Harry and I headed to the boat. This river was narrower than the river with the jumping crocs. The water was very brown, but for some reason it wasn't as scary. Big trees lined the banks, which made everything seem peaceful. Just then Tyson ran past and rammed his shoulder into Harry's back. Harry stumbled and fell. I called out, "Bully!" to Tyson and helped Harry to get up.
"What'd he do that for?" I asked.
Harry shrugged. "He only does it when Mom and Dad aren't watching."
"Why?"
He shrugged again. "I dunno. It doesn't matter."
My blood heated up inside me. I felt like pushing Tyson the Terrible over. Charlie mightn't be the best brother in the world, but he never hit me just because he felt like it. "We'll sit far away from him."
"Yep." He jumped up in the air and gave me a big smile.
He didn't deserve a brother like Tyson the Terrible.
Tyson sat down next to Alyson and Charlie up the front of the boat. There was room for us, but we went down the back. The boat was small and the back had nearly filled up. I squeezed in next to an old lady and Harry followed.
He whispered to me, "I don't want to be near the water."
I couldn't tell him I didn't want to be near it either. I turned to the old lady. "Would you like to sit at the end? You'll get a better view."
"Oh, no," she replied, "I'm scared of crocs. I can hardly bear looking at them. My daughter made me come."
I nodded. Great - for all I knew the boat might be full of people who were secretly terrified of crocs. I swallowed hard and swapped seats with Harry. It didn't matter because I had a plan. I wouldn't listen to the guide and I wouldn't look at the crocs. In my head I'd sing all the songs I could remember from Oliver so I couldn't hear the guide.
Once everyone had found a seat, the guide told us we'd be going up the river and getting off on the other side of the bank, which was Arnhem Land. There he'd tell us about how the Aboriginal people lived on the land. Then he gave us a safety talk. I listened ... just in case. He went on a bit, but basically he said, if the boat sank, most of us would get eaten. Everyone laughed. Yeah, hilarious.
The boat began to move and suddenly I had a real bad feeling. Was it too late to take a running jump off the boat? Already there was a lot of water between the boat and the shore - I guessed it was too late. And, anyway, I couldn't leave Harry by himself. I sucked in my breath and decided to be brave.
Harry pulled Batman out of his pocket and began to play with it. In the front row, Charlie and Alyson were laughing and carrying on like they were best friends. Tyson was sitting near them, but they were ignoring him. Mom and Dad were next to Harry's parents in the row behind Charlie.
The guide began talking so I sang "Consider Yourself" in my head. The problem was I kept forgetting the words. I was meant to know them off by heart by now, because I was in the chorus of the musical at school. I gave up because I didn't want to mix up the words and memorize the wrong ones. So I couldn't help listening to the guide.
And anyway, he was pretty interesting. He said he was Aboriginal. His people lived on the other side of the river, so he knew lots of stuff. What was good to eat, how to avoid getting eaten by a croc, how to make a weapon from a bit of wood and how to kill animals to eat. He told us about how the women gathered food and the men hunted. It was pretty interesting really. For a minute I forgot to be scared of the crocs.
And then, on the bank, I saw one - a humungous one. It slid into the water, so all I could see was the very top of its ugly head. I shivered. It was disgusting. Why would God make something so ugly?
By the time the boat landed on the other side of the river, I'd seen heaps of crocs. I tried to look up into the gum trees, but my eyes kept searching the river - I couldn't control them.
Everyone had to get off the boat and climb up some rocks. Harry and me found a ledge and we wedged ourselves into it. The guide talked more about Aboriginal stuff and then he got a long stick and showed us how to throw it. The stick went way up in the air and nearly reached the other side of the river.
Everyone gasped in amazement.
Tyson jumped up and said to the guide, "Can I have a go?"
The guide laughed. He got Tyson another stick and showed him how to throw it. Tyson did a good throw, but the stick got caught in a tree.
Everyone laughed and Tyson turned round and gave us all an evil look.
"He's mad," Harry whispered to me.
We all got back on the boat. I thought that'd be my chance to sit in the middle of the boat, but everyone else sat in exactly the same place as they had before. I supposed it didn't matter. The cruise was more than half over; we only had to go back up the river. The boat had made it this far without leaking.
Next to me, I heard Harry. "Give it back," he demanded.
I turned round to see that Tyson the Terrible had squashed himself between Harry and the old woman. And now he had Harry's Batman. Tyson got bored easily; I could tell. There was an annoying boy in my class just like him. He did stuff just to make you mad - like steal everything in your pencil case except the pencil shavings - just because he felt like it.
"Tyson," I said, real polite, "do you want to play paper, scissors, rock?"
He did and it worked because he put down Batman, and Harry, who was sitting between us, picked it up. We played seven rounds; he won the first two but then I won the next five. He wasn't happy. Actually he was getting pretty mad; his face looked all hot and he kept huffing and puffing. If I could've let him win I would've, but how can you let someone win paper, scissors, rock?
In a real nasty voice, he said, "That's a stupid game. Let's play a different game." He grabbed Harry's Batman again.
Straight away I could see he was going to chuck it. I jumped up onto my seat. Then he chucked it way over my head, so I had to leap up. Then everything happened in slow motion. I caught it, but then I lost my balance. One foot hit the edge of the boat ... I tried to find the seat with my other foot but I couldn't. I fell back through the air. The whole way down I was thinking, THERE ARE CROCS IN THIS RIVER! Then I hit the water.
My back hurt as it hit the water. Then I went under. Yuk! It was cold, muddy and disgusting. I came up to hear people screaming their heads off. I saw the old woman's terrified face and Harry bawling. I WAS CROC MEAT!