The Other Side of Nowhere Read online

  The trawler kept powering away. Two men appeared on the rear deck, scanning the water for debris. I could see their surprise turn to anger when they realised that somehow we’d slipped past. I recognised one of them straightaway. It was the man from the jetty who’d been carrying the sleeping bag.

  ‘Up yours, losers!’ I yelled, punching the air in triumph.

  As far as I could see, Ali and the others weren’t on the trawler. I wondered if Zaffar had taken them back to the cave, but then again, they’d had all night to do something worse. More determined than ever, I grabbed hold of the wheel and swung it hard again, setting our course straight for the dinghy.

  ‘Everyone okay?’ I called out.

  ‘I think so,’ said Stephanie, wiping the tangle of hair from her face. George gave a weak smile and a thumbs-up, but poor Amira was wailing like a siren. I didn’t know what limit was reasonable for a six year old to handle, but I knew she was way over it.

  ‘Hey, there’s someone on the beach,’ said Stephanie, coming to stand beside me.

  There were two figures on the beach, along the water line. The first was running, while the other, a much larger figure, walked behind. There was something all-too-familiar about the loping gait and oversized body.

  I scanned the water for Matt and Nick. The dinghy was now in deeper water and we could go straight to it. The trawler was making a big sweeping turn and would be coming back again soon enough, but I was pretty sure we had time to pick up Matt and Nick.

  ‘Steph, can you drive while I help them up?’ I asked, relinquishing the wheel to her. She eased off the throttle as we pulled alongside the dinghy, placing the yacht between it and the beach.

  One of the figures on the beach had his arm raised, pointing at us. I heard a sharp crack above the thrum of the engine and, an instant later, a ping as a bullet hit the yacht’s rigging.

  I leapt over the rail and onto the platform as Matt rowed feverishly towards us. Another ping was followed by the splintering of wood as a bullet slammed into the deck.

  ‘Oh my god,’ yelled Stephanie. ‘They’re shooting at us!’

  When Matt was about a length away, he dropped the oars and spun round in his seat. In between heaving breaths he blurted out the thing I’d been dreading.

  ‘Nick’s hurt bad – he got shot!’

  Nick was lying in the bottom of the dinghy, looking pale. ‘I’m fine,’ he said weakly.

  A dark red stain was spreading down the side of his shirt and I could feel the stickiness of blood on my hands as I eased him into the cockpit. He definitely didn’t look fine.

  George knelt down next to Nick and gingerly lifted his shirt. ‘I knew it. I just knew it,’ she muttered, shaking her head.

  Nick winced at her touch, but then shook his head. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Of course it’s not nothing. It’s a bullet wound, you idiot,’ she snapped.

  ‘You might want to get some antiseptic on that,’ said Stephanie, looking slightly nauseous. ‘And something to stop the blood. There’s a first-aid kit downstairs … I’ll get it.’

  ‘Okay, hang on, everybody,’ I said, standing up at the wheel again. I pushed the throttle down and we surged towards the open ocean, leaving the dinghy bobbing in our wake.

  Baldy and some other guy who had been shooting at us had waded waist deep into the shallows, but without any way of getting closer, they looked like they’d given up in frustration. The same couldn’t be said for the trawler. It had swung around in a wide arc and was heading back towards us. As we started to move, it altered course to head us off.

  Stephanie came back up on deck with a first-aid kit and gave it to George while Matt sat with Amira. He had his arm around her and was making soothing noises and, even in among everything else, I had to smile at this side of my little brother that I’d never seen before.

  Nick was propped up against the cabin bulkhead, trying hard not to flinch as George started to treat the wound in his side.

  He saw I was looking at him and offered a weak smile. ‘Nice manoeuvre. Good to see all those hours on the PlayStation paying off.’

  ‘Don’t reckon we’ll be so lucky next time,’ I replied grimly.

  ‘I reckon you’re right.’

  ‘But I’ve got an idea.’

  Nick looked surprised. ‘I’m all ears.’

  I turned to Stephanie who was watching over George’s shoulder. ‘I’m guessing you’d have some distress flares somewhere? I asked her.

  ‘Yeah, there’s a whole container in the cabin,’ she said, a little guardedly. I guess by now she’d worked out that every idea came with more than a little risk.

  ‘Okay, could you get them please?’

  Stephanie looked doubtful but turned and made her way down the steps without answering.

  ‘What are we going to do this time? George asked calmly, as she began to wrap a bandage around Nick’s stomach.

  ‘I reckon we need some more fireworks,’ I replied.

  ‘What, you gonna set yourself alight again?’ said Nick, grimacing as George pressed down on his wound. He was looking paler by the minute. There was sweat beading on his brow and blood was already seeping through the bandage. When he spoke it was like he was just getting the words out between breaths.

  I shrugged. ‘I figure if we can’t outrun them, might as well make it as hard for them as we can.’

  ‘Yeah, but what’s a flare gonna do? You probably don’t know how to use them anyway.’ He went to push George away and get to his feet.

  ‘Nick, just sit down!’ said George in exasperation, ‘Johnno, what do you want us to do?’

  Just then Stephanie came bounding up the steps, carrying a large yellow plastic container with a watertight, screw-top lid. I took it from her as she grabbed the wheel. The container felt nearly full.

  Nick moaned and collapsed backwards, his eyes screwed shut. It was obvious he was in agony.

  George looked up at me, her eyes full of worry. Worry for Nick, and all of us I suppose, but probably mostly worry that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

  Weirdly, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t worried. I don’t know why, exactly – it’s not like I’d had a heap of experience ramming expensive yachts. But if nothing else, I hoped my plan would buy us some time before help arrived.

  ‘I don’t know if we should do this, Johnno …’

  ‘And I don’t know what else we can do,’ I said calmly. ‘Trust me, George, It’s going to be fine.’ I wondered for an instant if I even remotely sounded like I believed that.

  I put the container on the deck and screwed off the lid. Inside were about a dozen small cylinders that looked a bit like plastic test tubes. I pulled a couple out and toyed with them gingerly. There seemed to be a few different types. I grabbed one called a Parachute Rocket Flare. I turned to Nick but he had his eyes shut and seemed to be barely conscious. He wasn’t going to be any help. I tried to read what was written on the side of the tube but it was all a blur of fine print except for the occasional ‘danger’, ‘don’t’, ‘fire’ and ‘burn’. I guess that pretty much summed up what was running through my head. If an ancient war relic can work for us, then these brand-spanking new ones should really do the trick. I stuffed two flares into the waist of my boardies.

  I turned to Stephanie standing beside me. ‘I reckon it might be best if you keep steering. You okay with that?’

  Her nonchalant shrug couldn’t hide her discomfort at the idea. ‘I guess so,’ she said weakly. ‘I just kinda felt better when it was someone else who was about to trash Dad’s boat.’

  ‘The only boat that’s going to get trashed is theirs,’ I said, pointing to the trawler approaching from our left.

  Stephanie looked sceptical, but I ignored her, turning instead to the others.

  ‘Okay, everyone. Listen up. On my count of three, we’re going to turn and steer straight for them, flat chat.’

  ‘Like playing Chicken,’ said Matt eagerly.

  ‘Yeah,
like Chicken. When we get close, and I mean really close, Stephanie will pull away left. So they’re gonna come past real close on the right. Matt, you tell me when to light up and I’ll give it my best shot. Everyone got that?’

  ‘What about me?’ asked George.

  ‘Apart from looking out for Nick and Amira, you can be Matt’s second pair of eyes. Just keep your eyes on the trawler.’

  The look on her face began to sap whatever confidence I had in my plan. But just as I started to doubt myself, Matt spoke.

  ‘Johnno knows exactly what he’s doing,’ said Matt. He turned to Stephanie. ‘You should have seen him deck the fat guy on the beach.’

  I looked at him in surprise. There was something in the tone of his voice that I couldn’t recall ever having heard before. It sounded like … Pride? Bolstered by his unexpected support, I grinned.

  ‘Okay, gang, no time for chit-chat – let’s do it!’ I yelled.

  Stephanie clutched the wheel nervously as I tucked myself behind her in the stern. Matt knelt next to me, while George stood protectively over Amira and Nick near the cabin bulkhead. Nick’s eyes were still closed and his breathing was shallow. With everything else that was happening I had barely stopped to think about how badly hurt he might actually be. It was hard to tell if we had been able to stem the flow of blood. What if he was bleeding to death right in front of us? It dawned on me that the most important thing of all was to get Nick to a hospital. All the more reason to act fast.

  ‘Ready, on my count,’ I said. ‘One, two, and three, go about … Now!’

  Stephanie pushed the throttle forward and swung hard on the wheel. The bow came around and lined up with the trawler. Moments later, the trawler turned towards us and we were head on, less than a hundred metres apart.

  My heart was thumping in time with the motor and I could almost feel the blood coursing through my veins. My ears began to fill with a dull thunk, thunk, thunk. I took hold of the base of a flare stick and pulled off the plastic cap at one end. A small piece of string fell out. It had a small tab attached to it with the word ‘pull’ written in bright red. George was mumbling instructions, most of which I couldn’t hear. I poked my head around the bulkhead. The trawler was almost on top of us. Its roaring was beyond sound; it was a physical pulse, pumping through my entire body. I turned to George for guidance and saw her mouth moving but could hear nothing, I was just reading her lips.

  ‘Now … Do it now!’

  I stood up, raising the flare to my shoulder, and took aim. The trawler was so close I could have reached out and touched it. Faces leered through the cabin window and I saw Zaffar staring at me from behind the wheel with hatred in his eyes.

  I pulled the string. With a sharp hiss, the flare ignited and spewed a stream of sparks. I felt something shoot out of the tube. The parachute rocket whizzed across the trawler deck and smashed through a side window, filling the cabin with thick white smoke as it darted about like a bee in a bottle. Bodies fell out onto the deck as they tried get away from the smoking rocket.

  As I let out a whoop of celebration, I felt an intense, hot wind press down on us. For a split second I thought maybe we’d caught fire until I looked up and saw the dark underbelly of a helicopter as it swooped low overhead.

  Someone in a face-covering helmet leant out through the side door of the helicopter and gave us a wave. Instinctively I waved back, and Matt and George did the same. The helicopter then dipped sharply and darted back over our heads in pursuit of the retreating trawler. As I watched it speed off, I noticed another boat on the horizon, a big white cruiser powering towards us, flashing blue lights. I gazed at it, hardly daring to believe it was really there.

  Stephanie eased up on the throttle and we slowed to a stop on the rolling sea. Nick opened his eyes and, taking in the helicopter and the police boat, gave a weak pump of his fist. Matt cheered and started doing a weird, funky dance around the cabin that managed to bring a smile to Amira’s face. George came across the deck and smothered me in a firm embrace, then stood back, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  What happened next was a complete blur. There were blaring sirens and flashing lights as the police boat pulled up alongside us. A swarm of men converged on the Southern Belle. Amira was swept up in burly arms and began to kick and scream.

  I realised that it must have been adrenaline that had kept me going all this time. Now that the worst was over the pain came flooding back. Someone who looked like a doctor came up to me but I pointed to Nick, who they hadn’t noticed yet. For a moment I was left to slump back against the cushions. I saw a man and women appear and smother Stephanie in a warm embrace. I tried to speak to her but then the doctor guy was back, pushing me down and prodding my ribs. Between the stabs of pain that washed over me, I felt vaguely gutted by the idea that I might never see her again. But then the doctor gave a particularly hard press against my side and I felt a wave of nausea rising up before everything went black.

  George sat at the end of Nick’s bed, fidgeting with her hairband. They had been inseparable since we’d been rescued. The thing was, though, it genuinely made me feel good to see them so happy together.

  But now George was getting ready to leave, and it was obviously hard. Every now and then she’d look up, pretending to focus on something in the room. The vases of flowers, or the cards on the table – maybe the medical chart that hung at the end of the bed. But each time she did, she’d steal a quick glance at him. And each time, Nick would glance back, and she’d turn away and go back to the hairband.

  In the bed next to Nick, propped up by a stack of thick pillows, was his dad. His eyes were barely visible in the middle of two swollen black mounds that seemed to take up half his face. His nose was covered in white plaster, and a weird pulley contraption was holding up his busted leg.

  On the night of the storm, when he hadn’t been able to reach us by phone, Nick’s dad had driven into town to try to find a way to help us. Not that he had been sure how he could. It turned out he never had to figure it out – he lost control of his car in the pouring rain and ploughed into a tree. According to the nurse looking after him, he’d been in and out of consciousness since then. He’d only properly come to in the last day or so. The local police had tried to contact Nick and had been out to the farm looking for him, but they figured he was away for the holidays. No-one ever thought to look in the harbour for The Dolphin.

  I was in the bed on the other side of Nick. The doctor said I had three cracked ribs and was lucky not to have punctured a lung. My thousand or so cuts and bruises would heal soon enough. As for my hair – well, the doctor said it reminded him of his favourite punk rock band from the eighties and maybe I’d bring back the trend.

  My folks had been in an hour or so earlier, but now they were with Matt back at the farm, packing up and getting ready to leave. They’d be back soon to take me home.

  I could hardly believe it, but I was kind of sad to be going. The holiday hadn’t quite worked out as planned, obviously. But I really was sad to be leaving the town behind, and to be saying goodbye to George. But mostly I was sad to be leaving Nick.

  Suddenly Nick’s dad sat bolt upright in his bed.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Nick,’ he said softly after clearing his throat.

  ‘Take it easy, Dad – you don’t want to slow down that recovery,’ Nick joked.

  ‘Like I said,’ he continued, ignoring Nick, ‘I’ve been thinking. I reckon it’s time you went back to the city … to be with your mum.’

  Now it was Nick’s turn to sit up. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Look at you – look at what you and your friends have done. Damn it, you’ll be a man before I know it, Nick, and a man’s got to make his own way in the world.’

  ‘I am making my own way – on the farm, with you.’

  Nick’s dad shook his head. ‘No, mate, that’s not your future. Heck, I ain’t sure it’s mine either – but that’s for me to sort out.’

  ‘Dad! No way. I mean
look at you. How are you gonna cope on your own?’

  His dad shrugged dismissively. ‘I’ll be fine. Be back on my feet in no time. No, Nick, it’s time you were back in the city, back at school. You’re a smart, tough kid … You deserve more than this place. And I’ll be all right. You’ve done well looking after me. But it’s enough now, mate. I can look after myself.’

  Nick’s dad stuck his hand out. Nick reached over and took it. He was smiling, but I felt sure I saw a glistening in his eyes.

  My pulse quickened at the thought of Nick coming back to the city – coming home. There had been so many times over the past week when I’d thought that somehow our worlds were spinning uncontrollably away from each other. But as we lay there in the hospital together over the last couple of days, swapping stories and making jokes, I’d realised that somehow our crazy ordeal had breathed life into our friendship. And as Nick slumped back on his bed frowning, I hoped more than anything in the world that he would listen to his dad.

  I picked up the newspaper lying on the bedside table. Zaffar and his mates were massive, front-page news – a people-smuggling ring operating out of sleepy old Shell Harbour. There were two large photos. The biggest was of Freeman’s trawler. From the sound of the story in the paper, it looked like he was one of the key players in a big operation.

  The article explained how Freeman’s role was to collect the incoming passengers and bring them to the mainland, before secretly moving them to a number of locations around the country. There would be other arrests as well, apparently, and the paper made a big deal of how this was going to put a huge dint in a very lucrative business. The second photo was of a bunch of people getting off a coastguard boat. Right in front was Ali – and holding his hand was Amira.

  We’d all been mentioned, including Stephanie, and all hailed as heroes. But the last thing I felt like was a hero. One of the police officers who’d come to question us at the hospital had said it looked like Freeman and Zaffar’s plan was to take all the people out to sea and throw them overboard, once we’d stumbled upon the scheme. He said that the smugglers were scared of getting caught and that getting rid of the evidence was their only option. When I looked at the photo of Amira, and the way she clung to her dad, I didn’t feel like a hero. But I did feel something, a kind of security, knowing that we had helped to protect her.