The kids ride hard through the rest of the nigh to get to Corrie’s house, and Ellie keeps singing a song to herself to avoid thinking about any of the wild shit that’s going on. I wonder if the song will become important later, because it really is pretty random. (The song choice, that is, not the singing. Chanted repetition to keep yourself going is pretty normal. We do it with singing running cadences all the time.)

The kids all sit down to breakfast cereal and share their stories, and there’s a lot of really good small details about Ellie’s exhaustion and shock/numbness. The kids start talking over each other until

Finally Homer stood up, grabbed an empty coffee mug and threw it hard at the back of the fireplace, where it smashed into large white pieces. ‘Greek custom,’ he explained to our astonished faces, and sat down again.

???????????????

But it gets all the kids to stop talking so they can go in order. Ellie goes first and starts tripping up over explaining the mower incident, because she still hasn’t processed it and has a lot of conflicted feelings.

Homer tries to be supportive.

There was a silence after I finished, then Homer said, ‘You guys did well. Don’t feel so bad. This is war now, and normal rules don’t apply. These people have invaded our land, locked up our families. They caused your dogs to die, Ellie, and they tried to kill you three.

Followed immediately by

The Greek side of me understands these things.’

Did…did the author just feel the sudden urge to remind us that Homer is Greek and this is the best he could come up with? Am I missing some Australian-Greek thing? He doesn’t elaborate or anything, and it’s such a non sequitur in his little speech.

So after Homer gives his little ‘they invaded us, fuck em’ speech, he starts telling his and Fi’s story. They came across the site of a battle, with lots of spent rounds and overturned cars and blood, but no bodies. They go past that to ‘downtown’ (ish?) and find a lot of evidence of looting and vandalism, but SOMEHOW STILL NO PEOPLE?

Look, the fairgrounds can’t be that big, they’re probably super full just from the actual fair-goers, how you gonna have all those people PLUS the invading army, and no spillage into the HIGHLY CONVENIENT TOWN THAT’S JUST STEPS AWAY? All those empty houses and stores and shit, just waiting to be used for officer quarters and ops centers and the invaders are…what, shoulder to shoulder with their prisoners, planning out their next move on a camping table?

Well, Homer and Fi came across a group of patrolling soldiers (which, fine, but still doesn’t explain why this place is so stinkin lax, and who does a patrol of seven?) so they hide in a public bathroom. Three dudes come in to use it (maybe they’re not on patrol, maybe the showgrounds lavatories are just FUCKING UNSUABLE BY THIS POINT, LOGISTICS, PEOPLE, THEY ARE IMPORANT) and Homer makes many potty jokes. Apparently to ease the tension, but meh. Low hanging fruit, my dude.

I’m actually more and more convinced that that wasn’t a patrol, they just wanted some decent bathrooms. Showground port-a-johns aren’t awesome under the BEST of conditions, after all…

They don’t know what language the soldiers were speaking, going out of their way to point out it was odd, and also note that there was a wide range of ages and poorly fitted uniforms. Possibly they had to scramble to make enough people to fully man the invasion.

I know from other people that the book is careful to never mention the origin of the invading army, but honestly…feels like a major copout. Australia has a history of ‘yellow peril’ xenophobia, so leaving out the definitive identification of the army feels like it’s just slyly letting those people imagine whatever race they want while standing behind a thin veneer of deniability. Then again, nothing this book could have pulled would have saved it from that implication; the very premise taps into and plays upon those fears.

Fi also saw what they assume are a couple of other free Wirrawee-ians sneaking about, but can’t confirm. There was no one at Fi’s house, but they saw a couple of bombed houses and a bombed railway station on the way back. Then Homer describes seeing Ellie’s lawnmower stunt.

and finally this explosion, in Racecourse Road. My God, it was like fire and brimstone shooting up in the sky. Would have cracked a five on the Richter scale. It was dramatic.

…it was a lawnmower and like half a tank of petrol. Calm down Homer and/or book.

They decide to sleep through the day and look for Robyn and Lee in the morning, and spend some time making guard/escape plans. As bad as the army is at logistics, I do like the practicality of these kids.

Later while Ellie is on watch, Corrie comes by to keep company because she couldn’t sleep.

I just can’t believe this is happening. Invasions only happen in other countries, and on TV. Even if we survive this I know I’ll never feel safe again.

Reading up on the xenophobic roots of Australia’s invasion anxiety and then coming back to this line is, um, uncomfortable, to say the least.

They talk about lost innocence for a bit, and then Ellie floats an idea about why their town was targeted. They think that the army is using a nearby bay as a start point and only invaded Wirrawee mostly just to keep them quiet so they don’t warn the rest of the country.

Which, like, is a TERRIBLE plan. There’s no way to keep 100% of the population guaranteed contained, and also satellites exist? I know this is an older book (1993) but satellite imagery existed back then. An invading force would be noticed and tracked WELL before it actually made landfall. Most nations are pretty invested in keeping an eye on what’s going on around them, even in peacetime. Plus Wirrawee was having a big faire/show, the assumption that NO ONE travelled in from a distance to attend is kind of farfetched? Vendors, press, family members, special interest groups? I know Wirrawee is supposed to be pretty small and remote, but they’re not completely cut off, and people travel to shows. Those travelers are going to be missed once they don’t go home again, and then people are going to come to Wirrawee looking for them.

Homer comes by to chide them for being loud, and then all three of them get louder still so IDK what he was thinking. They see a jet fly by, and it’s an Australian one, but it gets chased by three enemy jets.

So, yeah, the rest of the country knows. So secrecy isn’t the reason to keep everyone on lockdown. Using geography to make a defensible launching point is fine, but it doesn’t address my problem of why is everyone still in the fairgrounds??? Make them go feed themselves.

After the others wake up, Homer starts suggesting a plan. Two people go looking for Lee and Robyn, the others load up a couple of cars with all the supplies they can scavenge from the empty houses, and then they all head back to Hell to hide out. Several pages are given over to listing all the items on the list that they made of what to grab, and debating about what should go on it or not.

Suddenly they hear a helicopter coming, and Homer continues to take over by issuing orders for everyone to take lookout spots and report back to him while he gets a rifle ready.

Now, I like Homer. Admittedly, I’ve a soft spot for take-charge-in-a-crisis AND pragmatic characters, so he’s quite the twofer. But…he’s really starting to take over on this whole survival thing. To the point of overshadowing the other characters. Kinda feels like the whole thing is the Homer and Fi Show, with Ellie as a background narrator. Corrie shows up occasionally to reminisce about generic childhood memories, and Kevin…exists? Is a dude?

I just really feel like either Homer’s competence could be shared around a little, or the other kids could at least rub wrong against it and show some personality through that.

There’s a few tense pages as they keep an eye on the helicopters, and the helicopters hover around the area, but eventually they leave. Homer gets spooked by it and thinks they should all pack up and get out post-haste, and they’re in an outbuilding still getting ready to go when a jet comes by and…shoots ‘rockets’ at the house…

Sigh.

Like, okay, the soldiers in the helicopter were mildly suspicious of the house (they saw the pet dog out in the yard, possibly movement through the window) and decided to take it out instead of risking it. Cool. Okay. But.

The book describes the jet as coming in low and the description makes it seem just ridiculously close, but you don’t use air to surface missiles at close distance! It completely negates the entire PURPOSE of ASMs, and it’s a safety hazard for the VERY EXPENSIVE JET that they have…just flying around?

So this invading army that doesn’t have the manpower to search a district quickly DOES have the manpower to send out three helicopters AND A JET? And use missiles on a random suspicious house? What are your resources, army? Jets are not just “oh, we own this, cool now we can fly it as much as we want.” They use special fuel, and break, and require a lot of support personnel, require time and the right conditions to even take off, and the training to fly them means qualified personnel are in short supply.

You know what is relatively easy and also pretty sturdy and mobile? Mortar shells! Set up a launch site back in town, have the helicopter peeps give them grid coordinates, and they can put rounds downrange pretty fast.

This army is going to run out of ‘beans and bullets’ really fast at this rate. I’m thinking Australia could let them just burn out on Wirrawee and call it a day. They’re expending way too much and not making efficient use of resources on the ground.

Well, Corrie does not agree with me, because she goes completely cationic at seeing her home destroyed. Understandable. Unfortunately, the kids don’t want to move on while Corrie is essentially dead weight and end up waiting it out in the outbuilding with her.