Stolen by Lucy Christopher

my voice sounded angry and demanding and the way it made you hesitate for a moment. I liked that tiny amount of power it gave me.
    You shook your head. I don’t think you wanted to talk about this anymore, but now that I was finally talking to you again, you didn’t want to ignore me, either.
    “Nah, I didn’t see another kid until I left,” you said eventually. “I thought I was the only one in the world. I mean, Mrs. Gee told me there were others, but I didn’t believe her.” Your mouth twitched into what was almost a smile. “I used to think that I had this special power that kept me smaller than everyone else. I never thought I was younger than anyone, just smaller.”
    “You never played with other kids?”
    “No, only the land.”
    “What about with your dad?”
    You snorted. “He didn’t play with anyone, not after Mum left.”
    I was silent as I thought. When I was young, I was surrounded by kids. Or was I? When I went to school I was, of course, but before then? When I really thought about it, I couldn’t remember being around kids then, either. I’d been a sickly child, and Mum had kept me pretty close. Before me, she’d had a sort of breakdown. That’s what Dad told me once. She’d had a miscarriage, a couple, I think; she didn’t want to lose me, too. I grimaced then as I realized that’s exactly what had happened in the end. Mum had lost me, eventually.
    I looked back at you, hating you again. You had drunk all your water and were just staring out with the empty glass in your hand. You stayed like that for ages before you spoke some more. You spoke so quietly that I actually did lean forward to catch your words.
    “After a while, Dad started going to the city, for work and stuff,” you said. “Started selling stock, though he didn’t sell ‘em for money, just did it for drink and drugs, things to help him forget. His mind changed then. He never walked his property, never really looked after his cattle … never looked for me, either.”
    You glanced down at your glass. It looked like you wanted to wander off again to get some more. I don’t know why exactly, but suddenly I wanted to keep talking to you. Perhaps it was the boredom finally getting to me, or that need to connect with someone else … even if it did have to be you. I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to find holes in your story.
    “What were you doing?” I asked quickly. “AII this time your dad was away, you must have been doing something?”
    You frowned, trying to figure me out. “Don’t you believe me?” you said. You tapped the edge of your glass against the wicker as you thought. You shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
    You pulled out your leaves and papers, and rolled a cigarette. The crickets started up, and you’d smoked almost half of your roll-up before you spoke again.
    “If you want to know what I did,” you said, your voice thick, “I ran wild in the bush mostly, tried living like an oldfella. I got thin and sick and slept under the stars. No one saw me for days, weeks sometimes. Once, I was desperate and had to kill one of Dad’s calves; didn’t tell him, though.” You grinned suddenly, and your face went young again. “Most of the time I just ate lizard … if I was lucky.” You looked up at the sky as if you were searching in it. “I could paint pictures with the stars up there, too, I knew them that well. Connect-the-dots masterpieces.”
    I remembered the stars from when I’d tried to escape, that night in the Separates. There could be worse beds than that, if it weren’t for the cold that came with it, that is.
    “How did you find water?” I demanded.
    “Easy. If you look for the plants, you can find water simple enough … like the spring in the Separates.”
    I thought about that clear little pool, and my fear of it containing the stomach-eating fish. “That’s drinking water?” I asked.
    You tilted your head toward the glass at my feet. “How else’ve you got that? Where do you