Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,34

to stop. Ernie came at us. We ran back and stopped halfway in the corridor. We were panting with excitement and panic. I looked into a side room. Becky knew, for we could talk without words, that I had seen an escape route.

It were the parlour window we made for. It were opened and we jumped through it and onto the grass. I heard the two men running down the corridor and outside into the back yard. Becky and I looked round. Where to go? There were a fence ahead of us, but there were also a small track down the side of the house that led to a gate we could easily get over. We set off on all fours again, not realising cos we were so wound up that we weren’t listening properly. I thought the men were behind us, but one had gone round the side of the house and came straight at us. It were Mr Carsons. We tried to turn back but there - ready for us - were Ernie.

We were tied up to a bed. We couldn’t undo the knots cos our fingers wouldn’t work. Becky tried to chew through the ropes, it only made her gums bloody. We were trapped. It were like being in a prison. We howled and growled. We listened without breathing, hoping the tigers would call out to us, but heard only silence.

Next morning we were drowsy from lack of sleep. The two men carted us outside where they had made a strange contraption. There were two, made of leather and tied by a rope to a pepper-tree branch. They put us into a contraption each. It were like a straitjacket that kept us hanging upright, our toes just touching the earth. We swang back and forth for what seemed like hours and the men gradually lowered the ropes, keeping us upright til our feet touched the ground, but we were still hanging. Mr Carsons untied Becky and she stood upright and began to walk. The two men cried out in gladness at what they seen. They untied me but it felt strange to put so much weight on me feet that I fell to the earth. Becky seen me on all fours and joined me, much to the woe of the two men.

Again and again they put us in the contraption to make us try and stand on two feet. Most times we just swang back and forth from the tree, dozing through the hot day, sometimes waking on hearing a chook or the bleating of sheep out in the paddocks. We were awful hungry.

Late in the day Carsons did some work round the barn. I woke up when I seen him throw some meat and bones to the dogs. Ernie were asleep in a cane chair on the verandah. I kicked Becky awake and she seen what I did - the bones and meat. Mr Carsons had gone round the back of the barn. Me ropes were slack and I wiggled free, then I helped Becky. Ernie were still snoring away. We raced across the yard to the dogs. They howled and scattered. We pounced on the animal carcass they were eating. Oh, the yard were full of dogs barking and howling, chooks squawking, roosters cockadoodling and Becky’s father yelling at Ernie. By the time the two men had got to us, we had gobs full of meat. Mr Carsons grabbed his daughter and Ernie held me. Mr Carsons was real angry and slapped Becky on the legs - she didn’t cry out, our bodies had been made hard.

They put us back in the slings. We hadn’t eaten proper food for days. We needed meat, fresh meat at that. Every day the two men would put us in the slings and hang us from the pepper tree and they’d try to get us to walk upright. But the thing were - we were too dead beat to do anything that meant effort. We were thinning. We were starving. I think Ernie knew and I seen him staring at us and rubbing his shiny chin as if thinking real deep ’bout us. One morning he guided Mr Carsons out to where we were lying on the verandah. They stared down at us. I couldn’t see Mr Carsons’ reactions cos of his black beard but I seen his eyes and they seemed hurt as he looked long and hard at us. Then he nodded, said something, and went into