Marta is deep into her story about the siblings by the time I walk to the campfire, checking carefully for any snappy little crocs making their way back to the water. Unlike the last stop, people is nodding quietly, ain’t none saying, ‘How rude!’ or ‘What’s it for?’
When Marta asks, ‘Did you see the three siblings?’ an old man says, ‘They called in here after yours, I reckon. We tells them we don’t want no modern tech mussing up our hill and sent them on.’
I’m gonna ask, ‘How come your hill’s lost some trees then, if the siblings din’t stop,’ when Marta sees me and waves me to sit next to her.
‘Ahh, it’s the great croc hunter!’ a young man says, and everyone laughs.
‘Croc ain’t filling at all,’ I say and grab one of Marta’s cakes on the way to sit beside her.
Marta don’t scold me like I think she might, she jus’ takes off my bandages to show them my black scar. They all agree with Marta it’s a power source, but they don’t have a clue what for.
‘I’m glad we sent them on their way,’ the man says again. ‘We don’t want our kids getting burnt.’
I look around. I din’t think they had kids. Was only that one boy who came down to meet the boat, and I ain’t seen none anywhere else. But there they is! Little faces peeping from cracks in shack doors. Little faces peeping from shack windows. And the boy I met, he’s chopping wood out back of that hut where he got sent. He looks up and sees me and he’s looking back like he’s afraid of me now, and he hurries behind the hut like he got stuff to do there.
I’m not feeling good about this place, even if I snagged me one of them great eggy-jam cakes.
I get up to go and talk to the boy.
‘Where you going, croc hunter?’ the old man says in a way that makes me plop back down in my seat like I did something wrong.
Marta says, ‘Not polite, Neoma, to go wandering off when you’re visiting.’
‘Sorry, Aunty,’ I say.
‘Did they tell you what the tech does, Jacob, before you sent them away?’ Marta asks.
‘Not a word,’ old Jacob says.
‘I couldn’t understand them very well,’ Marta says. ‘What language were they speaking?’
‘I dunno. They understood “go away!” well enough though,’ he says.
The young man who first called me ‘the great croc hunter’ sniggers.
‘I guess,’ Marta says, ‘if they have left us with a couple of power sources we could get the electric lighting going in the cottages or maybe the old water heater. Imagine cups of tea without boiling a kettle!’
‘You already have too much technology at your joint, what with those solar panels and car batteries you use for cooking and whatnot,’ Jacob says.
Marta shrugs. ‘There is safe technology, Jacob. It’s not all bad. Our electric stovetops cook food for us all without the need to cut down trees, or add woodsmoke to the environment.’
‘This is the Ockery Islands. We have an agreement to leave technology behind!’ Jacob says and he frowns so hard, I shrink in my seat and think how lucky I am that the frown is for Marta and not me.
Marta nods, and then shrugs like she don’t care at all. ‘We each do all we can to live low-impact lives. Our electric stovetops are no worse than your water-drawing windmill there. Let’s not lose sight of what really matters here, old friend. Living gentle lives.’
Jacob nods. ‘Gentle lives,’ he says and lifts his tea.
Marta lifts hers like they’ve come to an agreement, drinks the last of it and slaps her thighs. ‘Well, if they ain’t stopped here they’ve probably stopped further on, and we best be heading that way.’
‘Awww,’ I say. ‘I’m real tired, Marta. Can’t we jus’ give up this mystery and go pull down our machine and see what happens?’
Marta laughs. ‘Yeah, that’s probably one way to get to the bottom of this – wait for them to come stomping back asking us questions. You’ll be wanting a good sleep in your own bed, I’m guessing. The day has got away from us.’
I jump up. ‘Yep!’
