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come you know about that place?’ Snook asked. ‘We hardly ever go into the mountains.’
    â€˜Oh, I’ve got a good mate there. I’ve known him for years. He’s the ranger for the area. I rang him first thing this morning. He reckons he can put us onto a good camping spot.’
    â€˜Far out,’ Snook said. ‘That’s great. It’s just a pity that dork Quigley’s tagging along.’
    Jim Kelly glared at his son. ‘Snook, for the thousandth time, watch that tongue of yours.’ He threw his arms into the air, then stood and walked towards the kitchen doorway. He turned to his wife. ‘Coming Irene? We’d better get ready for this shopping expedition. And Snook, just make sure you tidy up in here,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘then you can start loading the trailer with the camping gear.’
    Jars watched her aunt and uncle leave the kitchen. ‘He’s a lot like my dad was,’ she thought. ‘The no nonsense type’. Although even at this early stage, she could see he was going to have a hard time taming Snook.
    Her uncle was the outdoor type too.
    His brown, weathered face, his sun-bleached brown hair, even the clothes that he wore – denim trousers, green work shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows – told her that.
    Snook interrupted her thoughts. ‘Oh well, I suppose I’d better get on with it.’
    Jars pushed her chair back. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
    â€˜Nah, you’d better go and get ready for Queenstown. You’ll be leaving soon.’
    â€˜Okay, I suppose you’re right. But Snook …?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜How come you don’t like this Quenton Quigley kid?’
    Snook began to stack the dishes in the sink. ‘Oh, that. Look, his old man spoils him rotten. Whatever he wants, he gets. He thinks he’s better than all of us other kids too. But I got the better of him once.’
    A satisfied look spread over his face.
    â€˜How did you do that?’ Jars asked.
    â€˜Flattened him after he shot me with his slingshot. Believe it or not, ever since then he’s hung around me like a bad smell.’
    She liked Snook. He reminded her of the cheeky warblers that liked to annoy the bigger birds around Jacana Station. Like them, he had a carefree but likeable style. His uncombed fair hair, freckly face and lopsided, almost permanent grin, added to her first impressions. Yes, she decided, life with her new cousin was not going to be boring.
    Her aunt poked her head through the doorway. ‘Jars, are you ready to leave? If we go now we should be back about lunchtime.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Jars said, ‘I’m ready.’
    â€˜And Snook,’ his mother added, ‘make sure you clean up in here like you were told.’
    Snook turned the hot water tap on. ‘That’s what I’m doing now. Workin’ my fingers to the bone I am.’ Fat Arse Quigley, Snook couldn’t help thinking as he washed the dishes. How was he going to put up with that waste of space? It’ll be a nightmare.
    Jars walked into her bedroom. She gathered the money she had been given by Mr Henderson and put it in the back pocket of her jeans, at the same time hoping and praying that the dramas in her life had at last gone. Deep down she knew they had not. Her vision, she had come to realise, was meant to be a sort of message. What that message was she didn’t know, but her innermost feelings told her that the man, the cave and the camping trip were connected.
    Jars didn’t understand how or why she was able to sense such things. But her parents had recognised it. ‘It’s the gift,’ her father had said. ‘You have the feyness of the highlands, lass.’ Then her mother would chime in. ‘No, Alec, it’s the “doowi” in her. She has the dream spirit in her blood.’
    That’s how it had always ended. No real explanation. Just