It is exactly 1.25am on the fifth day, and I have to go to the outhouse. This can’t be a quick trip to the grass by the back door, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried going back to sleep because Dad said intestines slow down when we’re sleeping, but this is getting extremely urgent, and I simply cannot go out to that hellish black hole in the dark.

I try to think of other things, like last night, the grandparents off to bed early and Will and me practising the guitars by lantern light, eating his milkshake lollies, and getting to feel the frets without looking. It sounded good. I showed Will how to pick, easy as long as you are holding down the chord, and keeping to the rhythm, strong first beat: pluck, da, da, da, pluck, da, da, da. It felt good. But under the good feeling was a tension that wouldn’t let go, and I knew what it was about: my phone charged up and useless. Isolation! What’s the use of a smart phone in an unsmart place? We might as well be in confinement in some eighteenth-century penal colony. I’m sure it’s the phone business that’s disturbed my stomach.

I really have to go. I switch on Grandma’s torch and tiptoe into the living room. Will is sprawled over the couch, tangled in a sheet as though he’s been fighting with it. I shake his shoulder.

His eyes fly open. “Who’s that?”

“Me. Will, I need you to –”

“What’s wrong?” He sits up quickly.

“Nothing’s wrong. I have to go to the loo, and I can’t go on my own. Will?”

He groans and lies down again.

“Please, Will. I’m desperate. You need to stand guard in case something comes.”

“Like what?”

“Wild pigs, rats, creepy things. Oh, please, Will! This is very urgent!”

Grumbling, he gets off the couch and picks up his torch. He leads the way out the back door, across the grass and past the garage, to the outhouse. There is no moon, no stars. Everything outside the torch beam is black, and the air is cool, very still, as though it is waiting for something to happen.

“Why do they have the outhouse so far away?” I ask.

“Flies,” says Will. “Bad smells.”

“Oh.” I wait while he opens the door. “Can you go in and check it?”

“What for?” he says.

“You know, spiders, rats. There might be something down the hole.”

He goes in, waves his torch around and comes out. “All clear.”

“Wait outside. Please, Will! Don’t go away.”

“Well, hurry!” he says.

I go in, shut the door and shine the torch down the hole, double check, before I sit. “Are you still there, Will?”

“Yeah, yeah!”

This is so primitive! Jacquie is staying at a motel. Herewini’s aunt has an awesome townhouse overlooking the lake. No one, absolutely no one in my entire school, will be pooing over a hole in the earth in the middle of the night.

A cold draught comes up, as though answering my thoughts, and I shudder. “Don’t go away, Will!” I call.

“I’m still here.” Then he says, “Tough biscuit about your phone.”

What? It’s so unexpected that at first I’m suspicious. But no sarcasm follows and I think he might be sincere. “Thanks, Will.”

Through the gap at the top of the door, I see moving torchlight, which means he’s testing the darkness. He says, “Those two fight a lot, don’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“They don’t care who listens to them. When I was driving back tonight, I told Grandpa they were incompatible.”

“You said what?”

“You know – incompatible.”

“Oh Will, you didn’t! What did he say?”

“He just laughed like I was talking nonsense. Lissy, do you get the impression they think they’re normal and we’re not?”

“What made you tell him that!” I am embarrassed for my little brother. “Do you know what incompatible means?”

He makes a coughing noise.

“Will?”

The coughing, hissing sound gets louder and is followed by a squeak. “Lissy!”

“Stop that noise!” I yell at him. “Stop at once! Will?”

“It’s not me!” he yells back.

I finish in a hurry, scared by the panic in his voice. “Wait for me!” I call. “Don’t go away!”

The only answer is another round of coughing and hissing, like we’re being attacked or something!

“Will, are you there?”

There’s a great crash on the roof, close to my head.

I’m out that door so fast! I run like mad towards the house.

When I get to the back door, I shine the torch towards the outhouse and see something moving on the roof. It looks like a cat.

“It’s a possum,” says Will who is in the kitchen, shivering.

“All that noise from one little possum?” I start to laugh.

Will laughs too. Actually, it isn’t all that funny but we laugh and laugh until our sides are aching and we’re gasping for breath, and then, because the kettle on the stove is still hot, we make ourselves some cocoa and open a packet of Will’s biscuits.