"Not too fast. You need to pace yourself," I yelled out to Harry. My soccer coach yelled that out to me every week at training.
Like me, Harry didn't answer. He just kept bounding up like he was one of those goats who ran up and down mountains. His hand wasn't even touching the chain.
I heard Harry's father yell out not to race ahead. Then Dad yelled out, "It's not a competition, Max!" We ignored them.
Somehow I kept up with Harry. The tips of my fingers brushed along the chain. I was ready to grab it in case my time was suddenly up and the wind tried to blow me off Uluru. The backs of my legs were killing me, but I had a responsibility. Harry was only seven years old and I couldn't let him climb on his own. I glanced back down. Tyson was a fair way behind.
I called out to Harry, who was up ahead, "Let's stop for a sec."
"Why?" he yelled back.
Was he stupid? I kept going and tried to remember the rest of the US states. A blue cap flew past me. I pulled my cap down; the wind was getting stronger. I turned round to see where Mom, Dad and Charlie were. I saw Charlie's green T-shirt. It looked like they were heading back down. Could Charlie have got scared of the height already? It didn't matter; if I kept up with Harry, I'd beat Tyson. Turning back, I saw Harry was getting too far ahead, so I made a big effort to catch up. Now it wasn't as steep, but it was getting harder to walk with the wind blowing me sideways.
Lots of people were coming back down. They were talking to each other in a strange language. Actually, it seemed like only Harry and me were going up and everyone else was on their way down. They were all holding on to the chain real tight. Still, they weren't huffing and puffing like me.
A guy with heavy walking boots and a funny accent said to me, "Hurry, to top. The climb close soon - the wind."
I nodded because I was too puffed to answer. How did they close the climb? Wrap this humungous rock in a big black curtain and pretend it wasn't there? And who would close it? Two giants at the bottom who stopped people climbing and two giants at the top who made people go back down? I went faster, cutting through the wind.
When I reached the end of the chain, I wanted to lie flat on my back and recover. I knew how Nanna must've felt when she tried to keep up with Charlie and me when we'd walk to the shops near her place. But I kept going. Now broken white lines showed us the path. Harry was way up ahead - the smarty-pants. At least it wasn't steep any more. Uluru changed - now it was like sand dunes made of red rock. I caught up to Harry, who, of course, wasn't puffing at all.
Eventually, the path turned, so we must've been on the top. But still it went up and down and up and down. Some of the rock dunes were so steep we had to take a run up to get to the top and then slowly and carefully go down sideways. When we were at the top of a rock dune we could see forever. It was like being on top of the world because the ground below was so flat and went on and on. The Olgas, another famous Aboriginal sacred site, looked like a pile of random rocks in the distance. Every now and again there was a miniature mountain of stones, like someone had made gifts for any visiting aliens. We kept going up and down, up and down.
Finally, we saw a few people crowded round a fat stone post. We ran to it. Harry touched it first. Beaten by a seven year old again - embarrassing, I know. There was a brass plate with lots of arrows pointing to places.
Harry said, "Let's get to the end of the rock."
We ran off and danced in circles while we whooped as loud as we could. We'd done it! We'd reached the top. We probably should've got in Guinness World Records for the fastest ever time for two kids to climb Uluru.
I stopped because I got dizzy from going round in circles. Then I realized we were the only ones on the top. Everyone else had gone back down. Suddenly it felt spooky. It was too quiet. That sort of quiet there is when something bad is about to happen.
Harry was still running around in circles like a maniac. "Come on," I called out. "We should get going."
He yelled back, "I like it up here."
I couldn't be stuffed arguing with him. I did what Mom used to do with me. "Fine," I said, "but I'm going back down." I turned my back to him and walked back over to the path of broken white lines. For several seconds, I heard nothing and then ...
"WAIT!"
I stopped. Then I heard a sound that stopped my heart beating.