The day is hot, the air thick with the smells of the rainforest. Trees, tangled and lusciously wrapped in vines, dwarf the humans walking by. Two children lead the way, their steps fast and full with delight. The boy runs ahead, bouncing off the path to stand amid the snaking roots of a giant tree. The girl races to join him, jostling to fit into the perfect arc up against the trunk where two python-like roots, taller than the children, slither in opposite directions, forming a smooth-skinned wall. She sticks her tongue out and pushes him to the left. He moves, giving in to her, giving up his position.
This must be the oldest tree in the world, he says.
Says who? This isn’t the whole world, you know.
He frowns and folds his arms. You don’t know everything, Sahara.
Her fringe is sticky with sweat and she pushes the hair off her forehead with a chubby, mud-streaked thumb. Yeah, but one day I will. I’m gonna visit lots of other countries so I will know everything and I’ll always know more than you, so there. Sahara rests her head against the tree and closes her eyes. We should listen for the worms inside the tree, she says.
Worms don’t live inside trees. You made that up.
No I didn’t. There’s worms in all plants, silly. I can’t believe you don’t even know that.
Rip tries to hear the rustling of worms inside the ancient tree. He turns his left ear to the root, gritting his teeth against the cold of its surface. He listens for a while, trying to hear behind the layers of croaking frogs that seem to be all around him. I don’t hear anything, he says.
Rip, come on!
His eyes snap open at his mother’s voice. He’s alone now in the roots of the tree and his foot catches on a stone as he tries to run to join the others. Sahara reappears, her red jumper blurry in his vision as his eyes fill with tears.
You’re not meant to cry, you’re a boy, she says.
Rip stands up, sniffling as blood gathers under the nail of his right big toe that’s been pushed halfway back on itself.
Your mum’s calling us, I’ll race you to the waterfall, Sahara says, her shoes squishing down on layers of leaves and mud as she goes.
Rip’s eyes have dried and his mother holds his small foot under the brackish water, pressing the nail back down into place.
I told you to wear shoes, she says.
Yeah, I heard her in the car. She said you’d hurt yourself if you went barefoot, Sahara calls out from the flat rock platform behind them.
Rip watches his mother take his foot out the water and place it on her knee. She gathers up the ends of her skirt and folds the material around his foot.
Is that better? She asks.
Rip nods and forces a smile; he wants her to wrap his whole body up in the daisy print skirt and keep him there forever. This is my worst trip to the falls ever, he says.
Sahara splashes past them, heading for the place where the pool becomes shallow and the water gathers speed before it plunges over the edge.
We’re not meant to go that close! Rip warns her, causing his mother to turn towards the girl.
Sahara hops out of the river and squats to the left of the drop-off. She strokes the iron-red moss and laughs.
We’re not allowed! Rip shouts, pulling his leg out of his mother’s lap.
You’re such a wuss! she screams back, over the sound of the falling water.
Stop it you two, Rip’s mother says, Sahara, come back here please.
You’re not my mother, so you can’t tell me what to do, Sahara says. She bends and crawls forward, closer to the cliff.
Rip looks to his mother, searching her mouth for signs of what’s about to happen, but finds none so he sets his eyes on Sahara. He walks, his toe stinging with the rush of water under the nail, but he keeps on until he’s next to her, closer to the waterfall than he’s ever been.
See, it’s not even scary, she says.
Rip grabs hold of her arm and takes another step forward. Sahara shakes him off and steps closer now too, her right foot in front of her left. Rip squints at the distance between Sahara and the edge, where the rock disappears. There’s a strange, unfamiliar current running through him, a thrill of adrenalin up his spine. He jumps forward, past Sahara, and lands triumphantly, a metre from the edge. He looks out at the expanse of bush, thick and jungle-like from up here. He imagines all the birds and possums hiding in the leaves and then he looks down into the deep ravine below. He feels his head being pulled forward and he screams out for his mother.
She’s too late to catch her son and Rip’s cheek hits first, followed by the rest of him. Sahara scrambles back, out of harm’s way.
Rip sees his mother’s hands reaching for him, but something happens before they can clasp him. He sees her moving, slipping with the water to the gorge below.
Rip’s soul steps out of his skin. He is sucked up, beyond the clouds, to a place of thick cream and syrup gold. There are no edges or objects here, just a formless, nameless embrace. He calls for his mother, a voice responds: You cannot follow her, you must go back, back down to Sahara. Rip wrestles with the voice, but the stroke of a soothing wind overcomes him. You must stay with her, the voice says. And, just as his mother’s head dips below the surface, Rip sees the canopy of forest whizz past him and the spread of rock and river gets closer until he’s suddenly returned to his small-boy frame. He comes back into the searing pain in his face and the shock of his eyes staring helplessly over a precipice.
Mum… he says, but it’s too late.
They are well away from the water now, sitting together on Sahara’s jumper.
Sahara puts her hand on his knee and squeezes. She’s … she just fell.
Rip is frozen, his mouth too sore for words. A whip bird hops in the undergrowth next to them, flitting among the branches. Sahara moves closer to him at the sound of rustling. The bird punctuates the silence with a cracking call, a long whistle and a snapping, unforgiving flick at the end.
Rip wants to hear another bird calling back, but there is only this one bird, calling out into the still, fading day. I reckon it lost its mother, he says so softly that Sahara doesn’t hear.
His busted-open cheek has stopped bleeding; he feels his heartbeat there, where the bones are bruised and crying. Sahara’s hand is still stuck, stranded, on his knee. They haven’t moved off the rock, but he’s thought about it, wondering if it takes longer to walk back to the car or to bash a path through the bush to the bottom of the waterfall.
Maybe she’s turning into a mermaid down there, Sahara says.
Mermaids only live in the sea, even I know that, Rip says, the sky blushing apricot and a flesh-coloured pink as the sun begins to set.