The Australian sun had only just risen, and yet the sky was as cloudless and blue as a delicate porcelain teacup. It ended in a white haze as it touched the horizon, where the red soil stretched for miles, dotted only with boab trees and rounded sand dunes that rolled in all directions.

The car passed over a hill and suddenly dropped downward. I squeezed my eyes closed as my stomach twisted hot and sharp, and the sound of my pulse swelled inside my ears until the beating of my own heart was the only thing I could hear. The ship journey from England to Australia was well over a month, and yet I was still unused to the sensation of my feet being planted on the floor of the bus while the world streaked past in colorful blurs.

"Oh look Fel, deer!" exclaimed Professor Vale, from the front seat. His voice was muffled, as though it had come from a long way away, and I had to blink feverishly before I could make out the scattering of brown dots in the distance that he was pointing to.

"There are no deer in Australia" said the driver, with his eyes still planted firmly on the dirt road ahead. "Those are horses."

Professor Vale laughed sheepishly and caught my eye, "Well, all the same. One of God's wonderful creations, aren't they?"

I tried to nod my head but when the word began to swing with it, I stopped and rested my temple against the vibrating window.

Vale was a professor at King's College in London and I had worked with him since I received a scholarship to the school three years ago. When I knew him he was well-regarded and considered an expert in the field of microbiology. These days saying you work with 'Vale' is met with ridicule or a sarcastic smirk, if any recognition at all.

We had become close over my time at the university, though I was not among his most distinguished students by any means (I lacked the rigid obedience needed to attend each class and take notes religiously. And I found the nightly readings dull). I think Vale only took a liking to me because when I was accepted into the university at fifteen I was the youngest student in 103 years, and I'm sure Vale pictured me as some kind of child prodigy bursting with poorly-formed but promising ideas that, with his careful shaping, could bring about a greatness that every scientist of that time craved. Though scientists will insist we don't care for a spectacular future of newspaper interviews and praises from the queen, we all hold on to that blurry-edged dream on the periphery of our vision, that is both so distant, and yet with a stroke of luck, so possible.

Unfortunately, I had always been unambitious and rather lazy. The only reason I had chosen microbiology out of all the sciences was because I thought it would be easy. After all, how many secrets could a single cell or a wiggling strand of bacteria hold? But it turned out the science of minute organisms is nothing but arcane darkness and black hollows of mystery, and it occurred to me only too late that it would take a lifetime to fathom the secrets of even the most humble virus.

At the end of my third year I had to take my exams, and instead of studying I spent those preceding months unable to eat or wash or even get out of bed. I lay horizontal and wondered what would happen if I failed the exams. I knew I would lose my scholarship and would have to leave the school. But I found it wasn't the humiliation of being kicked out that bothered me so much, more so the thought that I would have to find something else to occupy my every hour.

I only overcame my paralysis three days before the day of my exams and for 72 hours I lived and breathed in a little universe of nothing but microbes and proteins and disease. Almost feverishly, I consumed coffee by the liter and bore over textbooks until the words swam before my eyes.

After the final exam I collapsed in Professor Vale's office and lay still on his armchair for a long time, aware that I was dreaming yet still conscious. In my mind's eye I saw my future as an outcast drunk, loitering on the streets of Bedford square, sharing the pavement with rodents and jeering at any girl who walked past.

"What's the matter with you?" frowned Vale He was examining the hand-written label on one of thel bottles of wine he kept on the top shelf of his bookcase. He peered at me over his glasses with the dusty bottle still held up to his face, "Your exams are over, you should be celebrating."

I didn't say anything. I didn't even move my eyes as I considered how much like dinosaurs the trees outside looked.

Vale sighed and sank next to me into the armchair, spilling a drop of dark wine on his shirt. I immediately shifted upright, Professor Vale was unpredictable, especially when he had been drinking, and that was a given on the last day of the school year.

"Come now, have a drink. Loosen up a little." He patted my knee, letting his hand linger there for a few moments longer than necessary. He did this often, grazing his hand against my leg, friendly and unassuming at first until it became more of a caress and his hot palm would creep higher and higher, so slowly I would barely notice. I would usually let him continue until he reached the flesh of my inner thigh before I stopped him.

If I stopped him.

This time I recoiled instantly. I tucked my legs underneath me and he withdrew his hand as though I had struck it.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just not in the mood."

He paused and hung his head. I could hear the sound of his throat as he swallowed," It's because I'm old isn't it? You find me old and disgusting and I repulse you."

Any other day I would put on my coy facade and tell him that at fifty-seven years old he was still as handsome as in the portrait of himself as a teenageer that he kept framed on his desk. I would insist that his hair was more blonde than white, that I didn't mind his liver spots or varicose veins, or the hair that sprouted from his ears.

"it's not that."

"It is. I see it on your face every time I touch you."

"No," I said quietly, "I think I've failed my exams."

He threw back his head and let out a bark-like huff of laughter. "Come now, Fel. You're the best student I have. If you didn't pass I would lose my job."

It was only when I didn't reply that his good humor simmered quickly. "And- and even if you did, we've all failed a class or two. It's nothing that can't be fixed."

"If I fail I'll lose my scholarship. I'll be kicked out."

"Oh," he ran his tongue over his wine-stained lips, "Well, the exams aren't marked quite as blindly as I say they are. I won't let that happen."

I shifted away, because his warm leg began pressing firmly into mine. "Maybe I don't care if I fail."

"What's that?"

"What if I don't want to stay in this course? Maybe I don't want to spend the rest of my life hunched over a Petri dish."

"Rubbish" Vale sputtered out. "Of course you want to stay. You're just overthinking things because you're scared, that's all."

"I'm serious"

Professor Vale stood up and set his drink down. He paced the room and unbuttoned his collar, and then buttoned it again. His face was flushed and I knew that by this point he was probably too tipsy to even remember the conversation.

"You came to me so young. What were you, sixteen?"

"Fifteen,"

"Fifteen" he paused on the number, his face relaxing as if it were something delicious to be savoring. He brought himself back quickly. "Which proves my point even more. It's natural to second guess yourself, I would have never imagined myself teaching at your age. It was only later in life I realized my true passion was with young boys."

Before I could reply Vale continued. "You remind me of myself- intelligent, but dreamy. You feel your future lies elsewhere in a place that is more than this. But sometimes we have to make do with what we have, and you have worked too hard to give up. Just finish your studies and you'll see what real science is, past the textbooks."

I hadn't realized Vale stopped talking until I looked up and his watery eyes were staring expectantly into mine. I was suddenly overcome with a need to be alone and I told him I'll think about what he said and picked up my coat.

"Wait," Vale said as I reached for the door and I hesitated with it half open."Is that all you see me as? Just an old man hunched over a Petri dish?"

I pretended not to hear him as I closed his office door behind me.

Whether it was by my own doing or Vale's interference, I managed a passing grade in all my classes. Though the scores were embarrassingly low, and I was forced to recieve a lecture from the Dean on the fate of my scholarship if my efforts didn't improve.

"Also something else," the Dean added afterwards with an irritable sigh, "Professor Vale is spending the break at a university in Australia, and has asked to be accompanied by a research aid to" -he flapped his plump hand- "help with his research I suppose. Anyway, he has recommended you, are you interested?"

I knew nothing of Australia then, just that it was a land of rugged plains and heat so great it made you want to peel your own skin off. But wasn't that what I had always wanted? A life elsewhere in a place that was frightening and vast and unknown

I felt suddenly giddy with excitement, for what was the first time I could remember. I pictured myself in the thickets of a steaming Australian rainforest, willing towards myself the animals of the land- the oversized rodents that jumped on hind legs, the duck-billed platypus, the crocodiles, the cassowaries.

I knew then that there was nothing I wanted more than to go on this trip. "Yes sir, I am"

"Oh good," replied the Dean without looking up. "Your ship leaves in three days."

That was how I came to be on the bus as we sped through the Australian outback, willing myself not to vomit all over my lap.

My only comfort was that we had reached Australia and I was finally pursuing the earliest craving that had plagued me since birth-

to escape