The Journey by John Marsden

nearly everyone drifted in to the communal fire, and a massive stew started to take form. Ruth sliced potatoes and Argus, the only one who could do it without weeping, chopped onions. Tiresias came out of the shadows of his caravan to throw in handfuls of herbs of some kind.
    â€˜What are they?’ Argus asked, but Tiresias only smiled and shrugged. Titius, the human skeleton, as usual contributed nothing but advice, most of it bad. Delta and Cassim, the two women storytellers, arrived from the paddocks with aprons full of fresh mushrooms, which were received with delight. Mayon added his special tomato blend: he claimed it was from a recipe he had dreamed while asleep in a cave full of carnivorous lizards. Temora’s contribution was a huge quantity of garlic.
    The atmosphere was good, light-hearted and casual. People who had been taking each other for granted realised with sudden pleasure how much real affection and warmth they shared, and were suddenly delighted to see someone with whom they had been fighting a few days earlier. Even Tiresias unbent and became quite playful. One of the inevitable dogs that hung around the fair trotted close to the fire and tried to sniff the stew. Tiresias made as if to lift it up and toss it in to the pot; the dog yelped, squirmed free and made off. Everyone laughed; the tremor of shared laughter ran through the group.
    After they had fed and were warmed by the excellent meal, the members of the fair sat around the fire, not wanting to leave, in a mood for sharing confidences. Mayon, who had been brought up on a farm, was telling a story of his own childhood. Argus, who had been washing plates did not hear the start of it, but arrived in time for the climax. ‘When we went to dig the cattle out of the mud,’ he said, ‘we didn’t know that the ones we could see were only the top layer. As we got them out, we realised there were more underneath. I don’t know how many layers there were. But the smell, oh the smell. I’ll never forget it. It took days to get them all, even using a winch. That was a bad drought, that one.’
    Cassim chimed in. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘there are some memories that depend on smells, I think. When I was about ten we had a fire at home. We were shearing at the time, and we were down to the last mob of sheep . . . about a hundred, I think. We put them in the shed for the night, so if it rained they’d still be dry in the morning. We went back to the house, had tea and went to bed early . . . you know how tiring shearing can be. And when we woke up in the morning, there was a funny smell. We went over to the shearing shed. It was quite a walk from the house, behind a row of trees. There was nothing there except a pile of smoking embers. It had burnt down during the night, with all the sheep inside, and being so far from the house nobody heard a thing. That’s a smell I’ll never forget.’
    â€˜Must have been a bit more than a pile of smoking embers,’ Jud observed after a few moments silence, while people digested the story and tried to imagine themselves into it.
    â€˜Well, yes,’ Cassim admitted. ‘That was a bit exaggerated. But most good stories are. Some of the sheep — quite a lot actually — were relatively undamaged. They were buried under others in corners of the shed, where they’d huddled to escape the flames, and they’d died of suffocation, I suppose. We were able to shear them and sell the wool, but that was the only thing salvaged out of the ruins.’
    â€˜You could shear the dead sheep?’ Ruth asked in amazement.
    â€˜Yes, of course. But it’s an awkward job. Not as awkward as burying them though. We had to dig an enormous pit. For the rest of the time that we lived on that farm I didn’t like to go near the site of the pit.’
    â€˜It’s terrible when animals die,’ Ruth agreed. ‘They don’t understand