The Story behind Josephine, The Dancing Kangaroo
Once upon a time there was a kangaroo. Her name wasn't Josephine. It was Fuchsia. Her mother had been shot but Fuchsia, her joey, had survived, and in a roundabout way she ended up with us.
This was long before I ever wrote a book… well, no, actually, I'd written lots and sent a couple away, but neither had been published yet. My marriage had broken up and I lived on the few dollars from the odd article or story, and by cooking at a local restaurant on Saturday nights, while Edward and his babysitter watched TV upstairs, and ate garlic bread and mushroom steak and great bowls of salad, which I think has remained Edward's idea of a grand meal ever since…
Down in the valley we still lived in what was basically a machinery shed, with gas lights and a bathroom with a roof but no windows.
It sounds a grim time, but it wasn't. It was magic. Edward was a toddler and the trees were bearing fruit. It rained a lot that year and the creek gurgled and the grass grew…
And then Fuschia arrived.
Her adopted 'mother', Mary, was struggling to look after a pair of young swamp wallabies, guzzling and tearing up the furniture. It was too much to look after Fuchsia too, especially now she was getting bigger and needed to go for two walks and play outdoors. It's hard to give a joey enough exercise in the suburbs when there are dogs about.
Fuchsia would be able to bounce around our garden. And when she was ready she could hop off into the bush.
'I don't suppose you'd like to look after the swampies too?' asked Mary hopefully.
'Um, not really,' I said. There were enough swampies around at the time, chomping up my roses.
'She's the sweetest roo I've ever looked after,' said Mary. 'You'll love her.'
She was right.
Fuchsia liked looking at the world from my lap and chewing a bit of charcoal. Young 'roos need charcoal and bark and bits of wood for digestion. Fuchsia chomped them happily.
Edward loved her. A three year old and a joey like doing much the same things. They raced each other down the orchard. Fuchsia would always win; but she was very polite about waiting for him.
They'd play chase with waterpistols too, Edward squirting and Fuchsia avoiding. I don't think she ever did get wet; or even realise the point of the game; but it involved a lot of running about and bouncing.
The three of us went for a walk every dusk, that gentle time when the sun is behind the ridges and the animals come out to drink. Well, I walked and Edward toddled and Fuchsia jumped in great bounding circles around us…
Fuchsia soon learnt where all the gates were and the wombat holes under the fences; how you waited for one to be opened for you and wriggled through the other. But she never did learn not to jump on my bed.

Edward decided a kangaroo was better than a dog. He realised that we couldn't have both. But he wondered about other animals.
'Do elephants eat kangaroos?'
'No.'
'Can I have an elephant then?'
'No'.
'Why not?'
'They eat too much.'
'How about a camel?'
'No. They'd eat the orange trees.'
'Oh.'
'How about a tyrannosaurus?'
'Where did you hear about tyrannosaurus?'
'In a book at pre-school. Do tyrannosauruses eat orange trees?'
'No. But they might eat kangaroos.'
'Oh.' A pause. 'Are tyrannosauruses ferocious then?'
'Very.'
'Oh.'
He went back to scratching Fuchsia's tummy. Fuchsia liked having her tummy scratched. She'd lean back on her tail and scratch her tummy too.
Then one night, after the three of us came in from our evening walk, I put Peter Combe's 'Newspaper Mama' tape on for Edward to dance to while I made dinner… and when I looked around the two of them were dancing, boy and kangaroo.
She danced across the kitchen. She danced over the chairs. She danced over Edward too.
Every time I put a tape on after that Fuchsia danced, wonderful leaping dances. Sometimes it was hard to concentrate on cooking, and not just watch the boy and the dancing kangaroo.
Fuchsia was getting bigger now. Before she'd slept most of the time, coming out to play in the late afternoon. But now she was awake most of the night, bouncing around the kitchen. I left piles of grass for her to eat, under the chairs or behind the sofa, so she could have fun hunting them out.
By the time she was sixteen months old she spent every night outside. But she still liked her bottle in the morning.
I'd wake up to to the thundering of kangaroo feet as she did six wake-up-the-inhabitants circuits of the house. Then she'd be at the bedroom door... 'Eeeaaaarrr' - a noise that meant anything from 'feed me' to 'scratch my ears', a literal translation probably being, 'here I am'.
You can't sleep with a kangaroo bleating at the door. She was offended if I didn't open the door AT ONCE. 
And then…
I still shiver when I think of it. In those days, when Edward went to preschool, I wrote at a friend's house up in town, with Fuchsia in her basket and the friend's dog Imma sitting on my feet. Imma was one of the gentlest, best-trained dogs I have ever known, half black lab and half Alsatian. Imma would sniff at Fuchsia's basket but never even growl.
But one day my friend and Imma joined Edward and me for our walk. Something, a hawk maybe, spooked Fuchsia, so she ran. The running must have stirred a distant instinct because suddenly Imma ran too, and grabbed Fuschia by the throat.
Edward was screaming and I was crying as we pulled Imma's jaws apart. I had seen a wallaby injured like that just the year before - only two puncture wounds, but the wallaby's windpipe had been pierced. She died soon after…
I tried to lift Fuchsia to see how badly she'd been hurt. But she ran. I was an enemy now. I smelled of dog.
I never held Fuchsia again.
I never saw her, either. Not really. Not to say, yes, that's the kangaroo I know.
But about a year later, driving Edward back from pre-school, I stopped to open the farm gate. The tape was blaring out 'Newspaper Mama' and Edward was singing, and up on the hill was a mob of 'roos.
As we watched one of them broke away from the others.     
And she began to dance.