A huge crash jolted Ashley awake. At first she couldn’t remember where she was. She was nearly deafened by the roaring all around and it was too dark to see anything.
‘Kid?’
She heard Micky’s voice faintly and in a flash she remembered. She was at her aunt’s house, in the storm, and she was sleeping on the lounge-room floor.
‘What?’ she yelled back.
‘A tree’s come down outside. Might be on the roof. I can’t find the torch. Turn on the light, would you? The switch is near the door. Be careful in case there’s smashed glass around.’
Ashley struggled up and felt her way across the room in the dark. She banged her toes a couple of times before she found the wall and felt her way along it. She flicked the light switch, but nothing happened.
‘It’s not working!’
Over the roar of the rain it sounded like Micky said something very rude. ‘Must be a blackout. Help me find the torch. And walk carefully, OK?’
Ashley took a couple of steps, then yelped and jumped back. But it wasn’t glass under her foot. It was cold water.
‘It’s wet!’
Micky groaned. Suddenly a torch flicked on, blinding Ashley.
‘Sorry, kid,’ Micky said, lowering the beam. Ashley headed over to the sofa, took the torch and looked around. Water was pooling on the floor. She flicked the beam over towards the stairs. She could see leaves and branches where there should have been a window.
‘Get your boots on and help me up,’ Micky said, sounding businesslike.
Ashley went to the front door. Rain was still lashing down, the wind whistled past the house and water was running in under the door. She shoved her bare feet into the wet boots and headed back to the couch.
Micky took hold of her arm and hauled herself to her feet. She put her foot down on the ground and winced.
‘Does it hurt?’
She shrugged. ‘Hurts like hell. But I’d better have a look around. Stay here. This is getting beyond a joke and your mother’ll kill me if anything happens. Give me that stick again.’
Micky strapped on a headlamp, hobbled across the room and peered up the stairs into the tangle of branches. ‘I don’t think it’s too bad,’ she called. ‘A branch has come through the window, but I think the roof’s OK.’
Ashley flicked the big torch towards the front door, lighting up the water rushing in underneath.
Micky groaned at the sight. ‘Can you try blocking it with those towels?’
Ashley grabbed an armful of towels and headed to the door. The water was coming in fast — she could feel it washing over her boots. She crouched down and jammed the towels one at a time against the bottom of the door, blocking off the flow.
Micky had hobbled back to watch her and she gave her the thumbs up. ‘Well done.’
Ashley got to her feet. ‘What are we going to do now?’
‘Cup of tea, I reckon,’ Micky said. ‘Not much else we can do. SES can’t get here in this storm, and I don’t want to leave the koalas anyway. We’ll just have to stay put until the morning, and see how bad things are.’
She hobbled back to the couch and collapsed. ‘Phew. The fire’s still going, kid. Reckon you can make a chai if I tell you how?’
Ashley followed her aunt’s instructions, and somewhat to her surprise, produced two cups of sweet, milky chai that were every bit as good as her aunt’s.
‘Oh yeah,’ Micky said as she took the first sip. ‘There’s chocolate in the bottom drawer. Better get it out — I’d hate it to get wet.’
Ashley opened the drawer. Fruit and nut. Her favourite. Micky smiled at her and for the first time since she’d left home, Ashley felt a bit better.
The rain was still falling when Ashley woke up. She was curled up on the lounge, a sleeping bag thrown over her, and she could see daylight had come. The wind didn’t sound quite as bad as it had during the night, and the rain was certainly lighter.
Micky was still fast asleep. Ashley slid the sleeping bag off and stood up quietly. She’d fallen asleep with her boots on. She tiptoed to the staircase and peered up. She could barely see anything except for leaves, but by moving them around she could see that a big branch had crashed through the window of her bedroom. Micky had been right — it didn’t look like the roof was crushed.
She crept to the front door. The towels had blocked more water from coming in, though the floor was still puddled.
Ashley opened the door. She half expected a rush of water, but the rain had eased to a shower and the floodwater from the middle of the night had run off.
She looked out and gasped. It seemed that nearly every leaf of every plant in the garden had been stripped away. The ground was a thick carpet of leaves and she could see bare branches everywhere. The branch that had broken the window wasn’t the only thing that had snapped — in every direction she could see fallen trees and branches.
Ashley remembered Jemima. She stepped outside the door, grabbed the oilskin and headed to the enclosure, skidding over the leaves.
To her relief, she saw that nothing had fallen on the cage. She went to the side and peered in. Many of the branches she’d collected the previous day were scattered on the floor, but otherwise everything looked all right. Jemima was curled up asleep as if nothing had happened.
She turned away and looked out towards the ocean. She could see it much more clearly today — lots of trees must have fallen and the rest had lost most of their leaves. In the distance she could see the lighthouse of Byron Bay, which had been under cloud the previous day. The wind was still strong, but she had the feeling that ex-tropical Cyclone Jasper had gone past them now.
‘Cooee!’
Ashley swung around. Micky was at the door, waving. Ashley headed back.
‘Jemima is fine,’ she said, before her aunt could ask. ‘Fast asleep.’
‘Good kid,’ Micky said with a smile. Then she looked around and her smile disappeared. ‘Hell. The garden is trashed.’
‘You can see all the way to Byron,’ Ashley said. ‘The trees have all lost their leaves.’
Micky shook her head. ‘As if the koalas here haven’t got enough problems. I wonder how they went in the storm.’
Ashley noticed that her aunt didn’t have the stick any more. ‘How’s your ankle?’
‘A bit better this morning,’ Micky said. ‘You hungry? How about some scrambled eggs? We’d better get our energy up before we go looking for drop bears.’
‘Micky? What exactly is a drop bear?’ Ashley asked.
Micky looked at her. ‘Haven’t you heard of Thylarctos plummetus? A carnivorous form of koala that kills its prey by dropping on it from a tree before biting it on the neck?’
Ashley wished she knew when Micky was joking. ‘Really?’
Micky poked her in the ribs and grinned. ‘I’m kidding, idiot. They’re a myth. No, round here we use it to mean the koalas that end up on the ground for one reason or another and need to be rescued. After last night, there’ll probably be drop bears all over the shire. The phone is going to start ringing as soon as I plug it back in. But I want to go and check the colony down the ridge and see if they’re OK. There are a few koalas in that group with conjunctivitis, and they’re likely to be in trouble. I’m going to need your help, kid.’
Ashley nodded. She wondered what it would take for Micky to stop calling her ‘kid’.