Koalas In The Outback

• Tom Crighton, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2021

Ken is the younger brother of Kurt whose parents were killed in the bushfires. Their sister Kayla was separated from them by the Black Summer fires. They live in the outback of Australia, where dust and dingoes thrive. Ken and Kurt often fight but are very curious and love each other. They are koalas. This is where this story takes place - on a cool April evening, with the sun beginning to set.
Kurt took the role of sole breadwinner, being the oldest and wisest. He told Ken to go take some food to Kayla, some eucalyptus leaves. “They are rare as rubies right now,” Kurt said to Ken. “Take this to your sister and avoid roads, Big People, cars and dingoes. OK?” Kurt warned Ken.
“I will, brother. I want to have an adventure. I haven’t been out in months,” replied Ken and he set off towards the east, where the bushfires had been raging the worst. Ken heard that charred eucalyptus trees littered the ground there, with many other families forced to evacuate.
As Ken galloped along, he thought about Kayla and the bushfires. They had ravaged the east coast of his country and killed thousands of other animal families, and even a few Big People. If the bushfires were enough to hurt Big People, it must’ve been pretty bad. He kept to the shadows of burnt trees as the shimmering sun began to set underneath the hazy gradients of the sky, from pink to yellow.
Ken came to his first road, where cars were rushing past, faster than he could keep up with. He remembered his brother’s warning, but going around meant taking many hours longer, which would leave him out much too long. Ken decided that, despite Kurt’s orders, to run across the road as fast as his legs could carry him when there was a break in the traffic.
Running across the two lanes as fast as he possibly could, he was almost run over by a car. He barely made it across, catching his breath. Little did he know, Ken had run into the middle of a pack of dingoes.
The dingoes circled poor Ken, growling menacingly. The pack leader howled, followed by the rest, as if it was a command. Ken was already in too deep and petrified, on the verge of tears. He didn’t want to die. However, as the dingoes slunk closer to Ken, teeth bared in the glinting moonlight, a dark shadow drew over the dingoes and their prey.
The ominous, dark shadow was a dropbear, arguably the most famous of Australian animals, also one of the fastest. The dropbear scared away the approaching dingoes, growling and showing its fearsome fangs, rocketing down from a high-up tree. The dingoes were cowering in the shadows of rocks, petrified of the frightening creature. Ken and the heroic dropbear scampered away, back towards Kayla’s home as the cool Australian sun slowly faded to the back of the furthest reaches of the great Australian Outback.