Not now. Karli was starting to stumble. The buildings had looked a mile or so away when she’d judged distance from the railway siding, but it’d ended up being closer to three or four miles. They’d abandoned their luggage back at the siding and were wearing only light pants, shirts and casual shoes, but even then it had been a long, hot walk. The sand was burning and their shoes were far too thin.

And now… The closer they grew to the buildings, the more Jenna’s heart sank.

The homestead looked abandoned. It consisted of ancient, unpainted weatherboards, and its rusty iron roof looked none too weatherproof. There were no fences or marked garden-just more red dust. All around the house were tumbledown sheds. The house itself looked intact, but only just. Broken windows and missing weatherboards told Jenna that no one had been at home here for a long time.

But it was no longer the house that interested Jenna. No matter how ramshackle it was, it could be a shelter until the next train came through. What she’d focussed on for the last half-mile was the water tank behind the house. It looked as if it might tumble down at any minute, but it still looked workable.

‘Please,’ she was whispering as she led Karli past the first of the shacks. ‘Please…’

And then she stopped dead.

Behind the house, at the end of a crude airstrip, was an aeroplane. Small. Expensive. New.

It wasn’t the sort of plane anyone in their right mind would abandon.

‘There must be someone here,’ Jenna told Karli, and she crouched in the dust and gave her little half-sister a hug. ‘Oh, well done. You’ve walked really bravely, and now we’re safe. Someone’s here.’

‘I need a drink,’ Karli said cautiously and Jenna collected herself. A drink.

She turned and stared at the house, willing someone to appear. No one did.