Call of the Boodier E-Book

Molly Fernandes

• Herausgeber: Europa Edizioni
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A dreadful accident has catapulted its cargo of tigers into the Australian bush.
Alone, injured and dangerous, Hu is the one surviving tiger. She must rely on ancient Wadandi knowledge and learn the language of the land to survive.
Hunters, poachers and glory seekers surround her and the new sanctuary is deep in the forest.
Call of the Boodier is a vivid story that will transport you back in time
– Leanne Prior
 
Molly Fernandes was born in a small town in the wheatbelt in Western Australia. She grew up in Perth, spending her hol- idays exploring the natural environment of
Southwestern Australia. Her summers were spent exploring the shorelines of Cosie Corner and Emu Point.
Molly fell in love with books from a very young age and gained inspiration from many stories about animals to begin her writing life. She was an avid reader of Enid Blyton, Kenneth Grahame and Ernest Hemingway. Her passion for writing and art inspired her to become a primary school teacher. She has published two. Books; Owen’s Afternoon Tea and The Call of the Boodier.
Molly’s love of nature always draws her towards gardening, hiking and observing the birds that visit her garden. Today she lives with her family on the northern beaches of Perth in Western Australia. Writing is as much an ad- venture for her as reading and she thoroughly enjoys bringing stories to life in text and in drawing.
Other great Books by Molly Fernandes
Owen’s Afternoon Tea is the story of Owen the Ornithologist, a boy who loves birds. On his most dangerous quest of all, Owen encounters the largest eagle of them all. Will his expedition end in cake or chaos. This rhyming picture book is illustrated by botanical artist Marlene Lozano and written by Molly Fernandes. The book celebrates science, birdlife and raises awareness about habitat destruction.
A book for young bird lovers. The My Bird Journal is an informative journal full of detailed facts about birds, journaling pages, blank templates and writing pages to fill with your own notes and drawings.

Leseprobe

Molly Fernandes

Call of the Boodier

© 2023 Europe Books| London

www.europebooks.co.uk | [email protected]

ISBN 9791220135047

First edition: June 2023

Call of the Boodier

To the Wardandi People–

The traditional custodians of the Southwestern region of

Western Australia. May your hands be connected to your land, your voices strong and your stories carried far and wide.

My eternal gratitude goes to Josh Whiteland for sharing his knowledge of Wardandi Boodja (country) with me. Ever ap-

preciative of the fascinating work being done by Karlie Noon which helped me include some information about Indigenous constellations. I am also grateful for the help and guidance provided by The Undalup Association. My research was aided by many people including the Southwest Aboriginal

Land and Sea Council. Thanks also to Leslie Gordon for expanding my awareness of Bush Tucker and for her encouragement.

My heartfelt thanks goes to my beta readers, especially

Leanne Prior for her detailed analysis and huge help in polishing up my scraps of ideas into something much shinier.

Leanne began teaching me about literature in secondary school and then returned to aid me at the launch of this book.

I will treasure this connection forever. Thanks also to Rod

Holt for reading, sharing his knowledge with me of the local vegetation and for the encouragement. Enormous and unending thanks with a promise of a continued supply of Almond

Biscotti goes to my husband, for his unwavering belief in me, support and hours of reading and sorting the pages of the story. I’m grateful for the love and support of my beautiful children, whose passion for a good story - real or imagined, has kept me exploring, writing and nurturing my creativity.

Nitja gnulla moorditj karrl boodja

Our people are here to stay, we will always be.

PROLOGUE

Deep in the tangles of soft green foliage a tiny bird twittered out its song of celebration. The tinkle of its tune described the beauty of its homeland. The birdsong drifted to the highest treetops and floated its way down to the loamy soils. The tune sang of the tapestry of green mosses, tiny saplings, vines and ferns that decorated the land, curling around a network of flowing rivers. A land pierced by sheer mountain crests and pillowed with gentle green slopes. A tiny pocket of earth that buzzed with creatures, weaving their way through the lush habitat on their merry dance. The birdsong was caught by the ears of the town’s folk of Ranthambore. Mothers and fathers whistled it to their children. The lullaby became a story, a dance and then a legend.

The song of the tiny bird was passed on through the dynasties of Harappan, the Pandavas, the Mughal, the Bhils and the Meena. It became a story that twisted and turned, grew and evolved. Told to strangers, travellers and retold generation after generation. Through century after century the song became story and was passed through the land from clan to clan, family to family. The tiny celebrational tune spoke of the journey of a people in a land plentiful and full of mystery. The tale of the land whispered from ear to ear. To the ears of the people of Aryan and then to the Mauryan, to the Rajput when the land flourished. The rivers ran deep and filled with fish and the forest grew dense. Ripe fruits provided sustenance for the people and for the animals. Ranthambore became a sanctuary for thousands of birds and species of all shapes and sizes.

The land swelled with life and vitality. The soft green leaves of the Dhok plant waved in the breeze in time to the clickety clack rhythm of the cicada song. The ropes of the Banyan trunks clustered, unfolding under green canopies like giant umbrellas. The people gave thanks for all the riches of their home. The sun rose and set in perfect flow and Ranthambore became a home to sloth bears, Sambar Deer, Indian Peafowl, the Gharial Crocodile, hyenas and gazelle. The animals lived in harmony, against the purple silhouette of the mountains. They arched their backs in the sun, ran wild and free along pathways and cowered under the warm, protective arms of ancient trees during snowstorms. They raised their young on the velvety green hills that fringed the banks of the Chambal River. The animals nestled in the landscape, living peacefully alongside the humans and the story of Ranthambore was spread from species to species, through day and through night, year after year.

Into this oasis was delivered a tiny tiger cub from a land just as ancient, to the East. From her home in China, Hu was bundled up by a park ranger and released into the welcoming care of a tiger mother, joining her own two cubs in the safety of the Ranthambore Tiger Sanctuary. One of the most graceful and agile of the species, the Bengal Tiger, roamed the hills in their small streaks. After a thousand golden moons had waxed and waned, a million, trillion droplets had joined the rocky riverbeds in their race along the ancient water channels, this family of tigers began their own story in the hills of the land. The mother and her three cubs had a den in the protective cover of a large cave.

As the season had softened, edging its way toward winter, the colours began to change, and the leaves lilted toward the ground. Hu listened to the funnel of wind through the leaves and learned the way of the land from her mother, brother and sister. She heard the song of the tiny bird and listened to the story told by her mother. The story described the journey of many travellers, migrants, hunters and farmers that drifted into the valley, made homes, grew families and then passed on. She learned to read the change in weather patterns before they came using her heightened senses.

The change was ever so slow and ever so small. Each year a tiny bit less snow iced the mountain tops. The animals continued to bask in the warmth that caressed the hills. People noticed their crops dwindling as the heavy rains fell, soaking fields into a mushy sludge. As the story of Ranthambore continued, only the birds noticed a shift in the light as the sun rose higher and the earth warmed. They continued to sing their song, spreading a warning for those that would listen. The tigers of Ranthambore flicked their tails as they listened to the melody of the tiny bird. They had heard the song from their grandparents and the grandparents of their grandparents. Noticing the tiny change in the song, they watched, waited and braced for the impending danger that threatened the land. Hu eyed a final leaf fall to the ground, sniffed the air and sensed the smallest change in the scent. The air was ever so slightly thinner and dryer. Her nostrils prickled and she headed for the river to drink its replenishing waters.

In the height of the Summer, it came. Beginning as a tiny flicker of gold and emanating a furry heat. The flame spun like silk into a blaze. Before long the hills were lit with the amber glow of a raging bushfire. The fire dissolved the forest into crisp black ash and the animals fled for their lives. They jumped the banks of the river as the humans spun into a flurry of activity spreading water with trucks and planes to drown the flames which cast their fury across the hills. down through the valleys nipping at the feet of the mountains, the fire spread, hungrily eating at the lush home of all the animals.

Although the fire was contained, many lives were lost, and the land turned grey with rising smoke that snaked its way through the forest. After the third bushfire, the humans came to the forest, capturing the small family of tigers. Hu and her family were shuffled into a large truck filled with straw. With only a small number of tigers left in the world it was deemed best to move these mighty cats to a safer land so that their story could be continued.

Here Hu’s next great journey began.

CHAPTER ONE

Under a velvety black sky, town dwellers drifted on their dreams in a deep and undisturbed slumber. Nothing stirred, not even the trees twitched. Every eye closed, every mind retreated from events unfolding around them. The moon shone dimly through a cluster of hooded clouds, drifting in and out of its own dreams. No whisper of wind, no tinkle of rain, only the stillness of the night.

The silence began to fray just a tiny bit at two a.m. A quiet rumble uncurled in the north and began a rhythmic dull percussion, making its way along Southwest Highway. Like a serpent sliding its way through the motionless night, curving its way around bend after bend, the road train carried its precious cargo south.

Commonly, a heavy iron road train of this size has a clunky, violent momentum. It is a vehicle of noise and friction that jolts and clatters through the landscape. That night, it moved without friction, smooth and slow like a hologram. It was as if the truck had been removed from the scene before it had even appeared. It curled around each bend, only lightly in contact with the dark guiding line of the bitumen road. Only half present, imminently suggesting the catastrophic event about to unfold.

At 2:15 a flash, so small it was barely visible to the half snoozing moon, catapulted across the highway in one short shot. At this precise moment the enormous iron beast rounded the sharpest of road bends just near the caves entrance. The driver jolted out of his daze: his eye caught the sight of a small furry animal silhouetted against grey asphalt. A small meteor visible for the tiniest of moments with a long dark tail. He slammed his foot on the brake, causing the momentous weight of iron and steel in his control to domino in one powerful and forceful tumble and stack beneath him. The truck twisted and folded itself, crashing, building a pile of black iron and then exploded into several parts. The animals inside the truck, destined for their new home, erupted from the safety of their pens like firework sparkles. One final creak, heard by night owls, then the forest returned to its still, motionless chamber of deep silence.

A slight hum surrounded Hu as she lay heavily at strange angles to her body amongst the undergrowth. Slowly the print of her fur rippled as she regained consciousness. Her large limbs threaded their way through the mess of broken twigs and branches. One limb after another pushed out, stretching slowly through her crash site. She slowly unfolded her eyes and glanced up at the blue sky funnelling down a network of green lace. She carefully wriggled each claw, then paw, then limb, testing for damage and pain.

Heavily she rolled onto her back. The foliage around her made a gentle crunching sound that was blanketed in the surrounding silence. Hu perked her ears and listened. A soft feathery breeze, that hum and dense silence. She detected no danger. Pushing out her rib cage, she lifted herself to a standing position as a sharp pain rang through her front leg. She found the cut, deep and black with blood. She licked the wound, then tested the leg for strength. The pain dulled, then sharpened, then dulled again. She managed to clean it and pushed down, testing the strength. It would carry her, for now.

She stiffened herself again, sniffed the air, checked for danger. The sharp tang of eucalyptus met her nostrils. She was completely surrounded by green. Tall slender trees pillared towards that blue sky. The tree bark was ghostly and papery with thin ribbons peeling off in strips. There was something musical about these trees, they seemed to be trapped in a motionless dance, as if they had been caught in the silence of the forest. Between her two front paws, she caught sight of a small beetle. It traversed the broken leaves that lay flattened from where she had fallen. Its bright coloured armour shimmered like a jewel as it made a very bumpy migration across the pebbly ground.

The light bounced off its shiny armour, a twinkling green gem wobbling its way over a fractured path. Hu had lived all her life in the wilderness, but this forest had a different feel, a different look and certainly a different scent. She interrupted the silence, cracking more twigs as she emerged from the nest that had formed when she landed. Her stripes joined the weave of forest shadows as she began to explore and try and work out how she had arrived in this new and strange forest.

A flash of black caught her eye as she pressed herself through the drapes of the green undergrowth. She glanced upwards, but it was gone. She saw only the green tangle of leaves and branches around her. Then a dart of grey, a flash, a flicker of the light. She wasn’t sure, maybe an insect. It was so fast.

Finally, her vision focussed on a small black bird with a black paddle for a tail. It darted across her head, flitting from branch to branch, daringly darting with an occasional pause and hop. She stopped still, held her breath and crouched low. She spun her head and saw the bird eyeing her suspiciously. Then, with a zap of speed it dove at her head once more. Hu felt the fur on her head whoosh as the little bird zipped past her ear. Two sharply angled strokes marked a kind of eyebrow above each eye, that added to the sinister look of the bird. The tiger began to move again, cautiously weaving a path through the undergrowth. The little bird watched, then swivelled on the spot, swinging its black tail like a flag. It made a small jump on the spot and began to chatter in a string of drills that hit the air like little punches. It watched, swivelled, then hopped and watched again.

In a sudden flash of speed, like a projected bullet, the little bird darted straight at her, its beak barely touched her head, but she felt a slight sharpness at her ear. Hu crouched to the ground, folding her limbs beneath her. When she sought out the bird, she found it safely perched on top of a low bush, nestled amongst the leaves. Almost instantly, it was joined by a second bird identical to itself except for a small black dot on the froth of white chest feathers. As if it had dropped a crumb from breakfast, that was now stuck to its chest. The two birds sat like inspectors, peering down at her.

She eyed the little birds and let a small rumble escape her belly. She was tired, hungry, lost and sore and not interested in the games of tiny forest creatures. Her limbs felt heavy. Actually, she felt like taking a soft spot in on some moss and drifting into a long sleep, but she knew this wouldn’t be wise. She needed to find food and shelter. She had no idea why these tiny creatures would pay her any attention, nor what she had done to deserve such a venomous welcome to the forest. Her growl had done nothing to intimidate them. They stayed pinned to their lookout.

-Why are you attacking me? - Hu puzzled at the tiny bird taking on an animal of her size.

Hu tried to discern if it was a happy song or some kind of alarm they were raising. Usually, she would ignore such a small creature but in a strange place, far from home, she felt it was unwise to ignore anything. Who knew what she was walking herself into? So, she sharpened her glare and tried to observe her surroundings.

The little black bird sat on its branch, revealing nothing about its intentions. She recommenced her walk, pretending to be brave when actually a feeling of uneasiness had bubbled up inside her like a lava ball. The uncertainty of this place and its residents made her feel edgy. Her wound ached, she felt tired and more than a little bit confused.

She paused and scanned the forest more slowly. She began to notice more activity in the foliage of greenery around her. The large orange and black, feathery wings of Monarch butterflies floated amongst the trees. They looked like floating leaves dropping and swirling amongst the green. They blinked in and out of view through the thin grey mist that hung like lace through the trees. Spindly fingers of early morning sunlight threaded through the weave of green forest.

Hu heard the shrill call of the King Parrott and the rustle of an animal fumbling through the undergrowth on its morning journey from nest to foraging ground and back again. She looked around her, she was completely alone. The sharp call of the little black birds reminded her she was not alone. The clattering percussion of their Morse code sound bounced around her ears. It was as if they were sending an emergency report, possibly about the discovery of Hu, the intruder. Suddenly, the first black tailed bird, hopped sharply to the left, made an acrobatic loop and landed right on the branch of a small green bush at eye level with the tiger.

At first, the bird’s chirps had sounded like a musical pattern to her. Just a rhythmic string of chirps and tweets, but now she thought she detected a word she understood and then another. Words begun to emerge in her mind as she heard the bird song transform from a sound into a thought in her head. Somehow, she was interpreting what the little bird was saying, even though it was completely foreign to her.

“Out!”

“Dalyaniny!”

“Fox.”

“Balai.”

“Bat.”

“Ngoorp.”

“Bardan.”

“No place.”

Then, all the words flowed from the clatter of the bird’s chirps into a fully formed sentence.

“You have no place here, you Foxbat!” it jeered at her.

Hu stopped mid step and looked directly at the little bird. Its partner was nowhere to be seen.

“Foxbat? What is a Foxbat?” she thought to herself.

She had never heard of a Foxbat. Her brothers and sisters loved to taunt and tease her as she was the smallest in the family, but this was a new and unfamiliar label. Her head felt dizzy. She held her breath and rested her limbs, laying herself on a nearby patch of the green moss.

Her head swayed. She felt her head was full of water. Was it her wound that was making her feel dizzy or was she under some kind of spell? What was this strange land she was in? Where was the dark poles of her pen? Where were the keepers and the other tigers? And what was this strange language of bird chirps that she could now suddenly understand? She wondered if she was changing into a bird or if it was just this place.

The little bird made a triple bounce and began to address her with focus and determination.

“Something has poisoned you and turned you into a huge, bulging beast!”

“You need to leave….now…now….now. You crazy Fox bat, numbat!” the little bird chortled. “Be gone, be gone, be gone.”

The little bird popped like a spring from the branch straight at the tiger’s ear, nipping at her fur then darting back to the safety of the shrub and the camaraderie of his companion, who now appeared on a high branch. Hu let out a low rumble of annoyance which sent a ripple of low sound through the leaves of the forest. She calmed herself with a deep inhale and then let out a huff of air through her nostrils. Swinging her paw with all the strength she could muster; she launched a claw at the birds. Her mighty strength had evaporated; her paw waved limply in the air. She dropped her paw in surrender, feeling her limbs drain of strength. The vision of the forest tilted and swayed. Her front legs became limp, and she flopped heavily into a slump.

She had no idea where she was, who this bird was or who else lived in this forest. She had no idea what a Foxbat or Number Bat was. She guessed it was an animal of some kind, maybe an animal that wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the forest. Maybe she had been turned into a Number Bat. She looked down at her paws. Her two front paws, soft rounded and orange with her four claws still intact. She saw the black diamond shaped stripe that curled at her collar and the end of the long thin stripe curling along her front limb toward her large claw.

“Nope, I’m still me,” she told herself.

She considered her options: maybe the bird could help her find her way, if she could persuade it to stop attacking her. She had no idea how long it would take her to get home or even if she would ever find her way home. She decided she needed friends, so it was best to try and make some.

The little birds sat stubbornly fixed to their current branch and continued their surveillance, eyeing the tiger with pin-like eyes. Ignoring her painful paw, her heavy, tired limbs and the murmur of hunger in her belly, she summoned her patience and began to try and communicate with the birds.

“I am not a Foxbat or a Number Bat; I am a tiger. I am lost in your forest, I need water,” she said, waiting to see if the bird could understand her.

“We are Djitty Djitty,” announced the little birds assertively in a tumble of chirps.

“What is a Number Bat?” she asked.

The darker of the little creatures swivelled on its branch, flicking its tail as if winding itself up in preparation to respond. It swooped down making a little halo around her head, then began chattering out its drill like a trumpet announcing an arrival. Two sharp white stripes above its eyes like eyebrows.

“Numbat, not Number Bat!” it trilled in a piercing trail of tweets. -Numbats don’t live in the Boranup forest. Neither do tigers! - it chirped. -You need to leave us in peace, everything is in peace and harmony here, you are breaking it!

It swivelled its neck, twisting its head from side to side, checking for danger, Hu guessed. Then pinned its glance back on Hu.

“Numbats have stripes and tails and fur just like you,” said the bird. “You’re too big for this land. You shouldn’t be here, it’s not your country!”

The little bird fluffed out its feathers and made several hops on its branch, then began chirping in a rapid shrill of morse code, like beeps to its companion. The chatter was too fast for Hu to decipher but it didn’t sound friendly.

“How did you get so big?” asked the bird, inquisitively.

“I just grew this size, I’m actually small,” she replied. “All tigers my age are about my size.”

“You are so big, a giant. No animals in the Boranup are so big,” it chatted nervously twisting its tail to and fro.

“You are a danger to our home, too much danger to us,” came the bird’s melodious trills.

The little bird sprang forward and stood bolt upright on a nearby branch, its legs taut and straight, fluffing out its feathers as if it was making itself as large as it could possibly be. She began to notice a pattern of movement. Rather than just a random dance of swivels and twists, she saw the bird cycle through a repeated set of movements. Tail twist, swivel, chatter, piercing glares, then a backwards flick of the head. He looked as if he was throwing his high-pitched drills to someone behind him, someone unseen, an invisible thing, somewhere above him.

“What do you want me to do?” Hu looked from one bird to the other.

She felt so tired and tempted to just lay down and sleep. Something was telling her to keep moving. She heard her sister’s voice in her head, low and silky, comforting and reassuring her.

“Soon we will be in a safe place, just be patient.”

She remembered being so sore, her limbs cramped, and aching pressed into the small wooden crate in the dark. The noise of the road beast so loud it made her skin vibrate. Another stream of loud chatters from the Djitty Djitty peppered the air and she looked up.

“It’s the Blue Wren, we tell the Blue Wren you have come,” the smaller of the black birds explained. “Blue

Wren reports to the Boodier.”

“We tell the Blue Wren who tells the Boodier,” came the birds chattery voice into Hu’s mind, followed by a long series of clattery sounds that Hu couldn’t decipher. The largest Djitty looked from the tiger to the smaller Djitty Djitty and seemed to be having a deep exchange, or was it an argument, now? Hu couldn’t’ tell.

Hu couldn’t see any other birds. She could hear the birds. A lot of different bird songs floated around her. She looked over the tops of the green bushes and tried to see a blue bird but saw nothing except endless patches of green. She heard a melodic trail of floating notes drift through the trees. Was that the Blue Wren? Hu also wondered who this Boodier was or what this Boodier was. Possibly some kind of hunter, a human or a beast or perhaps just another bird.

Right now, she needed rest and food and water. No point thinking about hunters, she was weak, too weak to even take on a tiny bird. A distant bird call rang out from high above in the tree canopy breaking the tumble of thoughts that crowded her mind. She decided it was a signal to get moving. She rolled her head and sucked at the leaves and felt the tiniest trickle of moisture coat her parched throat. The sun was stronger now, creating a patchwork of warmth through the forest. It was getting later in the day, which meant more activity, more risk and more danger for getting where she needed to be.

“Which was where?” she asked herself. “Water, she needed water,” she thought, pushing herself through a small pocket of space between two round shrubs. A shadow flashed in her peripheral vision, she swung her head around, but everything sat motionless. The stillness of the forest was mesmerising. Sounds and flickers of movement fleeting against a backdrop of stationary green.

CHAPTER TWO

A tiny sliver of white light filled the gap between Riley’s curtains. He pulled them open and discovered he had slept in. Two blue wrens sat their tiny frames on the edge of the bird bath just outside his window. He let himself watch them for a minute. Skimming the bowl and flicking water through their feathers, they completed their morning bath and hopped to a branch, watching him expectantly. He spotted a tiny dead fly in the corner of his windowsill and flicked it out the window for the hungry bird. His stomach lurched as he tentatively levered himself out of his bed, thinking he had better get on with his own breakfast.

“Later,” he told the little blue bird.

He headed down the hall for the bathroom. He could hear the house slowly cranking to life. The coffee machine beginning it’s morning clean, the click and rattle of his father unstacking the dishwasher, his sister’s door sliding open. His mornings always started this way, in a shiny bubble of slow quiet movements and motions before the day quickened into a rush of whirling preparations, as everyone in the house jumped aboard their morning schedules.

For now, it was early and Riley felt the softness of time floating around him. He examined his reflection in the bathroom mirror. His hair played about in bumps and mounds of brown and ginger frizz. His coppery brown eyes like two small doves framing the top of his face. He was tall for his twelve years, everyone told him. He often got mistaken for being older, which made him feel awkward and out of place. As if he were being asked to do something. He wasn’t quite ready to do.

He dipped his hand into the icy basin water and flicked his fingers through his hair, then turned off the water, patted his hair dry and slunk his way back down the hall, feeling his limbs click into rhythm with the tune from his sister’s Youi Boom. The bubble had popped. When he reached the kitchen, his dad was already flipping a fluffy slab of omelette onto his plate. The sweet tangy smell of onion warmed him, and his hunger came rolling in. He sat and ate at the bench, letting the sweetness of capsicum and tomato wake up his taste buds.

“Morning, sleepy head,” his dad greeted him, phone scrolling with his thumb, spatula in the other hand. “Excited?” he asked, making a funny face at Riley.

“Yup,” Riley smiled triumphantly, thinking of his excursion to the new Tiger sanctuary.

“Got your permission slip?”

“Yep.”

“Come on, chop chop, let’s get a move on then.”

His dad finished dishing up omelette and flung the pan in the sink.

“Frannnnk!” his mum’s voice came floating down the hall.

“In the kitchen,” his dad called back, taking a loud slurp from his tea mug.

“Morning, sweetie,” his mum bounced into the kitchen, in her scrubs. She reached for coffee before joining Riley at the table. “You let your wallet in the bathroom,” his mum handed a brown leather square to his dad.

“We have our excursion today,” Riley told his mum.

“Of the new sanctuary?” she dipped her nose into her coffee cup like a bird drinking from a waterhole.

Riley nodded, gulping down his last mouthful of omelette. His mum gave him a smile.

“I wonder how many tigers there’ll be.”

“Five, well eventually there will be,” said Riley.

His mum raised her eyebrows as she began to eat her omelette.

“None yet of course. They are arriving this week.”

“Riley, get your skates on!” called his dad. This was his way of saying hurry up. Just once, he wanted to actually put skates on just to see his dad’s reaction.

“Yep.”

Riley put his dish in the sink and skipped out of the kitchen. He could hear his dad throwing things into the tray of his ute, a little noisier than usual.

The morning spun into high speed as their family zipped around the house grabbing the things for the day. He collided with his sister in the hall as he ducked back into his room to grab his overnight bag and school things.

“Woah there, Weevil!” said Mikaela, looking down at him with a grumpy teenage look. Riley was so used to seeing that look on his sister’s face that he thought her face might permanently remain that way. He ignored her and stuffed an imaginary pair of skates in his bag, then dashed out to the kitchen, giggling to himself. She couldn’t bring him down today. He had been waiting for this day for ever. To finally visit the new tiger sanctuary and the have his weekend away at his friend’s farm in Capel. He pecked his mum on the cheek and rushed out to meet his dad.

“Don’t stay up to late! Or surf near the rocks… or forget to eat breakfast!” his mum called as he leapt out the front door and onto the driveway.

Riley stacked himself into the cramped front seat of his dad’s utility. He twisted his legs to squeeze into the tiny space between his school bag, overnight bag and his dad’s tools. The back of the ute was stacked with metal cages.

“What are those?” Riley pointed a thumb to the tray.

“Picked them up by the old cave entrance, near Boranup lookout. Someone’s been trying to trap things again…that they shouldn’t be. These cowboys with no

licenses, think the forest is their playpen!”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“I’ll drop them off to Marilyn and let her handle it,” his dad replied flatly.

They reached the entrance to the town. The neat streets of the little town sat tranquil and quiet in the morning sunshine. New shops popped like sweets in lolly wrappers glowing, modern, clean and gleaming like gems beckoning to passers-by. Flirtatiously catching your eye with their bright windows in stark contrast to the red provincial brickwork of the older well-trodden shops sitting sulkily in their aged scaffolding.

The Skate ‘n’ Play shop came up on his left and his vision was flooded with the colourful mural coating of the walls like Josephs Dreamcoat. Riley tried to read the story written on the wall art before they passed the shop. He liked to test his speed reading and see which word he could reach.His dad rushed the vehicle down the road, cutting his moment to read.

“It was on a Wicked Winter night in 1873 that the passenger barque “Eva Loner” tossed perilously on treacherous seas off the coast of Van Diemen’s Land. Below deck Cornelius William Augustus and seven of his eight children…”

The vehicle hinged left, and the engine heaved a bit as they headed up the street to the garden shed, where his dad collected the tools.

His dad jumped out of the cabin, grabbing his keys.

“Hold tight mate!” he said.

He loved saying that phrase. “Hold tight. Hold tight.”

Riley had asked him once what he was supposed to hold to tight to. He had replied at the time something silly. What was it? Then he remembered…. “to the end of your kite!”

That had started a whole conversation about how he didn’t have a kite. They had laughed and been silly all the way home that day. Back in the car, his dad looked at him with a serious expression.

“Hey, have you got your permission slip?” asked his dad.

“Yes, dad!” Riley nodded. Tapping the front pocket of his bag, he jumped out of the ute and hurried up the walkway to the school.

“Ok, see you Sunday.”

A huddle of students stood neatly tucked into freshly pressed, green uniforms at the front of the school. Riley dropped his bag at the classroom, grabbed his drink bottle and hat and joined the group. He quickly pushed his permission note into Mr Daniels’s hand, then sidled up beside his friend Joe.

“OK guys, sense of responsibility please, show me two nice lines,” Mr Daniels’s voice floated over the excited buzz of students’ voices.

A flow of students jostled their way into lines and then curled their way onto the bus. Riley was in group six with Joe and Tom. He found his seat beside Joe and flung his day pack off his back to the floor, accidently whipping Danielle with the strap.

“Watch it, brutto!”

Two piercing eyes funnelled a glare at him from beneath her dark, sharp angled brows. Danielle was tall and muscular. She was a keen surfer, naturally, being the daughter of the local surf school owner. Riley often saw her down at the beach. He lifted a pacifying hand toward her.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said with raised eyebrows.

Only 8:15 and Danielle was already mad. Riley couldn’t see how someone could be grumpy on excursion day. They had been waiting for months to see the new tiger sanctuary and this was the third time the trip had been planned. They had cancelled it twice the previous year. Finally, the school had got things sorted and the sanctuary was ready for tours. Of course, there was no tigers yet, but Riley had read everything about the new sanctuary, and he thought it would be kind of cool going before the tigers arrived.

“They have Three hundreds drones at this centre,” Joe told Riley.

“That’s cool. Why do they need so many?”

“They need to monitor the animals and the area. They eat twenty kilograms of meat a day. That’s half of you a day,” Riley grinned. Joe laughed.

“So glad there’s no tigers there yet. Do you know how many people have been accidently eaten by a tiger? Crazy people who have tigers in their apartments in America.”

Joe nodded his head in an exaggerated way. “I ain’t getting my half of me eaten by no tiger!”

“Well, not today anyway,” Riley laughed.

“They are coming from Rajaji Sanctuary in India, near the mountains.”

Riley looked out the window as the bus pulled away from the curb and headed out of town. The bus pulled through two enormous gates and the students filed off the bus and into a large Octagon shaped room with ceiling to floor windows on three sides. The building was made of rammed earth giving room to a pink ethereal glow.

“Ok, grab a seat,” said a man in a green ranger outfit. He gestured to the long benches lined up in the centre of the room. “It’s so great to have you here finally,” he grinned. “My name is Mike. I’m one of the animal carers. I’ve been working closely with the building manager and the engineers to make sure we make the sanctuary best suited to housing the animals. So, they can feel right at home and hopefully become part of our special breeding program. There are six zones in the sanctuary. Four completely separate tiger zones and two human zones where we will explore, monitor the tigers and share our work with the public.”

Mr Daniels tapped a student on the shoulder and motioned to him to shuffle along a bit to let Riley’s oldest friend Marguerite sit down. He grabbed his neck and pretended to choke himself. She looked away to stop herself from laughing.

“We are expecting five tigers, two males and three females. Now, these tigers are from India but one of the tigers actually came from China. Its name is Hu. Hu travelled from China to India as a tiny cub, she was rescued from a very bad situation there and given refuge at the Rjaji Sanctuary with the other four tigers. There are actually as few as fifty tigers in the wild in China and about one thousand in the world. So, this program is absolutely crucial for their safety. We are very excited to be starting this program here in Western Australia and you guys are in an awesome position to become part of the future of these animals - his voice trailed off as he hit some keys on a laptop which started a video playing.”

A bush track appeared on the screen, lined with metre high golden grasses. A sprinkling of small trees dotted here and there amongst the grasses twisted their bare branches in the air. In the background the shimmery glass-like surface of what appeared to be a lake glistened reflecting a hazy landscape of hills. To the side of the screen was a slender tiger sauntering along. It stopped and sniffed the ground, then continued its walk at the edge of the track. The video caught the edge of a safari car with some onlookers observing the tiger just out of view. The students watched in awe, wide eyed in silence as the big cat rippled across the screen, becoming absorbed in the lines of the grasses, flopping into the shade of a tree and then slowly continuing its daily stroll.

“The animal was pure beauty,” thought Riley. “Both powerful and graceful.”

“Ok so, there are no tigers here yet, so no one needs to worry. However, as the top of the school, we are looking for ambassadors and the rules we have in place will be crucial for all visitors to the sanctuary in the future. So, please stay together and observe the signs as you go. Let’s head out,” said Mike extending his arm toward the door.

“Grab a clip board on your way out,” called a second ranger, she pointed to a box filled with clipboards pinned with question sheets.

“Please, make sure you share your thoughts and feedback with us, we want to know your brilliant ideas,” called Mike over the shuffle of students heading out to the park.