pinjat. It's clear Kaya can't do that.

"You'd better stay here and rest while we look for the crystal," Dr Collins says.

"But ... I've got to come with you," Kaya protests. "To identify the crystal."

"Come on Kaya, I know what the crystal looks like," I say. "It's kind of distinctive, after all. If you collapse out there, you'll slow us down. We can't risk it. We don't have much time. And we don't want you to ..."

"What, die?" Kaya says.

"Well, yes. You remember what Billy said; that women lose their life force more quickly outside their own world."

Kaya looks from me to Dr Collins, who nods.

Kaya sighs. "I suppose so. I was kind of ... looking forward to it, I guess."

"I know," I say. "And I wish I was the one staying here. You're the great Wolf Meares explorer. We both know you'd be more use out there than me."

"Jack's right," Dr Collins says. "Beth can stay here and look after you while Jack and I go to Pinjat."

Now it's Beth's turn to look disappointed. But we don't have a choice.

"Sure, Doc, I'll take good care of her," she promises.

Kaya seems much better this morning, apart from her sore ribs, but there's still no question of her coming with us. She could collapse at any time and I get the feeling we're going to be a long way from help. So Dr Collins and I leave Beth and Kaya in the hotel and walk over to the airstrip.

Dr Collins says small planes take passengers and supplies to a handful of wilderness communities deep in the Sanctuary. Each region is serviced by one round trip a day, stopping at these settlements on request. Dr Collins has booked us on the plane to the northwest region, which includes Pinjat.

There's no check-in or anything. We just hand our tickets to the man at the desk and get on the plane, along with a dozen or so other passengers, and we're off. From the air we can see the patterns of the land below—a vast red-brown emptiness dotted with green bushes. We cross large patches of white, which Dr Collins says are salt lakes, and the snaking tracks of dry brown river beds that the Doc says fill with water only in the wet season. We fly over a vast herd of camels on the run. For hours, there are no roads or buildings. I notice frequent columns of smoke.

"Are those bushfires?" I ask.

"Burning off," Dr Collins says. "Small controlled fires. Aboriginal people have always done it, to stop the build-up of fuel so you don't get big bushfires."

The plane stops four times before Pinjat, on bumpy dirt airstrips with small clusters of buildings beside them. At each stop the crew unloads supplies and one or two passengers get off.

It's lunchtime when we arrive at Pinjat.

"Coming back today?" the pilot asks.

"No. In two or three days," Dr Collins says.

"Okay. We come back through Pinjat every day at about five o'clock on the return trip."

Dr Collins thanks the pilot and we watch the plane take off. Two or three days. That will only leave us a couple of days before the full moon. As the plane fades away to a speck in the sky, I realise that this is it. It's taken us three weeks to get this far. If Uncle Percy (assuming we can find him) can't lead us to the Five Termite Sisters mountain, or if he can but it's the wrong place, then we don't have time to start searching for the maala crystal all over again. There is no Plan B. This is our only hope.

We walk towards the half-dozen single-storey buildings beside the airstrip. A heat haze shimmers above the runway but the buildings are shaded by large trees. There's a bank of solar panels, a satellite dish and a line of rainwater tanks. A couple of dogs dozing in the shade look up lazily as we approach.

A man waits for us in front of the buildings. He's young, with a red T-shirt and dark skin. He embraces Dr Collins.

"Hi Doc. Great to see you again. And who's this young lad ... your son?"

"Hi Elvis. No, Jack here is ... well, let's say he has a special interest in the binjin story."

"I see," Elvis says uncertainly, clearly not seeing. He walks us over to one of the buildings.

"Where is everyone?" Dr Collins asks.

"Still up at the swamp hunting ducks," Elvis says, opening the door. Inside, the building is surprisingly cool. There are a few desks with computers and various maps and posters on the walls.

Elvis turns to Dr Collins. "Uncle Percy is over at his camp. He keeps to himself these days. Just him and his dog. I'll take you up there as soon as it cools down."

I'm impatient to get started, but Dr Collins says Elvis is right. It's too hot to walk in the middle of the day; we'll dehydrate. Instead, Elvis and Dr Collins chat until Elvis says it's cool enough to go. We put on our backpacks, full of the dried food we bought in Canberra. Dr Collins' pack is three times the size of mine, because he's also brought ropes and knives and head torches and a first aid kit and all sorts of other gear.

"We won't need all of this, but you can bet your life we'll need some of it," he says. "And that's exactly what we are betting. Getting caught out here without the right equipment could cost you your life."

Elvis leads us to Uncle Percy's camp, about an hour's walk away. Unlike the thick forest around Baytown, the landscape here is more open, dry yellow grass and orange-red earth and a few scattered trees and bushes. There's a vague path if you look carefully. The camp itself is simple; a cleared circle of red-earth with a fire pit and a dome-shaped shelter made of branches, like the Dunjini huts. A few possessions—a couple of spears, a knife, a stone axe and a woven basket—lie on the ground.

Elvis calls out. We sit down and wait and a few minutes later an old man, wearing shorts and a faded singlet but no shoes, walks back into camp holding a spear in one hand and a dead bird in the other. He's tall and thin, with thin spindly legs, and the darkest skin and whitest beard I've ever seen. A scrawny brown dog trots behind him.

The man stops and drops the bird by the fire pit. He and Elvis speak in what I guess must be Pinjat, while the dog trots over to sniff us out.

"Doc, meet Uncle Percy," Elvis says.

"I remember you Doc. Course we're both getting older now," Uncle Percy says. He sits cross-legged on the ground. "Sit down. I don't get many visitors, Doc. Elvis says you want to talk to me 'bout some story thing?"

Elvis looks from Uncle Percy to Dr Collins. "You still need me Doc? Otherwise I'll get back."

"Thanks, Elvis. We'll be okay from here."

Elvis disappears back the way we came. I reach out my hand to let the dog smell me. It seems friendly enough but suddenly it yelps and scurries off and hides behind Uncle Percy.

Uncle Percy looks from the dog to me. Suddenly he stares at me, as if noticing me for the first time. He looks startled. Then he gathers himself and speaks quickly in Pinjat. Seeing I don't understand, he says in English: "Greetings, binjin spirit. It is my duty to protect you and return you safe to your Dreaming."

"How ... how do you know that?" Dr Collins asks in astonishment. "I didn't say anything about Jack being a binjin spirit to Elvis."

"Oh, he's a binjin spirit all right. You just gotta look at him. You can see it around his body."

"You can?"

"Yeah, he's got that ... I don't know the English word, Doc, that sort of glow round 'im."

"So ... there have been binjin spirits here before?" Dr Collins asks.

"Yeah, but a long time ago. When I was a young boy."

"The thing is," I begin. "We—that's me and my sister Kaya—have lost our maala crystal. Without it, we can't get back to our own Dreaming. Uncle Bob—he's a Dunjini elder in Baytown—says the maala crystals come from the Five Termite Sisters."

"Yeah, that's right," Uncle Percy says.

"Have you got one?" I ask. "Here, I mean. One you could give me? I'd be really ..."

"No, I don't have no maala crystals. You got to go to the Five Termite Sisters to find one of them."

"Is it far away?" I ask.

"About a day's walk."

"But ... can you guide us there? Help us find one of these maala crystals?" Dr Collins asks.

Uncle Percy runs his hand through his bushy white beard.

"Yeah, of course. Gotta help a binjin spirit. That's the law. But I'm old. My knees ain't no good, so you'll have to help me with the climbing."

Dr Collins laughs. "Thank you, Uncle. I'll bet you're fitter than either of us."

It's getting dark now, so Dr Collins and Uncle Percy decide we'll stay at Uncle Percy's camp for the night and leave early in the morning. Uncle Percy takes us to a waterhole where we can fill our water bottles. He says it always has good drinking water, even in the dry season. That's why he camps here. He gets the fire going and cooks the bird he's caught. Dr Collins takes a bag of flour from his pack and adds water to make dough, which he buries in the ashes at the edge of the fire to cook. The bird tastes like roast chicken, and with the hot bread it's a delicious meal.

After we've eaten, Uncle Percy tells us the story of the Five Termite Sisters while his dog sits nearby and crunches the leftover bones. The dog still won't come near me, even if I hold out a bone, although it doesn't seem scared of me either.

"You might know," Uncle Percy begins, "that Dreaming stories have different levels of meanings. There's the basic story. Everyone can hear that—kids, outsiders, anyone. But each story has got deeper meanings, and sometimes secret meanings too. I'll start by telling you the basic Five Termite Sisters story."

The sun has set and it's getting cold, so Uncle Percy adds more wood to the fire. I draw myself closer to the flames and listen.

"In the Dreamtime there were five beautiful termite sisters. See, in the Dreamtime, termites were beautiful. All day they would sleep in their nest, high in a tree, because termites can't survive in sunlight. At night they would come out to dance. Now, the sisters were dancing in their tree when goanna, the giant lizard, came along. And the sisters teased goanna, saying "you're too slow and fat to dance like us". This made goanna angry. With one swipe of his powerful tail he knocked the sisters from their tree and they fell to the ground.

"Morning came and the sisters started to burn under the hot sun, so they dug down into the cool earth of the mountain to hide. The next night, they came out and tried to climb back to their nest. But the tree was too high. They realised they could never get back to their nest. This made them sad and they cried until their tears turned into five rivers. They cried for so long they didn't notice it had become day again. And in the hot sun they died and turned into five towers of rock.

"We tell that story to children to teach 'em not to tease people. But it's also a songline story about the mountain. The five sisters are five towers of rock along the ridge. A creek flows down the side of the mountain from each tower, where each sister cried. And the mountain is full of underground tunnels and caves, where they dug into the hill to hide from the sun. So the story also describes the Five Termite Sisters Mountain."

Uncle Percy pauses to eat some bread, then continues.

"But the story has a secret part, too. You see, there were really six termite sisters, not five. The sixth sister, the youngest, dug into the mountain too but she dug too deep. When her sisters climbed to the surface she couldn't find her way out. She dug this way and that until, exhausted, deep inside the mountain, she lay down and wept, and her tears formed a series of underground pools. Finally, she died, and her body turned into a beautiful stone of many colours.

"This secret part of the story explains how to find the maala crystal. The thing is, when you go to that mountain there are only five rock towers. But to the right of the last tower the ground is covered with giant boulders. They're the remains of the sixth rock tower, but it collapsed. There's a cave there that goes deep into the earth. In that cave you'll find a series of pools. And by the last pool there's a vein of rainbow crystal running through the rock. That's the maala crystal."

Uncle Percy pauses, then chuckles.

"What do you think, Doc? You believe all that old blackfella mumbo-jumbo, do you?"

"Of course," Dr Collins says. "These stories always describe the country correctly."

"Let's hope so, Doc. You see, although I been up to that mountain, I ain't never been inside that cave. I ain't never seen the maala crystal. I just own the story."

Uncle Percy's shelter is too small for us all to sleep inside, so he builds two parallel lines of fire and Dr Collins and I lie between them. The fires create an envelope of warm air around us, as snug as any sleeping bag.

I gaze at the stars in the clear black sky. My heart is racing. The maala crystals are in a cave! A deep cave full of tunnels and stuff. Did I mention I'm afraid of caves? Really afraid. We went to Jenolan Caves for my Year Seven excursion and I still have nightmares about it. It felt like I was buried alive, like the rock above was crushing me. All I could think about was getting out into the daylight again.

But I _have_ to go. Dr Collins hasn't seen a maala crystal before, and we don't know if Uncle Percy can even make it as far as the cave.

I try not to think about the cave. I watch the moon rise above the trees. It will be full on Thursday, five nights from now. Uncle Percy says it will take a whole day to walk to Mt Albert, and a day to go into the cave and find a maala crystal. Then another full day to walk back again. The return flight to Sanctuary leaves at five o'clock in the afternoon. So if we can catch the plane on the day we come back from Mt Albert, that's three days in all. Which takes us to Tuesday. Add another day for the train to Baytown. That means we'll make it back to Baytown with a day to spare.

Assuming nothing goes wrong.

Uncle Percy and Dr Collins sit by the fire, talking quietly. Every so often Uncle Percy sings softly in a language I don't understand. The murmur of their voices lulls me to sleep.

I feel Dr Collins' hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me awake. I open my eyes. It's dawn. Uncle Percy is sitting in the same spot by the fire, like he hasn't moved all night.

"Let's get going," Dr Collins says. "While it's still cool."

Dr Collins hands me some bread, still warm from the fire, and as soon as we've eaten breakfast we set off. Uncle Percy's dog trots beside us. It still won't let me pat it. Like I said, the trees and bushes are thinly spread, so it's easy to walk through them but they provide little shade as the sun rises and the day heats up.

We trudge on all morning across yellow grasslands, kicking up dry orange dust, occasionally stopping to drink, until it gets too hot to continue and we take shelter in the shade of a large solitary red rock. While we rest, Dr Collins and Uncle Percy question me about my world—my Dreaming.

The afternoon begins to cool and we set off again, walking until we come to a low ridge of red rock.

Uncle Percy points towards a second, higher ridge of the same red rock ahead of us across the next valley.

"There's your Five Termite Sisters," he says.

In a line along the ridge are five towering pillars of rock.

We descend from the low ridge into the valley. After a while we come to a dry sandy river bed lined with tall green trees. We follow this dry creek for an hour or so, the trees providing welcome shade from the still-hot sun, until we come to a place where another dry creek joins it.

Uncle Percy holds up his hand and calls a halt.

"We'll camp here tonight and go up to the Sisters in the morning," Uncle Percy says. "We'll need to rest up good. It's a hard slog from here."

We dump our packs on the sandy bed of the creek. Hundreds of parrots are swooping for insects and making a screeching sunset racket in the trees around us. There's already a fire pit, with a blackened billy-can for boiling water next to it, so we're not the first people to stay here. We gather wood for a fire and Uncle Percy takes us to a waterhole to fill our water bottles. Back at camp, he gets the fire going and puts the billy on, and Dr Collins makes dough with flour from his pack, and soon we're sitting around the camp fire eating hot bread and dried kangaroo meat and drinking hot black tea. Uncle Percy roasts some nuts he collected while we were walking. They taste great.

Uncle Percy nods at the banks of the creek. "This river is three metres high in the wet season. Water comes through here like a tidal wave. Now it's dry as a kangaroo's bum." He roars with laughter. I find myself wondering whether a kangaroo's bum really is dry.

We sleep in the sand beside the fire. Above the trees I can see the dark shape of Mt Albert, where we're going tomorrow, with the outline of the five rock towers lining its ridge. Silhouetted against the night sky, it's easy to imagine they are giant living beings looking down over us.

Somewhere up there is the cave. The cave! As soon as my mind forms the word, I feel myself start to sweat. I force myself to take long slow breaths. Maybe it won't be too bad. Maybe we'll just go in, grab a crystal and be out again in a few minutes. Nothing to worry about.

Maybe.

To keep my mind off the cave, I stare at the stars, sparkling in the clear wilderness sky. Every few minutes a shooting star streaks across the sky and disappears in a twinkling. I count six of them before I fall asleep.

It's still dark when Uncle Percy wakes me. He says it will take three or four hours to climb to the ridge, and it's best to get moving now while it's cool. Luckily the ridge itself, being to our east, shades us from the early-morning sun. It's just as well, for the last stretch gets steeper and steeper until we're more or less rock climbing. Uncle Percy leads the way. Like Dr Collins says, he's probably fitter than either of us.

At last, covered in sweat and dust, we scramble up onto the ridge. As we're getting our breath back, I take in the view. Behind us, there's the valley we've just come from. In front, on the other side of the ridge, the ground drops off again to a forested plain that stretches to the horizon.

The ridge itself is flat and wide and covered in loose stones. And along the ridge are the five giant pillars of rock. We've come up beside the middle tower. Up close it's even bigger than it looked from the valley, and looms over us like a stone skyscraper. From the plain these towers—the Five Termite Sisters—must dominate the landscape, visible from far away.

Uncle Percy points to a clump of green bushes at the base of the nearest tower.

"That's the spring where the stream starts. There's one at the bottom of each tower. The Sisters weeping."

We walk along the ridge, skirting two of the other towers. A little way beyond the last tower, we reach a place where the ground is covered with giant boulders, like a huge maze of rock. Uncle Percy stops.

"This is it. The sixth sister. The sixth tower that collapsed. Now we just got to find the cave entrance."

The boulders are the size of cars. Some are as big as a house. The way they lean against each other creates dozens of gaps and cracks and corridors. One of these cracks is the entrance to the cave. But which one? It could take hours, even days, to find it.

"We'll leave the dog here," Uncle Percy says. "A cave is no place for a dog." He puts his hand on the dog's head and talks to it softly. It lies down and pants and watches us.

I wish I could swap places with it.

Uncle Percy climbs onto a large boulder and looks around. He begins swaying and singing to himself. He seems to be in a trance.

"What's he doing?" I ask Dr Collins.

"Don't worry," the Doc whispers. "Just wait."

After a while, Uncle Percy stops singing and points towards a pile of rocks.

"That one. Over there." He climbs down and we pick our way through the field of boulders. When we reach the one Uncle Percy singled out, he pushes aside a bush. Behind it, there's a narrow corridor between two boulders, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through. Halfway along this corridor, another boulder lies flat across the top, turning it into a tunnel.

"This," Uncle Percy says, "is the entrance."

Dr Collins reaches into his pack and hands us each a torch. The torches have straps that go around our heads, so the torches are fixed to our foreheads and shine in whichever direction we look.

"Ready?" he asks.

I look into the dark tunnel ahead and I feel my heart thump. No, I'm definitely not ready.

We squeeze through the tunnel. I'm hoping this is the cave, which is not too bad as we can see daylight at both ends. But Uncle Percy stops next to a hole in the ground. He peers in, so the torch on his forehead shines down into the hole There's a space, a chamber, below us.

Dr Collins kneels down and looks into the hole, then slides his body into it and disappears. We hear him scramble down some rocks and stop.

"Okay Jack, it's not too bad. Just slide down the rocks," he says.

I take a deep breath. This is the moment I've been dreading. Going underground. But I think of Kaya. I can't let her down, can't let her die. I have to do this. I lower myself into the hole. There's a rough slope of loose stones. I slip and slide down it until I'm beside Dr Collins. Now it's Uncle Percy's turn. With surprising agility, the old man slides down to join us.

There's enough light from what is now the hole in the ceiling to see without torches. We're in a chamber the size of, say, a classroom. In one of the rock walls of the cavern there's a circular, waist-high opening. Uncle Percy nods to Dr Collins, who gets down on his hands and knees and crawls into it. Reluctantly, terrified, I follow. Uncle Percy brings up the rear. Now the air feels cool and damp and there's no doubt we're entering the mountain. I try to blot out the sense of panic rising inside me.

The Doc knows what he's doing, I tell myself.

We crawl along the tunnel for what seems a lifetime until we emerge into a larger chamber. Beams of sunlight shine in from gaps in the ceiling.

"Are we here?" I ask. I just want to get out.

Dr Collins glances at Uncle Percy, who's singing to himself again.

"Not yet Doc. We got to go deeper. Much deeper. Remember the story? How the sixth sister dug right down into the mountain, and couldn't find her way out."

"Talking of which," Dr Collins says, "we don't want to have the same problem. Try to concentrate, look for unusual shapes in the rock, or anything to help us remember the way when we come back. These cave systems often have many tunnels. If we take a wrong turn we could end up like that little sister."

Uncle Percy snorts with mock indignation.

"Don't you think I can sing the way out then, Doc?"

"I'm sure you can, Uncle. But ... you know, just in case."

"Just in case an old fella like me drops dead from a heart attack, you mean?" Uncle Percy says.

Dr Collins laughs. "I told you already Uncle, you're fitter than either of us." He scans the walls with his torch until he finds another small hole, like the one we've just crawled through. "I guess that's where we're going next," he says. He almost seems to be enjoying himself. Uncle Percy, meanwhile, is in a sort of trance, humming to himself.

Dr Collins taps my arm and nods towards Uncle Percy. "He's singing the country," he says. "The song is like a map; it describes the landscape. Even if you've never been somewhere before you can find your way by following the song. You can remember a lot more if you sing it, you see. Uncle Percy was taught the story song because he's the guardian of this place, even though he's never been down here. Before books, all cultures used to pass on knowledge like that. Fascinating, isn't it?"

Maybe. I'm too scared to be fascinated by anything.

Uncle Percy crawls into the tunnel, followed by Dr Collins.

I follow.

I feel the cold rock brushing my sides and my hair, and under my hands and knees as I crawl. I try not to think by focusing on Dr Collins' feet in front of me.

After a while we emerge in another large chamber. It's much darker now, with just a faint shaft of light from the tunnel we've crawled through. Dr Collins shines his torch at the ceiling. Stalactites hang down.

"This one?" Dr Collins asks.

"Nah Doc, deeper," Uncle Percy says.

We scan the cavern walls, looking for another tunnel. Nothing.

"It seems to be a dead end," Dr Collins says.

Has Uncle Percy got it wrong?

I shine my torch on the ground. And there it is! Another hole in the ground.

Dr Collins finds a pebble and drops it into the hole. It hits the ground below with a sharp crack. Dr Collins repeats the process with another stone, counting the time it takes to fall.

"About ten metres, I'd say. We're going to need the rope," he says. He pulls out a coil of rope from his bag, and feels around until he finds a knob of rock on the floor of the cavern. He loops one end of the rope around it, fixes it with a knot and pulls it to test it's secure. He ties a series of knots in the rope and drops the other end into the hole.

"I'll go first," Dr Collins says. He takes hold of the rope and lowers himself into the hole. A few moments later he calls up.

"Jack, you come next."

I feel my heart pound. Gripping the rope as tightly as I can, I lower myself through the hole and work my way down from knot to knot.

The rope sways. I cling on, too terrified to move.

"Relax, Jack. Gently lower your right foot until you feel the next knot," Dr Collins says. He shines his torch at my feet so I can see what I'm doing.

I take a deep breath, then move my right foot down and feel with my toes until I find the next knot. I move my right hand down then my left foot, feeling gingerly until I find each knot. The rope sways and I grip it more tightly. But I can hear Dr Collins' calm, reassuring voice just below me, and after feeling my way down a couple more knots I feel a firm hand touch my ankle and I'm down on the ground beside him.

Moments later Uncle Percy joins us, climbing down the rope as if he does it every day.

It's completely dark now. We shine our torches around us. This chamber seems even bigger than the one above. I hope to see a sparkle of crystal, but Uncle Percy says we still need to go further. He sings to himself.

"Next tunnel is a wide one," he says. "Wide but low one. You gotta lie down real flat."

We scan the walls again, looking for some sort of opening, but there seems to be no other way out of the chamber. Then Dr Collins spots it—a narrow horizontal crack at the base of the rock wall on the far side. We go over and examine it with our torches. The Doc gets down on his stomach and crawls like a lizard into the dark slit. He's virtually lying flat, and even then there's only just enough space. His feet disappear into the crack. We can hear the scrape-scrape as he crawls forward.

The sound fades. Silence.

Uncle Percy and I wait.

"How did you know? " I ask Uncle Percy. "About the tunnel being wide and low, I mean."

"Like the Doc said. It's all in the song."

"Does the song say it's much further?" I ask.

"Don't worry, Jack. We're getting close now. Once we get through this one."

We hear Dr Collins. He sounds far off but his voice echoes.

"Okay, come on. It's not too bad," he says.

I lie down on my stomach and push my head into the gap. My legs are shaking. There must be millions of tonnes of rock above me that could crush me like a stepped-on ant. There's no way I can do this.

Uncle Percy must sense my fear. "Don't worry Jack. That rock's been there for thousands of years. It ain't gonna fall down now. Ain't that right Doc?"

"Yes," Dr Collins calls back. "Solid as a rock. So to speak."

I take three deep breaths and begin to crawl. My palms press into the rough dirt floor below me and I feel the coldness of the rock above me. As I ease forward the torch on my forehead lights a small circle of rocky ground inches from my face. I can hear Uncle Percy crawling just behind me. Wriggling along on our stomachs like this is slow going.

"Take your time," Dr Collins calls. "Just get into a rhythm."

Keep calm. Remember to breathe. Focus on moving my body, nothing else.

We seem to crawl forever.

At last, the rocky ceiling above me disappears. I stand up. My legs are wobbly as jelly. Behind me, Uncle Percy gets to his feet.

"Well done Jack," Dr Collins says. The air is cool and damp. From the way Dr Collins' voice echoes I guess we're in another large space. We flash our torches around in the blackness. There's no sign of life. And no sign of any crystals either. Just rock. I thought Uncle Percy said this was it.

"Wait, listen," Dr Collins says. We stand motionless, straining to hear. Now I hear it. A slow, faint, echoing splish splish of water dripping into a pool.

"Could be what we're looking for," Dr Collins says. He makes his way across the cavern towards the dripping sound, and we find ourselves beside a small black pool. The Doc shines his torch down. A droplet of water falls into the pool, sending out a circle of ripples. Dr Collins looks up and shines his torch at the ceiling. High above us, we watch another droplet form on the tip of a stalactite, like a runny nose, and slip off into the pool.

Splish.

Dr Collins explores the edges of the pool with his torch. On the far side the water trickles out and runs along a narrow channel into another, larger pool.

"What do you think Uncle—our little sister's tears?" Dr Collins asks.

"Reckon so," Uncle Percy says.

But there's no water flowing out of the second pool and once again it looks like we've gone as far as we can. We shine our torches around the walls of the cave. Nothing but rock.

If these are the Sixth Sister's tears, where is the crystal?

Instead, Dr Collins spots another passageway ahead of us. I groan, but to my relief this one is tall enough to walk through, and short. It leads into another cavern ... but as I get there I hear Uncle Percy cry out behind me. I spin round just in time to see him fall. He must have tripped over a rock or something. He topples to his right and as he falls his shoulder hits the rocky wall of the passageway. There's a puff of dust and we hear a clatter of loose rocks tumbling to the floor.

Dr Collins and I rush back to see if Uncle Percy is all right.

"Don't worry, I'm okay," he says, getting to his feet. "Just slipped."

Dr Collins shines his torch at the section of rock Uncle Percy hit, and at the loose stones on the ground, and at the roof of the passageway.

"I don't like the look of this. The rock is too loose."

He sets off again. He's moving faster now, with a sense of urgency.

Behind us, we hear another thud. Dr Collins curses. For the first time, he seems rattled.

We're in another large chamber, with another pool in the middle. We search the cave walls with our torches but we can see no other way out. This time it really is a dead end.

"Odd, the water must go somewhere," Dr Collins mutters. "It must come from somewhere, too."

We shine our torches around the cavern again.

"Look!" Dr Collins cries.

In the cave wall to our left, twinkling in the beam of Dr Collins' torch, is a vein of crystals. They glisten in the torchlight; one second a brilliant flash of white, the next a sparkling kaleidoscope-burst of colours.

I gasp.

"Is this what you're looking for, Jack?" Dr Collins asks.

I'm too excited to speak. For a second I even forget my fear of caves. We've found it! The maala crystal. As we continue to scan the cave walls we find more veins of crystal, glistening in the light of our torches. Now Kaya and I can go home!

"Uncle Percy, you should do the honours," Dr Collins says, pulling a small chisel and hammer from his pack. "After all, this is your story place."

Uncle Percy takes the tools and chips at one of the seams of crystal.

Tap, tap, tap.

With one last delicate tap a flake of crystal comes off in his hand. It's about the size of my little finger. He shines his torch on it. Colours seem to leap out of the crystal.

"It's certainly beautiful," Dr Collins murmurs. "But now we've got what we came for, we should get out of here before ..."

His next words are drowned out by a huge crash.

Dust fills the air, making us cough. We all know what it means. A cave-in. The question is whether there's still a way out. We race back to the passageway.

Our path is blocked by a wall of rocks. Frantically, we scan the boulders with our torches, but there's no way through.

"Stop. Turn off your torches," Dr Collins says.

I do as the Doc says. With the torches off, we're plunged into a darkness beyond anything I've ever experienced. The dust is choking.

"What do we do now?" I ask.

"Wait," Dr Collins says.

"What for? No one is coming to rescue us," I cry. This time I can't keep the panic out of my voice.

"No, we need to let our eyes adjust to the darkness. See if there's a glimpse of light getting through the rock fall that would indicate a gap in the rocks. It'll be pretty faint, though. And we'll need to save our torch batteries. We might be stuck here for a while."

How can Dr Collins stay so calm? If there's no way out we're sealed in here to die. The Doc makes it sound like a minor inconvenience. Yet his calmness makes me feel a little calmer too.

We stand in the dark, straining for the faintest pinprick of light.

"I can't see anything," I say.

"Be patient," Dr Collins says. "Our eyes still need time to adjust."

We wait in the darkness for an eternity. All I can hear is our breathing. It's the Doc who breaks the silence.

"There!" he says.

I can't see anything. I hear Dr Collins take a few steps, then the clatter of stones being moved.

"Yeah, I see it," Uncle Percy says.

And I can, too. The faintest speck of light. But it's a ray of hope. Literally.

Dr Collins flicks his torch back on and scans the rock fall where the light came from.

"This part of the rock slide must be quite thin. Maybe we can open up a gap big enough to squeeze through. But we'll have to work carefully or we'll trigger another collapse."

We set to work. Dr Collins taps the rock with his chisel, as softly as he can. A small flake of rock breaks off and Dr Collins pulls it out, slowly and carefully. We hold our breath. The rest of the rocks stay in place. The Doc chips at the rock again and pulls out another chunk.

"It seems to be holding," he says. Working as delicately as we can so as not to bring down any more rocks, the three of us clear away the loose stones. Dr Collins tells us to turn off our torches again, and we wait for our eyes to adjust. There's a definite circle of light now, very faint but unmistakable in the blackness. But it's still not wide enough.

Dr Collins gives the rock another tap.

"Damn," he says. "It's not ..." But before he can finish the sentence another huge crash echoes around the cavern. Another cloud of dust fills the air, making us cough and back away.

As soon as the dust has settled we examine the rock slip. Our worst fears are confirmed. More rocks have come down and closed the gap.

Dr Collins edges forward and pokes at the rocks cautiously.

What do you reckon, Doc?" Uncle Percy asks.

"Worse than before, I'm afraid. Without a proper rock drill we'll never get through now."

Just as hope of escape had returned, it's dashed away. I sit on the ground. I'm too numb even to cry.

It's a few moments before Dr Collins speaks again.

"We've got another problem. It's too still. There's no air flow. That means there's no air getting in here. That second slip must have sealed off any gaps in the rock wall. Once we use up all the oxygen in the air, we won't be able to breathe."

"How long have we got, Doc?" Uncle Percy asks.

How can the two of them stay so calm?

"Hard to say exactly. Two days, maybe. Assuming we take it easy and don't run around too much."

Dr Collins gets us to turn off our torches again and we wait and pray for a glimmer of light, but there's nothing. The Doc examines the rock slide again with his torch and the three of us explore the walls of the cave. We scan every inch; the walls and the floor and the ceiling, working slowly and methodically, because the stakes are high and we can't afford to miss anything that could offer an escape route.

But there's nothing. More veins of maala crystals, but no way out.

The three of us sit on the ground. For a while none of us speaks. What is there to say? This is where we die. Where I die. I guess back in our world Kaya and I will become some sort of unexplained mystery. The kids who vanished into thin air. Like the Bermuda Triangle. (Maybe the Bermuda Triangle is another portal, like the Stone Gate.) Jayden and Debbie James will be on the news, telling some television reporter about the white light and how they saw us disappear. Scientists will come to examine the Stone Gate but without the maala crystal they'll never figure out how to get through it. Or maybe the police will think Jayden and Debbie murdered us and dumped our bodies in the bush.

I'm surprised by how calm I feel, now there's no hope and I'm faced with the certainty of approaching death.

"I'm ... I'm sorry," I say. "I should never have made you ... let you ... come down here. Just to help us, and now you're going to ..."

I can't bring myself to say the last word.

"Don't blame yourself Jack. We chose to come here. No one forced us," Uncle Percy says.

Out of the blue, Dr Collins leaps to his feet and strides across to the pool. He scans it with his torch. I see it's larger than I'd realised, about the size of a backyard swimming pool. The Doc kneels down and dips one hand into the water.

"Of course! This pool ... put your hand in the water and tell me what you feel."

We join Dr Collins and I dip my hand in the pool.

"It's cold," I say.

What is Dr Collins getting at?

"Yes, but also ... can you feel the water running through your fingers? The water is flowing. But there's no water running across the floor here so it must flow _under_ the surface. Water must be running out of the bottom of this pool, further down into the mountain. But what matters to us isn't where the water goes. It's where it comes from. I'll bet there's an underground stream right below us, connecting this pool to the pool in the last chamber. The one _above_ the rock slide. The question is ..."

Dr Collins stops talking. He takes off his shirt, lies down on his stomach and dunks his head and shoulders into the pool. He lifts his head back out of the water, takes a deep breath and, to my amazement, slides his whole body forward into the pool like a crocodile sliding off the bank of a river, and disappears completely beneath the dark surface of the water. We can see the glow of light from his torch under the water.

A few seconds later he reappears and climbs out of the pool. He pulls a thin towel from his pack and rubs himself dry.

"It's a bit chilly in there," he says.

"What ... what are you doing?" I ask.

"I thought I might go for a swim."

He shines his torch on the pool again. "Okay, it looks like there's a tunnel flowing into this pool, about a metre below the surface. These sort of submerged streams are quite common in cave systems like this. Cavers call them sumps. Anyway, it seems to be coming from the right direction. From the pool above the rock slide. And it can't be more than forty or fifty metres to that pool. Just one length of a swimming pool."

"So you're going to ..." I begin.

"Try to swim through it, yes. The question is whether it's wide enough to get through."

"What happens if you can't?" I ask. "Can't get through, I mean."

"Then I'll have to come back. Of course there's not going to be enough room to turn round once I'm in the sump. I'll have to sort of wriggle backwards. A reverse ferret, I call it."

Dr Collins takes a length of string from his pack and ties one end around his ankle. He hands the other end to Uncle Percy.

"Hold the end of the string, Uncle. If I get through, I'll tug three times, like this. Then you two come after me. Wear your torches. They're waterproof. We'll have to leave the rest of the gear. If I don't come back, and there's no response when you pull the string, then you'll know I didn't make it. Then ... I guess you two will have to try to dig your way through the rock slide. I can't see any other options."

With that, Dr Collins lies down on his belly on the edge of the pool and slips back into the water. I shine my torch on the pool. I can see the faint outline of Dr Collins' body gliding beneath the surface as the string runs out through Uncle Percy's fingers. Then the glow of his torch. Then nothing.

A few seconds later, the string stops unravelling. We wait. Silence. The string goes slack in Uncle Percy's hand. Still nothing but silence. Surely the Doc has been gone for more than a minute.

Suddenly the pool ripples and Dr Collins bursts to the surface. He pulls himself out of the water and sits on the ground beside the pool, gasping for air.

"It's no use ... it's too ... narrow," he splutters between gulps.

Dr Collins rubs himself with his towel and wraps himself in his jacket for warmth.

"The frustrating thing is, I was almost there," he says once he's got his breath back. "There's a point where the tunnel narrows, like an hour-glass. It's too tight for me to get through."

I feel sick in my stomach. For a moment we had another glimmer of hope.

Dr Collins pauses.

"Someone smaller might be able to squeeze through, Jack."

It takes me a moment to realise what Dr Collins is saying. Have I mentioned that I'm quite skinny?

"If you can get through then you can go for help," Dr Collins says. "It's our only chance."

Every part of my body is screaming no. _No way._ As if being in this underground labyrinth isn't insane enough in the first place, now I've got to swim through a tiny underwater tunnel that may or may not be wide enough for me to fit through. It's madness within madness. But it's an offer I can't refuse. Because if I do, we'll all die. Kaya and me, and Dr Collins and Uncle Percy.

I know Dr Collins is right. I have to do it.

"Okay," I whimper.

"How's your swimming—can you hold your breath?"

I nod. "I had to stay under water for forty seconds for my gold swim badge."

"Good. Although you might have to stretch that out to a minute or so. Now listen, once you're through the sump you'll be cold and wet, so get moving quickly or you'll get hypothermia. When you get out of the cave, follow the ridge back to the middle rock tower and find the trail back down to the camp. Sleep at the camp. It'll be night by the time you get there anyway. There's food, and matches for a fire, in the bag I left there."

"In the morning," Uncle Percy says, "you gotta walk east. Watch where the sun rises. That's east. Climb up to the low ridge then drop down into the next valley and keep heading east. But take the dog. He's called Palu. If you call him by his name he'll go with you. He'll find the way back to my place."

"There's a radio at the Centre," Dr Collins says. "Get Elvis to call emergency services. Tell them there's about two metres of rock to get through. They're going to need the heaviest drill they can carry."

Dr Collins makes me repeat all these directions until he's satisfied I've memorised them.

"Pace yourself—it's a marathon not a sprint," Dr Collins says. "Just focus on the next step."

Dr Collins puts his hand on my shoulder. "Okay, first, just practise holding your breath."

The first time I try, I think my lungs are going to explode. But when I finally give up and suck in some air, Dr Collins tells me it was only thirty seconds. As soon as I've got my breath back he makes me do it again. And again. After a few attempts, I get it up to a minute.

At last Dr Collins seems satisfied.

"Right, the next step is to get you used to the water."

Dr Collins tells me to kneel beside the pool. On his command I dunk my head into the water, hold it under for a few seconds and sit up. The water is cold, but actually not quite as cold as I'd expected. Next, Dr Collins makes me jump into the pool and climb out again.

"Now swim over and find the opening of the sump. But then stop and come back. That's so when you go for real, you won't waste time and air looking for the tunnel, and you won't panic. Panic is your biggest enemy. Okay, do it now ..."

I nod. I slip forward into the pool. My head torch lights up a patch of water right in front of me. A couple of kicks and I'm at the other side. I feel the underwater rock face. There's a dark circle. It must be the entrance to the tunnel. I stick my head into the opening and I feel a gentle current of water flowing across my face.

I push myself backwards, do a couple of reverse breaststrokes with my arms to get back to the other side of the pool. I climb out. I'm starting to shiver. Dr Collins tells me to jump around to warm up while he ties the string to my ankle.

"Right, this is it," says Dr Collins. "Get your breath back, but then go for it straight away before you get too cold. And don't rush. It might sound crazy but you'll go faster if you take your time. Panic is your enemy. If you stay calm you can hold your breath for longer too. Just worm your way along the tunnel. If you can't do it, wriggle back before it's too late."

I nod. I feel strangely detached, as if this is all happening to someone else.

"And take this," Uncle Percy says. He presses the crystal into my hand. "In case you can't get back here. At least you and your sister can still go home."

I put the crystal into my pocket.

"Thanks. But I'm coming back. I promise."

"Take a few deep breaths," Dr Collins says. "Now, go!"

I go. I lie on the ground and slide belly-first into the pool. The last thing I hear is Dr Collins' voice.

"Keep calm, Jack. Keep calm."

That's easy for him to say.

Under the surface it's eerily quiet. It's as if nothing else exists; just me floating in liquid space. And suddenly I'm no longer afraid. Not of caves, not of dying. It's so peaceful, and beautiful in a way. A couple of firm kicks and I'm into the tunnel. Inside, it's too tight to turn my arms over in a proper swimming stroke. Instead, I wriggle my body forward, flapping my feet from my ankles.

I feel the tunnel narrow and press in on me on both sides. This must be the bottleneck that forced Dr Collins to turn back. It's too tight. My shoulders, the widest part of my body, are jammed.

I can feel my lungs. I'm running out of air. I should go back now before it's too late.

No.

No, I'm not going back. What difference does it make? If I can't make it through right now, I'm going to die anyway. We're all going to die.

I should be panicking but I'm not. This is just a puzzle and I'm going to solve it. Like a computer game. I'm good at computer games. I twist my shoulders so I can stretch my left arm in front of me, and grope around. On the other side of the bottleneck I can feel the tunnel widen again. If I can just get past this one narrow point ...

I drop my right arm to my side. With my left hand, I feel in front of me and find a fingerhold in the rock to pull myself forward. As I do so, I twist round so I'm almost on my back and squeeze my right arm tightly into my body. I twist and pull again, at the same time pushing off the rock behind me with my feet. My shoulder scrapes hard along the rock.

And ...

... and I'm through!

But I'm not safe yet. Far from it. My lungs are bursting. It's as if my whole body is about to explode. It feels like I've been underwater forever. I want to open my mouth and suck in air but I know I can't. It's still too tight to swim properly so I wriggle forward using my fingers, toes, elbows, knees, hips—anything I can to nudge myself along the sides of the tunnel.

At last the tunnel widens. I can kick my feet.

And now I'm out of the tunnel into open water. The other pool! I kick upwards and my head bursts through the surface of the water. I open my mouth and suck down a huge gulp of air.

Air!

I'm still alive! I've made it.

I pull myself out of the pool and lie on the rough rock floor, gasping for breath. But I know I've got to get moving fast. I untie the string from my toe and give three sharp tugs. The signal to let the others know I've made it. A second later, I feel three tugs back on the string, acknowledging the message.

I assess the situation. My arms are bleeding where they scraped along the rocky sides of the tunnel, but it's nothing major. My torch still works. Surprisingly, I'm not cold. In fact I feel like I'm glowing from the inside—with energy, adrenaline or whatever. But I know that won't last. I have to get moving, generate some body heat and get out of the cave into the sunshine before hypothermia sets in.

I pull off my T-shirt and pants, squeeze out as much water as I can and tie them around my waist. I'll need them when I get out, but right now I'll be warmer without wet clothes. I check my pants to make sure the crystal is still secure in the pocket. It would be pretty stupid to get back only to find I'd lost the crystal on the way.

I begin to retrace our route through the network of caverns and passageways. I crawl like a lizard through the low crack. Now I _am_ getting cold. I wish Dr Collins was still with me. Uncle Percy too. Their calm was so reassuring. The Doc always knows what to do. But I'm on my own now. Alone, in the darkness, deep inside a mountain.

As I think about it, I feel my panic returning.

Don't think. Don't even feel. Just focus on the next step.

The hardest part is climbing back up the rope. I pull myself up with my arms then jump my legs up to the next notch. It takes all my strength. With each leap the rope sways wildly in mid-air.

After that it's easier. It's still terrifying, but knowing each step is bringing me closer to the surface spurs me on, until I see what I've been waiting for. Sunlight! Just a pinprick at first, but it makes me want to whoop with joy. I'm half-running now, stumbling towards the cave entrance. The light gets bigger and brighter. I climb through the last hole, into the narrow rock corridor that forms the cave entrance. Finally, pushing aside the bush at the end of the corridor, I step into full, blazing, glorious sunlight.

After so long underground the light is blinding and I have to close my eyes. I feel the warmth of the sun on my back. I flop onto the rocky ground and lie there for a while, letting my body soak up the heat and my eyes readjust to the brightness.

When I'm warm I get dressed. My clothes are still damp but they'll dry quickly now I'm in the sun. I begin to pick my way through the maze of giant boulders. But when I try to climb across the top of the boulders I come to gaps too wide to jump across. On the other hand, when I climb down and walk through the cracks and corridors between the boulders, I can't see where I'm going. I keep coming to dead ends and having to backtrack.

Eventually I find a way out of the maze. I'm back on the open ridge and the first of the rock towers is just ahead of me. And Uncle Percy's dog is there too, panting, watching me, waiting patiently.

"Good boy Palu," I say. I try to pat him but he backs off.

I follow the ridge back to the middle rock tower. I call to the dog. "Here Palu boy, c'mon." He hesitates for a moment. I guess he's wondering where Uncle Percy is. But he decides to follow and trots along behind me. "Good boy Palu. Let's go and get help," I tell him. We slip and slide down the steep trail into the valley below. Eventually the slope eases and we're able to walk normally.

The sun is setting when we get back to the camp in the sandy river bed. In an hour or so the temperature will plummet so I need to work fast. I go down to the spring to fill my water bottle and Palu and I both have a long drink, then I gather some sticks and find the matches in Dr Collins' bag and light a campfire. The dry twigs burn easily. The fire will keep me warm but I'm too tired to think about cooking. I rummage in Dr Collins' bag and dig out some dried meat and a packet of biscuits. I throw Palu a couple of strips of the dried meat and eat the rest myself.

"You'll show me the way back tomorrow, won't you Palu?" I say. The dog looks at me and pants. "We're a team now," I tell him. I reach out my hand to pat him but he backs away. "Still scared of me, silly dog?" I say. I lie down beside the fire for warmth, using Dr Collins' bag as a pillow. I look up at the stars and realise how exhausted I am. I feel my eyes closing.

Something is crushing me. A great weight presses down on my chest, stopping me breathing. I'm underwater again, drowning, gasping for air, but the ceiling of rock is stopping me from surfacing ...

I wake with a jolt. I'm sweating and my heart is thumping. It takes me a few seconds to work out where I am. Relief floods through me as I realise I'm no longer in the cave. I feel the cool night air and see a black sky filled with stars. I slip back into sleep.

I open my eyes. It's already light and the trees along the creek are noisy with birds singing. I scramble to my feet. I have to get going before the heat comes. Now everyone is depending on me. Uncle Percy and Dr Collins, trapped in that rocky tomb, where there's no day or night. And Kaya. I feel for the crystal in my pocket. With luck it will give her enough energy to make it back to the portal.

Assuming she's still alive.

I fill my water bottle, put some dried kangaroo strips into my pocket, and set off along the creek bed. After a while I leave the creek and head east across the dry yellow-grass plain, as Uncle Percy told me. Palu trots beside me, darting off now and again to sniff something, never coming too close but never straying far. We cross the low ridge and head down into the next valley.

As the sun rises, I figure it will arc to the north, so if I veer slightly to the right of the sun I should still be going roughly east. It's quieter now. There are just a few squawks of birds and the odd rustle in the grass as a lizard or snake slips away.

I stop. The higher the sun gets the harder it is to judge which way is east. I've read about people getting lost in the bush, their dehydrated bodies found weeks later, miles off course. I've got to pay attention. I can't afford to get lost. Apart from dying of dehydration, we have only three days left before the portal opens.

I watch Palu. He stands panting, waiting for me to follow.

"Hey, you know the way, don't you Palu?" I say. Of course he does. The camp below Mt Albert has clearly been used before. Uncle Percy has probably been up there many times. Which means Palu has too.

I follow Palu. He trots ahead again, stopping every so often to make sure I'm following. On and on we tramp, through the dry scrub.

On and on. It's hot now. I rest and drink. My water bottle is almost empty. I realise dehydration is a real possibility.

I'm beginning to wonder if I've been wrong, and Palu is as lost as I am, when we walk right into Uncle Percy's camp. I want to grab Palu and give him a big hug, but he still keeps his distance.

On the other side of Uncle Percy's camp there's the trail to the Centre. I set off and Palu trots past me. We walk for an hour or so. At last I hear voices and moments later we're at the Centre. Elvis is sitting in the shade of a tree. Some children are playing football in the dust.

When they see me, everyone stops.

"What's wrong?" Elvis asks. "Where's the Doc?"

"The cave ..." I stammer. "It collapsed. The rocks are blocking the tunnel. Dr Collins and Uncle Percy ... they're still trapped down there. We've got to get help."

"But how did you get out?" Elvis asks.

"There's an underground stream. But it was too small for the others to get through. Dr Collins tried it. I only just made it myself."

Elvis thinks for a moment. "We'd better call a rescue team. Meanwhile, you have a drink. You look like you're about to faint."

I gulp down water from the bottle Elvis hands me, and someone fetches Palu a bowl of water. After I've drunk all I can manage, I follow Elvis into the Centre. A couple of women are sitting at computers. They stop and stare when I walk in. Elvis flicks a couple of switches on the radio and it crackles with static.

"Wilderness Emergency. This is Pinjat."

"Wilderness Emergency. Hello Pinjat. That you, Elvis?" a voice says.

"Yeah, we've got an emergency. Two people trapped in a cave. About thirty kilometres from here. We need a rescue party. Cave's pretty deep too, I think."

"Okay," the man says. "Is there anywhere near the accident site to land a plane—a flat open space clear of trees?"

Elvis looks at me. I shake my head.

"Not that I could see. It's up on a rocky ridge. There are boulders and trees and bushes everywhere."

"Hello?" the man on the radio says. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

He can't hear my voice over the radio.

"We don't think you can land a plane up there," Elvis says.

"We'll need a chopper then. I'll call one from our Darwin station. It'll be with you in three hours. Is there someone there who can direct us to the accident site?"

I nod to Elvis.

"Yeah, we got someone here," Elvis says. "A kid called Jack. He was there when the cave-in happened."

"Good, make sure he doesn't go anywhere until the chopper arrives."

"The Doc says they'll need their biggest drill," I say.

"Did you get that?" Elvis asks the man on the radio.

"Get what?"

Elvis repeats the message.

"Righty-ho," the man replies. "I'll let the boys know."

I gulp down more water then flop onto a sofa. I look at the clock on the wall. Three o'clock. The plane to Sanctuary is due at five. I close my eyes. I'm tired and I've got a blister on my big toe that's killing me. Three days to the full moon. But that's including today, or what's left of it. So really, it's more like two days. One day on the train from Sanctuary back to Baytown. That leaves one spare day. If I go back to the mountain with the rescue team I'll miss today's flight for sure. Assuming we make it back for tomorrow's flight, we'll still be cutting it fine to reach the portal in time. If the rescue takes longer than a day we'll miss the portal.

And Kaya isn't going to last another month.

What if I just tell the rescue team how to find Dr Collins and Uncle Percy? I could write down instructions, draw a map. Then I could fly back to Sanctuary today. Kaya and I will have plenty of time to reach the portal.

I'm tempted. The rescue team must do this stuff all the time. They'll find their way without me.

Won't they?

But what if they can't?

What if the rescue team can't find the cave entrance? What if we go through the portal without knowing if they got Dr Collins and Uncle Percy out? For the rest of my life I'd be haunted by the thought that I might have left them to die.

I have to go back.

Even if it means we miss the portal.

I must have dozed off because a loud whoop-whooping wakes me. Outside the window I can see a helicopter touching down in the dust. The branches of the surrounding trees flap wildly in the wind of the whirring blades. A beefy man in orange overalls jumps from the helicopter and runs towards the Centre.

"Hi Elvis, you got this Jack with you?" the man asks.

I step forward. "Yeah, I'm Jack."

"Right then, let's go. Keep your head down as you get into the chopper."

I run after the man into the helicopter. The noise of the blades is deafening. Someone clips me into a harness. I feel my stomach lurch as we take off and the ground falls away beneath us. Apart from the pilot there are three men, all in the same orange overalls. Big, tough-looking men. Three huge backpacks lie on the floor of the helicopter.

"Which way?" the pilot asks.

I look down at the ground. Green and brown dots on yellow and orange earth. "West. Look for the big ridge with five rock towers sticking up. It's the highest thing for miles."

"Got it," the pilot says after we've been flying for a few minutes. "Ahead at one o'clock."

I nod. "Yes, that's it. The cave entrance is near that last tower on the left. In that pile of rocks."

"Okay Jack," the first man says. He seems to be in charge. "My name's John. Captain John Hammond. This is Paul and Lee. That's Tom at the controls." The three men glance up and nod in greeting.

"Now, take me through what happened," Captain Hammond says.

While I'm describing the accident, Tom takes the helicopter in over the field of boulders, looking for somewhere to land. He circles a few times until he spots a small patch of flat ground on the ridge and brings the chopper down, so gently that I don't even feel the exact moment we touch the ground.

Paul and Lee throw the three heavy packs out of the helicopter then jump out after them. Captain Hammond tells me to follow, then jumps down himself. I hear the whoosh of the blades starting up again and look round to see the helicopter rise into the air.

"Where's he going?" I ask in alarm.

"Needed elsewhere," Lee says, "This could take days. We can't afford to leave a chopper sitting around doing nothing. We'll call him when we get out."

"But ... it can't ... I have to be back tomorrow," I splutter.

"Do you?" Captain Hammond says. "Well, we'll see what we can do. But a rescue like this can be tricky. It could take days."

I watch the chopper become a speck then vanish into the blue sky. Captain Hammond had better be wrong. About the rescue taking days.

"Lead us in Jack," Captain Hammond says.

The first problem is finding the right entrance to the maze of rocks. As I came out yesterday I noticed a burnt black tree trunk. That's our way in. But as I walk around the edge of the boulder field, there's no sign of it. I wish I could sing up the country like Uncle Percy.

Finally I spot it.

"Okay, follow me," I say. Captain Hammond, Paul and Lee put on their packs. The packs are huge but the men walk as if they weigh nothing. We set off into the maze. It's like a ruined city, with the gaps between the giant boulders like narrow lanes and alleys. As we go, Captain Hammond drops little red plastic markers on the ground. They glow when you shine a torch on them.

"To help us find the way back," he explains.

But first I've got to find the cave. I stop and gaze at the jumble of rocks around me. It's no good. I can't remember the way; nothing looks familiar.

I remember something our mum says. (She's into meditation and Buddhism and stuff.) Sometimes you have to stop thinking and let your subconscious take over. I turn left, right, left again, moving fast, almost running, trying not to think, just going where my feet take me. And suddenly ...

... suddenly we're standing in front of the bush that covers the cave entrance. It looks like Mum was right.

 "Down there," I say.

"We couldn't have found this without you," Captain Hammond says. "I'm surprised you remembered it yourself."

The men take head torches out of their packs and fix them to their helmets. Captain Hammond hands me a torch and helmet.

"Okay Jack, we'll keep following you," he says.

With the others behind me, I push through the bushes into the passageway. Back underground. My heart thumps. I tell myself I'm not going to panic this time. I've done it before and I can do it again.

Finding the way back down into the cave is easier than I'd feared. The men's torches are much brighter than Dr Collins' and flood the underground chambers with light. The rescuers move with confidence, like they've done this a hundred times before. They probably have. As we go, Captain Hammond places more of the little red plastic markers on the ground.

He stops to admire Dr Collins' makeshift rope ladder.

"Nice knots. Whoever tied this knew what he was doing," he says. All the same, he replaces Dr Collins' ladder with a ready-made rope ladder from his pack.

"Beautiful caves, these," Paul says as we reach the bottom of the ladder. His torch lights up stalactites hanging from the cave roof.

"What were you doing down here in the first place?" Captain Hammond asks as we press on into the cave.

I don't want to get into the whole story.

"The Doc's looking for a special stone. It's used in Aboriginal rituals, you see, and it's only found down here. That's what the Doc does—studies Aboriginal stories. And Uncle Percy was guiding us. He owns the song story for this cave."

"What, down here? You mean song stories go right down underground?" Captain Hammond sounds surprised. "Amazing. But why were _you_ here? This doesn't seem the place for a youngster like you."

"I ... I'm one of Dr Collins' students," I lie.

"Bit young aren't you, to be a uni student?"

"I'm erm ... older than I look," I say.

Captain Hammond looks at me sideways like he's not convinced, but says nothing. We crawl through the terrifying low crack. The men have to push their packs in front of them because the crack is too low to wear them on their backs as they crawl. We come out into the large cavern with the two pools. And all of a sudden we're face to face with the wall of fallen rock. The air is still dusty and there are stones all over the ground.

"This is it," I say, unnecessarily. "The cave-in."

Captain Hammond, Paul and Lee immediately get to work. They examine the blockage, carefully prodding the rock and tapping with their hammers, discussing as they work.

"About two metres thick, I'd say."

"There's a lot of loose stuff."

"If we blast it with dynamite it will all come down."

"The hand drill might do it."

"Could take a while."

Captain Hammond turns to me. "The two men in there. Have they got food? Water?"

"Well, there's water in the pool and ..." I try to recall. "Dr Collins has got a couple of energy bars, I think. The Doc says the biggest problem is they'll run out of oxygen."

"Yeah, if they're completely sealed in, he's right. They can go days without food but they've got to breathe."

"What about the water sump? The way Jack says he got out?" Lee asks.

"Can you show us?" Captain Hammond asks.

I shine my torch at the larger of the two pools behind us. "It's just there," I say. After more discussion Paul fishes in his pack and finds what looks a wetsuit, which he puts on, and Captain Hammond takes a long hose out of his pack. Putting one end of the hose in his mouth, Paul dives into the pool.

After a few minutes he re-emerges. He climbs out of the pool.

"It's no good," he says, taking off his wetsuit. "Like Jack says, it's too tight to get through."

"Could we widen it?"

"Nah, mate, it'd be too tricky working underwater. And it could cave in and seal up."

"Looks like we'll just have to drill through the rock," Captain Hammond decides.

So we return to the blocked passageway and the three men set to work drilling into the wall of rock, stopping every few minutes to scoop out rubble. They work cautiously. The rock is loose and unstable, and they don't want to set off a new cave-in. They've got special steel rods that they cram into the gap they're making in the rock to make it more stable, but Captain Hammond says even these won't hold a serious rock fall.

It's slow going. Captain Hammond won't let me help. It's delicate work, he says. Hit it too hard and it could bring more rock crashing down, closing the gap again. Better leave it to the experts.

I know they're working as fast as they can. But every minute increases the chance we'll miss tomorrow's plane back to Sanctuary.

Slowly, hour after hour. All night. Not that night or day have any meaning down here. They've made a sort of tunnel into the rock face. I have to fight the temptation to ask Captain Hammond the time every five minutes.

Midnight passes. Three in the morning. Five. Now Captain Hammond and his crew are so far into the tunnel that there's only room for one man at a time and they take turns crawling into the hole to chip away. That slows things down—one person working instead of three. They have to be more careful too. A cave-in now would crush the man inside the tunnel.

Eight o'clock. Ten.

Midday.

Then we hear Lee, inside the tunnel, let out a whoop.

"We're through!"

It's just a tiny gap.

"Hello," we hear Paul call. "Can you hear me in there?"

No response. Are we too late?

"Pass me the oxygen line," Paul says.

"They may be unconscious. We'll pump in some oxygen," Captain Hammond says. He feeds Paul one end of the hose they used earlier, and fixes the other end to a small metal cylinder from his pack. (Drills, rope ladders, oxygen tanks ... now I understand why their packs were so large.) Captain Hammond opens the valve on the cylinder.

We wait.

After a couple of minutes, Paul calls again. "Hello. Can you hear us?"

Silence. _Come on,_ I think. _Be alive. I haven't come back for nothing._

I hear Paul call out again. Then another voice.

"Jack, is that you?"

Dr Collins! He sounds faint, groggy.

"Wilderness Rescue. Jack's with us. Are you okay? What about your friend there?"

"I'm all right. Good to hear you." A pause. "Uncle Percy's out. I don't know, he's ... his pulse is weak ..."

"Can you put the oxygen line into his mouth?" Paul asks.

There's another pause. Coughing. And another voice. Uncle Percy!

"It's worked," Dr Collins calls out.

They're alive!

The rescuers get back to work, chipping away cautiously, stopping every few minutes to scrape out loose rubble. It takes another hour. Finally Paul shouts out. "We're there!" A few moments later he crawls back out of the tunnel, followed by Uncle Percy and Dr Collins.

"I knew you wouldn't let us down Jack," Dr Collins says.

Captain Hammond hands Dr Collins and Uncle Percy some lollies. "Here, suck these," he says. "They'll give you some energy. Are you okay to head back up or do you need to rest?" He inspects them in the light of his torch.

"Reckon we've had plenty of rest already, mate," Uncle Percy says. "There ain't much to do down here _except_ rest."

"Well, I've got to admit you look pretty fresh, considering you were unconscious five minutes ago," Captain Hammond says.

"Old breathing trick," Uncle Percy says. "Slows down your pulse. Saves energy."

"Oh really?" Captain Hammond says with interest. "Is that some sort of Aboriginal thing, if you don't mind me asking?"

Uncle Percy laughs. "Nah. Yoga. Learnt it years ago when I was in India."

"Okay, enough chit-chat," Captain Hammond says. "Let's get going. But be careful. There's no rush."

"But the plane ... the full moon," I stammer. Dr Collins understands.

"Ah, yes," he says. "Yes, Captain, Jack's right. We must catch the plane back to Sanctuary today. It leaves at five. Trust me, it's vital we make that plane. A matter of life and death, actually."

Captain Hammond looks at us curiously. "Hmmm, very mysterious," he says. He checks his watch. "It's one thirty already. We'll be pushing it. But we can try."

We set off, back up through the maze of tunnels and chambers, following the red markers. Dr Collins notes them with approval. "I must remember that for next time," he says. Captain Hammond and his team move swiftly, without rests. Dr Collins and Uncle Percy, too, move with amazing speed. It's all I can do to keep up.

It's three o'clock. Two hours until the plane leaves.

Up ahead we see light. It's a pinprick at first but it grows larger and brighter, flooding in from the cave entrance, until we emerge from the darkness. The light is dazzling. We all shield our eyes.

"I'd better call the chopper," Captain Hammond says, as our eyes adjust to the sunshine.

"How long will it take?" I ask.

"Depends where he is. Probably about an hour," Captain Hammond says. He takes the radio out of his pack and calls the rescue base. We follow the red markers through the maze of boulders to the black stump and the flat stony ground beyond. It's so much easier with the markers.

While we wait for the helicopter, Lee (who is the rescue team's doctor) examines Dr Collins and Uncle Percy. Apart from a few bruises to Uncle Percy's shoulder from his fall, he says they are both in good condition. "Remarkable, really," he says.

I search the sky for the helicopter.

I ask Captain Hammond the time. He must be getting sick of me asking by now, but he tells me anyway. It's four o'clock. One hour to go until the plane leaves Pinjat.

We hear the chopper before we see it. The distant throb of an engine. Then a dot in the sky, growing bigger until we can clearly make out its shape. As it lands, the wind from the blades sprays dust into our faces.

Seconds later we're in the air. The ridge of Mt Albert, with its five rock towers, falls away below us.

I check the clock on the control panel. It's 4.45pm. Fifteen minutes until the plane leaves for Sanctuary.

I can't take my eyes off the clock. Ten minutes to go. Five minutes. Now I see the airstrip in the distance. The thin line and tiny buildings are the only signs of human habitation in a vast plain of red earth.

As we get closer I see a plane on the runway. It must be the plane to Sanctuary. To my horror, it starts to move. It trundles down the runway and soars into the sky right in front of us, just as we're coming in from the other direction.

We've missed it.

Dr Collins has seen it too. He taps Captain Hammond on the shoulder. "Can you call the pilot? Ask him to come back. We _really_ must make that plane."

Captain Hammond leans across Tom, the helicopter pilot, and flicks some switches on the dashboard.

"Flight WKL, do you read me? This is Wilderness Rescue Flight WR3. The chopper out of your left window."

The radio crackles. "I see you. What's the problem?"

"We've got passengers for your flight. They must get back to Sanctuary today. It's urgent. Repeat, urgent. A matter of life and death. Emergency request for you to return to Pinjat to allow them to board."

There's a moment's silence at the other end, then the radio crackles again.

"Yeah WR3, no worries. We'll be back down in no time."

Our helicopter touches down in front of the community centre. Elvis and a dozen or so others are there to greet us. Around here that probably counts as a crowd. And there's Palu, barking with excitement at being reunited with Uncle Percy.

We watch the plane bank around in a wide circle and head back towards us. Moments later, it glides down onto the runway.

"Better not keep them waiting," Captain Hammond says.

"Thank you," Dr Collins says. "For saving our lives." He has to shout over the noise of the motor and the blades as the helicopter rises from the landing pad.

"Good-bye Uncle ..." I begin, but Uncle Percy interrupts me.

"Save the goodbyes for tomorrow, Jack. I'm comin' with you. I'm not gonna miss the chance to see some real binjin spirits crossing over."

Uncle Percy pats Palu and says something to Elvis in Pinjat, then Dr Collins, Uncle Percy and I race across the airstrip to the waiting plane.

Moments later we're in the air again, this time on our way back to Sanctuary. I watch Pinjat fall away below us and fade into the distance.

I put my hand in my pocket and clutch the crystal. I can feel the stone's energy flowing into me, giving me strength. The crystal, I pray, will revive Kaya too.

If she's still alive.

She _has_ to be alive. She can't die on me now, not after all we've been through.

Not now that we have a crystal.

I run through it in my head. We'll be in Sanctuary Township tonight. Tomorrow night is the full moon. If we get the early morning train we should make it back to Baytown in time for the portal.

And then ...

... then there's the last horrible, nagging fear. Billy said the portal usually takes you back to your own world. But it hasn't taken us home so far. What if we end up in yet another reality? There's no way Kaya can last another month.

I think of something else to worry about, too. Will the train actually get to Baytown before the portal opens?

What if we're already too late?

Dr Collins and Uncle Percy are chatting to the pilot and some of the other passengers, who are curious to know what pressing emergency forced them to turn back. Dr Collins makes up a story about getting Uncle Percy to hospital. Uncle Percy coughs a bit to make out he's sick. He winks at me.

I'm tired. I feel my eyelids closing. When I wake up, we're touching down in Sanctuary.

We race down the stairs of the hotel. I hardly even notice that we're going back underground. My heart is pumping as we approach the door of our hotel room. Is Kaya still ... alive? I race into the room and across to where Kaya is lying on the bed. Beth is sitting in the chair beside her.

"How is she?" I gasp. I stare at Kaya. Her face is a deathly white, as if the life has been drained out of her. But her shoulders rise and fall. She's still breathing!

"She's been like this ever since you left," Beth says. "Sometimes she wakes for a few minutes but she's so weak. She can barely speak. And she won't eat anything. It's all I can do to make her sip some water."

I sit on the edge of the bed. I fumble in my pocket for the crystal and press it into Kaya's limp hand.

"Hold her hand like this, with the crystal in it," I tell Beth. She nods.

The moment I let go of the crystal, I feel a wave of exhaustion sweep over me. It's like the effort and terror and tension of the past few days hits me all at once. The room spins before my eyes and I grab the side of the bed to steady myself.

"Jack, are you okay?" Beth asks. "You've turned awfully pale."

"I think ... I just need some sleep," I mumble. I stumble across the room and flop onto the other bed. I don't even have the energy to get undressed. The room spins. I see Dr Collins and Uncle Percy looking at me with concern.

"Here, take this," Uncle Percy says. He holds out another crystal he took from the cave. "Looks like you need some of that binjin energy too."

As soon as my fingers close around the crystal I feel my head clear. I feel stronger.

"Better keep that in your pocket while you sleep," Uncle Percy says. "And your sister too."

"Hi Jack." It's Kaya's voice. I open my eyes. Kaya is dressed and sitting on her bed. She smiles at me. The colour has returned to her face.

"I knew you'd do it. Find the crystal, I mean. Dr Collins has been telling us about it. Quite an adventure. Sounds like you're a bit of a hero too."

"The hero had better get out of bed or we'll miss the train," Dr Collins says.

"By the way, we looked up the time of the full moon on the internet while you were asleep," Kaya says. "And the time of the trains. The full moon is at 9.03pm. The train gets to Baytown at 8.36pm. Beth says it should give us enough time to make it to the portal."

"But ... how can we get from the station to the portal in half an hour?"

"Beth says she'll phone her mum and get her to meet us in the police car. Of course it would have been better if you'd come back yesterday instead of hanging around in that cave enjoying yourself." Kaya laughs. She knows I'm terrified of caves.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I reply. I force a smile but I'm nervous. Half an hour from Baytown station to the portal doesn't leave much margin for error.

I swing my feet out of bed. Talking of caves, I'm keen to get out of this room. I've spent enough time underground to last me a lifetime. Also, it would be a shame to miss the train after all the trouble I've been through to make it. But we get to the station in plenty of time and the train is soon gliding along with us on it. Six hours to Canberra. There's nothing to do but gaze out of the window as the train passes through the mallee forests and across the flat yellow wheat plains.

Kaya and Beth want to hear all about our adventure at Mt Albert while Dr Collins and Uncle Percy want to quiz us about the portal. "After all, we'll probably never meet another binjin spirit," Dr Collins says. When we reach Canberra, Dr Collins buys sandwiches at the station cafe and we head across to the East Coast bullet train platform. Soon, we're zipping smoothly through the countryside again.

"I phoned my mum," Beth says. "She'll meet us at the train station in the police van and drive us up to the gate at the top of Hillview Street. I told her she absolutely can't be late. But we'll have to walk the last bit to the Stone Gate."

"Run, more like," I say.

Right on time, at seven o'clock, the train pulls into Sydney and we hurry across to the suburban train to Baytown. I look at the departure board. The train leaves at quarter past seven.

At twenty past seven the train still hasn't left Sydney.

"What's going on? We should have gone by now," I say.

I chew my nails. Why isn't the train moving? Dr Collins leans out of the carriage door and calls out to a guard on the platform.

The guard calls back. "Argument up front. Coupla drunks shouting at each other. We're waiting for the cops to get 'em off the train."

I look up and down the platform. Where are the policemen? Don't they realise a few minutes' delay could be the difference between life and death? Our death. No, of course they don't.

"Maybe we should try to sort the argument out ourselves," I suggest.

"Hmm, we would probably make things worse," Dr Collins advises. "Create a bigger delay. Best to let the police do what they're trained to do."

As he speaks, four policemen appear. They stroll along the platform towards the end carriage. The station clock ticks over.

7.23.

They don't seem in any hurry. I feel like shouting at them to get a move on.

The cops go into the carriage.

7.24.

What's taking them so long?

After what feels like forever, but is really only a couple of minutes, the cops reappear on the platform, holding two men in armlocks. The men are still shouting at one another. The cops laugh as they march them down the platform. Other passengers crane their necks to see what the fuss is all about.

Finally, with a clunk, the train lurches forward again. The station clock says 7.33. I do the sums. We've lost eighteen minutes. That means we'll reach Baytown at 8.54. Which leaves nine minutes to get from the station to the portal.

That's not enough.

We pull into Baytown at 8.48. The train has made up six minutes since leaving Sydney. That's good. That means we've got fifteen minutes. Maybe, just maybe, we can still make it.

The second the train doors open we're out and racing along the platform and through the gates. Mrs Dunning is standing beside the police van.

"Go Mum," Beth shouts as we jump into the car. "As fast as you can."

"Lucky there are no traffic jams like the old days," Mrs Dunning says over her shoulder. The van purrs along. It sounds like we're going slowly, because the electric motor is almost silent. At least Mrs Dunning is right about the traffic. There are people walking and riding bikes, but the only other vehicles are a couple of buses.

We glide up Hillview Street to where the road ends and the footpath into the bush begins. I glance at the clock on the van's dashboard.

8.57.

Six minutes.

"Lead the way," Mrs Dunning calls to me and Kaya. We don't need to be asked. We leap out of the van and begin running. The others follow—Beth and Mrs Dunning, then Dr Collins and Uncle Percy. We climb the Stony Stairway in leaps and bounds. Not much further. We can see the moon—the full moon, large and yellow-white. We reach the clearing and there it is, the Stone Gate. The moon hangs low in the sky, almost in perfect alignment from the top of Mt Blackwood to the portal.

Almost.

Are we just in time? Or just too late? It's impossible to tell.

"9.02," Dr Collins calls out, his hands on his hips and breathing hard. Mrs Dunning and Beth arrive just behind him. Uncle Percy brings up the rear.

Kaya has her eyes fixed on the Stone Gate. She clasps her crystal tightly in her hand.

"Look," she cries. "Here it comes. We've made it!"

White light floods into the gap in the rock.

Kaya takes my hand in hers and together we run towards the stones.

I glance over my shoulder. I see Dr Collins and Mrs Dunning and Beth and Uncle Percy, all staring at the portal with wide eyes.

And then everything is white.

# Part Five: The Stone Gate

## K  
A  
Y  
A

I blink.

There in front of us are Jayden and Debbie James.

Jayden and Debbie! We're back! We're home!

Jack is by my side. But Beth, Mrs Dunning, Dr Collins, Uncle Percy ... they're nowhere to be seen. The Stone Gate is back to normal, too. No bright white light or roar of thunder. Just the night sounds of the forest; cicadas chirping, frogs croaking, an owl hooting.

"Well, _that_ was freaky," Jayden says.

Debbie James nods. "Yeah, that white light inside the Stone Gate. It must have been some sort of optical illusion. And when you two stepped into the Stone Gate, it looked like you just ... vanished."

"And now a second later and everything's back to normal," Jayden adds.

A second? Jack and I exchange glances. We've been gone for only a second? Everything that's happened to us, with Billy and the Dunjini, with Noah and Sara, with Beth and Dr Collins ... and yet no time has passed? That's what Billy said, of course, but it's still hard to get my head around it. I look down. Our clothes are clean again. And the cuts and bruises Jack got from the cave are gone.

"That was weird though," Jayden muses. "What do you think caused it?"

"Probably just a trick of the light," Jack replies. "When the moon shone through the rock."

"Yeah, I've seen that sort of thing a few times before," I lie. (Well, technically it's not a lie, as I saw it each of the four times we went through the portal.)

"I guess you're right. Still, there was definitely something weird about ..." Jayden breaks off and gives us a quizzical look. "What are you two grinning about?"

"Oh, nothing," I say. Now we're both giggling, more out of relief than anything funny. Jayden looks at us like we're mad.

"Don't worry. It's just a family joke," I say.

Jayden shrugs. "As long as you're happy, I suppose. Anyway, let's go to the Castle."

He takes my hand.

I'm standing in my favourite place with the hottest (coolest, etc) guy in Baytown, who seems pretty keen on me. Tonight I'll sleep in my own lovely snug bed in my lovely snug home.

Just like I do every night.

Just like I did last night.

Yes, you could say I'm happy.

# Afterword: Imaginaries

The different realities in this book are of course imaginary. Maybe I should call them "imaginaries". Yet each "imaginary" is based on reality. Let me explain.

But first, let me tell you a bit about why I wrote this book.

You see, I think global warming (also known as climate change) will be the most important thing that happens in our (or, at least, your) lifetime. In fact, it might be the most important thing that happens in human history.

So before I thought about Billy and Blaster and maala crystals and binjin stones, I wanted to write a story about global warming. And I didn't want it to be just another book of dull statistics and abstract ideas. Instead, I wanted to bring it to life; to imagine what global warming might _actually be like_. Not in hundreds of years, either, but in the near future, in our (or, at least, your) lifetime.

But I still wanted to base it on real science. So I started reading about global warming. What will actually change, apart from it being warmer? Well, I found out that scientists say warmer temperatures will change things in all sorts of complicated ways. There will be more droughts in some places, more rain and storms in others, more forest fires. Some rivers will dry up, while others will flood more often. Deserts will expand. The oceans will heat up, killing coral reefs. As it gets hotter, tropical diseases will spread. Glaciers in Greenland and West Antarctica will melt into the ocean, raising sea levels.

How will this affect our lives? No one can be sure, but we can make some educated guesses. For instance, if sea levels rise, many coastal towns and cities will have to be abandoned. If there are more droughts, crops will fail and there will be food shortages and famine. As deserts expand, wars will be fought over the remaining areas of good farmland. Indeed, many of these things are already happening in various places around the world.

Famine, war and rising seas will force millions of people to flee their homes. Where will they go? With most countries already struggling to feed their own population, this tidal wave of refugees will create chaos around the world.

With all these pressures, law and order will start to break down. And when law and order fails, local hard men like Blaster emerge, offering protection—at a cost.

So this is Noah and Sara's world. It could be our world if we do nothing about global warming.

Then I tried to imagine a more optimistic "sustainable" future. Again, I wanted to get beyond boring statistics and abstract ideas and imagine what such a world might _really be like_.

So I did some more research. I learnt that, because burning fossil fuels causes global warming, we will need to replace coal, oil and gas with renewable energy such as dams and solar and wind and wave power (and, maybe, nuclear power).

I also learnt that many experts think renewable energy will not produce as much power as fossil fuels, so we will also need to use _less_ energy. Then I found out that much of our energy is used for buildings, transport, and making stuff. So in Beth's world people live in smaller houses, buy less new stuff and recycle more, and their lives are much more "local" to reduce travel.

They also grow some of their own food, which is hard work but uses less machinery and trucks and tractors, and therefore less energy.

Forests are being replanted, because forests absorb carbon dioxide. And large chunks of both land and sea have been set aside for nature to recover and flourish without humans.

So this is how I came up with Beth's world. I'm sure there will be other changes too (eating insects and jellyfish was one of the ideas I came across) but many things will stay the same: Beth's Baytown is more peaceful (and safer) with fewer cars, but it still has the internet, computer games, school, football, music, swimming at the beach, boy-meets-girl and so on.

I don't suppose everything will turn out exactly like this, but I hope it gives you some idea of the sort of world we need to create to stop global warming. The good thing is, we don't need to invent anything new; just make a few changes to the way we live.

Finally (or firstly), Billy's world came about because I love going for walks in the forest near my home. But whereas I visit the forest for a couple of hours then go home, for thousands of years the forest itself was home. I found that fascinating, and began researching—and imagining—what it must have been like to live in the forest without houses or electricity or clothes or fridges or any of the many other things we now think we can't do without.

If you'd like to know more about global warming and sustainable living, and some of the thinkers, books and websites that have inspired my "imaginaries", visit http://www.thestonegate.net.

