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forests and the pine plantations, great barren scars across the hills with every blade of grass ploughed in, bare earth that could not burn. Now there were many farms, many houses, and most of the old forest areas, the firetraps, had vanished (that was what everyone said, anyway). Now there were water-towers on the high peaks and in the west of the valley the Prescott Vale Dam, eight miles long and more than half a mile wide. What fire coming down out of the plantations and the forests could consume millions of tons of water? What fire could leap a dam half a mile wide?
    Probably the smoke Grandpa could sense wasn’t bushfire smoke at all. He couldn’t hear sirens and he was sure none had sounded during the night. Except for the blustering wind the valley seemed still to be sleeping. Or perhaps the Fairhalls, across the road—early risers for the past forty years or so—were burning leafy wood in their kitchen stove.
    One of the Fairhalls was up. It was Peter, but he wasn’t anywhere near the kitchen stove. He was swimming in the creek where Gramps in his younger days had dammed the gully with rocks and mud and the trunks of tree-ferns. But Gramps had not intended it for swimming in. Swimming in creeks was not wise. There were always snakes near water, and there were often snags under the water.
    Peter was the only grandson of the Fairhalls, only child of the only son the Fairhalls had, and no one was more conscious of this than Peter himself. It was hard for Peter, for almost all the thoughts and all the love and all the hopes of the whole family were centred upon him. It was a great weight that bowed him down. Everyone was afraid, almost all the time, that something would happen to Peter, that he would be killed in a road accident, or be drowned, or sicken and die.
    â€˜Do be careful, Peter.’ ‘Take care, Peter.’ ‘Watch the road, Peter.’ ‘Are you well, Peter?’ ‘Out of those wet clothes, Peter.’ ‘I’ll rub your chest, Peter.’ ‘The doctor’s coming, Peter.’
    He knew what it was all about. He knew that only rarely was their love for him a happy thing; usually it plunged him into a misery of fear. It was like that with both his parents and his grandparents. He sometimes wondered whether his father had grown up the same way, in a state of constant anxiety.
    For all that, Peter at thirteen years of age was a healthy lad, even if stubbornly thin. For as far back as he could remember, two weeks of every January—the second and third weeks—had been spent with his grandparents, and almost always Gran had greeted him with the words, ‘We’ll fatten you up in no time at all.’ Gran and Gramps were unchanging. They always looked the same, always said the same things, always stifled him with their love unless by one deception or another he managed to elude them for a few hours. They never guessed that for years he had swum in the creek in the early morning when the weather was hot. It had to be hot, of course, because even in midsummer creek water was very cold. It brought him out in goose pimples all over, but he loved it; he loved the shock of plunging into it. It was like breaking out of prison.
    The creek was his own private secret, because if the news got around it would be the end of it. He told no one about it, not even Pippa Buckingham. Sometimes he felt mean about that, because Pippa was different from everybody else; quite different from other girls, and nothing like a boy. Pippa was a very special sort of person. She always had been as far as Peter was concerned and perhaps she always would be. Peter felt sad, when he thought of her. What would he do with himself for a whole week after Pippa had gone on her holidays?
    Pippa stirred uneasily. Oddly enough, she knew she was asleep. She could see herself in bed with the bedclothes as usual in complete disorder; with the pillow as usual on the floor; with one arm as