The Other Side of Nowhere (12 page)

‘No. He’s not an alcoholic, all right?’ Nick snapped back. He pulled a stick from the ground and started breaking off pieces, flicking them one by one into the flames. When at last he spoke, all the venom in his voice was gone.

‘When Granddad couldn’t run the farm anymore, Dad decided we’d go help him. He didn’t give it a second thought. I mean, he wasn’t that happy in the city anyway – with Mum gone and stuff. So we moved to Shell Harbour. At first things were okay. I mean, it was hard, but it was still kinda fun, in a way. Anyway, he started to have a beer or two at the end of the day. Fair enough – he’d bloody well earned it.’

Nick stopped for breath, and I could see there was a look of resignation on his face. As if telling the story didn’t change anything for him. He sighed deeply and threw the rest of his stick into the fire.

‘But then in the last couple of years, it got hard. It just never rains. For weeks, months at a time. And then when Mum –’ He stopped mid-sentence, as if he had started to go somewhere that he didn’t want to.

He turned to me and I felt sure he was about to open up. For a fleeting moment I saw Nick exactly as I remembered him – an open book, a best mate. But in a flicker, he was gone again.

‘So, anyway, there you have it,’ he concluded, scooping up a handful of rocks as he got to his feet. ‘Life’s a bitch and then you die.’

‘You don’t believe that,’ said George firmly, her eyes sparkling in the firelight.

‘No?’

‘No. So things have been a bit crappy. So what? Things can change.’

Nick laughed bitterly and shook his head. ‘Change is for people who’ve got choices. People like you, George. Actually, like all of you. You’ve got choices, opportunities. Heaps of them. I don’t. You think I don’t want to be living in the city, going to school with Johnno?’

He looked across at me, a strange expression on his face. It was almost contempt. Was he hating me for having some kind of charmed life?

‘My choice was made for me three years ago and I’m stuck with it. Nothing’s gonna change. Bloody nothing.’ He threw his fistful of rocks at the fire and stormed off.

‘Nick, Nick!’ I called out, but he just kept walking.

George got up and yelled after him. ‘You want to know what I think? I think that’s rubbish. We all have choices. We do. And we all have a purpose in life. I don’t know what yours is, but I’m willing to bet it’s not living on some farm in the middle of nowhere while your father drinks himself stupid.’

I could see Nick’s walking had slowed, that he’d heard her. But he didn’t stop or turn back.

Part of me wanted to go after him, to try to talk to him, but it seemed so hard. I had no idea who Nick was anymore. And George, I just hadn’t seen her like this before. The look in her eyes, the tone of her voice – what was she doing? She hardly even knew Nick and it was like she was trying to save him. Suddenly I felt overcome by tiredness and a sense of confusion that made it almost impossible to move.

George sat back down and said nothing for a minute. Then she reached out and touched my arm. ‘I’m sorry, Johnno,’ said George staring into the fire. ‘I should have probably kept my big mouth shut. But I’m getting scared, you know? No-one except Nick’s dad knows we’re here.’

‘I get it, George,’ I said, quietly. But I was starting to feel resentful. We’d been so close to being okay at dinner, just for a moment. But she just had to push too hard and now everything was broken again. ‘But there’s no point in badgering him …’

‘I wasn’t badgering,’ she pleaded.

‘Just let it go, George,’ I said firmly.

‘No, I won’t let it go,’ George said, firing up again. ‘And neither should you. Can’t you see? God, Johnno. Just because he doesn’t ask for it in one-syllable words doesn’t mean he’s not begging for help.’

Frowning, I slumped to the ground. ‘George, please. I’m too tired to figure out what that even means,’ I said with a groan. ‘Look, I’m sure his dad will be here in the morning. Just get some sleep, okay? And tomorrow we can get away from this crap-hole of a place.’

‘Fine,’ she said in a fierce low tone. ‘Let’s all just go home and pretend nothing ever happened.’

In the morning Nick was still gone. None of us could recall seeing or hearing him come back to camp, and there was no indication he had, either. We went to check the beach with no luck.

Not quite knowing what to do with ourselves, we scanned the ocean and the sky hopefully for a while, looking for rescue boats or planes, but there was nothing. Two nights and still no sign of help.

I picked up a stick and flung it into the sea. ‘This is freakin’ unbelievable,’ I muttered. ‘Someone’s gotta be out looking for us.’

‘Maybe he went back to
The Dolphin
,’ said George, seemingly oblivious to what I’d said.

‘But it sank,’ said Matt.

‘Maybe he went to see if anything else got washed up,’ George said, shrugging.

‘Well, he’ll come back when he’s good and ready. I’m not walking all the way down there again,’ I announced, slumping onto the sand as if to show how immovable I was on the subject.

‘But what if something’s happened to him?’ said George, chewing on her fingernail. ‘It’s my fault – he wouldn’t have stormed off if I hadn’t stuck my nose in,’

‘I’m hungry,’ moaned Matt, rubbing his stomach.

‘Shut up Matt. As if you’re the only one who’s hungry,’ I snapped.

‘I’m going to have a look on the other side of the rocks,’ said George. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

‘George,’ I groaned. ‘It’s going to be about a million degrees again today. Just sit in the shade and wait for help. Nick’s just being Nick. He’ll be back soon. All right?’

But it was written all over her face that she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she knew he was safe. ‘Just to the rocks, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I just want to check the next beach.’

As if.
There was no way George would stop at the rocks. If she didn’t find Nick there, she would just keep going until she did. It was obvious she was desperate to find him. Sure, she was feeling guilty for making him crack it and walk off, but I felt sure that she wouldn’t be so hell-bent on finding him if there wasn’t more to it than that.

I wondered:
If it were Matt or me who’d gone walkabout, would she be this worried?

‘Okay,’ I said, standing up. ‘But you’re not going on your own. So let’s eat something first, all right?’

Surprisingly, she agreed and we headed back to camp. We filled the empty Gatorade bottle with water and shared half of the last banana and the tin of peaches, leaving the last couple in their syrup for Nick. All we had left was the half-jar of peanut butter and maybe a third of the container of water. No-one said it, but I bet we were all thinking the same thing:
Today would be a good day to get rescued
.

We trudged slowly around to the spot where the yacht had sunk. The sun was getting high in the sky and the sand burnt my bare feet. Hundreds of flies buzzed around my scratches and cuts, which were mostly scabbed over, although a few of the deeper ones oozed gross liquid.

We reached the rocks without seeing any sign of Nick, not even a footprint in the sand. And apart from a few pieces of white timber hull washed up on the shore, the only evidence of
The Dolphin
ever being there was one of Matt’s sneakers tangled in a clump of seaweed on a rock.

The rocks where
The Dolphin
had sunk jutted out into the sea like a long jetty. On the land-side, the rocks sloped gently to the base of a cliff, which rose up quite steeply. The cliff top was maybe the height of a three-storey building. On the other side of the rocks were steep cliffs that plunged straight into the sea. There was no sign of another beach beyond the rocks, and we had no way of knowing how far the cliffs went before there was one.

In light of this, none of us thought it made sense to swim around in search of another way to get ashore, and we didn’t think even Nick would have tried that. I wondered whether he had doubled back to try to find another way to get through the bush. But I had to admit it was more likely he would have chosen the only obvious way forward – climb the cliff.

‘I reckon I can get up that,’ chirped Matt, as if he’d been reading my thoughts.

‘We don’t need to get up anything,’ I told him. ‘Let’s just chill out here for a bit, then go back to camp.’ Then I added hopefully, ‘Bet you a million bucks Nick’s already back there wondering where the hell we are.’

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ said Matt.

Before I could respond, he was running to the base of the cliff and, without hesitation, started to climb as effortlessly as a spider up a wall.

‘That is not human,’ George said, watching him in amazement.

‘He’s definitely from another planet,’ I agreed grimly.

Watching, I winced as one foot slipped from its narrow foothold. Mostly, though, he climbed easily, and made it to the top faster than I would have believed possible.

At the top of the cliff, Matt paused for a moment. Then, parting the undergrowth in front of him like he was opening a curtain, he pulled himself upwards and disappeared from sight. A few seconds later, the scrub trembled as he pushed back through.

Cupping his hands around his mouth he called down to us. ‘Hey! There’s a path up here. Come on … it’s easy.’

‘It doesn’t look easy to me,’ George said as we approached the rock wall.

‘You’ll be right,’ I said encouragingly. ‘I’ll be right behind you. Just try not to hit me if you fall.’

George made her way up cautiously, slower than Matt, but still pretty fast. Soon she was at the top of the cliff, where Matt was able to give her a hand up. I followed her up. It wasn’t as bad as it looked, but it was still hard work. By the time I made it to the top there was no sign of either of the other two. Finding a sturdy tree root, I managed to hoist myself up and through the mess of prickly undergrowth.

On the other side was narrow path, where George was sitting waiting for me. To my left, the path snaked up towards the headland and out of sight around the bend. To the right, it dropped away in the direction of the beach we’d just come from.

‘I vote we go that way back,’ she said nodding her head towards the beach path.

‘Good plan,’ I agreed, plucking about a dozen prickles off my arm. ‘So where’s the alien?’

‘Up there,’ she said, nodding towards the bend.

‘C’mon then,’ I said, reaching down for George’s hands to help her up. ‘Might as well see what’s around the corner, I guess.’

The path was narrow and crisscrossed with gnarly tree roots that were slippery with moss. Far below, I could see perfectly formed waves rolling towards shore in a never-ending procession. A lone hawk circled high above us, gliding on the breeze.

It all looked idyllic enough, but I made sure to hang onto the rock ledge and stay as far from the edge as possible. One wrong step and it was an awfully long way down. As we rounded the bend we saw Matt resting against a boulder, the wind ruffling his hair as he took in the sweeping views of the coastline.

I slumped down next to him. I was tired, sore and sick of walking aimlessly in search of Nick.
Bugger him
, I thought.
Why couldn’t we just stay put and wait for him to come back?
Instead, we were stuck up here, miles from camp, getting fried by the sun and torn to pieces by the scrub.

Matt passed the bottle of water and I took a long swig before passing it to George. By the time we’d all had a drink, there was hardly any left. It would be empty long before we got back to camp.

‘This is totally pointless,’ I announced. ‘Let’s go back.’

‘But we’ve come this far. We may as well keep going a bit further,’ said George.

‘Are you serious?’ I said in disbelief. ‘No way! What if he’s not on the next beach? Or the next? We could do a tour of the whole island and still never find him.’

‘I’ll go,’ Matt suggested. ‘You guys wait here.’

‘Matt, how dumb are you?’ I shouted. ‘We stick together. Not sticking together is what got us here in the first place.’

‘What if I don’t want to stick with you?’

‘Tough!’

‘Get stuffed, Johnno,’ he said and started up the path.

Furious, I ran to stop him, grabbing his shirt. I tugged hard and it ripped.