We run and get the boom winched off and Licorice moving, catching that onshore breeze to anywhere but here. Jag keeps cranking the torch and sweeping around the boat, checking for sharks and pirates and that the croc ain’t moved, and after seeing that old Pirate Bradshaw surf in on the swell with her wild wail and that knife between her teeth, I don’t think we can be too careful. I’m grateful for Jag being overcautious.
I locate the pointers on the horizon, the planet already turned too far from the Southern Cross, so I can keep Licorice Stix heading steadily south. All of us are too scared to stop.
The earth turns like it does, and soon enough the sun is on the horizon, so I throw out some lines coz we’re all starving. We get four large fish in a rush, and I give two to the croc and fillet the other two for us, and throw Uncle Croc the skeletons. I’m out of coconut and lime, so I have to pull the little solar oven out of the other hull and tilt it at the morning sun.
While we’re waiting for it to heat up, I find another bandage in the first-aid kit and keep Saleesi’s raw-fish-picking hands away from our breakfast fish by bandaging up her finger stump again. She’s given the end of her finger a beating, getting it to bleed all over Pirate Bradshaw and into the sea. Must’ve hurt something awful. Marta’s gonna have to stitch it when we get back.
Soon the oven puts out cooked-fish smells and we sit and pick the fish apart with our fingers, me and Jag putting our raw bits back in for more cooking when we find them, Saleesi jus’ swallowing hers down.
A full belly and skidding across the waves heading home makes me happy. Ain’t no way no one is gonna catch us now. Soon we’ll be back on the inland sea where Ma will skin me alive for taking her boat and letting a shark put a big old dent in the front.
Saleesi and Jag is both asleep when land comes into view, so I let them sleep on.
Uncle Croc lifts his head, waddles carefully to the front of the net and sniffs the air. ‘Go on,’ I say. ‘Even with a hole in your head, you can swim that far.’
But coz he’s a lazy croc that’d rather ride, or maybe he’s afraid Mama Shark ain’t got a belly full of pirate, he waits till we’re closer, then he turns back to me and opens his mouth wide, like he’s asking if there’s any chance of another fish.
‘Get off my boat,’ I tell him. ‘Right now!’
He shuts his mouth and slides into the sea. His tail swishes back and forth as he swims in to land. I hope he don’t hop up on every boat now and spect a meal.
I sail down the coast to the sunken surf coast towers and then turn in and sail the inland sea the way we always do when we’re heading home from salvaging.
Jag sits up yawning. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I thought I might never see this place again.’
‘We would always come to find you, Jag,’ I say.
‘And what if Valley of the Sun comes for me?’ he asks.
‘I gotta admit, that’s a real problem. They promised to come back and find out who killed Gerra’s sister. If Gerra can’t remember proper, then we might be in deep.’ Then I tell him what the boy who helped me with the croc told me on top of the hill. ‘Something happened after they cut down Aunty Meryn’s tree,’ I say.
Jag nods and we stare out at the Ockery Islands we know so well, the bays and fishing spots we’d named together. Fat Fish Bay. Sandy Channel. Snaggy Rock Gorge. Stumpy Point. Broken Tree Pass. Home.
This last little bit home seems like the longest part of the journey coz I know everyone is waiting back there to see what became of me and Jag and Licorice Stix, missing for so long, and coz even though I’ll be facing a lot of shouting, at least I’ll have fixed the problem I caused when I pulled the wires and got Jag taken.
