‘How long do you think it will take Thelma to bring Mum back?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know how any of this works, Tuls.’ Dad drums his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

I wish he sounded more confident. I look out the window at the trees flashing by in a blur, and try to ignore the fear churning inside me.

We drive all day, stopping only for petrol and the toilet, and to eat a couple of sandwiches. Dad calls Vince every hour to see if Mum’s turned up. After the sixth call, Vince says, ‘Dave! You’re the first person I’ll call if she appears.’

It’s late afternoon when we reach Rockhampton, where shadows from the tall palm trees stretch across the road.

‘We have a small hitch,’ says Dad as he pulls up at a red traffic light. ‘I don’t know her address.’

‘You call that a small hitch?!’

‘Do you remember anything about where she lives?’ Dad didn’t come to Christmas with me and Mum two years ago. He was with Grampy.

‘No!’ There must be thousands of houses in Rockhampton.

‘Was it an old or new house?’ he asks.

I close my eyes and think. ‘Old. And high off the ground.’

It turns out that half the houses in Rockhampton are up on stilts, to keep them high and dry when the wide, brown river floods.

At sunset, we’re still driving around, hoping I will recognise Janet’s house.

Finally, Dad pulls over on a wide, flat street. He sighs and passes me the water bottle. The air in the car is thick with disappointment and I can tell Dad feels as hollow and defeated as I do.

Beside us, a sprinkler flicks loops of water over someone’s front lawn. A kid pedals their bike past, and a dog lifts its leg on a bird bath. I can’t believe we’re in the same town as Thelma but with no idea of where she is.

I watch the dog and have a flash of that Christmas Day two years ago. ‘Janet has a huge bird bath in her front yard!’ I shout. ‘In the shape of an elephant. She yelled at me for floating leaves in it.’

We ask around and find a woman who knows the house with the strange elephant bird bath. Five minutes later, we pull up out the front.

Janet’s white, high-set house has an overgrown front garden and wide timber steps leading up to the front verandah. There’s no car in the driveway and no lights on inside. The elephant bird bath is dry.

Dad and I hold hands as he knocks on the front door. Please help us, Thelma, I think. I’ll even go to school and live in a house, if I can get Mum back.

The house is silent.

Dad knocks again.