The door opened and a sleepy Olivia came in.
“When are we leaving?” she asked as Heather covered herself.
“As soon as Owen gets up. And, look, if we really have to do this trip, we need to leave early and get back early. I’ve got to work on my speech. The conference is going to put it on YouTube,” Tom said.
Olivia ran into the hallway. “Get up, Owen! You’re late!” she screamed.
Owen growled a response and a fight began. Tom slithered out of bed, ran to the bedroom door, and closed it. The fighting was instantly muffled.
“I thought you were going to put a stop to that,” Heather said.
“Parenting 101, honey: what you can’t see or hear isn’t happening,” Tom said.
Despite the fighting, an hour later they were in a bright orange Porsche Cayenne heading southeast out of Melbourne on the highway. The road was big and new, carving mercilessly through Melbourne’s drab eastern suburbs. The Porsche was as comfortable as you would expect, although it was an odd-looking thing with a large front “snorkel” for driving through flooded rivers.
No flooded rivers today. They were ten thousand miles away from America, but this, Tom reflected, could have been suburbs anywhere. Targets, Walmarts, strip malls. Interesting, though. This, he imagined, was the “real Australia,” off the tourist trail, where people actually lived.
They drove down through the Mornington Peninsula, the suburbs gradually thinning out and a hilly country emerging. Heather pointed out kookaburras and big black ravens on the sagging telegraph wires. She took a picture of a lorikeet and sent it to Carolyn.
The kids, however, were not interested in birds and were getting increasingly frustrated. “Where are the kangaroos? Where are the frickin’ koalas?” Owen demanded.
Tom looked at him in the rearview mirror and frowned. That kid was so unlike his sister. If Tom had gotten a trip to Australia when he was Owen’s age, he would have appreciated every second of it. Now Owen would be huffy until they got back and he took his diazepam. Tom was about to give Owen a piece of his mind when Heather put her hand on his thigh. “Kids, here’s one your dad told me yesterday,” she said. “Koalas aren’t technically bears—do you know why?”
“Please, Dad, don’t let her say it! Yours are bad enough!” Olivia begged.
“Because they don’t have the right koalifications,” Heather said as both kids face-palmed.
The road got rougher and went to a single lane as they approached the coast. Wireless and Siri and Google Maps ceased working.
It was another hot day out there—106 degrees—but inside the car, everyone had a water bottle from the Airbnb and it was a cool 68.
It was noon now and they hadn’t seen much of anything and Tom wanted to get back to Melbourne to work on his keynote speech on knee-replacement surgery. The kids were hungry, so they stopped at a little food stand. Smoke from a barbecue was fighting a rearguard action against a persistent swarm of mosquitoes. A scraggly-looking geezer in his fifties was selling beer and soft drinks and “sausage sizzles,” which appeared to be sausages between pieces of Wonder bread.
Heather, Olivia, and Owen each got a sausage sizzle at a pricey five bucks a pop. Tom demurred and got a can of beer instead. They sat down at a picnic table in the shade.
With no phone signal, Tom grabbed his massive book of Chekhov stories and plays. Owen took out his astronomy worksheet from the back pages of his snake book. He stared at it angrily for a minute or two. “This is impossible,” he muttered at last.
“I can help you with that,” Olivia said.
“I don’t need your help!” Owen snapped.
An ancient-looking Volkswagen camper van pulled up and a thin couple in their late fifties or early sixties exited. They got two cans of Victoria Bitter and sat down at the free table under the shade. The couples couldn’t help but say hello.
“I’m Tom and this is my wife, Heather, and these are my kids, Owen and Olivia,” Tom said.
“I’m Hans and this is Petra,” Hans replied.
“We’re Americans. From Seattle,” Tom said.
“We are from Leiden in Holland,” Hans said. “I’m an engineer. From a very long line of engineers. Auto engineers.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes indeed. My great-grandfather invented the steering wheel.”
Owen raised his head from his homework. “Your actual grandfather, like, invented the steering wheel?” he asked incredulously.
“My great-grandfather.”
“He told you that?” Owen asked.
“Yes.”
“I doubt it,” Owen said, shaking his head.
“So what do you do, Petra?” Heather asked the woman.
“I am a sociologist,” she replied.
Owen was still regarding Hans with deep twelve-year-old-boy skepticism. It was starting to get a little uncomfortable. “I think it is too hot here. We will eat in the car,” Hans announced. The couple went back to the Volkswagen van.
“Owen, why did you give that guy a hard time?” Tom asked when they’d gone.
“I didn’t give him a hard time. I totally believed him. After all, my great-great-grandmother invented the spoon. Before that, only forks,” Owen said.
“And our great-great-great-grandfather invented fire,” Olivia said.
Heather, Owen, and Olivia were all laughing now and Tom started laughing too.
A Toyota Hilux pulled in and two men got out. The bigger of the two was wearing a sort of cowboy hat, jeans, a red-checkered shirt, and boots. He was about thirty-five, with a neatly trimmed black beard, dark eyebrows, and blue eyes. Handsome, Tom supposed, if you liked the rugged, outdoorsy type. The second man was slightly shorter, maybe around six feet. He was older, about fifty, balding. He was lean and rangy and looked a bit menacing. His left cheek was scarred and there was an old tattoo on his neck that could possibly have been an anchor. He was wearing overalls with rubber boots and no undershirt.
Tom looked at his watch. It was noon. “Well, folks, time to head back,” he said.
“We haven’t seen a koala!” Olivia protested.
“We haven’t seen anything!” Owen added.
“We gave it our best shot. But I have to get home to work,” Tom said.
Owen went into a complete meltdown: He was the worst dad ever. This trip sucked. Why had they even bothered coming to Australia if they weren’t going to see anything? Olivia crossed her arms, shook her head, and glowered with all her might.
Tom looked at Heather but she was helpless in the face of this.
“Excuse me, mates,” a voice said. It was the taller of the two men. “Couldn’t help overhearing—you kids wanna see a koala?”
“Yes!” Olivia said.
“Follow me,” the man said.
The family followed him to the back of the Toyota, where, in a cage under a blanket, there was a sleeping koala.
“Oooh! Can we hold him?” Olivia asked.
“Nah, sorry, can’t do that,” the man said. “They’re very vulnerable to disease, and you’re Americans, I take it.”
“Yes, from Seattle,” Tom said. “I’m Tom and this is Heather, Olivia, and Owen.”