Morning — The Kitchen

Charlie was busy cutting up vegetables for the chicken and vegetable soup that would be for lunch. They were all going into the enormous stock pot on the stove. They had discussed at length all of the ingredients that would go into the soup, the stock, the vegetables and the cut of chicken. Exactly how it would be made, and how long it would take to cook. Rebecca was impressed at his questions, his answers to hers and his knowledge.

Rebecca observed him slicing and dicing the onions. Cut in half, precision parallel cuts and then a quick flick of his wrist ninety degrees to dice them into the smallest of pieces.

Hundeerde — Headwall Valley

Morning — Breakfast

Headwall Station comprised the whole valley on both sides of the Grey River, all the way from Veldmeer to the Headwall homestead at the headwall cwm. It was a peak big-sky midsummer day, the sun rising high and warming everything that it touched. The rings were just faintly visible if you squinted.

Headwall Station

Morning — After Breakfast

Breakfast was just about to wrap up; the last of another enormous stack of toast and an equally high stack of pancakes had been systematically decimated.

Angus stood up with his glass and a fork. He then decided he needed some more height so he stood on the bench, almost spilling his orange juice in the process.

Grandma Bella frowned.

Very Early Morning — Headwall Station

The sun had barely peeped above the headwall, when Charlie woke. The house was still dark and quiet, as Charlie pulled on some clothes and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The light Rebecca had left on the night before was still burning as he crept in. He took in the scrubbed wooden table in the centre, the gleaming pans hanging from hooks on the rafters and the enormous range still faintly warm from the night before. Everything ready for another day of feeding a house full of hungry mouths.

A voice came from behind him.

Daan and Marta, the Headwall Stationhands, were waiting for the twelve boys and the Husky family at Theden Spaceport.

Nineteen people, including the drivers Daan and Marta, needed to be distributed between two vehicles. The mathematics of this had been Daan’s problem to solve and he’d solved it incorrectly twice before finally getting it right.