Outback Read Online Free Page A

heavy.” He lights a cigarette and exhales a cloud of smoke into our faces. “We’ll have to unload.”
    I take a step backward and eye the truck. Roof rack, fully loaded. The entire back of the truck, crammed full. Tents, sleeping bags, campstove, water, food, folding table and chairs, first-aid supplies, laptop, backpacks full of clothes, Mel’s books, containers for collecting hypothetical lizards, boxes crammed with assorted and, no doubt, heavy equipment. And four enormous fuel tanks, forty-four gallons each.
    â€œAll of it?” I ask. “I mean… everything?”
    Mel leans back and puffs on his cigarette. “Unless you’d prefer to stay here.”
    I blink stinging sweat out of my eyes and look at the blazing blue sky and the endless desert. Only one day’s drive from civilization, but in this heat it might as well be a week’s. I’ve heard enough stories about people dying in the outback to know that we need that truck.
    â€œCome on,” Nat says quietly. “Let’s get started.”

Chapter Six
    Eventually we finish unloading. Our gear lies heaped in huge colorful piles beside the road, and my arms and shoulders feel like they’ve been through a shredder. The fuel was brutal to unload. Back in Perth, we filled the steel drums after we loaded them onto the truck, so none of us quite realized how unmanageable they were. Turns out that forty-four Australian gallons is actually almost fifty-five American gallons and heavy as all hell. We finally managed to unload them by turning our folding table into a makeshift ramp. Gravity did half the work, but it just about killed me all the same.
    Pushing the truck is the last thing I feel like doing. I rub my shoulders. “Let’s do it,” I say.
    â€œI’m going to lower the tire pressure first,” Nat says. “That’ll help.”
    I watch as she squats beside one tire after another, tongue poking out between her teeth in concentration as she unscrews the valves. She looks like she does this for a living.
    When Nat gives us the thumbs-up, Mel gets back in the driver’s seat and starts the engine. Nat and I push. The engine screams, the wheels spin…and the truck shifts a couple of feet. I close my eyes as a spray of sand stings my face.
    â€œPush!” Nat yells. And then the truck is free, shooting forward. Mel drives fast through the thick sand, steering to one side to find firmer ground. Nat and I run along behind, and for a freaky heart-stopping moment I wonder if Mel will just keep driving, forgetting all about us in his excitement to be heading toward his precious lizards.
    Finally, to my relief, the truck comes to a stop and Mel gets out. “Nice work! What a team!”
    He sounds like the Mel I remember from childhood visits: all enthusiasm and wild energy. I wipe dirt and sweat from my face. “Yeah. Phew.” My mouth is so dry that my tongue sticks to its roof and makes a clicking sound when I speak.
    â€œTime to reload,” he says.
    I look back at our piles of gear, now a hundred feet from the truck, and realize something. “There’s no way we can get those fuel tanks back on.”
    â€œWhat if we backed the truck up? We could go off the track, around the worst of the muck…,” Nat begins.
    I shake my head. “Think about it, Nat. We could barely get the tanks off the truck. There’s not a hope in hell of pushing them back up that ramp.”
    â€œNo worries,” Mel says dismissively. “We’ll leave them there. We’ve only got a day’s drive to get to the lake.”
    â€œUm, we do have to get back to Wiluna too,” Nat points out.
    â€œWe’ll dump a few of the water jugs and fill them with gas,” Mel says. “And then, on our way back, we can stop at our fuel drums and siphon out some fuel to fill the main tank for the trip home. It’ll be fine.”
    I can’t see any