Birrung the Secret Friend (12 page)

Now place a layer of cooked onions in an ovenproof pot. Elsie cooked hers on the side of a fire, but it's easier these days to put the pot in an oven. Add a layer of toasted bread, scatter on cheese, then alternate layers
of onions, bread and cheese till it is all used up. Finish with a scatter of cheese.

Pour on the stock or water. Place in the oven with no lid on. Cook at 200°C for two hours, or on a lower heat for longer. Serve very hot, scooping up layers of bread, cheese and oniony broth with each serving. It will look a mess but be delicious.

Barney Bean and Elsie have secrets, and so does history: there are many little-known events and people in our past. Each of The Secret Histories books will reveal another surprise in our heroes' journeys, as well as something from Australia's early years you may not have read about before.

Historical

Somewhere Around the Corner • Dancing with Ben Hall
Daughter of the Regiment • Soldier on the Hill • Hitler's Daughter
Lady Dance • How the Finnegans Saved the Ship
The White Ship • Valley of Gold • Tom Appleby, Convict Boy
They Came on Viking Ships • Macbeth and Son • Pharaoh
A Rose for the Anzac Boys • The Night They Stormed Eureka
Oracle • Nanberry: Black Brother White • Pennies for Hitler
I am Juliet • To Love a Sunburnt Country

Fiction

Rain Stones • Walking the Boundaries • The Secret Beach
Summerland • A Wombat Named Bosco • Beyond the Boundaries
The Warrior: The Story of a Wombat
The Book of Unicorns • Tajore Arkle
Missing You, Love Sara • Dark Wind Blowing
Ride the Wild Wind: The Golden Pony and Other Stories
Refuge • The Book of Horses and Unicorns

Non-Fiction

Seasons of Content • How the Aliens from Alpha Centauri
Invaded My Maths Class and Turned Me into a Writer
How to Guzzle Your Garden • The Book of Challenges
Stamp, Stomp, Whomp • The Fascinating History of Your Lunch
Big Burps, Bare Bums and Other Bad-Mannered Blunders
To the Moon and Back • Rocket Your Child into Reading
The Secret World of Wombats
How High Can a Kangaroo Hop? • A Year in the Valley
Let the Land Speak: How the Land Created Our Nation
I Spy a Great Reader

The Animal Stars Series

The Goat Who Sailed the World • The Dog Who Loved a Queen
The Camel Who Crossed Australia
The Donkey Who Carried the Wounded
The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger
Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent

The Matilda Saga

1. A Waltz for Matilda • 2. The Girl from Snowy River
3. The Road to Gundagai

The Secret Histories Series

Birrung the Secret Friend

Outlands Trilogy

In the Blood • Blood Moon • Flesh and Blood

School for Heroes Series

Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior • Dance of the Deadly Dinosaurs

Wacky Families Series

1. My Dog the Dinosaur • 2. My Mum the Pirate
3. My Dad the Dragon • 4. My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome
5. My Uncle Wal the Werewolf • 6. My Gran the Gorilla
7. My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken • 8. My Pa the Polar Bear

Phredde Series

1. A Phaery Named Phredde
2. Phredde and a Frog Named Bruce
3. Phredde and the Zombie Librarian
4. Phredde and the Temple of Gloom
5. Phredde and the Leopard-Skin Librarian
6. Phredde and the Purple Pyramid
7. Phredde and the Vampire Footy Team
8. Phredde and the Ghostly Underpants

Picture Books

Diary of a Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
Pete the Sheep (with Bruce Whatley)
Josephine Wants to Dance (with Bruce Whatley)
The Shaggy Gully Times (with Bruce Whatley)
Emily and the Big Bad Bunyip (with Bruce Whatley)
Baby Wombat's Week (with Bruce Whatley)
The Tomorrow Book (with Sue deGennaro)
Queen Victoria's Underpants (with Bruce Whatley)
Christmas Wombat (with Bruce Whatley)
A Day to Remember (with Mark Wilson)
Queen Victoria's Christmas (with Bruce Whatley)
Dinosaurs Love Cheese (with Nina Rycroft)
Wombat Goes to School (with Bruce Whatley)
The Hairy-Nosed Wombats Find a New Home (with Sue deGennaro)
Good Dog Hank (with Nina Rycroft)
The Beach They Called Gallipoli (with Bruce Whatley)

Photo by Kelly Sturgiss

JACKIE FRENCH
is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator and the Australian Children's Laureate for 2014–2015. She is regarded as one of Australia's most popular children's authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction. ‘Share a Story' is the primary philosophy behind Jackie's two-year term as Laureate.

You can visit Jackie's website at:
www.jackiefrench.com

Angus&Robertson

An imprint of HarperCollins
Children'sBooks
, Australia

First published in Australia in 2015

by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Text copyright © Jackie French 2015

Illustrations copyright © Mark Wilson 2015

The rights of Jackie French and Mark Wilson to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
Publishers

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2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada

195 Broadway, New York NY 10007, USA

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

French, Jackie, author.

Birrung the secret friend / Jackie French.

ISBN: 978 0 7322 9943 9 (paperback)

ISBN: 978 1 4607 0321 2 (ebook)

For ages 7–10.

Secret friends—Juvenile fiction.

A823.3

Cover design by HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover illustration by Mark Wilson

Cover images: Girl by Penny Tweedie / Alamy; background textures by shutterstock.com