by Justin D'Ath
This can’t be happening! my slow-motion mind started saying to me, but I told it to shut up. This was happening. We weren’t in a movie. That four metre crocodile swimming towards us wasn’t a computer-generated special effect. It was real.
‘Stay behind me,’ I said to Nissa, and picked up the buffalo bone.
Puffin Books
Also by Justin D’Ath
Extreme Adventures:
Bushfire Rescue
Shark Bait
Scorpion Sting
Spider Bite
Man Eater
Killer Whale
Shædow Master
Infamous
Astrid Spark, Fixologist
Echidna Mania
Koala Fever
The Upside-down Girl
JUSTIN D’ATH
Puffin Books
For Deacon
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (Australia)
250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada)
90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto ON M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland
25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ)
67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd
24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2005
Text copyright © Justin D’Ath 2005
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
puffin.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-74-228619-8
1
BANG BANG, YOU’RE DEAD
Black beanie, dark blue raincoat, wet leather boots. A truckie, I thought as we passed each other near the meat and vegetables freezer. Nobody else would be out on a day like this. Two hundred and thirty millimetres of rain had fallen since lunchtime yesterday, according to Auntie Erin behind the counter. The wind was so strong I’d had to get off my bike at the roundabout and push it all the way up Main Street.
Nissa, my two-year-old cousin, was playing with some Space Rangers figures in the Kiddy Corner at the front of the general store. Sometimes Auntie Erin brought her to work if Mum couldn’t look after her, or if the creche was closed. Mum had the flu that day and didn’t want Nissa exposed to it. I’d fought my way to the general store to buy her some cough lollies. Apart from Auntie Erin’s shop, everything was closed on account of Tropical Cyclone Kandy, a hundred and fifty kilometres offshore and headed down the coast.
I paused near the door to look at the latest issue of Outback Survival magazine. Nissa said something, but it was difficult to hear above the noise of the rain, hammering on the verandah’s iron roof.
‘What was that, Niss?’
‘Bang!’ she said, pointing a stubby finger like a Space Ranger’s ray-gun towards the rear of the building.
I raised a pretend ray-gun of my own and turned to see where the aliens were.
At first I didn’t understand what my eyes were telling me. The man in the blue raincoat was leaning over the counter. He seemed to be deep in conversation with Auntie Erin. The safe where she kept the banking records gaped open. While the man talked softly to her, Auntie Erin was busy filling a brown paper bag. With money!
The man noticed me gawking. ‘Hey kid,’ he called. ‘Come here.’
He was holding something. It looked like two joined pipes, with holes in the ends roughly the size of ten-cent coins. I lowered my hand, all thoughts of Space Rangers forgotten. My mind was working in slow-motion. That can’t be a shotgun! it told me.
‘Are you deaf?’ snarled the man. ‘I said come here.’
My legs moved. Like a person in a dream, I walked towards the man with the shotgun.
This isn’t real, my mind was saying. Armed hold-ups only happen down South. In big cities. Not in friendly little towns like Crocodile Bridge.
‘I’ve only got some change,’ I stammered, reaching inside my jacket.
The man shook his head. He was about as old as my big brother Nathan. He had a row of silver rings in each earlobe and a red goatee beard. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ he said, ‘and get down on the floor. You too,’ he told Auntie Erin, taking the bag of money and stuffing it inside his dripping raincoat.
Auntie Erin and I lay face down on the floor. It still didn’t seem real. I felt like an actor in a Hollywood movie as the man with the shotgun stepped over us. He grabbed the wall phone and ripped out the cord.
‘Don’t even think of calling the cops,’ he warned.
I listened to his boots creaking across the lino towards the front of the shop. I could no longer see him. Auntie Erin was blocking my line of vision.
‘Man got bang-bang!’ piped up Nissa.
‘Bang bang, you’re dead,’ said the robber.
Auntie Erin lifted her head. ‘Don’t point that thing at my daughter!’
‘I wasn’t pointing it at her, lady. Now lie down like I –’
A siren interrupted him. For a few moments, we listened to the eerie wail in the distance.
‘I said don’t call the cops!’ the robber shouted.
I heard scuffling from the front of the shop. Then Nissa squealed. Beside me, Auntie Erin scrambled to her feet.
‘Leave her alone!’ she cried.
Now that Auntie Erin was standing up, I could see what was happening. The robber held Nissa in the crook of his left arm. He was edging backwards towards the door, the shotgun pointing at Auntie Erin.
‘I said don’t call the cops,’ he repeated.
‘How could I have called the police?’ Auntie Erin pleaded. ‘You disconnected the phone. That’s a cyclone warning. Please put down my daughter.’
He shook his head. His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t come any closer!’ he warned.
‘Please!’ Auntie Erin begged. ‘Please don’t hurt her!’
The robber nearly dropped Nissa as he wrenched open the door. A flurry of wind and misty raindrops swirled into the shop. ‘If you want your kid back,’ he yelled over his shoulder, ‘tell the cops not to follow me!’
The door slammed shut and they were gone.
Auntie Erin let out a strange, low moan. She staggered sideways. A sunglasses display crashed to the floor. The glasses scattered around me. I jumped up and grabbed my aunt before she fell. She leaned heavily against me. A pair of sunglasses crunched under one of my sneakers as I helped Auntie Erin to a chair beside the counter. She buried her face in her hands.
‘No, no, no, no!’ she sobbed. ‘He’s taken her. He’s taken my baby!’
I don’t know what came over me. I am not the kind of person who acts without thinking somethin
g through. But before my mind registered what I was doing, I dashed out into the howling wind and rain.
2
HOSTAGE
The street was deserted. No people, no cars. Everyone was indoors, sitting out the cyclone watch in the comfort of their warm, dry homes. Only now it was a cyclone warning, if Auntie Erin was right about the siren. I should be inside, too. What did I think I was doing?
I ran to the corner of Arafura Street. Nothing there. A gust of wind blew back my jacket hood. The raindrops felt like bullets. They stung my face and ears. They nearly blinded me. I turned my back and the wind pushed me as I ran the other way. Back past the general store, with its Community Bank Agency sign lying on the footpath beside my fallen-over bicycle, through the flooded gutter and across Kakadu Lane.
Hang on! What was that?
I backtracked, my heart thudding in my chest as I peered cautiously around the corner.
There they were. Thirty metres down the laneway. A pale blue ute was parked half on the footpath. The passenger door hung open. The robber stood calf-deep in the overflowing gutter, struggling with Nissa, trying to push her inside. Nissa fought and kicked and screamed. Her hair was plastered to her scalp and her pink overalls were saturated. The shotgun lay on the vehicle’s roof, raindrops dancing around it.
I splashed towards them. It still felt like I was in a movie. In my mind, I saw the brave young hero grab the shotgun and rescue the little girl, but the robber obviously hadn’t read the script. He came wading towards me and positioned himself between me and the shotgun. He practically threw Nissa into my arms.
‘Here, see if you can control the brat,’ he said, wringing his left hand. It had a red, crescent-shaped mark between the thumb and forefinger. ‘Watch out, she bites.’
Nissa was too panicked to realise who I was. She kicked and twisted and thumped the back of her head against my chest. She was soaked and slippery as a catfish. Finally, I managed to pin her arms.
‘Calm down, Nissa,’ I gasped. ‘It’s me. It’s Sam. I’m the good guy.’
She looked up at me, her face red and streaked with rain and tears. ‘Want Mummy!’ she squeaked.
I hugged her. ‘Shhh. It’s going to be okay.’
The robber had retrieved the shotgun from the roof of the ute. He waved it at the open passenger door. ‘Get in the car, good guy. And don’t try anything smart.’
‘I won’t give you any trouble,’ I promised. ‘But you don’t need both of us. Let Nissa go.’
The siren was louder now, rising and falling as it carried on the wind. He seemed to be listening to it.
‘It isn’t the cops,’ I said. ‘It’s a cyclone siren.’
The robber levelled the shotgun at me. ‘Shut your mouth and get in the car. Both of you. And keep the kid under control.’
I obeyed him, feeling numb. Part of me still couldn’t believe that this was happening. We’re not being taken hostage! it was saying, even as the man ran around the front of the ute and jumped in behind the wheel next to me. It’s just a dream or something.
The robber gunned the ute out of the lane and turned left on Main Street. He shot down the hill, doing twice the legal speed limit. The road was wet and slippery. The ute nearly spun out of control on the roundabout. I held Nissa tightly. She was soaking wet and shivering.
We went right past my house. Dad was in Darwin for a conference, but Mum and the twins were home. Look out the window, someone! I prayed. The storm-blinds were down. Even if someone did look out, what would they see? An unfamiliar blue ute zooming by in the rain. Southerners, they’d think. Nobody else would be dumb enough to be driving directly into an approaching cyclone.
I was hoping the robber might let us out at the edge of town, but he showed no sign of slowing. The ute was doing over a hundred when Big Barry loomed into view.
The robber gave a low whistle. ‘Man, would you look at the size of that!’
I said nothing. When you see something every day you take it for granted. Big Barry was the town’s most famous landmark – a thirty-five metre fibreglass crocodile. As we crossed the bridge beneath him, I was looking down at the river. It was nearly flowing over the roadway. I had never seen it so high.
Only a fool would be leaving town on a day like this.
With trembling hands, I passed the seatbelt around Nissa and myself, and clicked the buckle into place. At last it sank in. This wasn’t a dream. And it no longer felt like a movie. It was real. A robber had taken us hostage.
3
TOO YOUNG TO DIE
DRY SEASON ROAD ONLY, the sign said.
‘You can’t go down there,’ I told the kidnapper.
He ignored me. Hardly slowing down to take the forty-five degree turn, he swerved off the bitumen. Nissa squealed in fright. I braced my legs and steadied her in my arms. The ute slewed left, then right, then left again on the rutted, water-washed road. As soon as we were going in a straight line again, the man’s eyes flicked up to the rear-vision mirror. He had been doing this since we left town. I twisted round in my seat, bringing Nissa partway round with me. She looked up, eyes wide with fear. I smiled to reassure her. All I could see out the rear window was a brown rooster-tail of water thrown up by the wheels.
‘Nobody’s following us,’ I said to the man.
‘You heard the sirens,’ he muttered.
‘I told you, it was a cyclone warning,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you been listening to the radio? There’s a cyclone coming. We’re driving right into it.’
He glanced sideways. ‘Know something, kid? I don’t like the sound of your voice.’
I don’t like the sound of yours, either, I almost replied, but I didn’t want to antagonise him. If his driving was anything to go by, he was nine parts crazy on a scale of ten. I didn’t want to push him over the edge.
The road was narrow and bordered on both sides by gyrating, wind-whipped trees. The occasional wet-looking termite mound shot by as well. With all the rain we’d had in the past twenty hours, it looked more like a river than a road. I didn’t want to think about rivers. I knew there was a real one ahead: Crocodile River. The same river we had crossed on the way out of town, only on this road there wasn’t a bridge to cross it.
Whoosh! The ute hit a puddle the size of a cricket pitch, throwing up a spray of mud that all but blacked-out the side windows. It bounced and swayed and slid. This was insane. I held Nissa tight. She was shivering again.
‘We’ll be okay, Nissa,’ I said, wishing I could believe it.
‘Want Mummy,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll get you back to your mummy, I promise.’
‘Bad man make Mummy cry.’
‘Stop talking, you two!’ growled the kidnapper.
I swivelled my eyes sideways. The shotgun was balanced across his knees. Both his hands gripped the steering wheel. If I was quick, I could grab the gun before he had time to react.
I dismissed the idea as soon as I thought of it. He wasn’t much bigger than me, but he was an adult and probably much stronger. I was only fourteen, too young to die.
‘There’s a river along here somewhere,’ I said nervously.
The robber gave no indication that he’d heard. He swung the ute sharply to avoid two half-grown wild pigs. They charged through the mud- and water-filled canal that stretched ahead. The road had disappeared.
I moistened my lips. ‘It’s the same river we crossed before, but there isn’t a –’
‘Are you deaf?’ he snapped. His right hand dropped from the steering wheel and wrapped itself around the rain-beaded stock of the shotgun. ‘One more word, good guy, and I might have to shut you up. Permanently.’
As if you aren’t going to kill us anyway, the way you’re driving, I thought.
The windscreen wipers were set on maximum. They slashed back and forth across the rainwashed glass faster than the runaway beat of my heart. But they made little difference to the visibility. It was like driving through a car wash. I glanced at the speedometer. One hundre
d and thirty-five kilometres per hour. On this road! In these conditions! He was going to kill us, no question.
A yellow road sign flashed by. It was impossible to read at the speed we were going. But it’s a sign that anyone who lives north of the Tropic of Capricorn sees every day. I didn’t have to read it to know what it said. CAUTION FLOODWAY.
I couldn’t keep silent any longer. At the top of my voice, I yelled: ‘SLOW DOWN, YOU STUPID IDIOT!’
The ute swooped over a low rise. My stomach climbed up into my ribcage as the road fell away beneath us. Nissa let out a piercing shriek. I might have cried out too, or maybe my scream was inside my head. Ahead, the landscape was on the move. For as far as the eye could see, a vast tract of brown floodwater churned and boiled directly across our path.
The robber hit the brakes. He was much too late. We went into a long, heart-stopping skid.
This is it! I thought. This is the end!
As the flooded river rushed towards us, I just had time to squeeze Nissa in a protective bear-hug and brace myself for the impact.
WHUUUUMP!
A fan of spray exploded around us. Nissa and I were thrown forward against the seatbelt. Water in a wide brown wave rolled across the bonnet and up over the windscreen. Day turned to night. I knew my life was over.
4
TRAPPED!
Silence. Stillness.
Am I alive? I asked myself. Or am I dead?
There was no pain, just the racing thump-thump-thump of my heart.
Alive then, I decided.
I opened my eyes. It was very dark. The windscreen wipers were still working. Beyond them a wall of brown pressed against the glass.
The silence made no sense. What had happened to the rain? Where was the sky? The trees? The road?
Then it dawned on me. We were underwater. The ute was sitting on the bottom of Crocodile River and we were inside it. Trapped. We would never get out! Why had I interfered? I should have minded my own business. I should have let the robber take Nissa. What had I achieved by acting like a hero? Absolutely nothing. Now both of us were going to die. Now there would be two grieving families back in Crocodile Bridge, instead of one.