I jerk awake when the car hits a bump. Ma snores softly on the seat beside me. The car slows, the blinker is on and the green light on the dash flashes on the Ape man’s face. On the console in the middle of the car, I spy pictures. Pictures of four car side-windows and little switches. After the car goes around the corner and the blinker stops blinking, I slide forwards and poke my arm between the seats and find those four little switches and I scrape them all towards me.

All the windows go down, and the wind roars in, and the Ape looks around like he can’t understand why, until he sees my arm and he slaps it away, but I’m already scrambling back and out my window. And he’s stomping on the brakes, and growling, and reaching back for me, but I’m hanging onto the window frame and swivelling my legs out the window as well, until just my bum is in the car and the rest of me is out, clinging, ready to jump, soon as the car gets slow enough.

‘Peeee!’ Ma yells and snags my shorts, but I push off with my legs and hands against the side of the car and leap. I hit the road, slam my hip and shoulder and slap my temple and roll, skinning my elbows and knees, and one ankle, but I’m up and running down into the ditch and over the fence that sits on the other side and off into the paddock as the car turns about and lights up the paddock beside me. Ma and the Ape open car doors and yell and scream my name. I run and run, past where the car lights can reach. My feet got scraped when I jumped, and every footfall on the dry grass scrapes them some more, but I don’t care.

The fence creaks way behind me, and I trip and tumble on my chin in the dirt. And though my knee is stinging like I ripped it open and my chin is aching like I grazed it, I keep on running across that dark paddock. I hit a line of trees, run along it, and choose one tree and climb it, up and up, above the reach of the Ape. I wrap my body around it, like I am the tree and the tree is me, and hang on.

Footsteps thud past, and then a while later thud back again. ‘She’s gone!’ the Ape says.

Ma’s crying. ‘No,’ she says. ‘She’s just a little girl. We can’t leave her out here in the middle of nowhere,’ she says, like she knows he don’t care about finding me. ‘Peony!’ she wails.

I don’t answer.

‘Peony!’ the man yells. ‘Come out and we’ll take you back to the farm!’

I don’t answer. I don’t believe him.

‘Maybe she’s hurt from the fall!’ Ma says.

‘Come back to the car,’ the Ape says to Ma. ‘We’ll sleep in it and look for her when the sun comes up.’

I wait a long time after they leave. I wait for a break in the clouds above, for the moon to come out and shine on the paddock, then I get down out of the tree and walk, away from the car and back in the direction I think we came from. I walk all the way through to morning and then when the sun comes up I find a creek for a drink and crawl under the bank beside it and sleep. I wake up hot and sweaty and wade into the creek. My T-shirt is torn and I have grazes on my shoulder, my knee, my shin as well as my feet. My chin burns in the cold water as I wash my face. I wash all my grazes, drink the cool water, and walk up the creek, stepping carefully on the rocks or on the flat mud beside the creek.

The car sounds off in the distance, and Ma’s yelling. It sends me dropping into the grass on my belly, but they haven’t seen me. I guess they’re driving up and down looking for me still, but I’d rather be out here lost, than in that car with them. Why won’t they just give up? I pick up a rock and hurl it in the direction of their voices. I show them the rude finger. I want to swear at them but I’m afraid they’ll hear, so I get up and run.

Running through this tall grass, bent low, is like swimming in a wide yellow sea. The grass heads whip and sting at my face, and neck and eyes, and it’s hard to see where I’m going and my feet burn and ache, but I can’t stop coz the car is louder now. I throw myself through the grass with one hand up over my face so the stalks whip at my arm instead. Still the car gets louder. Then a new sound. A whipping of thousands of little grass heads on metal. A kind of brrrrring. My breath runs all out of my lungs at once. The car is in the yellow sea with me!

Tyres skid, car doors bang and feet pound. ‘PEEEony!’ the Ape booms like he’s calling me from a mountaintop, but he’s right here, feet pounding, behind me.

‘Peony!’ Ma screams.

The Ape snags my shirt, hauls me up in the air, wraps his meaty arms around me as I kick and claw and scream.

Ma arrives, tears running down her face. ‘Peony, baby, you were running in circles!’ she says.

The wide yellow sea tricked me. Even the wide yellow sea is against me. I cry then. I give up and let them put me in the car.