Penny Gerner - The Amoora Trilogy

First Published by Brolga Publishing Pty Ltd 2012

PO Box 12544 ABeckett St Melbourne Australia 8006

ABN 46 063 962 443

email: sales@brolgapublishing.com.au

web: www.brolgapublishing.com.au

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.

Copyright 2012 Penny Gerner

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Gerner, Penny.

Title: The Amoora trilogy / Penny Gerner.

ISBN: 9781922036810 (pbk.)

ISBN: 9781922175199 (ebook.)

Target Audience: For young adults.

Subjects: Teenage girls--Fiction, Adolescence--Fiction, Holidays--Fiction.

Dewey Number: A823.4

Cover design by David Khan

Typeset by Wanissa Somsuphangsri

Dedication

To my four granddaughters:
Elza, Phoebe, Emilie and Annabelle.

Thank you

To Pem for his fine end-of-chapter illustrations, making the book a happy collaboration of husband and wife.

Arent we there yet? Are we nearly there? How much longer is it going to take?

It seemed to take forever to reach the coast. For weeks Anne had dreamed of what it would be like, and now at last they were travelling in the ageing Vauxhall along a winding dusty road, choking on clouds of white dust from other vehicles. They were all becoming somewhat fractious with the heat. Butch, the black-and-white border collie, unperturbed by both dust and heat, dozed alongside Anne on the back seat. How long could she endure this, and how much longer could her parents tolerate the constant questions?

They had played I spy for a while to help pass the time, but in the end, Annes spelling had defeated them she hadnt recognised their choice of words and they had not always been able to acknowledge her inventive spelling.

Her parents David and Grace were quiet in the front, except for the occasional remark on the changing scenery; her father was concentrating on the corrugated road, swearing under his breath when the car bottomed in a particularly deep pothole. How long had it been since the grader had been through, ironing out the worst rough patches on this road that linked the interior to the coast? From time to time, her mother shushed Anne, telling her that it wouldnt be long now, and to stop asking questions.

Anne, do be quiet. Daddy needs to concentrate on the road, and he cant if you keep chattering. Anne subsided, for the moment.

She had spent ten years growing up in a small inland town whose only water came from a small river that meandered through it. Along the river flats under one of the bridges grew occasional crops of lucerne. Sometimes the river became a temporary, spectacular lake when rare floods swept down from the surrounding creeks following a major downpour. In anticipation of the forthcoming holiday she had often looked at picture books of the seaside, with their perfectly formed sandcastles and pale children playing in the sand alongside a curiously flat sea. Where were the waves shed been told about? Nobody enlightened her to the fact that most of her childrens stories had been set in England and that their seaside differed greatly from Australias.

The road meandered through small towns where there was a welcome strip of bitumen down the main street. Once they crossed a little-used railway line, then crawled up and down hills, clattered over wooden-planked bridges, through forests and past farms until it reached the top of the mountain that appeared to be the gateway to the coast. Where the road was gravel, the holiday traffic deposited a thin film of white powdery dust on nearby trees and bushes, and at each passing it puffed up gently, only to settle back once the stream of cars had passed. One could see an approaching vehicle from a long way off, followed by its long plume of dust a warning to close all the windows quickly as the oncoming car or truck approached. When they had been on the road for about two hours and the dog was becoming restive and unsettled, her parents decided to stop by the side of the road and stretch their legs, before the next difficult stage of the journey.

As the car slowed for a sharp bend, Annes mother pointed out a shady area ahead, and David carefully turned the dusty car off the road and parked it under the shade of a large eucalypt. The four of them stretched their stiff legs. Butch sniffed around and found a suitable tree. David took Anne by the hand and they walked to the edge of a little stream that gurgled and rushed over its stony bed, then fell in a series of short waterfalls on its way to the sea.

The water was clear and cool. They dunked their hands in the water, washed off the travel grime and were joined by the dog who lapped at the waters edge. They returned to Grace who was pouring hot tea from a thermos and opening a tin of homemade biscuits. Anne broke a bit off her biscuit to feed the dog who was looking expectantly for a hand-out. Her mother was about to admonish Anne for spoiling Butch, but changed her mind, thinking that at least he had been quiet and well-behaved during their journey.

Patience Anne, were about halfway there now. The next part is down the mountain and its very steep. Youll need to be extra quiet because Daddy will have to watch the road very carefully. Now, do you need to go behind a tree before we set off again?

Anne nodded, and on returning to the car, promised to be as quiet as a mouse. At this Grace shuddered, remembering the recent plague they had suffered because of the wet weather over winter and into spring. The mice had irritated Butch, who could hear and smell them but not manage to catch a single one. They packed away their picnic things and returned to the highway, pausing to let a stream of hurrying cars go on ahead of them.

The road from the top of the mountain dropped very sharply for the first three miles and there were many narrow hairpin bends to negotiate. Anne pointed excitedly to a gap in the trees.

Look! I can see the sea! she called out.

Grace said sharply, Quiet Anne, Daddy is concentrating on the road, dont distract him. On the opposite side of the road there was a line of vehicles, all stopped, wheels chocked with stones, bonnets raised to let their boiling engines cool before the last push to the top.

After the initial steep drop the road began to level out, crossed a spur and joined another part of the escarpment where it fell once again in a series of sharp bends, then forded a small creek flanked by a couple of small farms. There were small herds of cows grazing on the lush green grass alongside the creek. David and Grace realised they had made it successfully to the bottom without misadventure. Annes ears began to pop, readjusting to the lower altitude, until she could hear clearly again. Here the vegetation was unlike anything she had ever encountered thick, abundant ferns grew close to the road hiding the bases of tall, straight gums whose tops disappeared into the blue sky. Bellbirds called nearby and brightly plumed parrots flitted through the forest, just glimpsed as a bright flash of colour against the lush green.