‘Harry’s out back,’ bellowed Mrs Campbell when I knocked at the farmhouse door on Sunday morning. She wore old navy overalls over a knitted green jumper and held a pair of dirty gumboots in one hand.

Her face seemed extra scowly, her lips extra pinched and sour. I thrust her the rent envelope and ducked across to the shearing shed before she could ask any questions about sauce or ginger or wombats.

I was dying to find Harry. Wait till I told him about the Wombat Warriors and my plan to save Fatticake. To save all wombats.

But Harry wasn’t in the shed. Or in the chook pen. Or feeding the calves. I looked everywhere before I ran back down the drive, out through the trees near the cottage and found Harry tossing stones at a fence post near Fatticake’s burrow.

‘Listen to this,’ I said excitedly. ‘I’ve had this really, really brilliant idea.’

A magpie chortled from a tree and a sheep bleated in the distance. But Harry ignored me, flinging another stone angrily against the wooden post.

Plink, echoed the stone.

‘Harry?’

‘Three fences got bashed through last night,’ he muttered, swiping his hair from his forehead. ‘All the ewes got out. Mum’s gone ballistic.’

My heart sank. The Wombat Warriors were too late.

‘Was it Fatticake?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know. It could have been a wild dog or a kangaroo. But whatever it was, it barged through the wire and sent the sheep flying. Now we’re running late with shearing and Mum’s as mad as a cut snake.’

Suddenly I felt like flinging stones.

Harry pulled a face. ‘I came down here to check on Fatticake, but I can’t find him, and now I have to go back to help. Are you coming?’

A buzzing came from inside the shed as we approached it. It sounded like Dad’s electric shaver, but louder. A small group of woolly sheep stood in a pen near an elevated wooden platform, while Craig and the dogs pushed them into a huddle. I watched, spellbound, as Curtis pulled a sheep up to the platform and, in one swift move, sat it on its bottom between his legs and began to shear its belly and legs. Great chunks of fleece fell away. The outer coat was yellowy brown, but the wool closest to its body was white and clean. Curtis moved the clippers steadily around its head and neck and then down to the sheep’s back.

When he reached the face, it was like watching Dad shave in the mornings. Up and around and under, until the shears eventually clicked off, and a great pile of fleece lay on the floor. The newly shorn sheep stood still for a moment, as if embarrassed by its pink nakedness, before baaing and leaping down a ramp with a kick and a jump, free of its woolly burden.

Mrs Campbell waited at the bottom of the ramp with a flat plastic container strapped to her back. A clear tube ran from the container to the gun-like syringe in her hand. As the sheep passed, she grabbed its head and squirted a dose of liquid into its mouth. Meanwhile, Craig snatched up the fleece in his arms and spread it out on a table. He carefully picked through it, stuffing the largest piece into one bin and the loose bits into a canvas bag. Not a single bit was wasted.

For a moment I forgot about Fatticake and the ruined fences. The shearing process was amazing. The whole sheep had taken less than two minutes to shear.

‘Harry!’ hollered Mrs Campbell. ‘Mouse! What did I tell you? All hands on deck.’

Harry flinched. ‘We’re supposed to clean up after each sheep.’

‘Well, come on, then,’ I said, grinning with excitement.

Harry put me in charge of sweeping, while he flung the loose bits of wool into the canvas bag. Occasionally I’d stop to watch another naked pink sheep run down the ramp from the platform, but mostly I just enjoyed the buzz of the shears, the wagging tails of the dogs and the rich smell of wool from the newly shorn sheep.

It was nearly dark when the last few were shorn for the day. Curtis motioned to a gate behind him. ‘Take them out to the western paddock will you, Harry?’

The dogs climbed over the sheep’s newly shorn skin, barking and snapping at the air while Harry opened the gate. Once we’d shooed the sheep out of the pen, we ran down the laneway in front of them as the dogs brought up the rear.

All went well until, after a few hundred metres, a narrower lane cut the larger one in two.

‘Stand there,’ instructed Harry, pointing to the right-hand side of the smaller lane. ‘That’s where the fence is busted. Don’t let them through.’

I stood with my legs apart, bracing my shoulders and trying to calm my nerves. Harry ran down the left side of the lane. I supposed he expected the sheep to follow him, but instead they turned and galloped, bleating, straight towards me.

My pulse thudded in my ears. Oh no! What if they pushed past me and ran through the broken fence, escaping into the dry, rocky hillside beyond? Mrs Campbell would be furious.

‘Shoo,’ I said meekly.

But the sheep kept coming. And the dogs weren’t helping. They barked and snapped, pushing the huddle even faster towards me.

‘Wave your arms!’ shouted Harry above the racket. ‘Tell them to back off.’

I gulped. Why would a flock of sheep listen to me? Mouse by name, mouse by nature.

‘Back off,’ I tried, my voice hardly more than a squeak.

‘Louder!’ yelled Harry.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. This was it. I had to find my voice. I couldn’t be a mouse any longer. ‘Move!’ I bellowed.

Suddenly the lead sheep stopped. It swung its head and pricked its ears as the other sheep rammed up behind it. The dogs snapped. Sheep baaed. And round pellets of sheep poo flew everywhere.

‘MOVE!’ I yelled again. Without warning, the lead sheep ducked its head down and bolted off the other way.

I’d done it. I’d stood up to a whole flock of sheep! Wait till I told Aunt Evie. Wait till I told Mum and Dad!

After locking the sheep safely in the paddock, Harry showed me the hole in the fence. ‘See the wire?’ asked Harry. ‘Mum thinks it was a wombat, but heaps of wild animals could have done it.’

The wire was bent, pushed up from the ground, and the soil underneath was scuffed. Black poo cubes were scattered around the area. A small claw mark scratched the dirt.

I pulled a piece of grey fluff from the fence and rubbed it between my fingers. It was soft like Miss Pearl and Fatticake’s fur.

I knelt down to take a closer look. Something rust-red stained the broken wire.

‘Is that blood?’ I asked.

Harry squinted at the fence.

‘Maybe it was Fatticake looking for food,’ I suggested. ‘Maybe he hurt himself ducking through the fence.’

‘Yeah, maybe. Wombats can walk a long way,’ Harry shrugged, ‘but I don’t think Fatticake would wander this far.’

I peered at the distant line of trees near Fatticake’s burrow. The sun was disappearing beyond the horizon, painting the sky pink, orange and yellow, and I could just make out the road in front of the cottage in the murky light. ‘Hey! What’s that?’

Something was trundling through the paddock towards the road. Something stout – with short legs and a limping gait.

‘Fatticake,’ said Harry.