The dog looks bad, covered in cuts and scrapes. Dan’s heart sinks at the thought of how it got there, chained up, dehydrated in the early morning summer sun. It growls, baring its teeth. Dan is on his way to school and decides he can’t just leave it there, and slowly but surely untangles the chain to lead it out of the sun.

Vowing to the dog and himself, he will be back with water after first period. This dog is the first real distraction Dan has had since his dad left. Now, Dan lives with his mum in a trailer park, having to look after himself a lot lately, as his mum is frequently gone for days.

Counting every minute in his assisted reading class, just as he counts the days before he can leave his stifling, hot, poor, and boring town, Dan’s thoughts are suddenly ripped from the stray dog, by a screaming siren in his school grounds.

Diving under their desks at their teacher’s instructions, they soon learn why there are armed men searching their school. People have broken free from the nearby Detention Centre. Dan doesn’t realise he is about to run into one.

The girl (Sima) looks frightened, and Dan is unsure what to do. Tell his teacher? Alert the guard who has let him go to the toilet block where the girl is hiding? Just as the stray dog needed his help, Dan wants to help this girl. Surely she can’t be dangerous like they say on the news? Surely she isn’t a terrorist?

Taking responsibility for her escape to a relative far away, Dan knows that rules and laws are made for a reason, but sometimes those rules are wrong. Not everything is black and white. He comes up against many authority figures, but he battles through – their flight not only changing the stranger’s life, but even eventually his own.

Quick Review

Told in two first-person viewpoints, Dan and Sima both feel fearful, not sure whether to trust in the other after all they have been told by media or experienced in the past.

The author didn’t want this story to be a political football as the Australian asylum seekers and refugees are portrayed in the media, but a human story, showing both sides through the eyes of a courageous Australian boy and a girl who has fled war, oppression and fear, just wanting somewhere to call home with her family.

This story races along, with no boring bits. Great read!

Author – Tristan Bancks

Age – 10+

Teacher’s Notes here

(Refugee, Asylum seeker, Detention Centre, Family, Escape, School, Animal, Dog, Crime, Action, Federal Police, Border Guards, Fence, Kindness)