I drop a fishing line while I wait for the croc to figure it out, and even though it takes a long time to hook my first fish, the croc’s keeping on thrashing.
I’ve got the fish chunked and soaking in one of the jars of lime juice and coconut I brought with me, and still the croc’s struggling. I throw a few more buckets of sea water over him, with him opening his jaws to warn me not to get too close. Then I throw him the fish skeleton, right into his open toothy jaws. He snaps them shut and rolls the kill roll, and that gets two of his feet out, and then he’s a bucking, thrashing ball of fury with two feet and a tail, bashing around, angry that the other two feet is still tied up.
‘Don’t you break this net!’ I yell at him. ‘Ma will kill us both!’
A boat heading out to sea comes past the headland. I should be getting my sails up, croc or no croc, ready to speed away in case it comes to see what I’m about. But it don’t turn my way. It keeps heading out to sea. Something glints off the prow. I grab the spyglasses, aim them across the sloshing blue sea, and finally slide across a pale hull. I move them back again and adjust the focus.
There’s a golden sun on the prow, and five little heads. It’s the Valley of the Sun boat! But where’s it going? Even I know there ain’t no land that way, not for a boat that size.
I throw the sail line on the winch and wind out the sail. Must be they’s jus’ going fishing, and they’ll turn back once they get some fish for dinner.
I can’t be on them like a tick, I gotta be on them like a croc, jus’ my nose and eyeballs sticking out of the water to see where they’s going. I gotta hang back. I swing the sail so it’s jus’ catching the wind. I’ll plod along south of them until they head back in.
I dunno where Valley of the Sun is, I’m jus’ thinking it’s north, but what kind of people live in a valley since the risen sea anyway? Must be some massive sea wall that keeps a valley dry.
I spend the rest of the afternoon checking the Valley of the Sun boat with my spyglasses, chucking water on the croc who only moves when he gets a bit of water on him, and eating the chunks of fish as I sail along slowly heading out to sea.
The boat is too far away for me to know if they’re casting lines. Too far even for me to see their heads through the spyglasses. But they keep trawling further and further out. Further than any boat of ours would usually dare go, so I’m happy to hang back.
Then I check and there is no boat. Jus’ a dot of a sail on the horizon.
I turn to the croc. ‘Uncle Croc, it may be that they ain’t coming back. That they know of an island out there somewhere, and we’re gonna have to move! There’s pretty much no chance of you ever finding your way back to Dog’s Elbow, so you best hang on.’
I swing the sail into the wind, and check the tell-tale woolies is blowing like they should, and hoist a jib sail too. I gotta get moving before I lose that speck of them!
I sail hard into the giant rolling waves of the open sea. Licorice creaks and groans and thumps the waves, and each one that hits the net smacks the poor croc in the belly. I chuck him some chunks of fish to make him less miserable. I can’t eat it all. It only lasts a couple of days in the lime juice in this heat.
When I left home to chase down my friend Jag, I din’t think I’d be attacked by crocs, and sailing further out to sea than I’ve ever gone.
