Bronwyn Blake Boeken

'The girl who watches the sky fears it. The sky presses onto the land, pinned down by the spikes and needles of the desert oaks. Along the seam of sky and land, colour bleeds from red earth and stains the horizon. If the great stitching of the trees were to give way, she and the sky would peel away and slowly spiral upwards until lost in infinite space.'------- This story traces the first seventeen years of Carrie, the main character, and the six interwoven lives of Carrie, her absent mother Caro, her grandparents Tash and Chancey, a friend Anna (Carrie's age), and Anna's mother Jenifer, both from Flinders Island.Caro at age sixteen has saved her close friend, Jenifer from drowning, but Jenifer has lost touch with her. When Caro abandons her child, Carrie for the last time at age four, Tash and Chancey bring up Carrie on the Northern Territory camel and cattle stations where they work.Anna, Jenifer's daughter, and Carrie meet three times as children. Caro's and Jenifer's relationship still remains unknown to the two girls.Carrie, an astute naturalist, is fascinated by the small desert mammals of central Australia, and after four years of searching in the Kings Canyon/Gill Range, re-discovers the Lesser Stick Nest rat, presumed to be extinct.