When Loretta had gone to the council to find out if Joy/Jacinta owned any property, she had not expected to wind up anywhere so spooky. It was unnerving turning off the main road and heading up the long dirt track into the bush, but Loretta had Vlad for company and it’s hard to feel intimidated when you’re riding a sixteen-hand high horse.

Vlad walked carefully over the rocky ground. Loretta was cautious too. She didn’t want Vlad to put his foot down a wombat hole and break his leg. She kept him moving forward at a slow, steady pace as they went further and further into the depth of the forest. Up ahead she could hear water – the trickle of a creek moving over stones. Vlad heard it too and started towards the sound. He was thirsty. As they broke through the tree line, Vlad made for the creek, but Loretta’s eye was caught by something high above them on the opposite bank.

It was a treehouse. But not something ramshackle, put together by kids using shipping palettes and baling twine. This was a proper house, smartly painted with gables and drainpipes and window boxes. It was pretty and neat as a pin. It just happened to be ten metres up among the branches of a huge tree.

‘Wow!’ said Loretta.

She slid off Vlad, leaving him to his drink, as she approached the treehouse. There was no visible sign of how you were meant to get up. Loretta looked about. There must be some sort of ladder or pulley system. Unless it wasn’t a treehouse. It was just a house that had been caught up in a hurricane and landed in a tree top. But they didn’t get hurricanes in Currawong so that option was unlikely.

Then Loretta spotted a string, the end had been looped around a lower branch, from there it stretched up into the canopy. Loretta reached up and pulled it. A bell clanged somewhere above her.

‘Oh, it’s a doorbell,’ said Loretta to herself. She looked up to see if there was any response, but she should have looked down. Suddenly, the ground disappeared from under her feet and Loretta found herself falling. She landed with a thud. Luckily she’d hit feet first, crumpling into the ground.

Loretta knew crumpling was an important part of surviving an impact. All studies into motor vehicle accidents always showed this. But even so, it had been a drop of a couple of metres and she felt like she’d jarred every joint in her body. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself while checking that her arms, legs and bottom were still all right. It would be hard to ride Vlad home if she’d damaged her bottom. She seemed to be in one piece. So Loretta turned her thoughts to getting out.

Lorretta looked up. Getting out would not be easy. The top of the hole was three metres above her and the walls were sheer. She supposed she should be grateful that it wasn’t an elephant trap like in the movies and there weren’t spikes at the bottom to land on. Loretta shielded her eyes against the direct glare of the sunlight, searching for something she could use to escape. A person appeared above her, they were silhouetted against the sunlight. Loretta had to shield her eyes to make out who it was.

‘Joy?’ asked Loretta. ‘How wonderful to see you. I was so worried about you. I’m glad you’re all right.’

But then another face appeared alongside Joy. This face was even more surprising.

‘Ingrid!’ exclaimed Loretta. ‘What are you doing here in the middle of the forest? And why are you with Joy?’

Joy and Ingrid glanced at each other. Neither of them was a chatty person, but they seemed to say a lot in that silent glance.

‘Oh!’ said Loretta. Dominos were starting to fall in her brain. ‘That’s the reason you couldn’t marry Mr Peski! You said you loved another. It’s Joy, isn’t it? Oh how wonderful! Currawong needs more diversity. Obviously we already do have a lot of diversity. We’ve got ethnic diversity and an abundance of mental health diversity. But orientation diversity, that’s so exciting. Oh, now we can have a mardi gras!’

‘We could just leave her in the hole,’ said Joy.

‘I know,’ said Ingrid. ‘But we can’t. It would be wrong.’

Ingrid fetched a rope ladder and lowered it into the hole. Half an hour later they were all sitting up in the treehouse, sharing a cup of tea.