Anyway, the whole thing the trip, grew from there. We made this casual decision to do it, and we immediately let ourselves in for a lot of hard work. The first job was to persuade our mums and dads to let us go. It’s not that they don’t trust us, but as Dad said, It’s a pretty big ask’. They spent a lot of time not saying no, but trying to talk us into other things instead. That’s the way most parents operate I think. They don’t like to start a fight so they suggest alternatives that they think they can say yes to and they hope you might say yes to. ‘Why don’t you go down the river again?’ ‘Why don’t you ask Robyn and Meriam instead of the boys?’ ‘Why don’t you just take bikes? Or even horses? Make it a real old-fashioned campout That’d be fun.’

Mum’s idea of fun was making jam for the Preserves section of the Wirrawee Show, so she was hardly an authority on the subject. I feel a bit odd, writing things like that, considering what we’ve all been through, but I’m going to be honest, not mushy.

Finally we came to an agreement, and it wasn’t too bad, considering. We could take the Landrover but I was the only one allowed to drive it, even though Kevin had his P’s and I didn’t. But Dad knows I’m a good driver. We could go to the top of Tailor’s Stitch. We could invite the boys but we had to have more people: at least six and up to eight. That was because Mum and Dad thought there was less chance of an orgy if there were more people. Not that they’d admit that was the reason – they said it was to do with safety – but I know them too well.

And yes, I’ve written that ‘o’ in ‘know’ carefully – I wouldn’t want it to be contused with an ‘e’.

We had to promise not to take grog and smokes, and we had to promise that the boys wouldn’t. It made me wonder about the way adults turn growing up into such a complicated process. They expect you to be always on the lookout for a chance to do something wild Sometimes they even put ideas in your head I don’t think we would have bothered to take any grog or smokes anyway. Too expensive, for one thing – we were all pretty broke after Christmas. But the funny thing is that when our parents thought we were doing something wild we never were, and when they thought we were being innocent we were usually up to something. They never gave me a hard time about the school play rehearsals for instance, but I spent all my time there with Steve, undoing each other’s buttons and buckles, then frantically doing them up again when Mr Kassar started bellowing, ‘Steve! Ellie! Are they at it again? Someone get me a crowbar!’

Very humorous guy, Mr Kassar.

We ended up with a list of eight, counting us. We didn’t ask Elliot, because he’s so lazy, or Meriam, because she was doing work experience with Fi’s parents. But five minutes after we made the list, one of the boys on it, Chris Lang, turned up at my place with his dad. So we immediately put the question to them. Mr Lang’s a big guy who always wears a tie, no matter where he is or what he’s doing. He seems kind of heavy and serious to me. Chris says his father was born on the corner of Straight and Narrow, and that sums it up. When his dad’s around, Chris stays pretty quiet. But we asked them as they sat at our kitchen table, pigging out on Mum’s date scones, and we got knocked back in one sentence. It turned out that Mr and Mrs Lang were going overseas, and even though they had a worker, Chris had to stay home and keep an eye on the place. So that was a bad start to our plans.

Next day though, I took a bike and rode across the paddocks to Homer’s. Normally I’d go by road, but Mum’d been getting a bit twitchy about the new cop in Wirrawee, who’d been booking people left, right and centre. His first week in town he booked the magistrate’s wife for not wearing a seatbelt. Everyone was being careful till they’d broken this guy in.

I found Homer down at the creek testing a valve that he’d just cleaned out. As I arrived he was holding it high, watching optimistically to see if it was leaking. ‘Look at that,’ he said as I got off the Yamaha. ‘Tight as a drum.’

‘What was the problem?’

‘I don’t know. All I know is that three minutes ago it was losing water and now it isn’t. That’s good enough for me.’ I picked up the pipe and held it for him as he started screwing the valve back on. ‘I hate pumps,’ he said. ‘When Poppa pops off I’m going to put dams in every paddock.’

‘Good. You can hire my earth-moving business to put them in.’

‘Oh, is that your latest?’ He squeezed the muscles on my right upper arm. ‘You’ll be able to dig dams by hand the way you’re going.’ I gave a sudden shove, to try to push him into the creek, but he was too strong. I watched him pump the pipe up and down, to force water into it, then helped him carry buckets up to the pump to finish the priming. On the way I told him our plans.

‘Oh yeah, I’ll have a go at that,’ he said. ‘I’d rather we went to a tropical resort and drank cocktails with umbrellas in them, but this’ll do in the meantime.’

We went back to his place for lunch, and he asked his parents for permission to come on the camp. ‘Ellie and I are going bush for a few days,’ he announced. That was Homer’s way of asking permission. His mother didn’t react at all; his father raised an eyebrow from above his cup of coffee; but his brother started firing the questions. When I gave the dates, his brother, George, said: ‘What about the Show?’

‘We can’t go any earlier,’ I said. ‘The Mackenzies are shearing.’

‘Yeah, but who’s going to groom the bulls for the Show?’

‘You’re a class act with a hair dryer,’ Homer said. I’ve seen you in front of the mirror Saturday nights. Just don’t go woggy with the bulls and put oil through their coats.’ He said to me, ‘Poppa’s got a forty-four-gallon drum of oil in the shed, especially for George on Saturday nights’.

As George was not known for his sense of humour, I kept my eyes down and had another mouthful of tabbouli.

So Homer was organised, and Corrie rang that night to say Kevin was coming too. ‘He wasn’t all that keen,’ she said. ‘I think he’d rather go to the Show. But he’s doing it for me.’

‘Er, yuk, vomit, spew,’ I said. ‘Tell him to go to the Show if that’s what he wants. There’s plenty of guys who’d kill to come with us.’

‘Yeah, but they’re all under twelve,’ Corrie sighed. ‘Kevin’s little brothers are desperate to come. But they’re too young, even for you.’

‘And too old for you,’ I replied rudely.

I rang Fiona after the call from Corrie, and told her our plans. ‘Do you want to come?’ I asked.

‘Oh!’ She sounded amazed, as if I’d told her all about the trip just to entertain her. ‘Oh gosh. Do you want me to?’

I didn’t even bother to answer that one.

‘Oh gosh.’ Fi was the only person I knew under sixty who said ‘gosh’. ‘Who else is coming?’

‘Corrie and me. Homer and Kevin. And we thought we’d ask Robyn and Lee.’

‘Well, I’d like to. Wait a sec, and I’ll go and ask.’

It was a long wait. At last she came back with a series of questions. She relayed my answers to her mother or father, or both, in the background. After about ten minutes of this there was another long conversation; then Fi picked up the phone again.

‘They’re being difficult,’ she sighed. ‘I’m sure it’ll be OK but my mum wants to ring your mum to make sure. Sorry.’

‘That’s cool. I’ll put you down with a question mark and I’ll talk to you at the weekend, OK?’

I hung up. It was getting hard to use the phone, because the TV was yelling at me. Mum had it turned up too loud, so she could hear the News in the kitchen. An angry face filled the screen. I stopped and watched for a moment. ‘We’ve got a wimp for a Foreign Minister,’ the face was shouting. ‘He’s weak, he’s gutless, he’s the new Neville Chamberlain. He doesn’t understand the people he’s dealing with. They respect strength, not weakness!’