Kylie & Jack 1: Humble Beginnings

7. Fire

Amy and Georgia both nodded in agreement. Georgia turned on her heel and began marching towards the bakery, where there was a staff member in a high – viz jacket, unloading orange plastic pallets of bread. Kylie got her phone out and rang her parents' home phone again, getting Mike after the fifth ring.

"Hey, me and Amy are at Rosella Coles now, getting some food and stuff organised. Is there anything in particular that Mum wants us to get? We're getting a few pallets of bread, maybe some barbeque packs of meat, drinks, luncheon meat. We're in Amy's car too, so there's plenty of room ... ah ok, yeah ... ok. Alright, I'll tell her. Yep, see you!"

Kylie pocketed her phone and relayed Mike's message to Amy about how many loaves of bread, kilos of snags, steaks and rissoles to get. Amy's friend, Georgia whizzed from one end of the shop to another, flitting through the aisles, roping her colleagues in to help her cart everything out to Amy's car.

It was ten past five when they were finally on the road again.

5:42 AM

Bright moonlight bathed the still countryside, accentuating the gentle plume of smoke that was curling upwards against the starless night sky.

Amy and Kylie kept their eyes firmly set on the road. They had turned off the highway and were turning onto the same dirt road that Kylie and Jack had driven along the night of the Presentation Night.

It was called the Eight Mile Road, despite distances being generally measured by kilometres and was notorious for kangaroos and rather mindless farmers who lived along this road, tending to forget others used it too.

It was a road that was used mainly by locals and rarely by anyone else unless necessary.

Kylie watched the smoke through Amy's windscreen until the tops of the gum trees obscured her view. It would only be another ten or fifteen minutes until they would be back in the Murruma village and thrown in the action.

Luckily, there wasn't a kangaroo in sight and Amy hit the bitumen at the bottom of the hill, by Willmott's place. Shooting down the road in front of them, coming off the Corrabo Road and across the old timber framed bridge into the village, was Janelle's Suzuki S–Cross.

"There goes Ma," Kylie said nodding to the white car. Amy nodded, following their mother over the first bridge – its ancient timber frame rattling under the wheels.

"God, that bridge doesn't sound too good," Amy remarked as she slowed down to pass over the second, Murruma Creek bridge before entering the village.

"Yeah, it sounds like it's one more car away from collapsing altogether, doesn't it?" Kylie replied mildly.

About a decade ago, there had been a series of major floods across the state that had all but washed that first bridge away. Thanks to the ineptitude of the Wangarra City Council, of which Murruma was part of, the bridge had been one of many that was subjected to a "half–arsed dodgy botch up job", as their parents often said.

"Bloody Dodgy Brothers did a good job of it," Amy joked, turning into the near full, grassy car park of the Murruma pub. Kylie laughed as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She loved that whenever someone attempted to fix something – and invariably making it worse – was automatically likened to the Dodgy Brothers, characters from a nineties comedy sketch show, Fast Forward.

"Good morning!" Janelle beckoned sarcastically to her daughters as she climbed out of her car.

"G'day," Kylie and Amy chimed back together, opening up the back seat and boot of Amy's car.

"So, how's this barbie goin'?" Kylie asked Janelle, nodding to the smoky tendrils floating high above the pine covered hills that overlooked this side of the village.