The Hellhound's Un-Christmas Miracle - Zoe Chant Page 0,10
due to get on the plane and panic about her having left something behind, and they’d talk then. She tucked her phone into her backpack and stared out across the landscape.
She had her whole future ahead of her. One day, that would include her mate. But Aroha was right: she had so much she wanted to do before then. Like come back here and explore the volcanic landscape. Staring at it wasn’t enough. She wanted to clamber over creek beds, feel the rich soil under her fingernails, chew on the tussock and heather to see if it tasted the same as back home…
I don’t want to fall in another hole, her sheep bleated plaintively. Sheena snorted.
Fall in a hole and see if they’re the same as the holes I fall in back home, she added to her to-do list. She grinned as her sheep bleated in frustration. Don’t worry. We won’t have a chance to fall into anything. We’re only here overnight, and then Fiona and Rena are driving us up to Auckland.
No mud pits, her sheep said firmly.
That’s up to you, isn’t it? I’m not the one who got us into the last one.
The sun was shining through the windows. Outside, the temperature must have been in the single digits, but inside was warm and cozy. Sheena had been up early to catch the bus from Wellington, and those lost hours of sleep were tapping on her shoulder. She closed her eyes. Just for a minute, she told herself.
“Stop for Sheena Mackay—hey, chickie, wake up!”
Sheena jerked awake. “’s me,” she garbled as the driver called her name again. “Here!” She resisted the urge to raise her hand like she was in school, and jumped up. “I’m awake—sorry, sorry…”
It wasn’t completely a lie. Her sheep was instantly awake, but her human body clung to sleep like King Kong to the Empire State Building. She was halfway down the aisle when she realized she’d forgotten her pack and had to go back for it.
“Sorry!” she burst out again as she grabbed her bag and fumbled it and almost crushed the woman who’d been giving her looks the whole trip.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the woman snapped in the exact right tone to send panic shooting through her sheep’s extra-nervous system. “Just get a move on, will you!”
Sheena got a move on, sharpish. By the time the world stopped spinning and she began to wonder if her seat neighbor had some sheepdog shifter in her family tree, the bus was a distant speck and Sheena was alone on the side of the road.
The world might have stopped spinning, but her head hadn’t. She bent over, hands on her knees, and waited for the blood to return to her brain.
Well done us, she thought wryly once the world felt normal again. That was as bad as when I had Mrs. Powell for PE.
Sorry. Her sheep sounded as baffled as it always did after something tripped its run-like-stink instincts. I just…
I know. You’re just looking out for me. I’m just glad Fiona and Rena aren’t here yet, they’d probably confiscate my passport.
Sheena brushed off her knees—it was more habit than anything else because she hadn’t actually gone head-over-feet in her rush to run, this time—and looked around.
She was in the right place, at least. That was a good start. For having just been caught up in her sheep’s flight-or-more-flight response, it was a really good start. The bus had dropped her just off South Highway 5, right in front of a billboard advertising Silver Springs. The sign had a picture of a serene town center on it, complete with a fountain and small children playing with a friendly dog, and a helpful note about there still being sections for sale.
And she had her backpack with her. Even better. Ten out of ten, Sheena told herself and her sheep.
Except her aunts weren’t there. Eight out of ten.
She checked her phone and swore. No signal. And since she’d been asleep for the last how-many kilometers, she had no idea how long she’d had no signal for. It could have been hours. Fiona and Rena could have been trying to get in touch with her most of the day to tell her the plans had changed, and she wouldn’t know.
Sheena let out a long, slow breath than plumed in the air. “Well I can’t sit on my arse here waiting,” she told the Silver Springs sign. “They might be ages. Anyway, there’s only the one road…”