Page 63 of Lost In Kakadu

“Come take a seat.”

Her feet released their grip on the plush carpet, and she shuffled to the lounge. The leather squeaked as she sat in the corner, her knees pressed tightly together. She was determined not to cry.

“Krystal,” the female officer began. “My name’s Detective Sergeant Powder and this is Mr. Hollingsworth. As you know, your parents’ plane disappeared somewhere on route to Kakadu ten days ago.”

Krystal sat frozen, waiting for her to get to the point. Out the corner of her eye, the overweight man’s knee was shaking. She tried to ignore it.

The police officer continued. “There’ve been no sightings of the plane, or any wreckage and the area where it went missing is thousands of acres of dense jungle. The likelihood of finding a small plane like theirs isminimal.”

Detective Powder cleared her throat. “Krystal, what I’m saying is they’ve called off the search. Your parents are now officially listed as missing and presumed dead.”

The words were a slap to the face. “How can you stop searching? They’re still alive. I know it.”

“Unfortunately, we’ve exhausted all areas of search along the flight plan.”

“What about tracking devices? Don’t you have those?”

Powder cleared her throat before she continued. “We haven’t located a signal from any tracking device either.”

“So, you’re just giving up? They’re still out there. Starving!”

The police woman sat forward; her hands clasped together. “Without a tracking signal it’s impossible to pinpoint where to look.”

Krystal’s grandmother appeared in the doorway and Krystal couldn’t decide if her expressionless face was the result of Botox, or simply lack of emotion. “Tell them to keep looking!”

“They can’t, Krystal. They don’t know where to look.”

Chapter Thirty

Abigail sat cross-legged on the rough ground, unperturbed about getting dirt on her now baggy shorts. As the sun began its push toward the centre of the sky and a pale-yellow hue filtered through the trees, she forgot where she was for a while, pleasantly lost in the moment.

A drop of dew slipped down a long leaf, collecting other drops along its way to the lowest point, until it released and fell onto the dry ground creating a symmetrical splatter pattern in the dirt.

In the distance, she heard the call of a bird she didn’t recognise. Not that she was surprised. Before a few weeks ago, she’d never been into the jungle, never even thought about what kinds of birds lived in it, let alone listened to their different noises.

A large black ant walked toward her, and she blocked it with a stick. It stopped for a second and then tried another direction but again she thrust the stick in its path.

For nearly fifteen years she’d been like the ant and the stick was Spencer, always blocking her path, refusing her freedom. The thought came from nowhere, tumbling into focus amidst the ruins of her life.

Taking pity on the ant, she let it go and it disappeared into the underbrush.

Tossing the stick into the bush, she turned to see Mackenzie by thefire, humming a tune as his bloody hands removed the skin from a quoll he’d just killed.

She marvelled at how proficient he’d become at catching animals with a slingshot he made from one of her bras.

Choosing the bra had caused a heated debate. He’d insisted her most expensive one had the best elastic. In the end, she reluctantly sacrificed it and had watched with detached amusement as he tore it apart.

He was so proud of the resulting slingshot. At first he missed everything he shot at, but he was persistent and within days he hit most targets and from a fair distance too. Abigail no longer yearned for the bra—in fact most days she didn’t even bother wearing one. Spencer would have been horrified.

A sudden thought occurred to her. “How many days is it now?”

Several days after the crash, Mackenzie had begun making notches in a large gum tree, a constant reminder of how many days it was since the crash. At first she’d found it frustrating, then it became fascinating but now she barely even glanced at it. What was the point?

Mackenzie counted the notches with his bloody finger. “Sixty-three.”

“Oh.” She traced her fingernail along one of the dirty cracks in her heel. Once upon a time, this would have mortified her. But now …

“What’s wrong?”

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