‘How long do you reckon it’d take to fry an egg on Matilda’s bonnet?’

Scruff is looking longingly at our car, which is already boiling hot in the 44-degree heat – and it’s only nine a.m.

‘Fifty-two seconds!’ Bert rises to the challenge. ‘Do it, Scruffy boy, come on. Anything would be better than Kick’s cooking.’ She shoots a glance at me, knowing I’ll take the bait. Which I most certainly do.

‘Just you try being a mum plus a dad around here, young lady.’ I poke out my tongue. Everyone knows that any experiment at being a grown-up ended months ago. ‘Twenty-nine seconds,’ I exclaim, ‘and not a fly’s fart more!’

My attempt at breakfast – a frypan with a rug of eggs tastefully congealed on its bottom – is grabbed and said eggs are flung wide into the yard. They spin like a dinner plate. Land – plop! – in the red dust.

Cooking. Pah. I give up. I’ve had enough of it.

Our dog, Bucket, scoots for the mess of the breakfast and gobbles it up. I bow to her exquisite taste. ‘Well, at least someone appreciates me around here.’

Then I stand on the table in my leather flying cap, fix Mum’s old driving goggles firmly over my eyes, straighten my back and salute.

‘Troops, as of this moment I hereby resign from the positions of cook, cleaner, mother, father, storyteller, governess, putterer-to-bed, chief hunter, nose-wiper, Pin-tracker, master spy and war general. You’re free. The whole blinkin’ lot of you! I’m off.’

‘Yaaaaaaay!’

My three siblings – Scruff, eleven, Bert, nine, and Pin, four – hoot with glee and do an instant war dance; Bucket joins in for good measure with a great flurry of leaps and barks. A finger’s waggled at her. I expect mutiny in the ranks from the humans who inhabit this adult-forsaken place but not from our dingo we’ve raised since a pup. Obediently she sits and pants. That’s better. I wink my thanks.

‘Forty-eight seconds, girls. The bet’s on!’ Scruff sings, rushing to the larder to gather more eggs. Dad left him his old wristwatch from World War I, complete with its stopwatch, and he’s been timing the entire world ever since.

‘Twelve eleven! Twelve eleven!’ Pin exclaims.

This is the biggest number he knows, and, er, as you can see, I’ve been a bit slack in the governess department of late. We’ll get to numbers one day.

We all scramble out to Matilda, our trusty car, which I can drive (with three blocks of wood tied with ropes to the pedals and a pillow on the seat) at the grand old age of thirteen, thank you very much.

‘A minute’s silence please.’ Bert clasps her chest dramatically when we get there (ever the drama queen). She raises her head to the wide blue heavens. Bucket takes her place behind the wheel. ‘Please bring Daddy back to us by Christmas Eve. With the following: a rifle for Scruff, a slingshot for Pin, a black velvet dress from Paris for me and a . . . a little . . . book . . . of some sort . . . for the ex-governess.’ She wrinkles her nose in distaste in my direction.

My eyes narrow. ‘Dinner’s all yours, Madame Pompadour. Tonight. Just see what you can do with a roo tail, two cups of flour and a chocolate bar.’

‘Forty-eight seconds, ladies!’ Scruff exclaims, ever the peacemaker, his palms wide between both of us as he scrutinises the tall blue sky.

We all do. Oh, it’ll deliver all right. Cook those eggs in the blink of an eye. Because we live smack bang in the middle of the hottest place on earth – the Central Australian desert. And we live here, at the moment, all by our glorious selves.

Dad’s gone away on yet another of his expeditions. He’s always heading off, ever since I could talk he’s been disappearing and then coming back with a great wallop of presents and stories about princes and paupers, India and Ceylon and Paris, samurai swords and civil war muskets, spies and saboteurs, crocs and stingrays and sharks. He’s an adventure hunter, that’s all we know, liberating peoples and animals across the world, and it’s always of the highest importance and the most mysterious intelligence. His latest mission: yep, you guessed it, top secret. But it’s to save the world from imminent destruction – even though the war, er, ended several months ago. Apparently. We’ve spent World War II on our station in the middle of Woop Woop, scouring the horizon for Japs, which always turn into camels as they get close through the haze of heat. But we’re ready for ‘em!

And Mum? She died when Pin was born; Dad says she ran away to God, because another little Caddy surprise was just too shocking for this world to ever cope with and she needed to instruct God how to do it. Mum’s always up there, with us, close, we must never forget it.

The four of us climb onto Matilda’s bonnet, which creaks companionably with our weight but never gives, thank goodness, ’cause we’re on here a lot. Our darling, faithful old girl of a ute, she’s taken us to every waterhole within a hundred-mile radius thanks to Dad. She’s sped between sand dunes trailing an old mattress that we’ve all clung onto for dear life, she’s carried swags and firewood and dead roos and goannas piled high for feasts, as well as endless gaggles of kids on hunting expeditions with our blackfella mates.

Dad organised for Aunty Ethel to stay with us during this latest absence – something about me ‘becoming a woman and needing some help’, which he couldn’t talk about, and he would blush whenever I tried to ask, but excuse me, I’m more than all right now, thank you very much. I’ve got his war pistol and his whip, his car key and a stash of books – what more does a girl need?

Aunty Ethel agreed that her services might no longer be required after she found the entire occupants of Bert’s scorpion farm in her sheets. Which came the day after Pin whacked Scruff with a fresh roo tail and sprayed blood across Aunty Ethel’s white Sunday-best dress, and Scruff used her glasses to set fire to the straw under the chook house as a liberation experiment.

‘Your father was always the black sheep of the family – but he’s got nothing on you lot,’ she’d said as she slammed the door of her car. ‘I’ll write and tell him to get back instantly. No one else will have you. Kick, you’ll just just have to work out how to become a lady all by yourself. And clean up that potty mouth of yours, because your father certainly won’t!’

The last sight of our visitor from hoity toity down south: her Morris Minor coughing and spluttering as it disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Excellent. That’s how we like it. We rubbed our hands in glee. Me free to do and say what I want. Kids free of supervision and baths. Plus the most superb development of the lot: Dad on his way back to look after us.

Except he’s not here. Yet.

And it’s been an awfully long time. Every day we expect him to arrive. The days are ticking on, the tins are running low, as well as the powdered milk and flour with too many weevils in it, and Christmas is in a week, the bush pine will have to be selected and chopped and Dad’s always in command of that. Along with bagging the bush turkey, tuning the piano for the singalong, directing the Christmas pantomine (sole audience member: Bucket), and painting across the entire tin roof, in bright red, our yearly message to Santa on his flying kangaroos in case he misses it: ‘STOP! BEER + GOOD KIDS HERE.’

‘Ah, shouldn’t that be written the other way round?’ Scruff had asked last year.

‘In this heat,’ Dad had laughed, ‘Father Christmas needs a beer before anything,’ and clapped his son on the back.

‘I do too!’ Scruff had jumped in right quick.

‘You’re only ten, mate. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you one when you’ve grown some hairs on your chest – and you’re all of eleven.’ Then they’d both cackled with laughter that wouldn’t stop. Little boys, both of them, especially on December 25th. So. Scruff’s come of age now and Dad needs to hurry up. Any moment, I just know it, can feel it.

Dad Junior now holds an egg high. ‘Troops, are we ready? Steady?’

Pin holds my hand, squeezes with excitement.

Bert examines her nails, which she’s just covered with old blackboard paint that’s still hanging around, miraculously, even though all the governesses have long fled. ‘Excuse me, stop. We’re not ready yet because I have a question. A crucial one. What does the winner get?’

Scruff looks at her, thinking. It’ll be something to do with warfare, I bet. ‘My entire grenade collection.’

‘Do any of them work?’ Bert’s now looking straight at me, planning her attack.

That’d be right. Just because I told her she has to pull her weight and help with a week’s worth of dishes now that we have nothing left to eat off.

‘Not a single one, sis!’ Scruff cackles then cracks the egg with great aplomb between his spread legs. ‘Breakfast is on its way, ladies and gentleman – the best feast you have ever tasted in your life!’ He counts from his watch, ‘One – two – three – four –’

Pin’s tugging me, trying to get me off the car. ‘Sssh,’ I tell him, ‘don’t interrupt, pup.’

‘But Kicky . . .’ he whines.

‘Twelve – eleven –’ Scruff winks at Pin ‘– thirteen – fourteen –’

But Pin’s head is somewhere else. Our little man can be distracted by an ant, a fly, anything but the task at hand, and that usually leads to him wandering off, which always gives us heart attacks. Right on cue he jumps from Matilda. Heads to the front gate. Our gaze follows him.

To an enormous plume of angry red dust, bulleting straight at us from the horizon.

The egg is forgotten as we rush to Pin . . . hearts in our mouths.

What is it?

It’s not Dad, it’s too fast. It’s something else.