1.

  “Oh my days, I need to pee so bad,” groaned Erin, hobbling down the steps of the bus, clutching her tummy, flip-flops slapping on the still-wet tarmac. The air-conditioning on the bus had been intermittent, with the temperature veering wildly from sweat lodge to fridge and back again throughout the twenty-five-hour journey. Erin’s hair stuck in strands across her forehead. The month they had spent in Sydney meant that her real tan was starting to show now that the one from the bottle had faded. “Is that a toilet?” she said, not waiting for an answer, feet slapping as she half-ran, half-limped in the direction of a squat concrete building at the other end of what was perhaps over-eagerly described as a bus terminal.

  “I suppose I’ll get your bag for you then,” said Molly, who still considered them to be best friends even if a month living in each other’s pockets had put a strain on their relationship, one that, even when all was well, involved a reasonable amount of bickering, fall outs and misunderstandings, easily fixed by a night in with a bottle of wine or six and their pyjamas. Hoping that Erin would confirm, upon her return, that that was a toilet across the terminal and not just, I dunno, a bus shelter or something, she wearily crawled into the luggage compartment below the bus to retrieve their rucksacks.

  Cammy wasn’t really with them with them but had sort of latched onto them when the bus had stopped at Byron Bay. It wasn’t really clear whether he had even planned to get on the bus or if he did it for a lark. It seemed to Molly that beneath his easy-going persona, in his board shorts and singlet, flip-flops and beaded bracelets, hid a wee boy, far from home, and riddled with anxiety. He had been sitting on a bench cradling a warm bottle of Gold that cost him twenty bucks when he heard Erin’s distinct Scottish accent of the type that made the words “Spice Girl” sound like an American saying “Space Ghetto”. The bus driver had given them half an hour to stretch their legs and maybe get something to eat. Cammy joined them in the queue for a burger, standing behind them and feigning recognition of her West Coast accent only after she’d placed her order.

  To Erin’s credit, she was just as happy to hear somebody from back home as he was and ignored the creepy way he had followed them. She even screamed and gave him a hug. They had exchanged a few details while they waited on their order, where they were from (Motherwell; Paisley), how long they’d been there (one month; seven), what they’d been up to (sunbathing, ogling surfers; you know, this and that), and where they were going.

  “We’re going up to… where’s it called again? Just down from Cairns… I can’t remember. Anyway, we’re going to get a work picking bananas,” Erin said.

  “Banana picking, that’s so funny. That’s where I’m going as well,” Cammy said.

  “No way!” Erin said.

  Molly wasn’t entirely convinced. He sat further behind them on the bus but managed to move after about five or six hours to the seats just behind them. He seemed restless, kept putting on and taking off his headphones, changing songs before any of them had a chance to finish. Erin got a good few hours laughing at the bus driver wearing shorts then slept for most of the journey and Molly made it clear she was reading her book. The driver put on Police Academy. Twice.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Cammy slung his rucksack onto one shoulder. There was no doubt that he looked the part, with his little straw hat and patches of stubble. “Where to now?” he said.

  Molly hauled her rucksack upright and sat on it to watch the bus depart. Nobody else had gotten off. Erin returned from her adventure to seek a toilet, visibly relieved and standing upright.

  “Did you find one?”

  “Nope,” said Erin, lifting her rucksack. “I swear this thing gets heavier every time I lift it.”

  “My god,” said Cameron, “what did you two bring? Mine is like half the size of yours!”

  “Where’s my sleeping bag?” said Erin.

  “What?” said Molly.

  “My sleeping bag.”

  “Isn’t it there?”

  “Don’t tell me you left it on the bus?”

  “I didn’t do anything. You—”

  “For crying out loud, Molly, you forgot my sleeping bag!”

  Molly started to reply but Cammy said, “It’ll be fine. Most places don’t let you use them anyway because of bed bugs.”

  “Bed bugs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s pure minging.”

  Steam rose from the tarmac as it dried in the hot sun and they shuffled their way up the single street that was the town. A hotel on the left that looked to have been built by the first murderers to have been sent there, amid a few other nondescript buildings that didn’t seem to house anything in particular, a Toyota sign that suggested a car showroom although nothing else did, and on the right, a more inviting building, albeit made out of corrugated iron sheets, the backpackers hostel. Further up, on the same side, was the only shop in town.

  “It’s not easy carrying a rucksack in flip-flops, is it?” said Cammy.

  “…”

  “Hey, what do you call a French man wearing flip-flops?”

  “Fuck off, Cammy.”

  Inside the hostel a group just back from a day of whitewater rafting enjoyed a couple of beers in the lounge while three young men with tans and sunbleached hair tried to avoid clipping them with their pool cues and a couple of young women in bikini tops and cut-off denim shorts smoked.

  Cammy, Erin and Molly deposited their rucksacks onto the floor.

  “Beer?” asked Cammy. “I’m gasping.”

  He ordered them a beer each from the girl at reception.

  “Are you staying with us?” she asked, opening the beers and putting them on the counter.

  “We hope so.”

  “Do you have a reservation?”

  “Do we need one?”

  The receptionist made a face.

  “We’re pretty busy at the moment. How long are you planning to stay?”

  “Not sure,” said Molly. “A month or so?”

  “We’re going to get work banana picking,” said Erin.

  “I thought you might be,” said the receptionist. “You’ve got that look about you.”

  Neither of them could tell the difference between their own look and that of the other people in the hostel. Maybe there’s a specific and yet subtle look that backpackers get, something desperate, just beneath the surface, when they realise that they’ve used up all their savings and must now get a job.

  “Place across the street,” she continued. “That’s where all the banana pickers stay. Much cheaper, so you won’t spend more than you make.”

  “Is it alright?” said Cammy.

  “Ha!” She covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. Sure, it’s alright. Like I say, it’s where all the banana pickers stay.”

  “How much?” asked Molly.

  “I think it’s about twenty a night but I’m not sure.”

  “For the beers, I mean.”

  “On the house.” She smiled.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Molly.

  “Yeah, cheers, that’s dead nice of you,” said Cammy.

  “Might as well have something nice happen while you’re here,” said the receptionist, but only Molly heard her. Erin had tapped the top of Cammy’s bottle with the bottom of her own and now beer was frothing up out the neck and over his hand.