On the Run (6 page)

“What did you do?” said a voice from above. Ben looked up, squinting into the sun. It was Olive sitting on the lowest branch of the tree.

The hunger hit Ben again. It was lunchtime, and his stomach ached, but he knew there was no food.

“I'm goin' out!” Dad stormed out of the cabin. He was carrying the sports bag.

“Be careful, Ray,” Mum said, following him. “And please make the arrangements today. I can't stay here.”

Dad climbed into the car and slammed the door.

“Ray?”

“Yes, I'll make the arrangements,” he said through the window.

“And get some clothes for the kids!”

Dad reversed, spun the wheel, and powered off up the hill, leaving them in a cloud of swirling dust.

Ben turned and, without a word, he let the trees take him. He let himself go off the edge of the slope and disappear. Down, down, down.

 

CULPAM POENA PREMIT COMES

Ben flew steeply down, dodging thick, rough chocolate-brown tree trunks, his feet deep in pine needles. Sun lit him in sharp bursts as he thundered into the valley. The water-rush became ever louder, filling him up.

The river emerged through the trees, and Ben began to slow, digging his heels into the damp black soil beneath. He came to a skidding stop at the large, mossy sandstone boulders that led down to the water. The river was about thirty feet wide. Sun hit the surface in patches, revealing muddy brown rocks beneath. Ben wondered how deep it was. Downstream there was a small waterfall leading to a lower section of river. On the far side, a sheer sandstone cliff soared a hundred feet above Ben's head. Fishbone ferns poked from cracks and scars in the cliff. The wall ran along the river's edge as far up- and downstream as he could see.

Thirst tore at him then. He jumped onto a small boulder that was shaped almost like a pyramid and leaped from rock to rock, careful to avoid the slippery-looking patches of moss. He was halfway down to the water when he thought about snakes. They liked rocks. He had a book on snakes at home, a library book that he had never returned. (After snakes, his greatest fear was ever going back to the public library, in case he was arrested for theft.) Ben loved to scare himself in the comfort of his bedroom, but out here he couldn't shut the book and stop the fear. Nature was real and true and terrible.

He paused on a rock and looked up the hill, thinking of running back to the safety of the cabin. Which was worse? Snakes or his family? Fear told him to get off the rocks, but thirst drove him down to the water. He pulled his school socks up to his knees and stepped carefully, eyes darting all around, waiting for venomous fangs to emerge from a crevice and end him. He stepped onto a mossy green rock near the water, slipping and breaking his fall with the palms of his hands. The sting screamed, and he quickly dipped his hands into the fast-moving river. The water was cold, soothing the sting. His throat and stomach howled for liquid.

Ben looked upstream, wondering if the water was safe to drink. He cupped water in his hands. There were tiny specks of moss and other plant matter floating in it, but Ben's thirst was too great. He brought the cupped handful to his mouth and gulped it down. He scooped his hands in again and sucked the water back into his throat. It felt so good and cold that his head and insides lit up. He scooped again and slurped thirstily, drinking water till his belly ached. He splashed his face and collapsed back onto the mossy rock, another boulder behind him making a backrest.

There was something uncomfortable in Ben's back pocket. He took it out. The book he had taken from the cabin.
My Side of the Mountain.
Ben flicked through. There were illustrations showing how to make a trap for deer and a fishhook out of twigs. He read the back cover. It was about a kid named Sam Gribley who runs away from home in New York City to live in the Catskill Mountains by himself. He sleeps inside a tree and survives off the land. Ben threw the book onto the rock next to him. His eyes darted around. He knew that he would have no chance out here alone. Ben's survival skills included hunting for leftovers in the fridge, lowering bread into the toaster, and switching on the heater when it was cold. None of these talents would be useful here.

He breathed hard and sat up straight. He felt better, even with a bellyache. It was cooler down by the water. The moist, woodsy air and the steady
shhh
sound of the river seemed to swallow him and make him part of it all. Ben looked up through the ferns and spiky plants sticking out of the rocks, but he couldn't see the cabin.

“Mum,” he called.

No response.

“Mum!”

The echo of his own voice off the rocks.

He was alone. Just Ben. And river and bird and frog. And snake.

He stood and lifted a palm-size rock and threw it into the river just to see the splash. He stuffed the book back into his pocket and grabbed another rock, throwing it as high as he could, the impact kicking splash all over him and putting a smile on his face for the first time in days.

As Ben turned to look for another rock he saw something move at the corner of his vision. It was a rabbit, a light gray one, hopping from the tree line to the top rock. It stopped, looked down at him, still. Ben began to move slowly up the rocks, but the rabbit skittered off the way it had come. He smiled again, looking all around. At home the closest thing he had to his own secret place was the crusty patch of land at the back of the wrecking yard. The tall grass there was peppered with graffiti-stained cars and the trains speeding by were loud and annoying. But here there was nothing man-made. Only Ben.

Why would Mum and Dad come out here just because they had sold the wreckers?

The money. So much money. He took his backpack off, pulled out his notebook, and sat down to jot the following sums:

$100
×
500 bills in bundle

=
$50,000

$50,000

×
20 bundles

=

Ben stared at the page. There might not have been five hundred bills in a bundle but Ben figured there must have been close to that. And there might have been fifteen bundles, not twenty. But there could have been twenty-two. How could their old wrecking yard be worth a million dollars? The place was a disgrace. And if they did sell it for that much, why had Dad hidden the money? Why hadn't they told him about selling the business earlier? And who had bought it? Uncle Chris? Maybe. He had given Dad the bag full of money. Dad didn't even like Uncle Chris. Maybe that's why he sold it to him. Payback for all the beatings Uncle Chris gave him as a kid. Dad still had scars from Uncle Chris's babysitting sessions.

There were all these missing parts of the story. Adults never told kids anything. Nothing worth hearing anyway. Ben felt as though he spent his entire life trying to work out things that adults knew but wouldn't tell him. He would do some detective work, search for clues, put the puzzle together.

Ben pulled the police business card out of his notebook. “Dan Toohey.” The wedge-tailed eagle emblem looked a bit like the bird on the front of
My Side of the Mountain.
Ben whispered the words “
Culpam Poena Premit Comes”
and decided that he would have his own police business card one day. One day when he was in charge of himself. He slipped the card back into the notebook. The river rushed by. Three birds, rosellas, flew past, chasing one another out over the river, then up into the trees. Ben flipped back a couple of pages and read:

Police

Vacation

Uncle Chris. Gray nylon bag. Black handles.

The new old car

Haircuts

He added:

Pulled over by cops. Drive off and chase.

The cabin

Bag full of money

Sold the wreckers

Sun emerged from behind the clouds. Bright splotches of light on Ben's notebook. He reread the notes. One thing was clear—weird stuff was going on. His parents were in trouble. He didn't know why, but he knew they were.

“What're you doing?” said a voice from above him.

Ben snapped his notebook shut.

 

MY SIDE OF THE RIVER

Ben leaped quickly from boulder to boulder, heading farther downstream, trying to get away from her.

“Leave me alone!”

“No. It was my idea to come down here,” Olive said. “Then you just … poopsnaggled off by yourself.”

“There's no such word as ‘poopsnaggled.' Get a dictionary. And go away!”

“What were you writing?”

“Nothing.”

“You wrote ‘bag full of money' and ‘sold the wreckers.' Who sold the wreckers?”

“Nobody,” he said.

“Then why was Dad so cranky with you?”

Ben continued to make his way across the boulders on the riverbank, scanning the rocks for snakes.

“What did he hide in the roof?” Olive asked, struggling to keep up with Ben, jumping from rock to rock.

“Olive!
Go a-way!
”

“One day I'm going to steal your stupid notebook and read the whole thing and show my friends and laugh and—owww!”

Ben turned. Olive had slipped on a rock.

“Aaaaaarrrgggh!” she cried.

“Serves you right.”

“He-e-elp, Ben!” She was lying, legs in the air, face twisted in pain.

Ben wanted to be strong and continue up the riverbank, but he couldn't. He sighed, made his way across the boulders, and helped her up. Her palms were scratched and stinging like his. He scooped his hands under her armpits and helped her down to the river.

“Dip them in the water,” he said.

“No, it'll sting, you idiot!”

“Does it sting now?”

She looked at him for a moment, then slowly, carefully slipped her hands into the water.

“Ow,” she said quietly.

“Is that better?”

She nodded and sniffled.

“You'll be okay,” Ben said.

She took her hands out of the water and shook them.

Ben looked around. He massaged his hands together like he did when he felt creative. “You want to help me?”

“Do what?” Olive asked.

“I don't know. Build something maybe. Come on.” He stood and helped her up to flat, dry ground. “Watch out for snakes.”

“Where?” Olive said. “I love snakes.”

Ben shook his head. He walked up to the edge of the pine trees. He found a long branch and dragged it down to the boulders. Olive saw another branch about the same length and picked up the end of it, grappling with it and struggling to drag it down the hill.

Ben had never built anything life-size before. Just his movie sets and characters. And half a model aircraft carrier with Dad when he was seven. Dad was always promising to finish it with him but he never did.

Ben and Olive searched for a long time, dragging together the best branches they could find. Most of them were straight and brown, about nine feet long, with a few twigs sticking out near the ends, which were easy to snap off. The branches had fallen from the tall pines above.

“Hoop pine,” Olive said.

“What? How do you know that?”

“They look like the ones I saw in a book at school.”

“Really?” he said. He liked the sound—“Hoop.” He whispered the words “hoop” and “pine” as he worked. He noticed Olive quietly saying “hoop pine, hoop pine” to herself too. They became lost in searching and dragging.

After a time, Olive counted the branches.

“Sixteen!” she announced. “Six-teen branches. See! Count them. There's sixteen.”

“I believe you.”

“What can we build?”

Ben stopped and looked at their haul.

A fort?

Another cabin?

A tepee?

A raft.

The branches were almost laid out like a raft already.

“A raft,” he said.

“Yes!” Olive said. “You're so smart. And we can take off and go discovering! And we'll be bushrangers! I'll be Olive Thunderbolt, pretend sister of Captain Thunderbolt, one of the most famous bushrangers of all time, and you can be Captain Thunderbolt and…” Olive went on to list all the good things about having your own raft, including plundering treasure and sailing the seven seas and saying “Arrrrrrr, me pretties” a lot. Ben tried to point out that bushrangers did not say “Arrrrrrr, me pretties,” but she ignored him and said, “Olive Thunderbolt has a rosella sitting on her shoulder like a parrot and she's the driver of the ship. Captain Thunderbolt can be the first mate if he wants to be. Or a servant. When I grow up I'm not going to have a husband. Just a servant and a gardener.”

Ben wondered what they could use to hold the raft together. He set off along the riverbank, Olive prattling happily next to him about a shipwreck and needing to fix the hull.

For the first time since they had arrived Ben started to relax. With just the two of them down by the river, it actually seemed a bit like a vacation. Ben wanted to go barefoot like Olive, but he was too scared of snakes.

He scanned the ground for long, thin vines that might work as rope to weave between the branches. Across the river there were vines snaking down the rock wall, but he would have to get to the other side of the river first. And, for that, he would need a raft. He could swim across, but the water was cold and running fast. He didn't know how deep it was, and he was not a good swimmer anyway.

They wandered for half an hour, the sound of water flowing by gently washing the past few days out of Ben's head.

“Imagine we're lost,” Olive said, “and we've got to survive and we need to finish our raft so we can get food. And if we don't find food we've got to eat each other.”

Ben smiled.

“I wouldn't really eat you,” Olive said.

“Thanks.”