On the Jellicoe Road

I take the list out of Raffy’s trembling hands and I see all the names of every person in my House, except for two. A wave of nausea comes over me. Please, not these two. Please, not any of them.

“Let’s get you out of here,” I hear Ms. Morris say. “It won’t do your breathing any good with all this smoke.”

But she’s just one of the voices and one of the faces I see.

Raffy busies herself, chatting incessantly, ushering the year sevens and eights into the trail of cars that have come from the town. I see Santangelo’s mum arrive. I want to go back to two weeks ago when she was calling Santangelo a little shit and Jessa and I were giggling at the organised turmoil of their household, wishing we belonged to it but relieved that we were able to walk away.

Raffy continues with her instructions. “Georgina’s a diabetic, no sugar, insulin first thing in the morning…. Sarah, put in your plate before you lose it….”

I see Trini of Darling House. No hysterics from her. Just a practical business-like ordering around and then we look at each other and she touches me, but I pull away because I’m a block of ice. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want to think.

“We’ll take the seniors and the tens. Hastings will take the year nines,” she tells me.

I just nod at her and she nods back and gets down to business.

Behind me Raffy is still giving instructions. “…she’s allergic to penicillin…and they’ve got an assessment task. It’s about Me, Myself, and I, and they have to collect at least five examples of…”

Everything is up close and then it swings away and the swaying of it plays with my stomach. Then Chaz is there, looking at me with such sadness, and then he sees Raffy.

“…no peanuts. Peanuts will kill her so don’t even breathe peanuts on her….”

“Raf,” he says in a tired voice. That’s all. Just “Raf.”

Then he holds her and for a moment I hear silence—that totally silent part of a cry that a

I sway, watching Santangelo’s father walk towards us. How come everyone looks a thousand years older in just a couple of hours?

He kneels next to Raffy. “Are you sure you haven’t seen them?” he asks gently, trying to make himself heard over the noise. “They could have been taken by one of the parents into town.”

She’s shaking her head over and over again. “Sal,” she whispers, horrified. “They’re in the House.”

I begin walking towards it, the blanket falling off my shoulders.

Jessa. Chloe P. Jessa. Chloe P. I’m walking towards the House. Jessa and Chloe P. are in the back room of the dorm. I’m ru

“Jessa!” I yell so hoarsely that it’s like the sound rings through my ears and makes them pop. “Chloe!” Someone’s hands are holding me back. The Brigadier’s hands. Jude Scanlon’s hands. And then I see the fire fighters pour out of the house, racing towards us, just as a crashing sound deafens our ears. Everyone stands back, helplessly watching. Windows are smashing under the pressure and the fire roars at us, like some ogre refusing to let us in.

I look around and the world becomes a hazy black blizzard. I sink lower and lower. I hear “someone grab her” and “get a bloody ambulance” and a claw-like hand finds its way into my mouth, down my throat, and into my lungs and it grabs my breath and squeezes the life out of it and I let it and let it and let it….

I am with the boy in the tree in my dreams. I can breathe up here and I’m happy and I tell him that I had this dream where I went to a school off the Jellicoe Road and we fought a war with the Cadets and Townies and how I had lost because I had surrendered myself to the leader of the enemy years before.

Then I hear the sobbing and we both look in the direction of the sound.

“Where does he come from?” I ask.

The boy looks at me, confused. “You brought him to me, Taylor. Weeks ago.”

“Me?”

“He won’t come out,” he tells me, “and I can’t find my way in.”

I crawl towards the sound, closer and closer, and when I’m a breath away from it, I put my hand through the branches and I leave it there and although it seems to take ages, he takes hold of my hand and drags me in. Then I’m sitting face to face with the Hermit and he’s crying, “Forgive me, forgive me.”

I realise that it’s not me he’s speaking to and I know what I have to do. I hold his hand firmly and convince him to come out with me onto the branch where the boy is waiting.

We sit there, the boy, the Hermit, and I, for a while. Sometimes I think I can hear people calling my name but I block it out because at the moment there is no other place I want to be. The boy leans over and tells me to explain to the Hermit that there is nothing to forgive and I do, and the look on the Hermit’s face is one of pure joy.

They reminisce about Tate and Narnie and Jude. They talk about the Prayer Tree and of the messages they wrote on the trunk. They tell me about the tu

I stand up because from here everything looks fantastic and the boy smiles a smile that creases his cheeks and I will never see anything more beautiful. Then he takes my hand and walks me over to the edge.

I look at Webb and I say, “It was me you were coming for all along.”

But he shakes his head and throws me over the side….

I open my eyes. The faces around me look shocked and ashen. The Brigadier, Santangelo’s dad, the fire chief. Raffaela is holding my inhaler to my lips. A second later, Griggs and Santangelo skid to a halt in front of me, staring. Griggs looks like he’s seen a ghost. Does he know something that I don’t know? He tries to talk to me, tries to take hold of me, but Santangelo’s dad pushes him away gently. “Give her room.”

“We heard…” Santangelo begins, his breathing is so heavy he can hardly speak.

I’m back in reality now and suddenly I remember everything. But there’s too much noise in my ears and too many people talking at the same time. I look beyond everyone to the House. Back there, everything seems to be under control but I know something is strange and I stare at the men in front of me. “You can’t find them, can you? You can’t find their bodies?”

I can tell the guy from the rural fire brigade is surprised because he exchanges a look with Santangelo’s dad.

“And there’s no other way out of that dorm.”

“They wouldn’t have been able to get out,” Santangelo’s dad says, “They’re two little girls.”

But I’m looking at the Brigadier and I see something in his eyes. “Except through the ground. ‘My father said there’s a tu

“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Santangelo’s dad says, standing up and whistling over some of the emergency crew.

“She’s in the tu

Jude stands up, staring back at the house and then at me and then he turns in the direction of Murrumbidgee House.