naked bunyip dancing

Jake

I'm Jake.
Jake Jackson.
I'm fifteen years old.
I live in an old timber shack
only 100 metres from Wolli Creek.
Mum and Dad and me have lived here forever.
My Great-grandpa Ellis
wandered into this area
with a few prize merino and two dogs
and the story goes that
he met Miss Lizzy Beacher
in town one day when he was
asking directions to the barber.
"I wanted a neat trim haircut,
and I ended up with a wife.
Best advice I ever got!"
They had lots of kids
and all of them worked on this farm
just like we do now,
and we always will.

Lonesome Howl is a verse-novel for young adults, released in late 2006.

Jake's Dad saw the wolf, before Jake was born. They say wolves don't live in this country, yet in the night Jake hears it howling, long and lonely.
When Jake and Lucy hike to Sheldon Mountain in search of the wolf, Jake is out to prove his father right or wrong; Lucy is escaping her father's cruelty. Both are tested - physically, emotionally, spiritually - but what they find on that dark mountain is themselves and each other.

Lonesome Howl will be published in the USA by Front Street Books, titled The Wolf in 2007.

Lucy

My name's Lucy Harding.
Lucy's not short for anything,
it's just Lucy.
That's right, with a y.
Only people from the city
spell it with an I,
or call themselves Lucienne.
I'm not French,
and I'm not from the city.
I'm from Battle Farm.
My Grandma named it that,
on account of her always saying,
"It's a battle to keep this place,
a battle to survive."
And she did pretty good.
At surviving, I mean.
She died four years ago,
aged 92.
She's buried up the hill,
next to Grandpa,
overlooking their farm
and I reckon she's up there
thinking,
"Why did my daughter marry
someone like him.
Mr Right.
He's never right. He just thinks he is."
He is Dad, of course.
But I don't want to talk about him.