As we travelled, Dad and Caitlin listened to the news. There was a report about a protest for a twenty-one-year-old Aboriginal man who was shot in his house in Victoria. It was reported that the police thought he had a weapon. Dad turned up the radio.

‘Interesting that they’re not saying what the weapon is,’ Dad said.

‘Do they usually name the weapon?’ Caitlin asked.

‘Yes. Especially if it’s an Aboriginal person.’

‘So what do you think is going on?’

‘The bloke was probably brushing his hair or teeth, and his hairbrush or toothbrush is what they’re reporting as the weapon.’

‘That’s messed up!’ I said.

‘Sure is,’ Caitlin added.

The reporter on the radio said, ‘Demonstrations are occurring across the country with candlelight vigils being held in capital cities.’

‘A vigil sounds like a good thing,’ Caitlin said.

A Victorian politician spoke, saying, ‘The aggressiveness of protesters that surround the local police station in Alice Springs and those in Melbourne at Parliament House aren’t winning themselves any favours for their cause.’

‘Oh bullshit,’ Dad said, turning down the radio. ‘People are angry; a young boy has been shot. Who do they think they are, telling people how to protest?’ Dad said, and I leaned in. ‘At the end of the day, another young person has been killed by a police officer. And even if that kid had done something terrible, people are punished for their crimes in this country by imprisonment. You can’t kill someone.’

There was silence for a while and then Caitlin asked, ‘Do you think there’ll be any protests in Adelaide?’

‘I bloody well hope so,’ Dad said.

I sat back in my seat, thinking about all of the deaths in custody protests I’d been to in my life. It really sucked that my community was always needing to come together to protest, but what other option did we have – stay silent? Sometimes I worried about Dad, that he could be killed for talking out, or for doing the littlest thing wrong. I wondered if white kids needed to worry about these types of things.

I ending up dozing off and woke groggily. It was getting dark outside now. ‘Where are we?’ I said as Dad slowed the car down.

‘Got to say hi to Wapma,’ Dad said and then I knew exactly where we were.

We were about to enter Nukunu Country and there was no way that Dad would enter without performing our ritual.

We jumped out of the car and started walking towards the spring. Dad lit the path with his phone, picked some foliage off of a plant before crouching to pick up a rock.

I picked up a rock, too, and so did Caitlin once Dad had instructed her to.