A Stormy Muster

• Daniel Cox, Grade 4, Mungallala State School
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

One stormy morning, Mum told me to go mustering. I looked outside. There was lightning everywhere. But I had to get the cattle to the sugar sorghum.
Luckily, I had my well-trained blue healer cattle dog, Wouldja. I put on my red skull rain jacket and my gumboots with flames. I let off Wouldja and ran to the shed where my red 120 two wheeler was parked, ready to be all wet and muddy. I had to kick start it several times then called Wouldja.
She jumped on the back and I drove off in a skid. One lightning strike hit one metre away from my motor bike. I shivered!
I sped up. I crossed a big creek but only just. When I went through the water, it was up to the engine of the bike. The engine was smoking but luckily the water didn’t get in the end of the exhaust pipe or I would have been stuffed.
I was coming to a very boggy bit and I told Wouldja to get off and “stay”. As I drove through the mud, I almost slipped over. By now I was all muddy and then, suddenly, I was bogged!
I was revving the engine, almost made it but didn’t! My poor old motor bike-she didn’t have enough revs. I had to push her out. I put the motor-bike in neutral, and pushed and pushed, until we were finally out.
I took off like the speed of sound. The road was really rocky but I had to go on it. The rain was pouring down. Puddles were everywhere. I hit full speed and I sped through the rocks and the rain. Suddenly I could see the cows in the mist.
But...l had another problem. There was a big cloud of fog. I had to turn my light on full beam. I called Wouldja, drove through the fog and could hear weird noises like ghosts. I could see the end of the fog. The cows started to get blacker and blacker but suddenly I hit a big log and the motor bike conked out. I could not see. I had to find the log and pull it away. I had a torch strapped to my motor bike and could just see enough to pull the clip and pull the torch out. I pulled the log out and threw it away. I kick started the bike several times and took off with the lights on full beam. I drove to the cattle and I started to muster the cows past everything that had caused me so much trouble this morning. The fog, the rocky road, the mud and the swollen creek.
Finally I had the cows in the sorghum paddock.
I drove back to the house just as the sun started to shine through the fog and mist. I told Mum everything that had happened. She was most impressed!