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.”
“You’d taste disgusting.”
Ben pinched her arm.
“Ow. What about that?” Olive said.
She was pointing at a clump of tall, tough-looking grass. Ben climbed onto a rock and jumped to the next, then pulled on a couple of the long strands. They did not budge. He pulled again, and his finger slipped along the sharp edge and opened up, bleeding. He sucked on the finger, swallowing the blood. He bent down low where the stem was round and white and juicy. He snapped it off, then gathered fifteen stems, passing them to Olive.
They ran along the bank, in and out of shadows, back to the branches, where Ben began winding the reeds through them. Up and over, down and under, up and over.
“Can you tell me now?” Olive asked.
“What?”
“Why you got in trouble,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ben said.
“Does to me.”
Ben thought about the money, about Dad’s reaction. And his mother’s lies. He knew the police had not come to their house over parking tickets. And he knew they had not sold the wreckers.
“Do you think Dad killed somebody and he was hiding the body up in the roof?”
“No!” Ben said. “Why would you say that?”
“Just joking,” Olive said, smiling and doing a spin like a ballerina. “You’re too serious sometimes, Benjamin.”
“Don’t call me Benjamin. And where do you hear stuff like that?” Ben asked. He tied another reed to the end of the first piece of grass and continued weaving it through the branches.
“At school,” she said. “We play dead dog where you have to shoot a dog with a barrenarrow—”
“Bow and arrow,” Ben corrected.
“Then you have to hide the dog somewhere in the playground and kids have to find it.”
“Real dogs?” Ben asked, smiling.
“No. Pretend dogs. I usually choose a poodle because they’re not very heavy. I picked a Labrador once and nearly died from dragging it over to the bushes behind the swings.”
Ben wanted to ask how a pretend dog could be heavy and how the others find the dogs if they are invisible, but he could see the conversation going on for hours.
“So what was he hiding? Tell me or you’re not coming to my birthday party.”
“I don’t want to come to your birthday party,” Ben said. “And you’re probably not having one.”
“Yes, you do … And yes, I am!”
“No, I don’t and no, you’re not.”
“Fine, I’m going on a cruise around the Caribbean, finishing up at Walt Disney World with a cake that has blue icing, but whatever.”
Cake. Food. Hunger. Ben could taste the icing.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It wasn’t important. Just Dad getting angry like always.”
He continued weaving reeds through the branches at four different points along the raft. It was slow work, but the shush of river and call of birds made them forget about time. After an hour they stood back and looked at their creation. Ben had used nine branches. It was a bit rough and wonky.
“Not bad for a first raft,” Ben said.
They lifted the end of it and dragged it down over the slick rocks. The raft was heavy and awkward to carry, the center of it sagging. Ben worried that the grass ties might snap. He took three or four breaks before he was finally able to drop one end of the raft into the river. He sent a prayer up into the trees and sky that it would float.
There was a shrill whistle from up the hill.
“You two! Come!” Dad’s voice echoed through the tall timbers.
“Olive? Ben?” Mum called. “Food!”
He wanted to pretend he didn’t hear, but it must have been three o’clock and he was so hungry.
“C’mon,” he said.
“I want to see if it floats,” Olive whined.
“Later,” Ben said. “We need to eat.”
They dragged the raft up the rocks. Ben found some bushy branches and covered it.
“Ben!” Mum called again.
“Keep your pants on,” he muttered, and started to make his way up the hill, Olive scrambling behind him. He could feel the river flowing out of his body, and fear flowing in. Would Dad still be angry about what Ben had seen? He used to think that there were two of his dad, the nice one and the angry one. Lately the nice one hadn’t been around much.
As he climbed the hill, Ben made a promise to himself that he would work out where the money had come from and why they were lying to him. He was sick of being treated like a child. He was going undercover. He would find the truth.
KNIFE
Ben and Olive came over the rise and into the sandy clearing in front of the cabin, crossing back into the real world.
“Detective,” Ben whispered, reminding himself.
“What?” Olive asked as they headed toward the cabin.
“Nothing. Don’t tell them about the raft, okay?”
“Why not?”
“It’s our secret.” He stopped outside the cabin. Olive grinned. He knew that this would make her feel big and special. He didn’t know why he needed it to be a secret, but he did. She probably wouldn’t keep the secret, but he could hope.
Detective.
He pushed open the door.
“Here they are!” Dad said. He sounded almost chirpy.
Mum and Dad were seated at the table on new camping chairs. There was other camping equipment around the cabin—ice chest, blow-up mattresses, gas cooker. Ben dared to look into the open roof area. Dad had already taken the bag.
“You’ve been gone for ages,” Mum said. “Thought you two were dead.”
“No. Still alive,” Ben said.
The table was filled with food. The sight and smell of it filled his mouth with saliva. Olive sat on a wooden crate. The only thing left for Ben to sit on was the small green metal trunk. He dragged it over and sat, grabbing at the food, filling his paper plate and stuffing crackers and cheese into his mouth.
“Slow down,” Mum said. But she soon forgot, and they ate like a pack of wolves, swallowing food in great chunks, desperate to fill the empty space. They didn’t speak until the tide of hunger had gone out and the sugar had reached their brains.
“Ooohhhhhhhh,” Ben groaned.
“Good, is it?” Mum asked.
“So goooood,” he said in a funny, croaky voice, and they all laughed. Even Dad.
Late afternoon sun fell in through the window. The cabin felt brighter than it had that morning. Dad reached into his pocket and banged a small box down on the table in front of Ben.
Ben looked at it and then up at his father.
“Open it.”
Ben was suspicious. Dad wasn’t known for buying presents. He left that to Mum. She even bought her own birthday presents. Ben picked up the box. It was small and plain and gray. Ben wondered if there was some kind of punishment or prank inside. He carefully opened a cardboard flap at one end and let the contents slide out onto his palm. A smile washed over his face. He clutched his fingers around it.
“Ray!” Mum said.
“What?” Dad asked, wiping mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth.
Mum clicked her tongue and shook her head.
It was a knife. Swiss Army. Red with a white cross. A serious one. Chunky, with metal sides that felt cold on his fingers. Ben flipped out a large blade, then another, smaller one.
“You think you can take care of it?” Dad asked.
Ben nodded. He flipped out a saw, a tiny pair of pliers, a corkscrew, scissors, a screwdriver, and some small, mysterious, pointy tools. He picked a tiny pair of tweezers and a toothpick out of the side of the knife.
“I want one!” Olive said, sticking he
r bottom lip out.
“Ah, for you…” Dad said, taking a large box out of one of the tall paper shopping bags sitting on the floor behind him. He gave it to Olive, and she did a dance, pretending to play electric guitar with the box. This was the first interaction between Dad and Olive in over a week.
Ben was mesmerized by his knife. When every arm had been folded out he sat and looked at his dazzling red, white, and silver spider. It was the best thing he had ever owned.
“What do you say to Dad?” Mum asked, closing up containers, clearing paper plates, throwing them into a plastic garbage bag.
“Thanks,” Ben said without looking up. He was already thinking about the raft and how he could cut and saw it with his knife and make it sturdier and take off downstream. He almost started talking about it but something stopped him. He needed to keep his secret world by the river for himself.
“Awesome!” Olive said. She was holding a skateboard with a blue plastic deck and red wheels. She had been asking for one since she was four. Ben wondered where she would ride it out here.
Dad reached into his pocket and placed another small box on the table. “My love,” he said. Ben looked up. He had only heard his father call Mum “my love” once or twice. It sounded creepy and uncomfortable.
Mum turned from where she was crouched packing food into the ice chest. She stood, eyes wide, looking like a little girl. Dad snapped open the top of the box, and Mum’s eyes kindled. She took what was inside and slipped it onto her finger. It was a ring with a diamond in it.
Mum flung her arms around Dad, kissing him all over the face a thousand times. Ben didn’t really like watching his parents kiss.
“Do you realize that this is the first real present you’ve bought me in fifteen years?” Mum said. “I paid for dinner the first time we went out. Do you remember? I should have known it was a bad omen.”
Dad pulled a face at her. “All right,” he said, turning to the big bags on the floor again.
“What else?” Mum asked, admiring her ring.
“Look on the front seat,” he said. She went outside, opened the car door, and gave a little shriek. Through the window Ben could see that she was holding two boxes.
Dad had bought other presents for Ben and Olive too. Clothes for each of them in various sizes, just to be sure. Shoes for Olive. For Ben, a robotic Lego kit and a Mad magazine. For Olive, a pirate outfit and a hot-pink remote control pickup truck that could drive across the sandy clearing out the front. She loved her skateboard best. She rode it round and round inside the cabin.
On the Run Page 5