The Island(10)

“And our great-great-great-grandfather invented fire,” Olivia said.

Heather, Owen, and Olivia were all laughing now and Tom started laughing too.

A Toyota Hilux pulled in and two men got out. The bigger of the two was wearing a sort of cowboy hat, jeans, a red-checkered shirt, and boots. He was about thirty-five, with a neatly trimmed black beard, dark eyebrows, and blue eyes. Handsome, Tom supposed, if you liked the rugged, outdoorsy type. The second man was slightly shorter, maybe around six feet. He was older, about fifty, balding. He was lean and rangy and looked a bit menacing. His left cheek was scarred and there was an old tattoo on his neck that could possibly have been an anchor. He was wearing overalls with rubber boots and no undershirt.

Tom looked at his watch. It was noon. “Well, folks, time to head back,” he said.

“We haven’t seen a koala!” Olivia protested.

“We haven’t seen anything!” Owen added.

“We gave it our best shot. But I have to get home to work,” Tom said.

Owen went into a complete meltdown: He was the worst dad ever. This trip sucked. Why had they even bothered coming to Australia if they weren’t going to see anything? Olivia crossed her arms, shook her head, and glowered with all her might.

Tom looked at Heather but she was helpless in the face of this.

“Excuse me, mates,” a voice said. It was the taller of the two men. “Couldn’t help overhearing—you kids wanna see a koala?”

“Yes!” Olivia said.

“Follow me,” the man said.

The family followed him to the back of the Toyota, where, in a cage under a blanket, there was a sleeping koala.

“Oooh! Can we hold him?” Olivia asked.

“Nah, sorry, can’t do that,” the man said. “They’re very vulnerable to disease, and you’re Americans, I take it.”

“Yes, from Seattle,” Tom said. “I’m Tom and this is Heather, Olivia, and Owen.”

“I’m Matt, and this experiment gone wrong is me brother Jacko,” Matt said.

“Hey! Watch your mouth!” Jacko snarled.

“Where did this little guy come from?” Heather asked, gesturing to the koala.

“We’re from across the bay there—private island—and there’s koalas bloody everywhere. And wallabies, echidnas, wombats—it’s like Jurassic bloody Park, mate,” Jacko said.

The kids turned to their dad. “We have to go!” Olivia said.

Tom shook his head. “Did you say private island?”

“Yeah, sorry, no visitors,” Matt said.

“Dad!” Owen protested and Olivia chimed in with a theatrical sigh of disbelief.

Tom looked at them. They had had a very tough year. And he’d been so strict on this trip. Maybe a little ugly-American grease would do the trick? “Is there a ferry? We’d be willing to pay,” Tom said.

Matt shook his head. “There is a ferry but it’s not about the money. Ma doesn’t like visitors. Dutch Island is her place, you know?”

“How much money?” Jacko said.

Tom had taken out three hundred bucks at the Alice Springs airport and he’d received his conference per diem of seven hundred dollars. He had close to a thousand Aussie dollars on him. He opened his wallet. “Four…five hundred bucks? Just to see, maybe take some photos? For the kids,” he said.

“You Yanks! You can’t bloody buy everything, mate!” Matt said, shaking his head with disgust. But Jacko put his arm around Matt and led him away for a minute. The two men got into a furious discussion. The Dutch couple had come out of their van to see what was happening.

“Dutch Island, did he say?” Hans asked.

“If you can do nine hundred bucks, that will be three hundred each for me, Matt, and Ivan, who runs the ferry,” Jacko said. “But you’d have to be bloody fast. Just some quick photos and then off again.”

“Nine hundred bucks! That’s crazy,” Tom protested. That was—what? Five hundred American?

“Dad!” Owen wailed again.

“Maybe we should just go back to Melbourne,” Heather said.

“You’ll be missing out. It’s a very special place,” Jacko said. “Unique. Animals everywhere. We make our own electricity. Grow our own food. No phones. No taxes. No law enforcement. When was the last time we had a copper out here, Matty?”

“Before my time,” Matt said. “But that’s not the—”

“Koalas, birds, even some penguins,” Jacko continued.

“Penguins, Dad!” Olivia said.

“Six hundred is my limit,” Tom insisted.

“If we can come too, we can chip in the difference,” Hans said.

Matt was shaking his head this entire time but Jacko’s wolfish grin only widened. “I think we have a deal, then, mates.”





4



The convoy of vehicles stopped at a decrepit wooden jetty poking a bony limb into the bay. The ferry was a flat-bottomed vessel with a diesel engine, a tiny little foul-weather cabin, and a ramp at each end. Very similar to the small ferries you saw on Puget Sound.

Ivan, the ferry pilot, was a tall, powerfully built man in his fifties with long graying blond hair and boozy green eyes. He was smoking and wearing heavy denim overalls despite the heat. He’d been surprised to see three cars but when Jacko gave him three hundred bucks, he tucked it into his pocket and nodded.