"Only the good die young," said Charlie from the back seat of the LandCruiser.
"You mustn't be good then." I looked up from my game and out the window to see red earth going on and on forever. Charlie was so full of himself; I couldn't believe the rubbish he came out with.
We'd been hot air ballooning and Charlie was in the first balloon with Mom. Dad and me were in the second balloon. At the end of the ride, Charlie's balloon landed in a tree. It was stuck for ages. But no one was going to die. Charlie was a drama queen. He wanted to think he escaped death. Before we went up in the balloons, he'd been carrying on about all the people who had died in hot air ballooning accidents. Once, thirteen people died when two hot air balloons crashed into each other. I reckoned he was jealous because two crocs nearly ate me and not him.
"Well," said Charlie, "I'm more good than you."
"Are not. You're a try-hard. That's what you are." I didn't look at him because I was about to win the race with my Ferrari in my game. "Good means being a good person, not being good at winning races or being the teacher's pet."
He didn't answer, so I thought I better use it to my advantage. "I might discover a cure for kids with cancer when I grow up and that would mean I was good."
"Yeah, well I'm going to end world poverty and discover how to reverse global warming. That makes me better."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom raise her head from her murder mystery. She said, "That's enough, you two. I'll be happy when you earn a living."
"Yeah," said Charlie, "Max can be a dog-food taster and I'll be an investment banker."
I ignored the dog-food-taster comment because I didn't want Mom to ask questions. "What do investment bankers do?"
"They earn lots of money. Some of them get million-dollar bonuses every year. I read in the newspaper that a bunch of them walked into a Ferrari shop and ordered one Ferrari each."
"But what do they do?"
"Who knows? Who cares? I just want a Ferrari - a red one."
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Mom glance at Dad and roll her eyes. She didn't like Charlie carrying on about expensive cars, the latest iPhone and all that sort of stuff.
"Well, I'm going to be the first person to walk on Mars." I knew that would impress her.
She turned round to look at me. "Is that right, Max? Since when have you wanted to be an astronaut?"
"I don't. I want to be the first person to walk on Mars."
Charlie sniggered.
"Oh," replied Mom before she turned back to her book.
Then I realized I'd been mega-dumb. I should've pretended to want to be an astronaut. Astronauts were smart and special. That would've made me look interesting and good and Charlie look greedy and bad.
"How much longer to Uluru?" Charlie asked Dad.
"That's tomorrow," he said. "We're walking around Kings Canyon today."
"How much longer?" Charlie whined.
"About an hour."
Charlie and me looked at each other. We both knew that meant two hours. However long Dad reckoned driving somewhere would take, it always took twice as long.
"So," I said, "we're just walking around the canyon. Nothing else? Nothing dangerous?"
Mom sighed. "No, Max, it's just an easy walk with great views of the canyon."
"What about dangerous animals? Vicious dingoes? Poisonous snakes? Killer spiders?"
"I'm sure there'll be snakes and spiders, but they'll be hiding from all the people walking around the canyon."
"A killer spider might drop down from a tree and bite me."
Charlie and Dad laughed out loud even though I wasn't joking.
Mom said, "Charlie can throw a stone at the killer spider before it bites you."
I groaned inside. Now Charlie was the family hero. That wasn't fair - I wanted to be the hero.