The black smoke kept rising in the distance. Another voice had started shouting, from behind me. Whina was laughing and cheering. She thrust a finger towards my house; then she was off, running in the direction of the pa.

I was off, too, tearing along the shingle road, over the stile, through the paddock where two of our cows, Raspberry and Blackberry, stood together, snorting and shivering. A raw split showed on one of the macrocarpa trunks. I flung open the back gate and stopped. Two walls of our outside lavatory had collapsed, its wooden seat perched crookedly over the hole it had taken Dad nearly a day to dig. Squares of newspaper hung neatly from the wire hook nearby. Could have been embarrassing for somebody, my stupid mind sniggered.

I hurried around the corner of the hedge. This time, my breathing stopped as well.

Mum and Dad and Nana Aggie were crouched on the lawn, Little Angus between them. Mum’s eyes were shut, and my young brother shook with sobs. My father stared at where our house had split apart. A whole side wall had disappeared, and I could see right inside.

The wooden butter-boxes where I kept my clothes lay toppled and scattered across the floor. In the next room, a roof beam had snapped in half and landed across my parents’ bed. The doors of their wardrobe hung wide open; the clothes inside hung in a neat row. Somehow that looked strangest of all.

I stepped forward, and Dad saw me. ‘Florence! You’re all right! Look, Lily. She’s here. She’s safe!’

He stared harder, began to say something else. My mother, who’d started struggling to her feet, clapped a hand over her mouth and gasped. I remembered my forehead. ‘It’s all right,’ I managed to say. ‘Banged my head on the side of—’ But I didn’t finish the sentence, because both of them flung their arms around me, holding me so hard that my breath went Ooofff! Nana Aggie felt her way across the lawn towards our voices, touching my sore forehead gently.

‘You came back across the bridge?’ Dad asked. I nodded. ‘Oh, Florence,’ Mum murmured. She licked her handkerchief; dabbed at the dried blood on my face. Nana Aggie smiled. ‘Well done, my dear.’

Suddenly I felt so full of love for them all that I thought I might burst out crying. But I didn’t, because Little Angus had just started bawling his head off.

For an hour, we sat on the lawn, close together, while the ground twitched and muttered. Angus had stopped crying, but he wouldn’t let go of Mum’s apron. I stared at the house. The kitchen was wrecked. The front porch and nearly every window had gone. But we’re all right, I kept telling myself. We’re all right.

‘Whina?’ Mum asked after a while.