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passport?’
    â€˜Both. I got to have Aussie dosh and I got to get a passport.’
    â€˜What’s the passport for?’
    â€˜Whad’ya think? For the usual reason.’
    â€˜The usual reason is foreign travel. Outside of the Republic. Where’re you going?’
    â€˜Brisbane. Don’t want to, but I got to. Family funeral.’
    Jodie nods toward the horse hitched to the verandah rail. ‘You planning to ride all the way?’
    â€˜Very funny. I got a truck.’
    â€˜But you don’t have a licence?’
    â€˜Used to have one. State of Queensland. Expired about ten years ago, I think, and who bothers out here? Anyway, your dad says, and I’m with him, that our passports are legal ID and legal driving licences. We got rights and we got guns to back ’em up.’
    Jodie stamps Danny’s passport application with the seal of the Republic of Outer Barcoo. She empties his little drawstring bag of silver guineas, each coin embossed with the Southern Cross, legal currency of the republic. She unlocks her strongbox and changes his Barcoo guineas for Australian dollars at current rates.
    â€˜Thanks,’ Danny says. He hefts up his semi-automatic. ‘Is it a killin’ offence with your dad or you if I ask you out for a date?’
    â€˜You’ve got an appealing taste for risk,’ Jodie says.
    â€˜Is that a yes?’
    â€˜I got certain conditions.’
    â€˜Such as?’
    â€˜You got to take a shower before you come get me.’
    â€˜Deal.’
    â€˜You got to shave and wear clean clothes.’
    â€˜Cross my heart.’
    â€˜You got to come in your truck, not on a horse, and you got to take me somewhere with tableclothsand knives and forks and flowers in a vase on the table.’
    Danny licks his index finger and crosses his heart.
    â€˜So what?’ Jodie wants to know scathingly, not for one second believing. ‘Are we gonna drive all the way to Cunnamulla?’
    â€˜Better than that.’
    â€˜Okay, then. Where?’
    â€˜My shack,’ he says. ‘I got export-quality steak in the freezer. I got a lace tablecloth that used to be my mum’s. I’m as good as the devil’s chef with the barbie.’
    Jodie eyes him balefully. ‘Oh right. Your shack. You think I’m gonna fall for that?’
    â€˜Swear to God, you’ll be safe as a nun.’
    It’s a staring match and Jodie is the first to lower her eyes. ‘When?’ she says.
    â€˜Tonight?’
    â€˜Just remember, I’m gonna let my dad know, I’m underage, and I got my own gun.’
    Â 
    In fact, though she knows how the entire Wirranbandi chapter will almost certainly end, Jodie does not inform her dad about Danny or about her date. She showers, applies a curlingiron to her hair, sprays herself with perfume. She puts on bikini panties, tight jeans, and a soft cotton T-shirt, no bra. Since her father is still out recruiting, she goes back to the capitol building. She mists the office of the Republic of Outer Barcoo with air freshener. It’s a eucalyptus scent, all she’s got, but will have to do. She takes her diary from a desk drawer and settles into one of the pews. She thinks about whether to write another letter to her mother, but writes nothing. Instead she simply stares across the verandah at the red earth and the sky. It still shocks her, just how much sky there is, and how suddenly it goes dark. Pouf! It’s like a hurricane lantern blown out, like a blind pulled down.
    She turns on the lamp at her desk.
    Then she writes: Where are you? Are you still alive, Mama? Will you ever find me? Will I ever find you? Is it always the end of the world? Does it have to be? Can there be some other kind of ending?
    From one of the desk drawers, she lifts copies of her father’s sermons and political tracts and his Constitution for the Republic, and from underneath those she extracts her secret folder of