In the end, escaping Dad was easy because Noah experienced a brainwave overnight. We did the usual morning routine with Dad hauling Noah out of bed, Noah grumbling his way into the kitchen and plonking himself down at the table. The next bit was different, however. ‘Not going to work today. It’s Sunday. A holiday. My birthday — whatever, but I’m taking the day off.’
Aha! I picked up my cue without a ripple. ‘If he can have the day off, then I can too. No bread, no chooks, no garden, no cooking, no listening watch. Yippeeee!’
Dad kept eating. ‘No point. Nowhere to go. Nothing different to do. Might as well work.’
‘Feel like a break,’ said Noah. ‘Not going to work.’
‘If he doesn’t, I don’t,’ I said.
‘You’ll have to do my jobs,’ I said. ‘If we run out of bread, we’re sunk.’
‘Your mo … Liv can do it.’
I breathed deeply and achieved a bit of calm and patient. ‘No, she can’t. She can’t stand up for long enough. She gets sick. The smell of the yeast makes her sick and so does the cooking smell.’ I jumped up. ‘I’m off. Gone. Not here. Please yourself what you do except you’d better feed the chooks because they don’t deserve to starve.’ And that reminded me that a few supplies might be useful for us as well. I chucked stuff in a backpack and we legged it out of there leaving pissed-off Dad alone with the radio, the chooks and Mum.
‘They might start talking,’ I said.
Noah didn’t even bother to say yeah right.
We headed for the shed. ‘Everything that’s ever been on this island is in here,’ he said. ‘There’s gotta be stuff we can use and I know there’s a fishing line. Saw it the other day.’
We collected anything that looked useful. I piled it in the wheelbarrow but Noah said, ‘We’ll tie it on the land yacht. We’ll grab a rope each and let it run down the hill. Easier than the barrow.’
Goodness, the brother was really engaging the brain over this. I didn’t think it would work, but it more or less did except for losing a spade and a pickaxe, which I didn’t think we could possibly use, but he stopped, picked them up and tied them back on.
Turned out it’s not so easy to get a fully laden land yacht down a one-in-two gradient. A couple of times the whole caboodle nearly took off on us. Dad would not be delighted if we dumped this little lot out of reach down on the rocks.
‘Whew! Made it!’ said Noah. He manoeuvred the yacht so that the wheels weren’t in danger of spinning off over the edge of the slip.
We looked down to where the land had tumbled away in a fall of rock and rubbish down to the sea. Maybe this idea wasn’t so brilliant after all. ‘You can see why the old guy had to leave,’ I said. I pointed to a sliver of shelf above the slip. ‘That must be what the penguins use but I don’t see us being able to waddle along there.’
Noah hardly gave it a glance. He ratted around among the supplies and hauled out a rope. ‘I reckon this is the way to go.’
‘How?’ I asked, a tad snippily. I was disappointed. My grand idea was a fizzer and, to top it off, we’d have to haul that load of useless junk back up the hill.
‘Tie it to something.’ Noah strode around, stamping his boots on the ground doing the big I am an engineer act.
I was not impressed. ‘Like the yacht, for instance?’
He grinned at me. ‘I was thinking more of bashing a post into the ground and using that.’
Okay, that might work. ‘Is the rope long enough?’
He unwound it and threw one end over the ragged edge of the track. It caught on a rock towards the bottom. ‘Even if it only gets us to there, we can climb the rest of the way.’ He grinned at me. ‘Let’s do it.’
I grinned back. ‘Right on, brother.’
He grabbed a post and the pickaxe. ‘Not too near the edge. It’s probably a bit unstable there.’ Aha! That would be the reason for all the stamping and thumping earlier.
We chose a spot about a metre back from the edge and we hacked and dug and hacked some more. ‘Have to bury it pretty deep,’ Noah said. ‘Don’t want it coming out when we’re halfway up.’
The things a girl does. I was going to come off this island with enough muscles to slug Lizzie senseless if she was ever stupid enough to cross my path. I set up the camera so it would record my attempts at hacking my way to China.
‘Spain,’ said Noah.
‘Whatever.’
We ate all our supplies. We dug some more, until the great engineer decided it would do. We put the post in and tamped the earth down — a technical term previously unknown to me.
I won the who will tie the rope on contest on the grounds that I’d been a Brownie for two whole terms, during which time I’d achieved my knot-tying badge. Couldn’t remember any of them but Noah didn’t need to know that. He won the right to go first down the rope, mainly because he just went.
‘You better yell if the post comes loose,’ he said when he was a quarter of the way down.
And how would that help?
He got to the end of the rope and there was still a big gap between him and the beach. He looked up at me and his face was one huge grin. ‘This could get interesting. No footholds. I’ll have to drop on to that rock.’ He nodded at a rock about a metre below him.
‘It might give way!’ I screeched, seeing mangled brother in my mind.
‘Yeah, but it might not. Only one way to find out.’ He let go, dropped, landed, wobbled then stabilised and the rock stayed where it was. ‘Yeehaaa!’
‘Noah?’
‘What?’
‘How are you going to get back up?’
He didn’t answer — too busy scrambling down the tumble of rocks to the beach, but his laugh floated up. I solved the problem. I hauled the rope back up and lengthened it by tying the handles from the yacht on to it.
I chucked the camera around my neck, grabbed the rope and began the grand descent. Whoever would have thought PE would turn out to be a halfway useful subject? All those rope sessions in the gym came pouring back.
Stones and dirt rattled away from under my feet. Maybe we should’ve dug that post in deeper. I could see it in my mind, slowly sliding out and out.
Noah’s voice came bouncing up to me. ‘I’ve got the hook baited. I’ll just climb out here and throw the line in.’
I felt he’d be much better employed acting as a landing pad in case of post slippage or knot undo-age but I was a bit too occupied to yell at him.
Aha! At last — the knots. Not much further and — yippee — there was a solid rock under my slightly shaky feet. Made it.
I took a shot of the slip. Quite impressive. Now for the brother with the fishing line.
No reply, but I located him — lying flat on a large, jagged rock sticking out into the waves and a couple of metres above them. He turned his head and I caught his grin on camera. I ambled towards him. Now that I was here, now that I was faced with the possibility of murdering an innocent fish, I discovered I wasn’t all that keen on the idea.
But it would be so damned good to eat.
‘Think it’ll work?’ I asked, dropping down beside prone bro.
‘Shh.’
Oh yeah. Sorry. Forgot. You have to fish in silence. I could do that. I lay down too, but on my back. I could get to like this — sun, sea, birds, no wind, no warring parents and Noah doing all the work.
I think I went to sleep, then I woke up and fishing had lost its appeal. ‘Going exploring,’ I whispered.
Noah nodded and kept holding the line.
Another whisper. ‘Is the bait still on it?’
He gave me a look that started off in the superior what would you know about anything range and ended up down the thoughtful end. He pulled the line in. No bait. I chuckled and got out of there in case he decided I was on bait duty.
I jumped down on to the sand, sat down and took off my boots. Sand! Should have brought the spade down because this beach needed a sandcastle. Next time.
I put my boots back on and ventured into rock-land at the other end of the beach. Rock-land, I discovered, was inhabited by seals. At first I was enchanted — sweet, furry, cute seals, but then one of them did what seals do — let loose a huge shit. It stank, reeked, ponged. Time for a quick departure. I sat on the sand and admired the shags. They probably stank too.
It had to be getting late judging by the shadows slithering across my patch of sand. I did a few shots of shadows with Noah artistically draped on the rock in the background. ‘I’m a child of nature,’ I said. ‘I now tell the time by the sun. And by my stomach which is possibly the more reliable instrument. Time to go and here’s hoping the father has created the best food ever. No harm in dreaming.’
I got up to tell Noah. But wait! Activity on the Noah front. I started to run because it looked as if he had a fish on the end of his line, or if not a fish, then a very active chunk of seaweed.
It was a fish and lucky for me, he had it up on dry rock by the time I arrived. Unlucky for me though, it was still highly alive. Noah was too, with a grin as wide as the fish’s gaping mouth. ‘Poor fish,’ I said, which maybe wasn’t quite the most appropriate response, but I don’t think Noah heard because the grin stayed put. He yelled, ‘Grab me a rock, Min,’ and I swear the grin didn’t move a centimetre all through that.
I grabbed a rock and passed it to him. I didn’t look, but I couldn’t help hearing the thwack on the head of poor old fishy.
I’d never be able to eat it.
Yes, I would. Especially if Dad cooked it. ‘Cool, bro,’ I said in an effort to make up for previous inappropriateness.
He took his eyes off the fish for a nanosecond so that I got the full grin plus the shine from the eyes. ‘Let’s go home.’
Sweet.
He tied the fish over his shoulder and I filmed the pair of them scrambling back up the rope. Hmmm. That was not looking easy. Maybe the post would come out and I’d have to live forever on the beach with cute but putrid seals as my companions.
Noah got to the top.
‘Wait up!’ I yelled. ‘Don’t go without me!’
‘Hurry up then.’
I couldn’t believe it, except that I could — my darling brother was actually going to scarper and leave me to get to the top all by myself (which of course I was going to do anyway but that was not the point).
I slung the camera around my neck and started the great ascent.
‘Watch out!’
I looked up and there, rolling towards me, was half the cliff.
I ducked a rock the size of a netball. It zinged over my head. Gravel and dirt cascaded over and around me. A medley of tree parts shot down beside me, taking with it more rocks. Something thumped into my left leg, knocking me sideways. I lurched and teetered before my hand seized a tree root and I regained my balance.
‘Get out to the side!’ Noah yelled.
I got. It took a good-sized leap and a frantic scramble until I was clear of falling debris. Falling debris. I’d seen those words somewhere. Yes, that was it: road signs. Funny what the mind will do when the body is in extreme danger. Another rock and a slide of rubbish hurtled down far too close for comfort.
‘You okay?’ Noah peered at me from the lip of the slip.
‘If the bloody earth stops moving I will be.’ And if I didn’t fall off the tiny ledge I’d landed on. Bits of me hurt but if I tried to look I’d fall.
‘Hang on and don’t move,’ Noah called. ‘I’ll get Dad.’
I shifted my left leg. It was hurting. Something rattled away from under my foot.
‘Don’t move, Min! Just don’t move a single muscle. You’re okay where you are. Hang on.’ Noah vanished with the last words.
How long before Dad came? Would he be able to rescue me when he did come? What could Noah see that I couldn’t? He sounded scared. My fingers hurt. Better find a better hold. That was funny — better better. Be good when my leg was better better ’cause right now it felt worser worser and I reckon it was bleeding too. What if I left all my blood on the side of a cliff and all that was left of me was empty skin and bones?
Hold on, Min. Don’t let go. Not much longer. You can do it. Dad’ll kill you if you let go.
How far was it down to the beach anyway? Maybe I could climb down. Be better than staying here. Better than better.
I twisted my head to look down, and down. Funny, it was a long way. Rocks below me. Hard to make sense of it. Not better. Worser. A laugh bubbled up inside me. No. Don’t laugh. If I laughed I’d have to move. If I moved then I might fall. Not that far. Not really. About as far as the ground was from the roof of a house. Don’t want to fall though. The rocks look hard.
The slip had taken with it the rocks we’d climbed up on. There didn’t seem to be anything beneath my feet. Holy crap, if my ledge gave way I was going to end up in rock-sized pieces for the seals to eat. Were seals carnivores? Think about it, Min — they probably don’t eat seaweed.
Losing your mind here, girl. Deep breath. Not too deep, though. Don’t want to move too much. Shallow deep breaths. Calm. That’s what’s needed. A good dose of calm. And patient.
Come on, Dad.
They came at last. I heard their feet pounding down the access way. I hoped they wouldn’t run so fast that they couldn’t stop and then we’d all be down here, mince on rocks.
My leg hurt. My arms ached. My fingers — don’t think about fingers.
‘Min? Can you hear me?’ Dad’s voice, sharp and urgent.
I didn’t move my head. ‘I’m okay. Want to come up though.’
‘We’re going to pull you up. Rope coming down now.’
There it was, dangling beside me. I stared at it.
Dad’s voice thumped into my head. ‘Put your left arm through the loop, Min. Carefully now. You can do it. That’s the girl. Well done!’
I stopped. Couldn’t do any more. Couldn’t let go with my right hand. Couldn’t face swinging out over the void.
Dad’s voice hit me again. ‘Hold on with your left hand. Swap your hands over, Min. That’s it. Good. Now get your right arm through the loop.’
‘Can’t.’
‘Yes, you can. That’s it. Gently does it. That’s good.’
I did it. Managed to push my arm through the loop, then I grabbed my hold back again with both hands.
‘Good girl,’ Dad said, still in that calm, slow voice. ‘We’re going to pull you up. Let go. That’s it. Well done. Use your legs to keep out from the cliff if you can.’
I dangled, swinging over sharp rocks.
The next few minutes were not the pleasantest of my life. The rope cut into my back and under my arms. I dangled and couldn’t do much to protect myself from the bumps and scrapes, but my mind hovered somewhere outside my body. It wondered if Dad and Noah would be strong enough to hold me or if they’d let me plummet to the bottom.
They didn’t. First, Noah reached down. ‘Give me your hand, Min.’
Then Dad grabbed the other one. They played swapsies. No, wrong. Dad now had both my hands and Noah was out of sight but since the rope was taut he probably was still hanging about. No, that’s right. Me. I was the one hanging about.
‘Min.’ Dad was speaking like I was a two-year-old idiot. Maybe he thought I was. ‘I’m going to pull you up on the count of three. Okay?’
‘Anything’s got to be better than this,’ I said, but Dad had got to three.
Wham! My arms jerked, stretching all the socket tendons and there I was, sprawling on the track.
That was not at all what I’d been expecting.
Dad gathered me up in the hugest hug. ‘You idiot. You stupid, daft, crazy idiot. I should beat you till you’re raw.’
‘Dad, look at her leg.’ Noah’s voice had a touch of urgency about it.
‘It’s not broken,’ I said. ‘I could stand on it. Hurts though.’
Noah’s face was an interesting shade of grey. ‘But look at the blood! She’s bleeding to death.’
Dad snapped, ‘She’d be dead by now if she was bleeding to death. Let’s have a look, Min.’
I was vaguely interested myself. Noah, however, turned his head away. Funny — he could kill a fish, but not look at a bloody leg. ‘Where’s the fish?’ I asked.
Nobody answered. Dad put both hands in a tear in the leg of my overalls and ripped. There was a gash above my knee and scrapes and grazing below it. ‘You’re bloody lucky this didn’t hit an artery,’ Dad said. ‘You’ll live.’ He sounded sorry.
I dropped my head. It felt like the wound was inside me, somewhere around my heart. But then he hugged me again. ‘Christ, Min — you damn near died. Idiot, you crazy idiot. I ought to belt the living backside off you.’ But he held me tight and I could feel the thumping of his heart. The soreness around my own heart vanished.
He let me go. ‘We’ll put something over the leg to stop the bleeding till we get you home.’
Noah handed him his T-shirt. Not the last word in an antiseptic dressing, but who was I to complain? Dad folded it into a pad but now we needed something to tie it with. ‘Have to be the bra, Min,’ Noah said.
Smart-arse. Did I prefer him when he’d been too stoned to have such bright ideas? But the bra it was. I filmed Dad tying it on even though my hand shook. Dad breathed deeply a few times but didn’t utter any of the words choking him.
They helped me to my feet and stood me up between them, an arm each around me. ‘I can walk,’ I muttered.
They ignored me. Just as well. Leg hurt like hell and I couldn’t put much weight on it. It was a long, long way up the path.
The wind caught us at the top so that the walk to the house wasn’t much easier.
Mum was waiting on the verandah. Dad and Noah eased me down on to the verandah seat and took off my boots. Noah lifted the camera from around my neck.
‘Inside with you,’ Dad said, helping me to my feet — foot.
‘Cold,’ I muttered.
‘You’ll be okay soon,’ Dad said. ‘Lie down here and I’ll fix that leg properly.’
Somebody had put a mattress beside the wood-burner. I folded myself carefully down on to it. Still cold.
‘Min!’ Mum whispered. She tucked blankets around me and put a hottie beside me. Dad lifted my leg and propped it up on something.
‘That’s right. Shock. Foot above head,’ I said, and I smiled at them. Nice. All of us here and being friendly. What more could a girl want?
A clean wound, apparently.
‘She needs antibiotics,’ Mum said, still in that ghostly whisper.
‘Have to make do with disinfectant and sterile water.’ Dad. Talking to Mum. Nice.7
I shut my eyes. It was lovely here in the warm. Better than on the beach. I could hear birds outside hopping on the wooden floor of the verandah. Birds smelled better than seals. No, maybe they didn’t. Fairy prion burrows smelt bad too. Nice to be warm again.
‘Ouch!’
‘Sorry,’ said Dad, not sounding it. ‘But we have to clean it up. God knows when this wind will stop. We have to keep this free of infection till the chopper can get in with antibiotics.’
Still cold.
Mum helped me out of my overalls and into PJs. ‘There’s a graze on your shoulder too.’
‘Can’t feel it. It’ll be all right.’
But no, it had to get the clean treatment too.
It was dark by the time they’d finished patching me up.
They had dinner. I didn’t want anything. ‘Not hungry.’ And I was still cold.