“We lost power early. None of our phones keeps its charge well. They’re all flat.”
Gretchen sent Nhiari and Dot a message to say everyone was safe. Then she smiled at Amy. “Where do we start?”
Chapter 18
Amy was as efficient as a drill sergeant. It shouldn’t surprise Arthur after having grown up with the major, but somehow it did. He’d thought she’d abandoned everything to do with their father. She’d made a list of everything that needed repairing and assigned jobs methodically. Jordan and Lara were assigned kitchen duty to mop, clean and dry everything that had been soaked when the roof had blown off. With them was Gretchen. Sam and Brandon set to work climbing onto the roof to secure the tarps in place, and Amy and Arthur searched for the missing roof panels, while Faith checked out how they might rebuild the horse corral.
The corrugated panels weren’t difficult to find. They’d blown against a wall of shrubs a couple of hundred metres away, where they lay slightly bent but otherwise undamaged. Amy pulled the ute up alongside and sighed. “I hope we can get those bends out.”
The sheets of metal shouldn’t be too expensive. “Can’t you get more in Retribution Bay?”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but we don’t have the extra funds until the insurance comes through and it might take weeks.”
“Finances are that bad?”
“Yeah. Brandon’s parents made some poor decisions.”
Arthur had compensation from his injury. “I can pay.”
She glanced at him. “We’ll manage. We always do.” She smiled. “Though finding the treasure would be helpful right about now.”
“We should dig for it,” Arthur said. “After we’ve got everything watertight, let’s just try. If nothing else, it will be something to cheer everyone up.”
Amy raised her eyebrows. “You doing something just for fun? Dad would be appalled.” She grinned.
She was right, but he loved the idea of shocking his father. “Good.”
Amy lifted one side of the metal sheet. “Now let’s get this metal back to the house.”
They worked hard all morning. Matt and Darcy reported in, saying an entire line of fencing had been damaged, but the sheep were contained. They’d be back when it was fixed.
Faith and Arthur repaired the horse yard and returned the horses to it, with Lara’s pet sheep, and Maggie the kangaroo venturing out of the shearing shed where they’d been hiding.
With every portable fan on high in the kitchen drying it out, and the section of roof back in place, they ate lunch outside where the sun was pushing through the clouds. Gretchen raised her face to the sky. “Hopefully this will help dry out things.”
The shed and the ablution block were tackled after lunch. Arthur worked side-by-side with his sister, reinforcing the walls of the toilet block, and then they cleaned the building thoroughly. By the end of the day, the shed had been cleaned, the generator was working, and a tarp was in place over the area where the metal sheets had been too damaged to be replaced. Sam had ordered new sheets, which would be delivered when the supplies arrived. Stock was being flown up tomorrow.
The one thing they hadn’t found yet was Charlie’s sign.
Arthur’s leg was throbbing as he walked up the steps and into the kitchen. Another hour and it would get dark. Amy was peering in the fridge, muttering to herself.
“What’s up?” Arthur asked.
She glanced at him. “Trying to figure out what we’ve got for dinner.”
“We’ll head back to town,” Arthur said. No way would he be an extra mouth to feed if things were as tight as she’d said.
Her relief said it all. “Thank you.”
The others made their way into the kitchen and Darcy and Matt arrived back, dirty and sweaty. Darcy left his boots outside and hung his hat on the hook on the wall. “It’s done. It’s not pretty, but the fence won’t move.”
Lara hugged him. “We’ve fixed most things here.”
Penelope and Georgie walked in, looking equally tired. Sam made a beeline to Penelope. “How was it?”
“Mostly clean-up work and taping off areas until we can get supplies to fix them,” she said.
“Have a seat,” Amy said, filling up the kettle.
