Keith opened his eyes and didn’t know where he was.
Above his head was a curved metal ceiling with rivets in it.
Then he remembered.
Van Number Six, Orchid Cove Caravan Park, Orchid Cove, Paradise.
Over in the other bed Mum and Dad were still asleep. Keith looked at his watch. Six-thirty Australian time. He pulled the curtain aside. Sunlight spilled onto his bed.
Fantastic, he thought.
He lay back for a bit and just enjoyed having sunlight on his bed at six-thirty in the morning. Then he got down to business.
OK. Plan for the day. Explore paradise, then when Mum and Dad wake up, take them on the grand tour.
Nice one.
He slipped out of bed and put on his tropical shirt and his new shorts, the ones Mum had made him on Aunty Joyce’s Swedish sewing machine. He put his shoes on with no socks. Then he put some toothpaste on his nose and stepped quietly out of the caravan.
The air was clean and warm and smelt like air freshener only much better.
In the lush green forest at the back of the caravan park Keith could see flashes of colour as red and blue birds swooped among the trees. They looked like West Ham practising diving headers.
He walked to the beach. It was even better than the night before.
In the morning sun the sand was a brilliant white and the sea was a sparkling turquoise. The sky was a deep blue and the fronds of the palm trees shone emerald green.
Perfect, thought Keith. Just like the poster in Australia House.
Except for the girl fishing.
He stood and watched as the girl down near the water’s edge swung her big rod and cast her line out over the waves.
I wonder if fishing’s easy to learn, he thought. Be handy, me popping down here before breakfast each morning and catching all the fish for the shop.
She didn’t look any older than him.
He went closer for a better look, down onto the wet sand where the girl was standing.
She turned and stared at him. Her eyes were almost as pale as her hair and her face was very brown.
Keith noticed pink patches where the brown was peeling off her nose and wondered if he should offer her some toothpaste.
He decided not to.
‘Hello, I’m Keith.’
‘G’day, I’m Tracy.’
‘Caught anything?’
‘Bit of a cough last winter. Better now but.’
She grinned at him.
Keith grinned back. Here they were, only met two seconds ago and she was cracking jokes already. What a place.
The water looked cool and tempting. Keith kicked off his shoes and stepped in up to his ankles.
‘Wouldn’t if I was you,’ said Tracy.
‘Why not?’ said Keith.
‘Stingers.’
Keith looked at her blankly.
Stingers?
‘Sea wasps,’ said Tracy.
Sea wasps?
Keith knew all about wasps, he’d had plenty attack his jam sandwiches on picnics, and he knew they couldn’t live underwater because he and Dennis Baldwin had tried to teach one to swim once. Must be another joke.
‘Box jellyfish,’ said Tracy slowly and more loudly. She held out a pair of green tights to Keith. ‘Put these on if you want to go for a paddle. Won’t stop them stinging you but at least the buggers won’t kill you.’
Kill?
Keith stepped quickly out of the water.
Tracy pointed towards the palm trees. ‘It’s got all about ’em over there.’
Keith saw Tracy was pointing to a sign on a wooden pole.
Keith recognised it as the sign he hadn’t been able to read in the Australia House poster.
He walked into the shade of the palm trees and read the sign. Blimey, he thought, she’s right. Box jellyfish. Waters around North Queensland coast. Sting fatal.
Keith felt panic starting in his stomach.
Killer jellyfish?
In paradise?
What would Mum and Dad say when they found out he’d brought them twelve thousand miles on five different airlines to a place with killer jellyfish?
He forced himself to calm down.
OK, so they wouldn’t be able to swim in the sea. No big deal. They could still lie on the white sand under the swaying palm fronds.
He looked at the palm tree he was standing under. Around the base of the fronds, high above him, he saw a cluster of big round greeny-brown things. It took him a moment to work out what they were.
Coconuts.
Suddenly he felt fine again. What were a few killer jellyfish compared to being able to lie back in the shade, drinking from a fresh coconut?
‘Wouldn’t stay under there too long,’ yelled Tracy.
Why not? thought Keith.
‘Split your skull open if one of ’em falls on you.’
Keith looked at the palm tree. It must be a hundred years old, how was it going to fall on him? Then he realised Tracy meant the coconuts.
Keith looked down the beach at her and wondered if she was only nine and big for her age. Nine year olds panicked about things like coconuts falling on you.
Tracy was yelling at him again, pointing across the road.
‘Look over there.’
Keith turned and looked.
Across the road was a high fence and behind it Keith could see the top of what looked like a hotel. Just inside the fence was another row of palm trees. Two men up ladders were cutting the coconuts off and throwing them down.
Must be the coconut harvest, thought Keith.
‘Go and ask them what they’re doing,’ yelled Tracy.
Keith went over, feeling a bit of a wally, but curious.
‘What are you doing?’ he called up.
‘We’re missile experts,’ said one of the men with a grin, ‘removing dangerous missiles. Bit of a breeze and these mongrels’d drop on your head and crack your skull open.’
As he spoke he accidentally knocked one of the coconuts with his arm. It hurtled down and smacked into the road near Keith.
The man looked down, alarmed. ‘Jeez, sorry,’ he said. ‘You’d better shift away a bit.’
Keith looked at the coconut at his feet. It wasn’t even cracked. Then he saw the dent in the tarmac where the coconut had hit the road.
Killer coconuts and killer jellyfish.
Keith had a sudden urge to run back to the caravan and crawl back into bed and pretend none of this had happened.
Instead he walked back down the beach to Tracy, who he decided was definitely the same age as him.
‘Heard one drop,’ said Tracy. ‘Thought you’d copped it for a sec.’
‘Tracy,’ said Keith, ‘is there any other dangerous stuff around here?’
Tracy squinted out to sea.
‘Not really,’ she said.
Keith felt relief seep through him.
‘There’s the stonefish of course,’ said Tracy, ‘but they only kill you if you tread on them. Little buggers lie on the bottom looking like rocks.’
Keith looked down to see if he was standing on any rocks.
‘And the pufferfish,’ continued Tracy, ‘but you’ve got to actually eat a bit of one before you die.’
Think positive, thought Keith.
‘What about rivers? Are there any good rivers for swimming in?’
‘Some beauties,’ said Tracy. ‘The crocs come from miles around to swim in ’em.’
Crocs, thought Keith. Must be a local expression for old people.
‘Tourist got eaten by a crocodile only last month,’ said Tracy.
Keith wished he hadn’t mentioned rivers.
Then he remembered the forest, cool and green and alive with exotic birds.
‘Just as well there’s the forest,’ he said. ‘Bet it’s paradise in there for a picnic.’
‘Top spot on a hot day,’ said Tracy. ‘Cooler than an esky in there.’
Keith started to plan the picnic he’d take Mum and Dad on at lunch time.
‘But you wouldn’t actually sit down in there,’ said Tracy. ‘Mossies’d have their own picnic if you did. Plus there’s the poisonous spiders and poisonous snakes. Great spot for a bushwalk but.’
Tracy then told Keith the story of her uncle’s cousin’s brother who’d been bitten by a snake in a phonebox near a canefield and who’d been dead before he could ring for an ambulance.
Keith walked slowly back to the caravan.
‘It’ll be OK,’ he said to himself.
It made him feel better so he said it again. A couple of hundred times.
Mum and Dad didn’t have to know.
The important thing was to keep them cheerful so they could get a shop going and it could be a big success and they could all be happy.
All I’ve got to do, he decided, is keep them off the beach, out of rivers and out of the rainforest.
And away from Tracy.
In the caravan Dad was making toast.
‘Did you see Mum on your walk?’ he asked.
Keith felt his stomach drop into the familiar bowl of cold batter.
Mum had already gone out.
She probably knew everything by now. At this very moment she was probably down on the beach listening to Tracy describe how a giant squid had eaten someone’s grandfather.
Then Keith had a worse thought.
What if she’d gone for a paddle in a river?
He heard someone coming up the steps.
He couldn’t look.
Who would it be? The police? A wheelchair salesman?
He looked.
It was Mum, with a big smile on her face.
‘Guess what?’ she said. ‘I’ve found us a shop.’