Ash Road by Ivan Southall

knew who it was. John George wasn’t going home. He was going out to do a job like a man. But of course John
was
a man. He wasn’t a molly-coddled kid.
    Pippa heard the siren, too. She was down the hill not far from the creek where her father had his pump—the pump that never worked when it was supposed to; only when it didn’t matter. It was not the same creek as the Fairhalls’.
    Pippa was looking for Julie, and the possibility that Julie might have wandered away and become truly lost had assumed a sudden and grim reality. Until the instant of the siren the thought as such had not occurred to Pippa; after all, when Julie had been naughty she always went to earth, simply froze and remained silent. One could stand and bellow her name half a dozen paces from her and never guess she was there. Julie wouldn’t answer until she thought the crisis was past, until the voice that called her began to get tired. Finding Julie when Julie knew she was in disgrace was just about impossible.
    For a few moments Pippa was frightened. The bush along the creek was thick and wild and Grandpa Tanner said there were old mine holes in it, though no one had ever come across them. How terrible it would be if Julie really were lost and a fire came. Pippa couldn’t suppress a little cry of anguish. She had never thought of anything like that before, but she had never heard a fire warning before, either, on a suffocating midsummer morning like this one. She called Julie’s name loudly; at least she intended to call it loudly, but her voice came with a break in it. The only response was a distant wind-blown cry from Stevie: ‘Gee whiz. Wombat tracks!’
    That was Stevie all over. His help was worse than useless. Most of the time he forgot what he was about and started stalking birds or rabbits or turning over stones looking for beetles and shiny black worms with yellow bands on their bodies.
    â€˜Stevie,’ she cried, ‘can’t you hear that siren?’
    There was no reply; she couldn’t see him; didn’t know where he was; she guessed he was already on the trail of the wombat with everything else forgotten. Then she heard him breaking out of the bush surprisingly close to her, and he appeared at the edge of the cleared land in the gully. ‘Say, Pippa,’ he yelled. ‘That’s the siren.’ He stood with legs apart and arms apart as though about to engage an enemy in combat. ‘The siren,’ he shrilled. ‘There’s a fire.’ And he started running up the hill.
    â€˜Stevie,’ Pippa cried, ‘come back! We’ve got to find Julie.’
    â€˜Blow Julie,’ yelled Stevie—or that was what it sounded like; the roar of wind in the trees didn’t make hearing easy. ‘You find her. I want to see the fire.’
    She could never stop him. It was a waste of time and breath calling after him. He was off, as fast as he could go, beyond all hope of claiming his attention over the wind.
    She was on her own, and the tossing bush was all around her, and the wailing siren seemed to be crying inside her.
    â€˜Julie,’ she screamed suddenly. ‘Answer me. Where are you, Julie? You won’t get smacked, Julie. Answer me, sweetie!’
    Stevie pounded up the hill and saw his parents near the apple tree, Dad in shorts and singlet, Mum in her dressing-gown. Mum looked tall and thin in her dressing-gown, though she wasn’t really. She was gripping Dad tightly, almost desperately, by the arm, but Stevie didn’t take much notice of that. Mum and Dad were always hanging on to each other as if they were afraid one or the other was going to vanish into thin air. ‘Gee,’ Stevie cried breathlessly. ‘Where is it, Dad?’
    They must have heard him, but they ignored him, as they so often did, until he appeared flushed and excited, practically jumping up and down in front of them. ‘I don’t know,’ his dad said.