My senses violently kick into action. ‘YOU’VE JUST HIT A KOALA!’ I scream. ‘PULL OVER! PULL OVER!’
He screeches to a halt and I stumble out of the car and run back in the direction we just came.
‘Where are you going?’ Josh calls after me.
‘We’ve got to find it!’
‘It’ll be dead.’
‘Shut up!’ I don’t want to hear that.
I arrive at the place where we had the collision. There’s no sign of anything on the road so I squint down the slope into the darkness.
‘Lily, come back!’ Josh cries.
Just then, I hear a faint rustle in the undergrowth and, heart picking up pace, I carefully make my way down the steep incline, hoping and praying to find a living animal at the end of it. My feet hit something solid and I reach down to find my fingers sinking into thick, soft hair. It’s still. Silent. Warm. Dead.
‘No, please, no.’ My eyes adjust to the darkness and I collapse on the ground in despair as tears prick my eyes.
‘Where are you?’ Josh hisses into the darkness.
‘You idiot!’ I wail up the incline.
Again, a rustling in the undergrowth.
‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Josh whines back with the undertone of someone who knows, deep down, that it was exactly that.
More rustling . . .
‘Shhh!’ I say.
‘I didn’t see—’
‘SHUT UP!’ I stand up and follow the sound, stepping carefully through the dry leaves under my feet. And then I see it. The small furry bundle that was thrown off its mummy’s back.
My heart lifts.
‘Shhh,’ I murmur, this time to the tiny koala at my feet. I bend down and gather it up. ‘Shhh . . .’
‘What are you doing?’ Josh calls again.
I don’t answer as I climb back up the incline, past the baby’s dead mother.
‘What are you going to do with it?’ Guilt makes Josh’s voice tremble as he follows me back to the car, and it strikes me that he’d probably rather not have this live evidence of his dangerous driving.
My answer comes easily. ‘We’ve got to take him to Ben,’ I say. ‘Do you know where he lives?’ I look directly into Josh’s dark eyes and he knows not to mess with me.
‘Yes,’ he mumbles.
‘Then let’s go.’
Ben lives only a few miles away, but the journey seems to take forever because the last place I want to be is in a car with Josh behind the wheel. Finally he pulls up outside a single-storey stone house with an iron roof and a white picket fence out at the front. He makes no attempt to move as I get out of the car.
‘You not coming in?’ I ask him flatly.
‘No. He’ll give you a lift home, won’t he?’
‘I suppose so.’
