The fireman’s voice was muffled through the window. ‘Hey! Are you right? You okay?’ The crackling of the leaves and branches sounded heavier as they slid down the glass, tiny embers tumbling in their wake.
The fireman’s glove was resting on the windscreen as he kicked away the scraps and charred foliage from under the front wheel. ‘I think you’re all right!’ he was shouting. ‘It’s not a blow-out.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Can you hear me?’
Dettie was staring straight ahead at the palm of his hand on the window. The glove was filthy. Even on their streaked glass it left a print. She was panting, and there was a slight squeak in her throat like something was caught there.
‘I said, can you hear me?’ He leant down to look through the side window. He tried the doorhandle. It was still locked.
Katie was stirring, groggy, as though she’d forgotten for a moment how to talk. She was pointing up at his face. Sam scrambled for the sign at his feet. It had been knocked forward, under the front seat.
The fireman tapped on the window. Dettie was stiff, her chest heaving. Slowly, she nodded, and jangled the keys in the ignition between her fingers. There were more firemen milling around the car, looking it over. Even covered in soot and ash their orange uniforms seemed to shimmer in the light.
The man by the door tapped again. Harder. He gestured for her to roll down her window. ‘Lady!’ he said.
Dettie raised a hand and waved, still focused on the edge of the fire truck and the trees. Measuring the gap with her eyes.
There was a loud clanking. The fireman had knocked that time with an axe, and was still holding it against the glass. ‘Lady. Roll down your damn window!’ he said, his voice sounding distant.
Dettie turned to face Sam and Katie. ‘Are you kids hot?’ She was forcing a smile. ‘I might just give us some air for a minute, okay? So you sit tight while I talk to the nice man.’
Turning back, Dettie opened her window a few centimetres. ‘Oh. Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello?’ The fireman looked mystified, glancing at one of his companions, shaking his head. ‘Is there anyone hurt in there?’ he said again, louder than he needed to.
‘Oh, no, we’re fine. Thank you for asking.’ Dettie was trying to be cheerful, smiling, but her throat was raw. It made her voice sound thin and hoarse.
With the window down Sam could hear the distant roar of the bushfire. It grumbled, like a long, slow peel of thunder. He could taste the steam in the air and the smell of melted tar. He unclipped his belt to get more reach and scratched around beneath the front seat.
‘Well, if no one needs any help, you should turn around and head south,’ the fireman said. ‘Drive back about thirty kilometres or so—’
‘Yes, yes, we would,’ Dettie hiccoughed, ‘but we just have to get through.’
‘You’re not going through anywhere,’ the man with the axe said. ‘That’s what I’m saying. No one’s going that way. It’s a nightmare up ahead.’
Dettie hummed and ran her fingernail along the steering wheel. ‘Yes, well, we have to get through. So if you could just—’
‘Jesus, lady.’ The fireman bent down to get a better look in the car. ‘It’s no access through this road.’ He was speaking slowly, one word at a time. ‘You shouldn’t be here. There were signs all over the place. Road blocks.’ He thumped twice on the roof. ‘You’ve gotta turn your car around, and go back. Now.’
Sam brushed aside stray lolly wrappers and dishevelled maps. He stretched his arm as deep under the front seat as he could. More of the firemen had started wandering back to the truck. One laughed while another was squeezing a hiss of water over his face from a water bottle. Sam felt cardboard on his fingertips.
As the man with the axe stepped away from the door he noticed Katie wrestling with her seatbelt in the back seat. The man seemed puzzled, and as he crouched to look in closer, Sam, who had just popped back up, met his gaze with wide, pleading eyes, waving his piece of cardboard and mouthing the same word over and over. Sam set the cardboard in his lap and made a thumbs-up sign, stamping it pointedly on his palm. Again and again. Deliberately. Mouthing the same word. The fireman looked him over. He saw Sam’s lips shaping out the message.
The fireman read the cardboard sign, a fusion of black texta and green pencil:
Help Us! Kidnapped!
He glanced again at Katie, turned to get a better view of Dettie, and then darted his eyes back in at Sam. He wiped a smear of ash across his face. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. ‘You’re—’
He leapt up and shouted to the other men. ‘Tim! Wayne! Move your arses! Get over here!’
Dettie’s elbows were shaking. The squeaking in her throat was rising to a loud, choking sob.
‘We’re fine,’ she hiccoughed. ‘You can see we’re—we’re fine.’
Katie had slumped against the door and was running her hand across the glass.
‘Now, I’m not trying to alarm you,’ the fireman was saying loudly, but gently, ‘but I think there are some people looking for you.’ His arms were spread wide, inching closer to Dettie. ‘There’s nothing to be worried about,’ he said. ‘Just some people want to talk, that’s all.’
Dettie bowed her head. She exhaled.
Suddenly, the fireman leapt at the car, hooking his right arm through the top of her window. He was making a grab for the lock, and Dettie shrieked, slapping at his glove and winding the gap smaller, squeezing his shoulder. Then the car was surrounded—orange suits were knocking at the doors, blocking off the rear bumper. Dettie twisted away from his elbow and tried to fire the car’s ignition, but it spat and died. A man with a beard was whispering to Katie by her door, trying to get her to undo her lock. There was another man beside Sam, clearing out the branches in his way.
Finally, the doors were open and Dettie was wheezing, hugging the steering wheel to her chest. The horn blared. As they pulled Sam from the car, she reached back, snatching at his wrist, her nails digging into his skin. ‘Sammy, no!’ she shrieked. ‘Don’t you! Not you! Sammy, stay! We don’t break! We’re not broken!’
Katie was already in a fire-fighter’s arms, squealing back at her aunt, telling her to stop. Calling her a liar. Dettie’s face was damp and bright red, her jaw speckled with spit. Her hands shook. Her lips, thin and white, were seized in a sneer, yellow teeth exposed. She was incoherent. Wild. Thrashing about in the firemen’s arms. Her grip twisted the last of Sam’s sunburn into a scalding sting. As she turned, forcing a desperate smile, he had one last flash of a cartoon zombie, and someone tugged his arm free.
After they’d taken her keys and radioed the police, it took three firemen to lift her from the car. They had to pry her fingers loose as she kicked and scratched and bit. One of the men—the one with the moustache—led Sam and Katie to the back of a truck to get them some water. As they walked, he steered them by the shoulders, shielding them from their aunt’s view with his body as she yelled instructions to them, telling them to stay strong—that they’d be with their father soon.
‘Sam!’ she called out. ‘Sammy, you’ll tell them the truth! You tell them where we’re going!’