The echidna that wouldn't budge

The short story that became the cover story of the magazine pictured (above) almost wrote itself. Not really, of course, but that’s how it felt, and that’s why I’m telling you about it. It was a fictional story based on a real-life encounter with one of Australia’s oddest mammals, the echidna—and it taught me both about echidnas and about writing stories.

At the time, we were visiting my parents’ farm in rough, hilly bushland a few hours west of Sydney. We knew echidnas were around because we had often seen the gashes they left in the large ants’ nests and termite mounds. But we had rarely ever spotted one in real life because they preferred night-time and they kept to themselves. It was often years between sightings, and even then it was usually just a momentary glimpse on a far-off hillside.

And then one day, an echidna just wandered onto the dirt track we were driving slowly along in broad daylight. We shouted out in delight. The echidna spotted us as we spotted it, and it immediately did something which echidnas naturally do when startled at close quarters. Seeing nowhere to flee, it sank. With a flurry of movement and a churning of its heavy spade-like limbs, it dug itself straight down into the ground several centimetres. Its limbs and head disappeared. All that remained was its large arching back, bristling with spines.

And there it remained. It wouldn’t budge. By now, we had stopped the car, and were crowding around it. We had never been this close to an echidna before, not even at a zoo. With hushed voices, we took photos at close range. We softly ran our fingers along its thick spines. The echidna just stayed there, probably wondering who on earth we were.

But the key point—and the one that would later become the climax of my short story—was that I saw, for the first time ever, that an echidna was a real-life breathing mammal. From a distance, all you see are the spikes. But when you are right there, literally on top of it (as we were), you see that the spines are interspersed with soft, brown fur, and through the spines you see the echidna’s body gently moving as it breathes in and out.

It wasn’t too hard to turn this encounter into a fictional story. I made up a couple of human characters: a boy from the city visiting his cousin on an Australian farm; they ended up running after an echidna which came to a stop and half buried itself, just as our one had done. They too were amazed at the reality of the furry, breathing mammal under the spines. It was a moment of discovery for them, just as it was for us. Later, once I had written and submitted the story, the editors of The School Magazine very kindly made it the cover story of their Blast Off magazine, with some great illustrations by Peter Sheehan. To me, it was a prime example of just getting out into nature, encountering something wild, and then reimagining it as a story. That’s why I still try to get out into the wild when I can.