I must be homesick …
Today’s writing at Cambridge University’s Children’s Literature class …
‘It’s been 2 weeks, 3 days, 14 hours and 6 minutes.’
‘Thanks, Siri.’
Christine’s shoulders sank lower as she sat on the edge of the bed, her hands resting limp in her lap. A long sigh escaped her lips. Outside, the vast green field stretched out, bordered by tall gum trees that seemed to whisper secrets to one another in the breeze. The early morning sun slanted through their trunks, casting long shadows across the grass.
The garden below her window was a flutter of movement. Tiny honeyeaters darted between the shrubs, their wings a blur, too fast for the eye to follow. Blue wrens bobbed along the ground, tilting their heads as they pecked for bugs. To anyone else, it might have looked like a nature painting come to life—vivid, wild, teeming. But to Christine, it was all too much. The chirps and whistles were more like a language she didn’t understand. There was a strange kind of loneliness hidden inside all that melody.
Since arriving at the old weatherboard house with her mother, after leaving behind everything familiar, she had found green tree frogs peering up at her from the toilet bowl. Spiders with webs across the corners of the mailbox, and at night, tiny feet scratched and scurried across the ceiling above her bed.
She was done with wildlife.
She longed for the grey comfort of the city—the rumble of buses and the endless hum of life. She missed the chatter of strangers, the glow of streetlights, and the way her feet knew the rhythm of pavement and pedestrian crossings. To Christine, that was the sound of life, not this rustling wilderness or the empty, echoing quiet of trees.
But above all, she missed her friend Melissa, and her heart ached when she thought of her. But she had made the decision along with her mother to move. Knowing it was the best thing for them to start fresh, though now she wasn’t so sure.
Just as Christine turned from the window, something caught her eye near the edge of the clearing—a still shape beneath the shadow of a gum tree. She squinted, heart skipping, then ran outside without thinking, her bare feet soaking through in the cold dew. The grass clung to her toes as she knelt beside the lifeless body of a wallaby, its fur matted with blood. A dingo, she guessed, maybe the one they’d heard howling last night. But nestled in the curve of the mother’s belly was a trembling joey, ears twitching, eyes wide with confusion and fear. Gently, she scooped it up into her arms, cradling its body against her chest.
Inside, she wrapped it in an old flannel blanket and whispered, ‘It’s alright now, little Mel.’ The name tumbled out before she could think. For the first time since arriving, the wild didn’t feel so far from her heart.
