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meds,” they laughed. Mrs. Jasmine Trankof was insane. She was the hardest, meanest, craziest teacher they had ever had, but she was good. She was really good. They had started their group lessons with Mrs. Jasmine, as they had always called her because they were all too young to be able to adequately pronounce her last name.
     
    “Do you miss it, Nat? Do you miss playing on stage?”
     
    Natalia shrugged. “Every time I see you up there, or here you talk about some amazing concert piece you’ve just won over the heart of the audience with it makes me miss it a little. But then I look at pictures like these and I remember the way we were,” she turned the photo outward. Kelly was still missing her two front teeth, but this time her mother had snapped a photo when she was running around on her uncle’s ranch and had fallen face first in a pile of horse manure.
     
    “Give me that!” Kelly tried to snatch the photo out of Natalia’s hand and she wouldn’t let her. Several minutes of being chased around the house, one massive tackle from her sister in arms and the photo in dispute went to the victor—Kelly, who had tickled the darn thing away from her.
     
    “Fine,” she huffed. “I have another copy at my place.”
     
    “You,” Kelly frowned. “I have some damaging photos of you too you know. How would you like it if I sent a few to that hunky man you’re head over the moon in love with?”
     
    “You wouldn’t dare,” she gasped.
     
    “When you get back you hand over that photo or I’m mailing the package.” She laughed hard, which told Natalia her friend was not as serious as she seemed. But just in case, she would send her a copy since she did have three more at home.
     
    “I’m going to book our outback tour. It’s going to be so much fun. The angel and the devil tearing up the outback,” she hooted.
     
    Kelly’s mother had always said she was a little devil while everybody always thought that Natalia was an angel. “Don’t let her corrupt you,” Miriam, Kelly’s mother, had said as they sat at the table eating a bowl of her homemade ice cream. “That one I’ll have to bail out of jail someday, but not you Natty Pattaty. You are going to be a good girl.” And she had been good. She was always good. While Kelly was always the little hellion, but never once did she land in jail. She may have almost landed there, but she never did. Her good looks allowed her to flirt her way out of any situation. Natalia thought back to the officer who had stopped them when they were out joy riding in Kelly’s father’s car. Kelly had her license, but giving the keys to a Lamborghini to a seventeen year old was just asking for trouble. Going a good sixty miles over the speed limit had caught the attention of the state trooper set up with his radar. He was ready to slap the cuffs on her for the criminal speed limit she was doing, but one smile, her batting those cute blue eyes at him, and a little subtle flirting and she had a free pass, plus the cop’s number. Now if only he had known that Kelly was seventeen Natalia wondered if things might have gone differently. Kelly always could pass for a few years older than what she was.
     
    “All set,” she rounded the corner. “We are going to the outback,” she hummed in a perfect G-Major tune.
     
    Natalia spent the day helping her friend get settled and then she pulled out her laptop and emailed Alex. He had made her promise to email every day and since they would be in the outback for a couple days she wouldn’t be able to keep that promise. She wanted to let him know where she was going and how long she would be gone, so she typed up the particulars and sent the email to Alex.
     

 

     

     

     
    Chapter Four
     
    H ow one outing could go so horribly wrong was a mystery to Natalia. Everything was on point. They were having fun. They were seeing the sights. They had ditched the big tour jeep and were hiking in to the camping location. It was a