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 creek. The water was cold, soothing the sting. His throat and stomach howled for liquid.
Ben looked upstream, wondering if it 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 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. On the cover, a kid standing in front of a mountain with a falcon about to land on his arm. My Side of the Mountain. Ben flicked through. There were pictures showing how to make a trap for deer and a fishhook out of twigs. He read the back cover. It was about a kid called Sam Gribley who runs away from home in New York 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 creek 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 creek and bird and frog. And snake.
He stood and lifted a palm-sized rock and threw it into the creek 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-grey 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 x 500 notes in bundle
= $50,000
$50,000
x 20 bundles
=
Ben stared at the page. There might not have been five hundred notes in a bundle but Ben figured there must have been close. 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 techniques.
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 sea 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 creek rushed by. Three birds, rosellas, flew past, chasing one another out over the creek, then up into the trees. Ben flipped back a couple of pages and read:
Police
Holiday
Uncle Chris. Grey 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.
Ben leapt quickly from boulder to boulder, heading further 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 creek bank, 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 creek bank, 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 creek.
‘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 like making something. ‘You want to help me?’
‘Do what?’ Olive asked.
‘I d’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 and struggling to drag it down the hill.
Ben had never built anything before. Nothing life-size. Just his movie sets and characters. And half a model aircraft carrier with Dad when he was seven. Dad always promised 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 three metres 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 just 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 logs.
‘Sixteen!’ she announced. ‘Six-teen logs. 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 teepee?
A raft.
The logs 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! We’ll be bushrangers! I’ll be Olive Kelly, Ned Kelly’s pretend sister, 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 Kelly 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 creek bank, 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 creek it actually seemed a bit like a holiday. 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 logs. Across the creek there were vines snaking down the rock wall but he would have to get to the other side of the creek 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 be 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 river of 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 the logs. 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 lie. He knew it was a lie. They had not sold the wreckers.
Police. Uncle Chris. The money.
‘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 logs.
‘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 logs at four different points along the raft. It was slow work but the shush of creek and call of birds made them forget about time. After an hour they stood back and looked at their creation. Ben had used nine logs. It was a bit rough and wonky.
‘Not bad for a first raft,’ he said.
They lifted the end of it and dragged it down over the slick rocks. The raft was heavy and awkward to carry, the centre 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 creek.
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.
Ben was snapped out of his dream state. His bubble was punctured and the last couple of days rushed in.
‘Olive? Ben?’ Mum called. ‘Food!’
He wanted to pretend he didn’t hear, but it was past lunchtime 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. He could feel the creek 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 th
e 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.
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. 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 gear strewn around the cabin – esky, blow-up mattresses, gas cooker. Ben dared to look into the open roof area. The bag and black plastic were no longer there.
‘You’ve been gone for hours,’ 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 old 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.
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 to his father.
Two Wolves Page 5