Wu lowered his eyes and wiped his brow. He inhaled deeply, burying his face in his hands.
For ten minutes or more he stood by the fire, staring at nothing, struggling to think. ‘Yin bring terrible thing,’ he said aloud. ‘Karma very bad. Very bad feeling.’
Po-Yee! He had forgotten about her. With some effort, he shuffled to the edge of the forest, calling her name. ‘Po-Yee! Where are you? It safe now. It gone.’
There was only darkness … and a silence that hung in the air like an invisible shroud. ‘Po-Yee. Where are you?’ he called again.
Then he saw her. She was moving slowly towards him, slinking close to the ground, turning her head from side to side as though searching. Reaching Wu, she made a rasping sound and rubbed against his legs. He bent and picked her up.
‘Po-Yee,’ the old Chinaman whispered. ‘Stay with me. There is peril.’ With sad eyes, he rested a trembling hand on the cat’s sleek back.
Then, as though an invisible signal had sounded, the forest began to stir.
Wallabies, wombats, quolls, devils, slunk from the depths of the trees back once again to their safe place on Wu Han’s land. Possums began to rustle in the branches and night birds cried. The moon, creeping from behind the dull, silhouetted clouds, cast an icy glow on Wu Han’s face, and from some hidden place the cicadas began to sing.
Wu Han, with Po-Yee in his arms, shuffled back to his hut, his wrinkled face downcast. He knew why they had come.
Chapter Two
FRIDAY
Jars and Snook Kelly, along with the other year ten students, filed into class and then found their seats. It was history, the first lesson after lunch. Miss Sweetman, their teacher, was writing on the whiteboard. She stopped and turned to face the class, but before she could say anything, the brown speaker that jutted from high on the wall at the front of the room, crackled and came to life. The teacher scowled. She wished the darn thing had never been installed.
‘Good afternoon, everyone,’ it blared. As usual, it was the school secretary, Mrs Cherry. ‘The principal would like to see the Kelly children in his office straightaway. Jacinta Kelly, Snook Kelly, please make your way to Mr Twichette’s office now. Thank you.’
A buzz went through the room and Jars and Snook, who were sitting near to each other, exchanged glances. Snook gave his what did I do now look. Jars shrugged. She didn’t know either.
‘Quiet everyone. Settle down.’ Miss Sweetman glared at the class. Her insistence on law and order in her classes was legendary. Still holding the whiteboard marker, she waved it towards the Kellys. ‘Okay, you two; you heard. Off you go.’
Despite the teacher’s words, muffled whispers and twitters weren’t far behind as Jars and Snook walked out the door into the corridor.
‘What do you reckon’s goin’ on?’ Snook said as they stepped outside. They made their way across the school quadrangle past the junior school swings and sandpits. ‘Do you reckon we’re in trouble or somethin’? If we are, I dunno why.’ They stepped off the asphalt surface and climbed the few steps that led to the office block and the principal’s office.
Jars shrugged and spread her arms. ‘Not that I know of. Unless you’ve done something I don’t know about. You haven’t been fighting or playing practical jokes lately, have you?’
‘Nah, nothin’ like that. Just the usual. Teachers gettin’ cranky about not doin’ my homework assignments, bein’ late for lessons, talkin’ too much. Stuff like that.’
Jars sighed. Yes, that was her cousin all right, always getting on the bad side of his teachers. He wasn’t cruel or nasty. Far from it. When it was important, when it mattered, he knew right from wrong. As strange as it may sound, that was his downfall. When it came to giving his point of view, all tact and all niceties flew out the window. And if he was wronged then, quite simply, he’d pull out all stops to put it right – even the score, so to speak. And sometimes that got him into trouble. But for all his faults, deep down Snook was a soft touch, who’d help anyone if he could – except himself, that is.
‘Anyway, we’ll soon find out what he wants,’ Jars said, pushing against the office block door and pointing towards another door with a sign that read: ‘Mr Twichette, Principal.’
Snook shoved past her. ‘Yeah, but whatever it is, I betcha it ain’t nothin’ good.’
Chapter Three
Snook strode into the reception area. Jars, taking more tentative steps, followed. Mrs Cherry, who was sitting in her usual glassed-in workspace, raised her head and without saying a word, pointed towards the closed door of the principal’s office. Jars didn’t like the smug look that had spread across her face when Snook knocked on the principal’s office door. She knows something we don’t, Jars thought not liking her self-righteous, hoity-toity stare. She joined Snook and then waited outside the closed office door.
‘Enter!’ Mr Twichette summoned. Snook pushed the door open and sauntered into the office. He wasn’t gonna be intimi-dated. No way.
As an Aboriginal, Jars had been brought up to respect her elders. She edged into the room, head bowed, slightly embarrassed by her cousin’s bravado. Some people took her initial deference to others as shyness; it wasn’t; it was more a show of consideration. She waited for Mr Twichette to speak, still wondering what he wanted.
She stared at the grey office carpet, waiting.
Silence.
She lifted her head a fraction. Snook, legs apart, hands on hips, was not suffering from any shyness at all; he was currently trading stares with the principal as if to say, okay, why am I here?
Mr Twichette, his sharp, angular face poking out of a baggy, dark suit, was sitting behind his desk, eying Snook with down-turned, twisted lips that somehow suggested a permanent sarcasm. When he spoke, he did so whilst peering over glasses that sat on his nose. They didn’t hide his small, round, eyes. All the kids called him Twitchy.
Tapping a biro on his desk, he stared at them as though deep in thought. His eyes, unblinking and black like peri-winkles on a rock, looked as though they were going to pop. He shook his head slowly from side to side, first at Snook then Jars.
‘I’m shocked!’ Despite his thin, beanpole looks, his voice boomed. ‘I can believe it of you, Snook Kelly, but you, Jacinta? I’m shocked.’
Jars shuffled her feet and tentatively lifted her eyes once again. Being called Jacinta raised her hackles; she preferred Jars. She said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Twichette, but I really don’t know what you mean.’
As though suddenly conscious of his tapping, Mr Twichette stopped. He stuck the pen in the top pocket of his jacket. Humphing to himself, he repositioned his glasses that had somehow slid down his nose. Jars noticed one of his legs bouncing up and down under the desk.
Snook lifted his arms and shrugged. ‘I dunno know what you mean neither.’
‘Then I shall tell you. You were both in Mr Pearson’s shop at dinnertime. You told Mr Pearson that you wanted to look at the rock collection he had on display. Trusting you, he agreed. When he was attending to another customer, you two had disappeared with the collection . Now, I ask you, was that by magic or by some other means?’ He waited for an answer, now drumming his fingers on the desktop.
‘What?’ Snook couldn’t help himself. ‘You’re accusin’ us of stealin’? That’s not right. We’d never …’
‘Yes! I am,’ Mr Twichette interrupted. ‘Of theft, and you have exactly ten seconds to tell me what you’ve done with the stolen items. Starting now.
Ten!’
‘It wasn’t us, was it Jars?’ Snook said, glancing sideways at his cousin. ‘There’s no way we’d