On Thursday the bus juddered and shook on my way home from school. Things had got slightly better since my first day. I’d found the library, right between the staffroom and the girls’ toilets, and at lunchtime I’d begun ducking behind the shelves with my ology scrapbook instead of joining the others in the playground. And since the school had no librarian, no one noticed me till I snuck back to class before the bell.

Inside the bus I glanced over at Harry sitting in a seat across the aisle. I still hadn’t asked him why he’d been crying in the sheep paddock. After my first day, when he’d shown me where to wait for the bus, he hadn’t sat down beside me. Not once, all week.

We were almost at the Campbells’ bus stop, the corrugations in the gravel road making my jaw rattle, when a high school boy hollered from the back, ‘Wombat stew at three o’clock!’

I craned to have a look. But as soon as I did, I wished I hadn’t.

It could’ve been an old jumper or cushion tossed aside by a passing car. But it wasn’t a cushion. It was something round and furry with a blunt nose and a brown stocky body. A slick of red blood shone on the road beside it.

I felt a wobble of panic. Was the wombat Miss Pearl? I suddenly tasted metal and had to swallow away the queasy feeling in my stomach.

‘Can we stop?’ I pleaded without thinking.

‘Why?’ smirked someone from the back. Harry’s middle brother, Craig, was sitting with the other high school boys, grinning as if it was a hilarious joke. ‘No one around here cares about wombats.’

I dug my nails into the palms of my hands. I wanted to shout, That’s not true! But I couldn’t. And I didn’t want to blurt out Aunt Evie’s secret. Not with Harry watching. He’d tell his mum for sure.

I took a deep breath as the bus rattled on. But as soon as we reached my stop, I flew down the steps and ran full pelt towards the cottage, ignoring my schoolbag banging painfully against my back.

I wrenched open the cottage door, sending Pumpkin flapping away in fright.

‘Aunt Evie! Aunt Evie!’ I cried. ‘Come quickly!’

I found Aunt Evie in the kitchen, tapping away on her laptop. ‘Mouse! Everything all right?’

‘She’s back there! On the road!’ I shouted. ‘I saw blood, and I think—’

‘Slow down. Who’s back there? Where?’

I dumped my bag and steadied my voice. ‘There’s a wombat. Beside the road. I think it’s dead. I thought, maybe …’ I gasped. ‘Where’s Miss Pearl?’

Aunt Evie nodded towards the lounge room. ‘She’s here. See? On the couch.’

Miss Pearl lay belly up on the ripped cushions, her legs twitching in the air. She was fast asleep.

‘It’s another wombat, then. It needs our help. We have to go!’

Aunt Evie held me gently by the shoulders. ‘Calm down, Mouse. Take a deep breath. We’ll have to feed Miss Pearl and Pumpkin before we go anywhere, otherwise they’ll go bananas waiting for their food. Help me quickly, and then we’ll take a look.’

We were flying along the gravelly road. ‘There it is!’ I shouted.

Dust clouded Aunt Evie’s windscreen, but the bundle of fur was unmistakable. I leapt from Aunt Evie’s car as soon as the tyres finished rolling.

The wombat lay on its side, its paws sticking out like stumps. I crouched beside it, swatting away the flies while trying to ignore the trail of ants investigating its dull, lifeless eyes.

‘Is it … is it dead?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.

‘Well and truly,’ said Aunt Evie, her voice flat.

I stared at the wombat’s fur. Instead of being sleek and soft like Miss Pearl’s, this wombat’s coat was bunched up and ragged, like a woollen jumper that has shrunk after being washed in water that’s too hot.

I swallowed.

‘Poor thing,’ Aunt Evie whispered. ‘I wonder what happened.’

‘I think that’s mange,’ I said, pointing to scabs showing through the fur around the wombat’s head. I’d seen pictures on the internet while doing my ology research and knew the lesions were caused by tiny mites burrowing under the skin. ‘Normally wombats don’t drink much,’ I said, ‘but apparently mange makes them very thirsty. The wombat was probably out looking for water when she got hit.’

I nodded towards a small opening on the wombat’s belly. A hint of pink skin showed on the inside. ‘Is that her pouch?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes. Well spotted. Best we check it. Now, let’s see if I can remember what the vet showed me to do.’ Aunt Evie placed two fingers very gently on the opening of the pouch, then pushed them down under the skin. ‘That’s strange.’ She adjusted the position of her fingers, rolling and scooping to feel the pouch. ‘Looks like there was a baby in there, but it’s not there now.’ She released the folds of skin and they sank back into the dead wombat’s stomach. ‘Can you see anything by the side of the road?’

We walked over and scanned the edge of the bitumen, under the fence and in the dirt of the nearby paddock. There was no baby.

I stared angrily at two beady-eyed crows cawing from a fence post. ‘Shoo!’ I shouted. ‘There’s nothing here for you!’

Aunt Evie pressed her hand over mine. ‘Shh, Mouse. At least we tried.’

After a night spent dreaming of ants and flies crawling over me, something woke me the next morning. It sounded like a tap dripping. Or a window shutter knocking.

‘Aunt Evie?’ I whispered.

I listened, my heart thumping. The sun had barely risen, and the rest of the house was silent. It was too early to get ready for school, so I closed my eyes. Then suddenly I blinked them open as the events of yesterday flashed through my mind: the bus ride, the dead wombat beside the road, the missing baby.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

There it was again!

I swung my legs out of bed and tiptoed down the hall. Maybe Aunt Evie had locked herself outside while collecting firewood. I headed towards the front door and paused at Aunt Evie’s open bedroom door.

She was fast asleep, squashed all the way over to one side of her bed, with Miss Pearl draped across the other side. One of them was snoring, but I wasn’t sure who.

Knock. Knock.

Pumpkin waddled over as I leant my ear against the front door.

‘Shh,’ I warned as he shook his feathers, ready to attack.

I opened the door a sliver and peeked through the crack. There was no one on the veranda and no cars on the driveway. Apart from the windmill creaking and a rooster crowing in the distance, there was nothing but a lone kookaburra watching from a nearby branch.

‘Pumpkin!’ I hissed, as he slipped through the gap in the door. I reached out to grab him, but then tripped over a small blue bundle on the doorstep.

I crouched down to investigate. A baby’s bunny rug was carefully wrapped around something.

Something small. Something precious.

I folded away a soft corner. ‘Oh,’ I murmured, picking up the bundle. ‘Look at you.’