On the Jellicoe Road

He doesn’t look at me. “I don’t know. Just that it was messy,” he mumbles.

“How messy? What do you mean ‘messy’?”

He looks up at me. “You know…messy.”

I see Jonah Griggs get up from his bunk and walk towards us. “Why are you telling her this?” he snaps at Santangelo.

He ignores Griggs. “My father cried…. I’d never seen him cry…. He told me that the Hermit had a kid….”

I feel sick. Up till now the Hermit had never possessed a life. He was just this madman who lived in the bush. But to know that he left someone behind…And then a horrific thought enters my head.

“Was he my father?” I whisper. “Is that what your dad said?”

“Why would you think that?” he asks, surprised.

Griggs grabs Santangelo by the arm. “You’re stressing her out.”

“Why is this your business? You don’t even know her.”

I feel my windpipe constricting and I know what’s about to happen. I’m trying to work out where my backpack is so I can get my inhaler but I realise that it’s out there with the cops.

Jonah Griggs looks at me for a moment and I see a frown appear on his face. “Sit down. You’re going to faint.”

The chewing gum makes my mouth feel sweet and next minute I’m throwing up mucus that is making me gag.

“Look what you’ve done, you arsehole!”

I can see them both glued to the bars that separate us. The retching never seems to end, like it’s carving out my insides and I can’t breathe. My windpipe feels like it’s choking me and I can smell the Hermit’s blood, the sickly sweet smell of it, and suddenly I see it, plastered all over my clothes, and I see the Hermit out there on that day when the sun was so hot and I hear his whispers and I try to keep my eyes closed, but I can’t and there are parts of him around me and the blood smacking at my face and I can’t breathe and I can hear Jonah Griggs shouting and Santangelo calling out, “Dad, Dad, get in here.” I’m making this gurgling sound because I just can’t breathe and although I’m bent over away from the bars I feel hands grab hold of me, pulling me towards them. I feel arms around my chest, a mouth against my ear whispering…whispering…Jonah Griggs whispering, “Just breathe, just breathe, come on, Taylor, just breathe…just breathe.”

Mr. Palmer is wiping my face. Santangelo’s dad is there as well, placing a glass of water in my hands and helping me drink. I’m gulping it down, feeling weak and pathetically teary.

“We’re going home,” John Palmer says quietly. “Can you stand?”

I nod. “I’m sorry about the mess,” I tell Santangelo’s dad.

He smiles. “We’ll live.”

As I walk past the other cell I see Santangelo sitting on the floor with his back against the bars, his head in his hands, and Jonah Griggs standing, watching me. Like he did on that station platform. Like he did those times we lay side by side on our way to Yass. Staring like he’s never stopped. For a moment the mask slips from his face, but by that time I’m almost out the door.

It’s not until we reach the Jellicoe Road that Mr. Palmer speaks.

“Ha

“How do you know?” I ask, raising my head from where it’s been leaning against the door.

“I spoke to someone who knows her. She’s in Sydney looking after a friend…who’s sick.”

All of a sudden Ha

“Who? You don’t understand. I know everyone she knows.”

He is keeping something from me. I can tell by the way he can’t look me in the face and that scares me. He seems to sense this and once again I’m surprised by his kindness.

“She calls her friend, ‘Mrs. Dubose.’ That’s all I know.”

Mrs. Dubose.

“Have you heard of her?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say sleepily. “She lived in the same street as Jem and Scout Finch.”

Chapter 9

I’m riding as fast as I can. The faster the pace, the less thought-process, and being thoughtless suits me fine. I pedal hard, my face sweating, my hands clenched on the handlebars until I feel the blood stop in my fingers. I pedal on with eyes closed and we travel, the bike and I, as if it has a mind of its own and I have no control. I skid suddenly to the side and realise that I’ve reached the ridge, an inch away from going over the edge. My face is drenched with perspiration and I look at the space below. The world sways and I sway with it until it’s like being in a hypnotic dance, almost enticing me to step over.

But my attention is drawn away by the rustling above me. In the tree. There’s something watching. I throw the bike to the side and crane my neck, my heart pounding hard. For a moment I think I see the boy, his limbs nimble and quick, his eyes piercing into me, and then he’s gone. The knocking at my ribs in no way subsides and for a moment I don’t move because I’m petrified. Until there, in the corner of a branch, I see something else. The cat. Without thinking I start climbing. I don’t know why but somewhere at the back of my mind is the thought that the cat was the last to see Ha

I see his shadow first, and the shock of what I see makes me gasp.

Standing under the tree, holding the cat, is the Brigadier. With the cat so compliant in his arms, he resembles some kind of Mephistopheles. As I cling on for dear life, I try to control the breathlessness within me that spells trouble.

“It’s an easy drop,” he tells me. “You’ll be cushioned by the leaves.”

I’d be happy to stay hanging off the tree for the rest of my life just so I don’t have to deal with him. But my hands begin to hurt and I know I have to let go.

There is nothing easy about the drop. It hurts when I land and when he holds out a hand, I ignore it.

He’s looking at my face closely and like every other time this man is around there is havoc in my stomach. Like a warning against malevolence. I could easily put it down to the fact that I’m still angry at him for being the one who stopped me and Jonah Griggs that time. But it’s more than that.

“Give me the cat,” I say when I get to my feet.

“Mightn’t be a good idea. He doesn’t seem to like you.”

I grab the cat from him and he goes back to his feral self, scratching and writhing in my hands, but I’m not letting go.

“Ha

He’s still looking at me. It’s u

The strange thing is this. In crazy dreams when I relive that moment when Jonah Griggs and I were sitting in the postman’s van in that township two hours away from Sydney, ready to set off on the final leg of our journey, I remember the Brigadier. I remember the look on his face when he pulled up in front of the postman’s van and got out of his car and walked towards us in that measured way he has. That look was directed at me and a thought has stuck in my head for all these years: that maybe the Brigadier did not come looking for a Cadet that day.

That maybe, in some way, it was me he was hunting down.

The next day, Raffaela, Ben, and I decide to do an inventory of every piece of property the Townies and Cadets own on our land. We split the page in three and list them, begi