Pip had reached the far side of the park when the faint sound of barking made her turn around. There he was, Houdini, picking up the lead he’d dropped and trotting steadily towards her – as though he was out on an afternoon walk and not absconding in the middle of the night.
What was she supposed to do now? If she returned him to the Brownings, she risked discovery. If she just left him on the loose in Spring Hill, there was no telling what mischief he’d get into, especially around busy roads. Houdini had all the road sense of a speed bump.
‘Go home,’ she told him sternly, wagging a finger at him. He dropped his lead, bounced up and licked her finger.
Pip sighed. The message obviously wasn’t getting through. In desperation, she looked around for a stick, spotted one and hurled it as far as she could back across the park towards Elliott Street. She hoped he would race after it, giving her a chance to disappear from sight. When he couldn’t find her, he’d turn back towards the Brownings’ – hopefully.
But Houdini, who would chase joyfully after balls, sticks, birds, even on one occasion a Coke can, which he’d collected and dropped at the feet of the tosser (much to the man’s dismay and embarrassment), was having none of it tonight. Giving it barely a glance, he looked up expectantly at Pip as if to ask, Where are we going?
‘Don’t look at me like that!’ she said. ‘All I know is that I’m going north to try and find my mum. I don’t know how I’ll get there, which way to go or how long it will take. I don’t even know where I’ll sleep tonight, so if you follow me, that’s what you’re getting yourself into. So don’t blame me when you don’t get a soft bed to sleep on, Mr Browning’s old shoes to chew and a juicy bone every week.’
It was difficult to tell if any of that had sunk in. Houdini’s expression rarely changed from one of hope – for dinners, walks, bones, belly rubs, car trips and all the things that he’d enjoyed over the past few weeks. But Pip hoped her tone of voice had conveyed the seriousness of their situation.
What she’d said was true. She had no idea where they were going to sleep tonight, only that it needed to be out of sight. Anyone who spotted a kid out alone so late would be sure to call the cops. And when the Brownings discovered her gone in the morning, they would have the authorities looking high and low, so she needed to stay off the streets as much as possible.
But where? She couldn’t return to Greene Lane; it would be the first place everyone would look. She had experience of breaking into houses – one house, anyway – but that meant roaming the streets until she found a likely house. Same with cars, unless…
Inspiration struck. If she could find an unlocked car in a carpark that didn’t have round-the-clock security, that would work. She wasn’t too worried about the owner finding them fast asleep tomorrow morning; at this time of year, she and Houdini would be woken at dawn by the sun. At first light, they would be on the move before anyone knew they were missing.
Pip knew the local supermarket where she and Sully used to do their shopping had a large carpark and it was just ten minutes’ walk.
‘Come on, Houdini,’ she said. ‘I know where we’re going.’
Once they passed the Spring Hill neighbourhood where she’d lived with Sully – where the nights were sometimes noisier than the days with cars doing doughnuts, people fighting and music turned up loud – the silence returned. Even Little High Street seemed quiet, although Pip took a back street to be on the safe side. They met no one on the road, and it didn’t take long to reach the carpark.
Pip’s heart beat fast as she tried the first car. Locked, not surprisingly. There weren’t a lot to choose from; most people took their cars home at night. She wondered if the people who hadn’t had forgotten they had a car.
One by one, she tried all doors on the seven cars there. But her luck was out until she tried the driver’s door of a busted-up old station wagon. It opened with a creak but when she tried to lift Houdini inside, he backed off with a low growl.
‘Well, stay out here, then. I’m getting in—’
A hissing sound came from the back seat and a snake’s head rose slowly from a cardboard box, its tongue darting out, gleaming eyes looking her way. With a gasp, Pip slammed the door shut and stood there, heart pounding.
Now she knew why the owner hadn’t bothered to lock the car. They had a guard snake!
She was just about to give up when she spotted a small van parked in the shopping centre delivery bay. With Houdini at her side, she walked briskly to it, and found the rear unlocked and empty. It wasn’t ideal, as it only had a small dirty window that was hard to see out of, but they were both very tired and they really didn’t have a choice.
This time, Houdini made no fuss when she handed him in and scrambled up after him, shutting the doors. There were even some dirty rugs on the floor. Houdini nestled in one and was asleep almost instantly. Alert to every little unfamiliar sound, it took Pip a bit longer, but eventually she couldn’t keep her eyes open even sitting upright, and she fell fast asleep, too.
It was very comfortable, soothing even, to be rocked to sleep. In her dream, she wondered if she was a baby again and Sully was rocking her, or even Cass. If only whoever it was would stop singing out of tune and if only the air didn’t smell so strongly of warm dog, life would be just about perfect.
Pip stretched, smiling, and her hand touched fur. She opened her eyes to see Houdini was already awake, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
For a moment, she couldn’t work out why her bedroom at the Brownings’ was so empty. Then everything came back in a rush and she remembered that she and Houdini had made a run for it before Mrs Browning could call the welfare to take Pip away.
They were in the van, someone not far away was singing off key, and the van was shaking and rattling. Pip’s eyes opened wide! They were on the move. Oh no!
Somehow, as they slept, the driver had come for his van and set off without realising he had a couple of stowaways in the back.
Horrified, she crawled forward, ear pressed close to the wall of the cab. The driver was singing along with the radio! Pip slapped her palm over Houdini’s mouth to stop him joining in. He loved a singalong and looked at her with bewildered eyes.
‘Sorry, Houdini,’ she apologised in a whisper. ‘But you have to be quiet in case they hear. We’d be in even deeper trouble if they found out we’ve hitched a ride without telling them. As soon as the coast is clear, we’ll escape and you can sing as much as you like.’
Houdini sighed and went for a sniff among the old rugs on the floor. He circled three times and then curled up in a ball, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
In the predicament they were in, sleeping was the last thing on Pip’s mind. What on earth were they going to do? Where would they end up?
Groaning under her breath, Pip shuffled towards the small dirty window. If she could clean it, she might be able to get an idea of where they were and what time of day it was. She picked up one of the rugs and scrubbed at the window but it just seemed to smear the dirt around even more. Spitting on the rug, Pip tried again and manage to clean enough of the window to see out.
But what she saw had her sitting bolt upright and pressing her nose to the glass.
Eyes glued, she waited for the next sign. Long minutes seemed to pass by, but eventually there it was – a big green sign right across three lanes of traffic on the other side of the road. ‘Sydney 31km’, it said – 4km more than on the last sign – and pointing back the way they’d come.
Pip watched and waited. They passed a turn-off with a sign. A month ago, the place would have meant nothing to her, but since discovering her mother had once lived in northern New South Wales, she had studied the map in the school library. She reckoned she knew just about every town along the 770 kilometres between Sydney and Byron Bay.
So she knew almost exactly where they were: on the motorway, travelling north, with Sydney now far behind them – and 31km closer to Byron Bay than they had been last night.
‘Yes!’ she whispered, a little louder than she intended. Houdini woke in fright at the sound and sent up a spine-tingling howl. Too late, Pip leapt on him to squash the sound. In the cab, the radio shut off. Houdini yelped and tried to evade Pip. He gave a high-pitched bark, and Pip heard swearing from the cab. A moment later, the van began slowing and pulling to the side of the motorway.
At any moment, the van would stop, the driver would open the back doors and all hell would break loose. Pip shouldered her pack and gathered up Houdini in her arms, ready to leg it the moment the van came to a standstill.
But as the van drew to a stop, she heard an ear-splitting shriek of brakes from behind. A car horn sounded and then a sudden, breath-stealing jolt threw Pip and Houdini clear across the back of the van. She landed with a sickening thud on the floor, Houdini flying out of her arms. A dreadful squealing sound hurt her ears and her world turned upside down.