Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,13

hills all pale with moonlight and I asked her what she were looking for and she said her father. She said he’d be searching for us through every nook and cranny of Tasmania. I said, That’s blather, it would be me father doing that, and she snarled like some animal, You are a gink, Hannah. Those tigers are making you stupid like them. I hit her and went inside the den to sleep with the tigers cos dawn were coming up and I heard her yell after me, They’re dead. It was then she told me, in a rush of hatred, that she had seen me drowned mother stuck in a tree - like she were tied to a mast - floating down the Munro to the sea. I said she were lying, but she said she weren’t and that in all possibility of fate me father were drowned too and we now had to depend on her father, her father who loved her and would search for her for all time.

I were very cut up about what she told me and I put me hands over me ears and I sang a song real loud as she told me again and again what had happened to me mother and father. I weeped long and hard and went inside the den abusing her something bad. The tigers were scared of me loud singing and me tears. I plopped down on the fronds and were in misery. Corinna curled herself next to me and I found meself sucking her nipples, like it were the most natural thing in the world. I filled meself up to brimful with her warm milk and it made me less sad and less feeling misery for meself. And I remember that as I fell asleep - the memory is still as sharp today - I felt myself to be an orphan now and alone. I did not like Becky for telling me what she seen, but deep down I knew she were telling the truth. That were a heavy burden for a girl me age.

Becky may have been picking on me, like a real gink, but she snuggled up with the tigers too, cos they were cosy to sleep with. We sleeped through the day and woke up near dusk and all our bellies were grumbling something terrible. The sun were warm outside and we followed the tigers through the bush hoping that they’d get some food. We were starving. ’Bout half an hour into our hunt the tigers went all still and their noses sniffed the breeze. They made a snuffling noise to each other and I knew that they had smelled prey. And I have to say me heart leaped up with joy, cos I were so hungry. The tigers ran through the bush into open country and there were before us a pack of wallabies contentedly eating grass. When they seen the tigers, and us behind them, they scattered in all directions; a willy-willy of fright. The tigers set after a small wallaby which hopped for its life. Dave circled in front of it, while Corinna chased behind it. Then Corinna stopped, turned and did a coughing bark back at us. I knew what that meant and, you know what, so did Becky, cos I seen her eyes light up too.

I raced to the other side, just in case the wallaby circled back round Corinna and as I am running I am so excited that I run into a damn tree and I bounce off - a real whack to me forehead and I fall to the ground. I heard Becky, all tizzy, laugh like I were a clown at a circus. I were a bit confused cos the tree hit me so hard. Becky ran past me, offering no hand to help, shouting at me, Come on, gink! Here! Round it up! So I jumped up and seen the wallaby turning round cos Dave had headed it off. I seen out of the corner of me eye the bitch tiger coughing at us, knowing we were in the hunt too. It were like she were giving orders and both Becky and I knew which way to go to cut off the wallaby’s escape. And, you know, both Becky and I were coughing barking too in all the excitement. Trying to escape from the tigers the wallaby found itself hopping towards me and Becky and we ran towards it, spaced a yard apart