The Other Side of Nowhere

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Copyright Page

  ‘Matty?’ I puffed. ‘You still alive back there?’ I could see him out of the corner of my eye, his head down and tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

  ‘Course I am,’ he wheezed back. ‘Doing better than you.’

  I grinned and pedalled harder, enjoying this small victory over my brother. The truth was, despite being three years older and quite a bit taller, I rarely beat Matt at anything. Even as he huffed and puffed behind me I was pretty sure he’d be first down the other side of the hill.

  We’d left the farm nearly an hour before and so far our ride had been mostly uphill. It had been a hard slog, not made any easier by all the camping gear stuffed in our backpacks.

  My bike groaned under me as I pushed out an epic climb up our final hill. At the top I rolled to a stop, exhausted. A line of sweat trickled down my back into my boardies. It was only early morning, but already the sun was baking hot. A minute later Matt was beside me, breathing hard and reaching for his water bottle.

  The hill was the top of the ridge, a rocky spine that cut across the farmland in the valley below. Ahead, the dirt road dipped sharply, winding in long bends to the bottom. A waist-high soil embankment bordered the road on each side. It was like a giant luge run, steep and fast. At the bottom of the hill, the dirt road was sealed with bitumen and became the main road of Shell Harbour. If you rode it right you could easily make it to the Shell Harbour pier, about two kilometres away, with no more than a few kicks of the pedals.

  ‘Ready?’ I asked Matt, unnecessarily. He was always ready. At home his room was crammed with ribbons, medals and trophies. He was possibly the most competitive person on the planet.

  ‘Yep,’ Matt said, jamming his water bottle back into its holder. True to form, he insisted on racing to Shell Harbour. And there had to be a prize. ‘If I win, I get to sleep on the good air mattress, not the leaky one.’

  ‘Who cares about a stupid mattress?’ I said. ‘I’m going to sleep on the sand, under the stars.’

  ‘Bull,’ Matt snorted. ‘You’re just chicken.’ He edged forward, making sure his front wheel was directly in line with mine. ‘Ready, steady … spaghetti!’ Matt was almost choking on his laughter.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘What are you? Five?’

  ‘GO!’ He pushed off a split second before he said the word.

  I shot after him, cursing. But it only took a few pedal thrusts before I was right behind him. I kept a trigger finger on each brake, ready to clamp down at the first sign of a drift, but Matt was mad and reckless. He flew into bends at top speed and fishtailed out of them without losing pace.

  We went hard. Catching up, falling back, catching up, again and again the whole way down. We were pretty much neck and neck into the last bend, my front wheel almost touching the rubber of his rear tyre.

  The bitumen of the main road was no more than a hundred metres away. I knew I could win this race. I put my head down and hammered it, throwing the bike wildly from side to side between my furiously pumping legs. I managed to put a half-bike length between us and felt like I was pulling away. Then I saw the truck.

  It was a monster, a massive double trailer. And it was gathering speed as it crested the hill on the main road. Sunlight flashed off its chrome grill almost like it was grinning at me, daring me.

  Do it! Do it. I could feel the adrenalin coursing through me. But even as I roared ‘C’mon’ my fingers tightened around the brakes. I silently cursed myself as my bike slowed. Johnno Jones, you gutless loser.

  A blur flashed past. It took me a second to realise it was Matt. He was right in the truck’s path and wasn’t backing down. Its horn bellowed, prolonged and angry. When the truck reached the unsealed part of the road, and its wheels hit the dirt, a thick wall of dust spewed up and I couldn’t see Matt anymore.

  Oh god. In my panic, I forgot I was riding. I veered sideways, hitting the embankment and slamming down hard over the other side. A second later, the truck roared past. Flying loose stones ripped into my skin. I just lay there with my bike on top of me, watching row after row of bug-eyed cows staring down through the trailer’s slats. Then the truck disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  I was too scared to move. My bike was crushing me and my backpack was digging awkwardly into my back, but I barely noticed. All I could think of was flesh torn from bone as it scraped along the jagged gravel. Unrecognisable chunks of bloody meat splattered across the main road. Oh god, Matty. Oh my god.

  Then the haze lifted and I saw him, standing astride his bike in front of me. Grinning like a maniac.

  It took a millisecond for my despair to turn to anger. ‘You little bastard,’ I growled, picking myself up from the dirt.

  ‘Yeah, I smashed it,’ he gloated.

  ‘Are you brain dead?’ I shouted at him. ‘How did you not see that truck coming?’

  ‘Course I saw it,’ he said, grinning, ‘and cleared it by a mile.’

  I clenched my fists. ‘You could have been killed. We could have been killed. What the hell do you think you were doing?’

  ‘It’s called winning,’ Matt said, smirking. ‘Maybe you should try it some time.’

  I shoved him hard in the chest, almost pushing him off his bike.

  ‘Don’t be such a loser!’ he snapped back angrily. ‘Jeez, Johnno. You totally had me back there. You could have got through. You just blew it. Don’t take it out on me.’

  I could have smacked him in the mouth right there and then. It had been a while since we’d had a fight. But they always started the same way – with Matt mouthing off and me feeling like an idiot. And, at that moment, that’s exactly how I felt. He cleared the truck, so I could have too. But instead I chickened out. I was as mad with myself as I was with him, so I backed down and went to get my bike.

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought a crappy mattress was worth turning yourself into roadkill for,’ I muttered.

  Maybe it had been a closer call than Matt was making out or maybe I was so lame that nothing more needed to be said, but for whatever reason he eased off. ‘Actually, you sleeping outside the tent is reward enough for me. You should hear your snoring sometime.’

  I shook my head and sighed. ‘You can be a massive idiot, you know.’

  He shrugged. ‘Thanks, mate. I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘C’mon,’ I muttered, climbing gingerly on my bike. ‘We’ll be late.’

  Matt took off. ‘Want a chance to win the mattress back?’ he called.

>   I ignored him and we rode the rest of the way in silence, freewheeling along the smooth bitumen into town. It was 8.45 on Saturday morning and hardly anyone was about. We didn’t see another vehicle until we hit the main street, and even then it was just a rusty old station wagon with its axle resting on a couple of house bricks where its front wheel should have been.

  As towns go, Shell Harbour only just qualified. It was little more than a collection of corrugated roofs dotted around a U-shaped harbour. As we pedalled down the main street I could make out a breakwater, separating the pond-like stillness of the inner harbour from the rolling blue ocean beyond. Further out, interrupting the line between sea and sky was a long, flat, sliver of land with two large peaks at its southern end. It was called Lion Island, but it looked more like a crocodile to me, lying in wait, watching, submerged except for its big eyes and long snout.

  It was the third year in a row that we’d come to Shell Harbour for the summer holidays, but we’d never gone out to Lion Island before.

  Braking at the head of the pier, we propped our bikes against the back wall of the pier’s kiosk. There was no need to lock up bikes in a town like Shell Harbour. We dropped into the kiosk to stock up on supplies for our trip: some power drinks, cashews, snakes and chocolate – lots of chocolate.

  ‘Mum would die if she saw this,’ Matt said, stuffing the junk food feast into his backpack.

  I grinned and did my best Mum voice. ‘You’ll destroy your teeth before you’re thirty, and then you’ll wish you listened to your mum.’

  The walk down the pier was slow, because Matt insisted on checking out every fisherman’s morning catch. As we passed each boat, the men looked up from gutting their fish to say good morning.

  The largest boat on the pier was a trawler, called The Free Man. It had a small runabout boat tied to its stern. On deck a man with thick, sun-blotched forearms was leaning over the guardrail. He was deep in conversation with a guy on the runabout, who was stowing a rucksack and what looked like a sleeping bag. The men looked up as we walked past, and stopped talking. I gave them a half-smile, but they looked away.

  At the very end of the pier, rocking gently at her mooring, was the only yacht among the crusty fishing trawlers. Her polished timber deck gleamed brightly, her chrome trim glistened and the water reflected a shimmering pattern on her smooth, shiny white hull. It was as if the whole yacht was covered in sparkling diamonds. Across the stern, written in brilliant gold, was The Dolphin, and she was every bit as sleek as her namesake.

  ‘Ahoy there, Dolphin. Anyone home?’ I called out.

  A familiar figure came from below deck. He had a mass of messy dark brown hair and the kind of tan you can only get by being outside 365 days a year. If I were somewhere more exotic I would have picked him as the yacht’s deckhand. But here in Shell Harbour this was the man in charge, The Dolphin’s skipper and my best mate, Nick.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t the Sleeping Beauties,’ he said, giving me a wry smile and slouching over the guardrail.

  ‘Give me a break,’ I said. ‘You were up so early I figured you’d wet the bed.’

  ‘Just couldn’t sleep with all your snoring,’ he countered and glanced at Matt. ‘Don’t know how you put up with it, mate.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as his farts,’ Matt replied, ducking away as I punched at his arm.

  As we clambered aboard Nick craned his neck, looking back down the pier. ‘So where’s Dad? And that cousin of yours?’

  ‘Your dad went to get George from the station,’ I explained. ‘We figured we’d be more use here than hanging around waiting for a train, so we rode over.’

  ‘And I whipped him,’ chirped Matt.

  ‘Yeah, I can see that,’ Nick said, grinning.

  I glanced down at my shirt and realised it was covered in red dust and torn in two places. I was going to say: And Matt nearly got himself killed in the process. But I thought better of it. Nick would’ve gone as hard as Matt if he’d been with us on the road.

  Nick glanced at his watch. ‘Well, if the train’s on time, they should be here in about twenty minutes or so. We’re pretty much set, I think. Just help me with the ropes, will you?’

  Matt and I neatly coiled the ropes while Nick prepared the mainsail, ready to unfurl as soon as we were out of the harbour. When we were done, I checked out the rest of the yacht. Nick had clearly been busy preparing for the trip. Downstairs in the cabin everything was neat, uncluttered and orderly. A large blue Esky sat in the middle of the floor. I took a peek under its lid. It was chock-full of sausages, steak, cheese, eggs and a few cans of soft drink, all smothered in ice. Nick had everything under control. Not that I would have expected anything less. He could manage a trip like this no problem. All we had to do was keep out of his way.

  Mounted on the wall above the chart table was a small photo of Nick and me. It had been taken during my first visit to Shell Harbour, three years before. Both of us had stupid grins and sunburnt noses, and were proudly holding up to the camera a huge fish we’d caught. We were both twelve.

  Right next to the picture was a mirror and I caught sight of the reflection of me and Nick in it. Nick had his back to the mirror, as he rummaged in his bag for something, but it reminded me that physically not much had changed since that photo. Nick was still a few inches taller than me, still dark tan next to my pasty skin that burned after half an hour in the sun … But in the time since that photo had been taken things had changed. Nick had changed.

  As I dropped my backpack onto the cabin floor, I heard Nick’s dad calling from outside. ‘Hey, Nick? Got room for another?’

  ‘Hey, Dad. Be there in a sec.’

  My heart skipped a beat, and my thoughts about the differences between old Nick and new Nick disappeared from my head.

  Nick eased past me and up the stairs.

  In a sec he would know, I thought.

  He popped his head through the cabin doorway, then stiffened. I heard him mutter under his breath, ‘Oh, great. Nice one.’

  For someone who had just travelled ten hours across the country, George looked good. Standing on the pier with her long brown ponytail, faded denim shorts and white singlet over a bikini top, she appeared – as she always did – effortlessly cool.

  ‘Hi, George,’ I said, edging past Nick.

  ‘Hey, Johnno.’ She grinned her wide, perfect smile at me.

  Glancing back at Nick, who hadn’t moved from the cabin stairs, I tried to sound matter-of-fact. ‘Nick, this is my cousin George. Well, it’s short for Georgina. George, meet Nick.’

  ‘Hi, Nick,’ George said in her sunniest voice. ‘Johnno’s told me a lot about you.’

  Nick nodded stiffly, his face impassive. For a moment I was worried he wasn’t going to acknowledge her at all. ‘Hi, Georgina,’ he said at last. Then he turned to his dad. ‘And I suppose you knew nothing?’

  ‘Knew? Knew what?’ his father lied and gave me a sly wink. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when this little lady hopped off the train. A surprise, but a pleasant one, no question.’

  George looked confused and uncomfortable. She glared at me out of the corner of her eye, and the best I could manage was a sheepish grin. She hardened her stare.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Nick snorted, with a disbelieving shake of his head. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Here, make yourself useful,’ Nick’s dad said, throwing up George’s backpack.

  Nick caught it lightly, as if it had germs. Then he shot me a death stare and disappeared below.

  At the time it had seemed like a hilarious prank to not tell Nick that George was a girl. I’d even got Matt in on it. If brain-dead Matt could see the joke, why couldn’t Nick?

  George had only moved back from living overseas about a year ago and I’d never mentioned her to Nick. I mean, it’s not like Nick and I talked that much these days anyway. I’d really wanted George to spend the holidays with us and Nick said it didn’t bother him if my cousin came along, so I invited her.

&n
bsp; George was keen and I was stoked. Against all odds, Matt managed to keep his trap shut. I just thought it would be a bit of a laugh. But now I wondered if I should have paid more attention to my gut instinct. Old Nick would have laughed as soon as he saw George. But old Nick was gone.

  I first noticed it during last year’s visit. Even though we’d been friends forever, it felt like he was keeping me at a distance. Sometimes it felt I like was starting over with him every single day, like I needed to rebuild a bridge that had unexpectedly fallen down overnight.

  Now I thought about it, my gut had been telling me the new Nick was in no mood for wind-ups. After Nick suggested the island trip, and once it was all organised, there was something in his eagerness to get away from the farm that made me wonder if the George prank was such a great idea after all. But it didn’t really make sense and he hadn’t said anything, and besides George was already travelling across the country to get to Shell Harbour.

  To be honest, I wasn’t that fussed about going to the island. Just hanging out on the farm was awesome. Hooning around on quad bikes, fixing fences, herding cattle and eating chook eggs fresh from the nest. But Nick had been set on going and had given me the hard sell. Going feral for a couple of days, sleeping on the sand, spear fishing off the rocks, diving for shellfish. I guess it sounded pretty great. But mostly I hadn’t wanted to let him down, so I agreed. But now, as George shot me another withering look, I wasn’t sure anything I’d done was right.

  Nick reappeared on deck. He’d put on a T-shirt, baseball cap and sunnies. Not being able to read his eyes made it impossible to work out his mood. He slouched over the guardrail and asked George if she knew anything about sailing.

  ‘A bit,’ she replied cautiously.

  ‘Good,’ he said smartly. ‘I was worried I might have to rely on these two landlubbers.’

  Matt shouted in protest, but I didn’t care. I knew I was a landlubber.

  Then to my relief, Nick extended a gentlemanly hand and beckoned George to come aboard.

  When she was over the guardrail, Nick turned to me and mouthed, ‘Nice one, douchebag.’

  Then his dad called him over to the side of the boat. In one move, Nick jumped over the rail onto the pier.