“I want to go home,” said Erin, suddenly, when they were back in their room. Cammy, without being asked, had been going back to his own room each night. Usually, he left his laptop behind, without comment, for Erin to continue critiquing his choice in films but he had taken it with him this time.

  “What?” Erin said.

  Molly realised she hadn’t said anything.

  “Um…”

  “Well…?”

  “Home, home? Or just not here?”

  “Where else is there?”

  Molly closed her eyes and stretched her neck, limbering up for a night of reminding Erin that this is the adventure she wanted.

  “Didn’t you have a good day today? You and Alejandro seemed to get be getting on well…”

  She waited for a response. Getting nothing, she continued:

  “The guys have been doing it for weeks. Angie and Chinatsu, months. Maybe it will do you good—”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Molly could have put her fist through a wall. Instead, she took a deep breath and held it, tried to figure out a way around the looming argument.

  “Money—”

  “So it’s about money, is it?”

  Oh, for crying out loud, Molly thought. “I just mean that this country is expensive. Every decision we make comes down to money. It will be nice not to worry about it.”

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  “You just don’t want me scrounging off you.”

  “Fuck sake, Erin! Use your common sense and stop being so selfish. Everything we saved up was gone in a month. But look at Dale and Stu and Alejandro, sharing their beer and food with us happily, because earning here means you can afford to live here. We’re not living here. We’re just—what?—biding our time until it’s time to go home?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay. You’re right. I’m homesick. I’m…” She couldn’t admit that she just didn’t want to. Couldn’t bring herself to actually commit, to do shit work on a farm for stupid hours, come back to this overpriced dump and drink goon bags, just so they could afford to move on somewhere else and repeat.

  But, if she didn’t want to do that, what was she here for? What was all this for?

  “I just can’t do it here.”

  “Why not? Dale and Stu and Alejandro… they’re the first people we’ve met who we could genuinely call friends. And Dale and Stu don’t even have to do this shit.”

  “But the hurricane.”

  Finally, she said it, which meant Molly could admit it too. She was terrified. Ever since Dale had mentioned it, her stomach had felt like she’d mistaken a cup of angry wasps for coffee. Back home, hurricanes were little more than an idea, a metaphor: It’s blowing a hurricane out there. Nevertheless, a very real fear had burrowed into her subconscious and was niggling at her. Probably didn’t help that they were cut off from the world. Other than the TV in the lobby that seemed only able to show either horse racing or footy, they had no other media input. Internet in the country was both expensive and about a decade behind.

  Molly dug her phone out of her backpack, where it had been since they realised that they had no reception and saw the price of wi-fi in the hotel. Cammy had paid for it once and they’d taken turns checking their social media pages but without any easy way to share their own stories and photos they had left the remaining twenty-two hours unused. She plugged her charger into the wall and switched her phone on.

  “What are you doing?” asked Erin.

  “I’m going to check the bus timetable.”

  “Oh.”

  Eventually she was able to pay for and sign up to the hotel’s painfully slow wi-fi. Then she was able to search for and eventually find a bus timetable.

  “Okay, we might be in luck. There’s a bus to Cairns tomorrow at—”

  “Why would we want to go to Cairns?”

  “Because—”

  “That’s where the hurricane is going to hit!”

  “That’s right. Damn. Then…”

  She scrolled down.

  “There’s one bus heading south, back the way we came, leaves here at ten past eight.”

  “In the morning?”

  “In the morning.”

  “Can you book it?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s not loading properly. I’m sure we can pay on the bus.”

  “If there’s space.”

  “If there’s space. Never mind. I got it. It’s done.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “It’s fine. Our deposit will cover it.”

  “We should say something to the guys. To Cammy.”

  “It’s late.” Having committed, Molly just wanted gone. She’d feel bad, sure, but these were people she’d known for a couple of days. Erin needed her help. And there was a natural disaster on its way. She tried to check the weather but the internet had slowed down again. Still, it seemed promising, the cyclone would hit the coast but would dwindle to a strong wind as it moved inland. She shared this with Erin.

  Molly set an alarm on her phone and got into her sleeping bag. Despite the day she’d had, and despite having made arrangements to get out of town before he was forced to do hard labour picking tarantulas out of bananas, her mood was in her boots, and she wanted it to be over.

  “Molly?” Erin whispered from the bottom bunk.

  “What?” Molly said, without making an effort to keep the terseness from her voice.

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too.”