Emmie approached one of the birds for a closer look, and it didn’t move. She waved at it. It looked away. She took out her tin whistle from her pocket. She’d never taken to the fiddle like Pa and her sister, or piano like Mama and her brothers.

She played a jolly tune. The bird opened its black beak wide as if yawning. She laughed and turned to Pa. “I don’t think he likes my music.”

Pa grinned. “It was the same when I was here as a boy. The animals don’t know humans, so they haven’t learned to be cautious … although I’m sure he’ll soon learn to be afraid of that whistle.”

Emmie tried to glare at her pa and failed.

The sun pounded hot on the crown of the wide-brimmed straw hat they’d bought to replace her bonnet at the market in Lima. Much to her delight, Pa had also purchased her boy’s clothing in sturdy beige linen, stout boots, and canvas gaiters, so she looked like a smaller version of him. It was very strange to wear trousers—so free. She wasn’t sure what Mama would have thought. Pa called it “expedition clothing,” essential for where they were going. She thought of Mama now, still unable to believe she had allowed her to go. Emmie was the second youngest of eight children. Her oldest brothers, Syms Junior and Charles, were both grown up, and Syms had been married last year; they were running the post office while Pa was gone. Her elder sister, Bess, would help Mama when she wasn’t out courting with the butcher’s son and playing her fiddle. Eddie, Alf, and Phillip would be eating all the bread and butter as quick as Mama could bake and churn it, but they worked hard on the homestead, and Phillip had promised to read to her youngest brother, Walter, while she was away.

Emmie wouldn’t be missed, not really. She’d always been a bit different to the others, with her rock collection, dusty skirts, and tin whistle. Pa was the person she spent most time with. The family was surprised when he told them his plans, but not so much that he was only taking one of them, and it would be Emmie.

She looked at Pa now. He was gazing up at the volcano through the eyeglass.

“I expect you’ll tell me you are searching for dragons,” she said. Usually he would have taken this opportunity to tell her every detail about the golden fire-breathing dragon, who had thrown him into the sea and hunted him, about how Farthing had saved him and then turned out to be a baby dragon herself. Emmie would shake her head and tut, because she was too old for his stories, and Pa would laugh. But today Pa said nothing.

Emmie followed his gaze, but there was nothing to see. She was more interested in the ground, watching for lizards of green.

“Do you think Darwin’s Dragons are really here, Pa?”