Wildlife by Fiona Wood

nothing more than sleepy birds, small marsupials, large possums, and the odd wallaby nearby, the fire still seems like essential wild-beast protection, and I am only able to let it burn down to a smolder with a pang.
    Burrowing into the down-filled sleeping bag, everything that involves muscle or tendon is aching, and my nose is freezing. I can’t remember ever feeling that I needed to stretch out and sleep more than I do right now. But used as I am to the sounds of helicopters, traffic, breaking glass, the bass pulse of a party a couple of blocks away, car doors, drunken arguments, and loud farewells, I can’t settle into this new repertoire of going-to-sleep sounds. Twig snaps, wind shaking leaves and branches, trees creaking together, rock rumbles, the war cry of the possums, nocturnal hunting stampedes, owls screeching. Oh, it is hideous.

24
    wednesday 17 october
    I trudged back thinking, one down, two to go, one down, two to go. Overnight hikes. And promising myself I would never get stuck with Holly again.
    I can’t decide if Sibylla is just so used to Holly’s needling that she can ignore it, or if Holly’s superpower is couching meanness in just enough humor that she gets away with it.
    Stomping along for hours, one foot after another, puts you into a rhythm. A physical rhythm seems to call for athought rhythm, and my brain chose one of its favorite, well-worn tracks.
    If we hadn’t been speaking about
pain au chocolat
with Dan and Estelle, Fred would not have been juggling two Les Bons Matins paper bags on his handlebars.
    If he hadn’t had an extra clarinet lesson after school because his exam was coming up and he needed to rehearse with his accompanist, he would not have been running late.
    If we hadn’t agreed to meet at my place.
    If he hadn’t taken Brunswick Street.
    If the truck driver hadn’t pulled in for a coffee right there at that moment.
    If the impact had been to forehead, not temple.
    If his helmet strap had been tighter.
    If the parking meter hadn’t been in that position on the sidewalk.
    If Dan had never come to my school.
    If I had not liked Fred the first time I met him.
    If he had not liked me.
    If I had never met Fred.
    If he had never met me.
    If we had never…
    Esther called this unproductive thinking. My mind, for reasons of its own, has chosen to ignore this sound observation. (It has to be what Fred’s mother and father and stepmother think, too: if he hadn’t been riding to Lou’s at that time on that day…)
    If you take thinking like this to its logical conclusion you’d never get out of bed, according to Esther.
    That would be fine with me.
    For a while being dead felt like it would be fine with me, too, but…
    But, as Dan said, we are the only ones who have certain memories of Fred.
    The keepers.

25
    When we get back, there’s talk of pranking in the air. A couple of small-scale forays have happened in our absence.
    Pranking is a sign that people are settling into the new life. Warming to it. Over the years it must have come to symbolize some sort of “ownership” of the camp experience, because the teachers seem to expect it—and almost tolerate it.
    We lead the house-on-house attack. Stupid target, as it turns out. Illawarra House has the biggest percentage of misfits and grudge-holders up here, but proximity is everything, and they happen to be our next-door neighbors.
    We decide on a classic attack. The covert flour bomb. Elegant, simple, effective.
    We get them on Thursday morning when the jobs rosterrotates and it’s their turn to wipe the swill and sluice the decks and risk contracting Slushy-induced hepatitis A–Z.
    Eliza, Holly, and I go in armed with flour.
    Annie keeps watch. Pippa stays in. Lou opts out. “I could not be less interested,” she says. It’s a shame. I thought she had warmed up just slightly on our hike. Apparently not. She seems glummer than ever.
    As soon as they leave to set up breakfast, we are in. Pippa might not be actively