Storm in the Bag

“You can pack jumpers and socks, but you can’t pack the feeling that something’s gone missing.”

I was drawing a picture of the sky, but the sky wasn't staying still. Every time I looked up through the kitchen window to copy the colours, the clouds had gone somewhere else, and I had to rub out the bit I'd just done. My pencil was down to a stub, and the blue was more grey than anything now. The paper was getting thin where I'd erased too many times, a worn patch that threatened to tear if I rubbed any harder.

Outside, the winter sky hung low over Broken Hill, restless and undecided. Not quite stormy, but not quite calm either. Just... waiting. The wind pushed the clouds along like they had somewhere important to be, and I couldn't keep up with their journey across my page.

Mack was at the table too, sitting with his elbows propped up and his fingers locked in that way he does when he's pretending not to be thinking hard. His knuckles were white, the skin stretched tight over bone. He wasn't drawing, not really — just making little dots on the edge of a notepad with the tip of his pen. Dot dot dot. Tap tap tap. The rhythm was too regular, too controlled. Like a code or a countdown.

Grandma stood at the sink with her back to us, not washing anything. The tea towel was slung over her shoulder, and her hands were on the edge of the counter like she was trying to keep herself from floating away. Her shoulders were rigid under her cardigan, a thin blue one I'd never seen before.

She checked her phone again. It was face-down on the bench, but every few minutes she turned it over, stared at the screen, then put it back down. No messages. No calls. Still she kept checking, as if hoping that looking one more time might conjure what she was waiting for.

No one had said much all morning.

The silence wasn't just quiet—it was heavy, a presence in itself that pressed against my ears and made ordinary sounds seem strange and important. The scritch-scratch of my pencil. The tap-tap of Mack's pen. The soft, erratic tick of Grandma's fingernail against the phone screen. Each sound stood out sharply against the background hush, like footsteps in fresh frost.

Grandpa was in the lounge, slumped deep in his chair like part of the furniture. The blanket Grandma had tucked around him had slipped down on one side, bunching against the armrest. He hadn't really woken properly — he mumbled now and then, shifting slightly, but his eyes never opened. Sometimes his fingers would twitch, as if trying to grasp something that wasn't there. The TV was on low. A gardening show this time. A man with a big hat talking about pruning apricot trees in winter. His voice drifted through the house like steam, but no one was listening. The words were just sounds, meaningless and distant.

There were three mugs on the table — one full, one half-drunk, and one untouched. The milk in mine had gone cold, a thin skin forming on the surface like ice on a puddle. I'd forgotten it was there until my elbow bumped against it, making the liquid shiver.

I coloured the corner of my cloud a bit darker. I wanted it to be a storm cloud, but not a scary one. Just a big fluffy one that might grumble but wouldn't bite. The kind that looked worse than it was. I pressed too hard with my pencil, and it left a deep groove in the paper.

That was when Grandma moved.

She turned from the window so suddenly I jumped—and the pencil snapped in my hand. It was already short and splintery, but the crack still sounded loud and final. She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were focused on something far beyond the kitchen walls.

“Right,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron even though they weren't wet. There was a new urgency in her voice, a current of electricity running beneath the surface. “We need to go. I want you both to pack a bag.”

I blinked. “Pack a bag?”

“For what?” Mack asked, sitting up straight. The notepad with its constellation of dots slipped to the floor, forgotten.

“Just for a night or two,” she said briskly. “Something easy to carry. Clothes. Socks. Don't forget socks.” Her hands fluttered as she spoke, like birds unsure where to land. She wasn't looking at us properly, her gaze skimming over our heads to the wall behind.

Her voice was too fast. It wasn't the calm, sing-song voice she used when asking us to set the table or feed the cat next door. It was sharp and thin, like she was reading from a list she hadn't had time to memorise. Words tumbling over each other in their hurry to get out.

“Where are we going?” Mack asked again. His voice had gone quiet, careful, the way you might speak to a skittish animal.

She didn't answer.

She crossed the kitchen in a few quick steps and disappeared down the hall. Her shoes made an urgent scuffling sound against the carpet. We heard cupboards opening. Drawers pulled with too much force. A thump of something soft hitting the floor. A muttered word I couldn't quite catch. I looked at Mack, wide-eyed. My broken pencil was still clutched in my fist, the jagged end digging into my palm.

“Is it Queensland?” I whispered. The word felt like a wish, a possibility of something normal amidst all this strangeness. A holiday. Sun. Swimming pools. Ice cream. Dad meeting us there, like Mum had promised.

Mack didn't look at me. His face had gone still, mask-like, only his eyes moving as they tracked the sounds of Grandma's movements through the house. He stood up and left the table, heading down the hallway without a word. His shoulders were set in a straight line, like he was bracing himself for something.

I followed him, my socks silent on the floor. Gerald the dinosaur tile watched me pass, his cracked face looking more worried than usual.

Grandma was in the guest room — the one with the spare bed we never used — pulling clothes from a cupboard and folding them roughly into a tote bag. Not folding, really. Just pushing them in, fast and careless. A jumper sleeve hung out the side like a surrendering arm. A pair of socks fell to the floor, unnoticed. Her movements were jerky, almost frantic, her silver hair coming loose from its clip and falling across her face.

Mack stopped in the doorway. “Why is Grandpa not coming?”

Grandma glanced up, her mouth twitching. A shadow passed over her face—fear or pain or something I had no name for. “He needs rest. He's staying.”

“He's not awake,” I said. My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to, a child's voice in a suddenly grown-up world. “He didn't even open his eyes.”

“He'll be fine,” she said, not looking at me. Her hands never stopped moving, grabbing, stuffing, pushing. “We just… we need to leave before lunch. The roads get worse after lunch.”

That didn't make sense. The roads around Broken Hill didn't change at lunchtime. They were just roads—dusty and straight and the same all day long. A cold feeling started in my stomach, spreading outward like spilled water. Something was wrong. Really wrong.

Mack was frowning, standing stiff as a soldier. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, knuckles white with tension. I reached for Ribbons and hugged her to my chest, burying my nose in her worn fur that smelled of dust and safety and everything normal.

Grandma brushed past us and went into the linen cupboard, pulling out a bundle of towels and dropping them into another bag. A bottle of something medicinal—cough syrup maybe—went in after them, followed by a small first aid kit with a red cross on it.

“Go on, go,” she said, louder now. “Up you get. One bag each.” She waved her hands at us, shooing us like chickens. A strand of hair fell across her face, and she pushed it back with an impatient gesture.

I didn't ask any more questions. I just went to the sewing room where we had been staying, found my school bag, and started putting things in it. My pyjamas with the unicorns. Clean underwear. A jumper. Ribbons, of course. My drawing pad and what was left of my pencils.

I hesitated, then slipped my cloud drawing between the pages of a book to keep it flat. It wasn't finished, but maybe I could complete it later. When things made sense again.

Mack was already at his backpack, checking through it like he was making sure nothing had been forgotten. He added a few things—quietly, like he didn’t want anyone to notice. I watched him zip it shut again, and my stomach did that sinking thing. He’d packed it yesterday. I remembered asking if he was going to run away. He hadn’t really answered. Maybe he didn’t have to.

Maybe that’s what all those dots on his notepad had been about. A map to somewhere only he could see.

Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the windows in their frames. The bottlebrush tree bent lower, scraping its branches against the fence like fingernails on a blackboard. The sky had darkened, the clouds gathering closer together, huddling as if for protection.

Something was changing. Everything was changing. And I was putting socks in a bag, one pair after another, even though I didn't know why.

Even though I didn't know where we were going.

Or what we were really leaving behind.