Chapter Twenty-Five
It hadn’t rained at Benbullen for more than a month. Each morning dawned clear and bright, like the one before it and the one to follow. The prolonged dry caused food shortages for many of the inhabitants of Beth’s garden, though this was not true for Zenandra and her children. They positively thrived on the sort of hardship that defeated others.
Beth relied entirely on rainwater and the house tanks were almost empty. She could no longer afford to water her plants. Colourful nectar-filled blooms withered and died on desiccated stems. Honeyeaters and butterflies foraged in vain throughout the dying garden. Until now, the European wasps had also relied heavily on those succulent flowers for food. Undismayed, they demonstrated their resilience by quickly identifying an a
