Chapter One

“Well, at least it’s a fine night,” said Mum.
She looked enormous, but that was mostly the bedding she’d gathered as she hurried out of the hut. Her hair, coming undone from its nighttime tail, was a shock of silver on her shoulders.
“Though how we’ll sleep with this moon I don’t know. It’s like the floodlights at the Cricket Ground. We need to find a place in the shade. Not under these gums, though–if they drop a branch, we’re dead. Down by the creek there, among the casuarinas–”
A bellow interrupted her. Everyone looked up at the hut. Mum walked away down the hill, trailing a corner of the quilt across the moon-white grass. “And a good distance from that. That could go on for hours. Days. Come on, everyone, let’s get settled.”
Dylan followed her slowly. She wasn’t acting right. Anything to do with babies and births, Mum usually took over. She became queenly herself, moving differently, spreading a radiant
peacefulness all around. She paused the world so the baby could land on it safely. Yet here she was, walking away from a woman in labor.
“I think we should get the police,” grumbled Ella, lumbering down the slope. She was pregnant, too; she was what Mum described as about ready to drop. “It’s outrageous. Whoever heard of it? Where did those people escape from–some kind of costume party?” Todd gave an enormous yawn. “Dunno what you’re moaning about–you weren’t asleep anyway. You never sleep, remember? ’S what you’re always saying.”
“I do never sleep,” said Ella. “Not these d