Chapter 3

Eddie just had time to tighten his grip on the girl when she started struggling, trying to get up. If she hadn't been so weak she might have gotten away, there was no reason for her to be afraid. After a few seconds, her struggling lessened.

"Sarah, we're not going to hurt you. Eddie is not going to rape you."

Sarah stilled and looked at Chelle.

"Sarah, he's just my nephew and I won't let him hurt you. You're safe."

Sarah went limp and whimpered, muttering something about monsters that neither Chelle nor Eddie quite understood. There was a brief silence, and then Chelle spoke again.

"Sarah, where are you from?"

"Port Jackson?" Sarah replied in tentative voice, as if to say, duh, where else could I be from?

"Port Jackson? That's not around here is it?"

"Port Jackson is the old name for Sydney," Eddie put in. "That was what it was called when the convicts first started coming."

"Really? I didn't know that."

"Chelle, duh, were you asleep during history at school? Or are you just dumb? Everyone knows that."

"Oh, shut up you. Just cause it's the only subject you had a clue in."

"Actually, Port Jackson is still the right name for the harbour, and Sydney is the city."

"Why did you say Port Jackson, Sarah?" Chelle asked.

Sarah looked at them in confusion. "Because it is. Port Jackson. Where I was born. What do you mean, that's the old name for Sydney?"

Eddie answered. "Well, when the convicts first came here, the town was called Port Jackson, on Sydney cove. But about 1820 Governor Macquarie renamed the town to Sydney Town. No one has used the old name for nearly two hundred years."

"You lie. You're both monsters. I know that you're going to kill me."

Eddie looked at Sarah. "Sarah, no, we aren't going to kill you, we're not monsters. Why would you think that?"

Perhaps it was the surprised painful tone that Eddie used, but Sarah answered him honestly. "That horrible man warned us there were monsters up here, Bunyips and things, that's why I came up here to get away from him. I saw you yesterday, the growling monster, your red, yellow and black skin and your green hair. You're just pretending to be human. You're going to take me to some place called Thepolies and then you're going to eat me."

Eddie and Chelle didn't know what to say to that. They looked at Sarah in surprise. Then Chelle looked at Eddie. "Red, yellow and black, that's your dorky bike gear. What's this about green hair?"

Eddie actually looked embarrassed. "Oh, it was the last day of school on Friday, so we all coloured our hair in our house colours. I didn't get round to washing it out until last night."

"You're a stupid idiot, Eddie. And you always were a filthy disgrace. Tell me you have a shower everyday."

"Hey, how was I to know that I'd come out here and meet a girl who thought that green hair would make me a monster?"

"Sarah, Eddie's a dickhead. He's not scary. Today is his real hair colour. Look, are you hungry?"

Sarah nodded. "I haven't eaten for two days."

Chelle pulled a salad roll from her pack, unwrapped it, and gave it to Sarah. Sarah looked at it suspiciously, inspecting its ingredients. She recognised most of them, and it smelt good. Wonderful, actually. She was still pretty sure these things pretending to be people were devils. If they weren't devils, something was still badly wrong. While she certainly didn't trust them, she didn't really have any choice, and the water had been good.

She sat up, and grabbed the water bottle from Chelle, taking a long drink from it. When she finished, she looked at the bottle. She'd never seen anything like it, made from something warm and both soft and hard at the same time. Also, whatever it was that she was eating was lovely, probably the best food she'd ever tasted. The bread was just amazing, so soft and springy.

When she finished that, Eddie offered her a banana. She looked at it curiously, a question on her face. When she looked up at him, he said "It's a banana." Sarah looked at him suspiciously. "You eat it," he said. Sarah looked at him doubtfully, then poked the banana in her mouth, and bit into it. "Ahh, no," cried Eddie.

"Ugh! What is this thing?"

Eddie took it back from Sarah and peeled the banana for her, then gave her the banana inside. "That's the bit that you eat."

Sarah tried a nibble, and then ate the banana with delight. "That's really nice!" Eddie grinned to see such a big open smile on Sarah's face. It really lit up, and she was so much easier to look at than with the suspicion and terror that she had shown up to now.

"So, where do you really come from?" Chelle returned to the business at hand.

"I told you, from Port Jackson. Please let me go back there."

Chelle looked at Eddie with a speaking look on her face. Eddie knew exactly what she meant. They shared a relative who had a mental illness. She was manic depressive and quite prone to being delusional when she was on a high. What they had both learnt from that experience was that there was no use arguing about the delusion, it would only upset the person more.