‘Did you get enough to eat, Katie?’ Dettie was watching the other motorists in the car park, studying their expressions as she unlocked the car. Her voice had a tiny squeak.
Katie crawled into the back seat. She tossed the colouring books and box of crayons Dettie had just bought her onto the floor. She clipped together her seatbelt and went back to folding another drooping swan from her mother’s handkerchief.
She had been quiet for hours now, and Sam couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d said anything. Even when their father had left she’d yelled and stormed around the house, and cut the hair off all her dolls. But now she was still all the time, and wouldn’t smile. He had tried playing Tic-Tac-Toe with her earlier in the car. Offered to fix her ponytail. But whenever he looked at his sister, her eyes would just drift down his face as she turned away.
‘I bet you feel better after that nice hot shower this morning,’ Dettie said, turning the key in the ignition. The strange new noise in the engine started again almost immediately, rattling somewhere behind the steering wheel.
Katie lifted her head to look out the window at a family unloading an esky from their station wagon.
Dettie coughed. ‘You know, Katie, it’s very frustrating talking to a brick wall all the time,’ she said, and peered over her shoulder to reverse out of their parking space. ‘You and I—we have a very important role in this car.’ She popped the car into gear and steered it around the service station. ‘We provide conversation. Poor Sammy can’t do it, can you, love?’ She flashed Sam a tight smile and went back to talking into the rear-vision mirror. ‘So we can’t afford to keep ignoring each other, can we?’
Katie turned towards the front of the car and peered at the approaching intersection emerging from the heat.
‘I thought we’d all forgiven one another,’ Dettie sighed. ‘Put all this silliness behind us. Were moving on.’
Katie sat up. ‘Help me.’
‘What?’ Dettie turned. ‘What was that, sweetie?’
Katie leant forward and pointed through the windscreen. ‘Help me,’ she said, louder.
When he followed her gaze, over towards the upcoming intersection, Sam could see a hitchhiker, standing at the side of the road. A weathered, brown shape among the dust and haze, with two bags lying behind his feet. But he was smiling, holding a cardboard sign that read, Help me, I’m British.