There’d been a few visitors in the short time we’d been away. Looters had come, and like at Chris’s they had taken jewellery and a few other bits and pieces. My watch, some silver photo frames, my Swiss Army knife. They hadn’t done much damage. I felt sick about it but was too tired to feel the full impact. Corrie and Kevin and Fi had come too – all the stuff on our list had been removed

How do you know that Corrie et all got the useful stuff on your list?

I am just endlessly fascinated by the fact that only the main kids ever think to loot for, ya know, FOOD. And other assorted survival gear. Who the fuck comes in and steals silver and watches in the middle of small-town BFE during an invasion? Does this book simply not understand the difference between looting and peace time robbery? Because that feels like what’s going on here; the author knows what a thief might take and just applies that across all circumstances.

They take stock of themselves and check Lee’s bullet wound to make sure everything’s okay.

Homer had washed the whole wound site down with Dettol and now started putting the bandage back on.

What, no fresh bandage?????? Why???????????????????????????????????????????

The kids sleep the day away near the house before driving back to Hell at night.

I made everyone nervous by going and getting the firearms from the Landrover, but always in my thoughts now was what had happened at Corrie’s and how Homer said we had to learn from that; we had to learn new ways.

Nice.

They say teenagers can sleep all day.

Wait, what? That’s what you reach for to explain that they sleep all day, not, IDK, the fact that they were up all night and just had a hugely stressful armed assault experience?

It’s really weird the things this book thinks it needs to explain. Especially compared to the things it never explains. *coughcoughmagicbulldozercough*

Ellie and Lee wind up both awake in the middle of the day and talk, and Ellie comments on how pretty her property is and how sad she would be to lose it all. I’m sure the Wodi Wodi people would agree, but oh look, no aboriginal characters in the book. How very, very…expected and typical, but still terrible. (Erm, I’m assuming, based on the location of the filming venue, that Wirrawee is located in New South Wales. But still.)

‘It is beautiful,’ Lee said. ‘You’re lucky. There’s nothing beautiful about the restaurant. And yet, I feel the same way about it as you do about your property. I think it’s because we did it all ourselves. If someone smashes a window they’re smashing glass that Dad cut, glass that I polished a thousand times, and they’re tearing curtains that Mum made. You get an attachment to the place, and it becomes special to you. I guess maybe it does take on a kind of beauty.’

You…guess?

Does the author just hate everything that isn’t bush country? Which would be weird since all the depictions of thievery have a very…um, urban feel to them.

When we got here this morning and I found they’d been here … I don’t know. I’d expected it, but I still felt awful, but I didn’t feel awful enough Then I felt guilty about not feeling worse. I think it’s like you said, too many things. Too much has happened.’

I do really like this bit. So many nice lines tucked in among the weird ones.

I was too, but I was confused between my feelings for him and my feelings for Homer. Last night I’d been holding hands with Homer, and feeling so warm and good about it, and now here I was with Lee. He kissed me lightly on my nose, then less lightly on the mouth, then several more times, and passionately. I was kissing him back, but then I stopped. I didn’t have any plans to become the local slut and I didn’t think it was a good idea to get involved with two guys at once. I sighed and shrugged myself free.

1) Slut-shaming continues to be gross and unnecessary.

2) I’m still confused about Ellie/Homer????? They have no romantic chemistry and the end result really feels like the book saying any form of interest a girl shows a guy has to be romantic interest. Quit being weird, book, Ellie/Lee is perfectly fine and dramatic enough with all the invasion shit going on.

Ellie goes to check on Chris, who is asleep on sentry duty, and gets furiously angry.

I remember on our Outward Bound camp, talking one lunchtime, someone had said that in the Army the penalty for going to sleep on guard duty was death. We’d all been so shocked. We could see the logic in it, but maybe that was the shocking part, that it was so utterly logical.

…….

………………..

……………………………………THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS AND ALSO IS NOT LOGICAL WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE WHAT THE FUCK NO REALLY WHAT I THINK THAT’S EVEN WORSE THAN THE MAGIC BULLDOZER WHAT

Like, I totally understand why Ellie is going off on Chris and screaming at him for falling asleep and super mad. It’s a high-stress, high-stakes situation and they’re a small group. But that doesn’t explain why flashback-Ellie, who is in a calm and civilian frame, would think murdering sleepers is logical!?!?!?!?

Actually all of present-Ellie’s actions are good, as she starts to get hit with all the stress she put off during the fight and just shuts down. The others drive to Hell in the dark, but Ellie stays basically nonfunctioning for three days and only starts to come around slowly.

Corrie has a short wave radio, but since she’s only used it to listen to radio stations she didn’t realize it has other settings. Once Ellie realizes the radio hasn’t been used to its full advantage, the group gathers around to test out the other settings.

They find what sounds to be a news report from the POV of the invaders (in English??? This book is really stretching things to keep them unnamed) just before the batteries die. But it sounds like a huge section of Australia is already taken over, and no other countries are getting involved.

‘The Americans don’t like getting involved with other countries.’ I remembered something we’d done in Twentieth Century History.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAJKDHFKLAJSHDFALKSHFLASHDKJFH*WHEEZE*ASDFKJS;ALKJDFAHAHAHAH

Ahem, anyway.

‘What does it mean “reducing imbalances within the region”?’ Kevin asked.

‘I guess he’s talking about sharing things more equally,’ Robyn said. ‘We’ve got all this land and all these resources, and yet there’s countries a crow’s spit away that have people packed in like battery hens. You can’t blame them for resenting it, and we haven’t done much to reduce any imbalances, just sat on our fat backsides, enjoyed our money and felt smug.’

Common theme among invasion fantasies, the idea that your own way of life is just SO fucking great that literally everyone must be dying to get in on it. Pfffft. Head out of your ass, me and other white people.

The kids argue about morality for a while.

Let them walk in and take everything they want, everything our parents have worked for. Help yourself guys, don’t mind us.

And they do all this arguing without even thinking about aboriginal peoples, near as I can tell. This is my un-shocked face.

But if you’d lived your whole life in a slum, starving, unemployed, always ill,

Hmm, nice view you’ve got of your neighbors there, Robyn. Rolled into all the racism inherent to this sort of invasion fantasy plot line is the idea that, along with your own shit being so awesome, everyone else’s shit is The Worst. There’s really just so many different ways that the premise of all this is rooted in xenophobic nonsense.

They get to the subject of what to do now, and decide that they need to check out the Showgrounds better. Mostly because ‘fighting for one’s country’ is pretty nebulous, but if their parents and siblings are all in danger, that’s a hell of a lot more concrete and actionable.

that they’re being fed properly and all that sort of thing

They’re not. They can’t be, the invading army let all the food rot and only took ‘money and jewelry.’

There’s some debate, and finally they settle on a rough plan. Send two teams of two into town to do sneak reconnaissance, while the other four kids stay in Hell and set it up as a dedicated, long-term base camp with redundancies, since they don’t know how long they’ll be living in the bush.

And then Ellie spends like a whole paragraph going on about the weird love shapes between Fi/Homer/Ellie/Lee. Which is still so weird to me, stop it Ellie, Homer is not your beau.