Selected for Best Australian Stories 2006

GO DOWN TO the rock pools when the evening tide is out and there is a chance you will see them. Sometimes one will swim in among the mangroves in the tidal flats but the rock pools are best. Flame bugs are what we call them. I do not know if they have other names. I do not know where else they are found but our island. I have never heard them spoken of by anyone who doesn’t live here. The north-east wind comes in spring and blows the flame bugs to our shores. One October in boyhood, I took to going down to the rocks alone to look for them.