The Other Side of Nowhere Read online

  ‘Matt, grab the backpack,’ I told him. ‘It’s on the sand where we came out. George, let’s take Nick up to the trees and see if we can find some cover.’

  Matt took off down the beach, and George came over to me. She nodded towards Nick. ‘That shoulder looks bad. If we don’t fix it, it’s only going to get worse,’ she whispered.

  ‘Fix it?’ I whispered back. ‘What do you mean? How can we fix it?’

  ‘Well, I think his shoulder’s dislocated,’ George said. ‘We have to put it back in.’

  ‘Bloody hell, George. As if we can do that!’

  ‘I’m serious,’ she said. She bent down to take a closer look at Nick’s shoulder. His eyes were closed again, but his breathing was steady.

  ‘But, how?’ I asked, kneeling beside her.

  George chewed on her lip. ‘Well, I don’t know exactly,’ she said. ‘But I’ve seen it done.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum’s a physio,’ she reminded me. ‘One time, there was this girl at school who dislocated her shoulder playing soccer, and Mum just, well, kind of popped it back in.’

  Popped it back in? I thought. The idea of ‘popping’ Nick’s arm back into its socket made my stomach churn. I looked up at George, wondering if she was serious.

  ‘I mean, I just stood there watching, but I sort of remember what she did …’

  I scoffed. ‘Yeah, well, I used to kick butt at that board game Operation, but do you hear me saying I’m a surgeon? Look, George, why don’t we just wait till Nick’s dad comes to get us in the morning?’

  George shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think we can.’ She looked determined.

  Nick’s eyes opened slowly. He moved ever so slightly and it was enough to send a jolt through his body, the hurt showing in the grimace on his face. George leant over, gently wiping away the raindrops pooling around his eyes.

  ‘Nick, we’ve got to fix your shoulder,’ she said, her voice steady.

  He seemed groggy and didn’t seem to register what she’d said.

  ‘Nick? Did you hear –?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I heard you,’ he muttered weakly. ‘Just do what you need to do.’

  George gave him a reassuring smile and gestured for me to get behind Nick.

  I moved behind him, but didn’t touch him. ‘George? Are you really –?’

  ‘Yep, Johnno. I’m sure. So are you going to help or not?’ she challenged.

  I reluctantly crouched behind Nick and helped him into a sitting position, so he could lean against me for support. George knelt in front of him, taking hold of his arm and gently rotating it inward to make an ‘L’ shape across his chest.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep.’ He was obviously lying. I could feel the tension in his back as he pressed into me, forcing me to dig my feet deep into the sand to stop from falling backwards.

  ‘So far, so good,’ George said quietly, presumably to herself.

  Very slowly, she rotated his bent arm outward. Nick clenched his other fist and grimaced, but didn’t make a sound.

  Cocking her head slightly to one side, in intense concentration, she teased the arm up and down, back and forth. After a couple minutes of this, I guessed George had lost her nerve. Even I knew you had to force it back into the joint rather than try and will it.

  She sat back on her heels. ‘I can’t do it. I mean, I don’t even know what I’m doing.’

  ‘C’mon George. Don’t go wimping out on me now,’ said Nick through gritted teeth. ‘Just give the bloody thing a shove.’

  ‘But what if I make it worse?’

  Nick laughed. ‘Trust me … that’s not possible.’

  George sighed, shaking her head. Then, with a deep breath, she picked up his arm again.

  This time she moved the arm more aggressively and when Nick pushed back into me it was all I could do to hold him in place. Just as George looked like she was about to give up again, we heard a dull clunk as the shoulder slipped back into the joint. Nick roared in pain and then sighed deeply.

  George and I sat stunned until Matt shouted. ‘How cool was that?’ He was back from collecting our backpack and must’ve seen the whole thing.

  The deep concentration on George’s face fell away, and a huge grin appeared instead. Then, for the first time in a while, we all laughed – even Nick. And it felt as good as Christmas morning.

  With Matt and me at his shoulders and George holding his feet, we managed to move Nick up the beach and into the half-shelter of an overhanging tree. I’d been hoping that once we got off the beach we’d find some decent shelter, but there was only thick bush. With each howling gust of wind, the tree above us shook, sending down a deluge of water from its branches.

  ‘This sucks,’ moaned Matt. ‘I’m gonna go find something better.’

  I grabbed his arm as he pushed past. ‘Stick to the sand, you’ll get lost in the bush.’

  ‘Sure, Mum. No worries,’ he said, wrenching his arm free, heading off in the opposite way to the sand. For a few minutes I could hear him bashing around behind us, but then there was nothing, as if the bush had swallowed him whole.

  I must have looked worried because George reached out her hand to me. ‘He’ll be okay, Johnno,’ she said. ‘He’s not going to do anything stupid.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ I groaned. ‘Everything he does is stupid.’

  ‘Well, Matt does have a point. This is not exactly a shelter,’ she said, as another shower of water splattered down onto Nick. Even in his semi-coma Nick screwed up his face in annoyance.

  While we huddled together against the cold, half leaning over Nick in an attempt to keep the rain off him, I rummaged through the backpack. There was a torch, fire-lighters, waterproof matches, some knives and forks, one of George’s jumpers and a pair of tracksuit pants, a single bed sheet and a coil of rope. The only things to eat were a packet of dry biscuits and two chocolate bars. We scoffed the chocolate on sight, saving some for Matt.

  George had a despondent look on her face as we sorted through the bag’s contents. ‘I guess the first-aid kit and water bottles were in my pack.’

  ‘Never mind, at least we can see what we’re doing now,’ I said, shining the torch into the bushes. I passed George her wet jumper and soggy tracksuit pants. ‘They’re a bit damp but you might as well put them on.’

  She slipped the tracksuit pants over her shorts and lay her jumper over Nick. She grabbed the bed sheet and draped that over him, too. Just then, I heard footsteps and shone my torch into the gloom. Matt was standing there, breathing hard, with his face and arms covered in scratches.

  ‘What happened to you?’ asked George.

  ‘Me? Nothing,’ he said. ‘But I found us a cave. Down there through the trees … Easy as.’

  Matt’s definition of easy was rarely in the same universe as mine, but a dry cave was a tempting prospect. I passed him the torch and backpack, and then slid my arms under Nick’s arms. George held his legs, and together we lifted him until his body was just clear of the sand.

  We shuffled along, following the faint glow from the roaming arc of torchlight until Matt led us through a gap in the trees. Pretty soon we came to a mound of large rocks nestled at the base of a cliff. We followed the cliff line for a bit and then passed through a curtain of water droplets into a shallow cave.

  Propping Nick up against the rock wall, George and I slumped down next to him. I felt instantly warmer to be out of the wind and took a moment to savour the lack of rain on my face.

  ‘Bags carrying the torch next time,’ moaned George, kneading the muscles in her shoulders.

  Matt came over and sat next to us. When he noticed George’s tracksuit pants he started fossicking through the backpack for something similar.

  ‘There are no more clothes,’ I said. ‘But there’s a fire starter. See if you can find some dry wood?’

  Matt shot me his best ‘you’re an idiot’ look and stood up. ‘Yeah, sure. And maybe I’ll find some marshmallows, to
o,’ he muttered, heading back outside.

  George draped the sheet over Nick. But it was wet and it wasn’t going to do much good. We really needed a fire or we were all going to get hypothermia.

  To my surprise Matt reappeared ten minutes later with an armful of twigs and branches that were miraculously relatively dry. He and I got busy piling the wood into a small mound and with the help of some of the fire lighters we soon had a small fire going.

  As the flames lit up the cave walls with dancing shadows, I felt a flicker of hope inside me for the first time in many hours.

  ‘Nice work, guys!’ George cheered.

  Matt went and slumped down beside her and she gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. I watched him drop his head onto her shoulder, feeling a pang of jealousy. George gave me a soft smile and then looked at the fire.

  I turned away. Thankful for the glow from the fire to disguise the flush I felt spreading across my cheeks, I pretended to adjust the sheet over Nick.

  The fire picked up as we sat quietly, transfixed by the flames, hunched forward for warmth and each lost in our own thoughts.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ sighed George as she lay down on her back next to Nick.

  ‘Me too,’ said Matt stifling a yawn. George put her arm out and he rested his head on it, almost melding into the crook of her neck.

  Suddenly George’s voice echoed in the little cave. ‘To think we could have been hanging out at the farm right now, and going to bed on real mattresses … Johnno Jones, you sure know how to show a girl a good time.’ She lifted her head in my direction and smiled.

  I gave a small smile back.

  Then she whispered, ‘You did good today, Johnno … you really did.’

  Did good? The ache that I’d felt earlier returned. I sure didn’t feel good. More like scared, confused and ashamed. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ she whispered, looking at me seriously. ‘When Nick got hurt you really kept it together.’

  I gave her a slightly wider smile. If there was one person who could bring me up when I was feeling down, it was George. But right now I felt like such a loser not even she could make me feel better about myself.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘You’re the lifesaver, Doctor G.’

  This time there was no reply. I twisted around to look at her, but she was lying down again. I could see her hair, spilling in damp waves across her cheek, the shadows of the fire bringing out the line of freckles across her nose. Her mouth, set in a half smile, twitched at the corners as if she were talking in her sleep. I hoped it was a sweet dream. I wasn’t someone who wished for much, but I sure was thankful that she was okay. That we all were.

  I leant back with my arms behind my head, listening to the crackle of the fire and the constant plop, plop, plop of rain dripping at the mouth of the cave. It sounded like the storm was passing. I closed my eyes and filled my head with reassuring thoughts.

  Tomorrow the sun will be out and Nick’s dad will come get us. He must have been freaking out about this crazy storm and how we hadn’t called him like Nick said we would. Yeah, he’ll be out at first light tomorrow, probably with the boat police or something. And then I thought about getting back to Shell Harbour. I smiled thinking of how Matt would demand to be the one to tell everyone what happened and would make it sound bigger than the sinking of the Titanic. Then we’ll go back to the farm and hang out, like I promised George we would. And then, maybe, after a few days, Nick and I will laugh about how I’d shoved his nuisance body away under the water and how he kicked me in the head …

  Yep, all we have to do is get to the other side of this night and everything will be fine.

  There was something on my foot. When my eyes adjusted I saw it was a rat. Only it was the size of a cat. And it had my toe in its claws!

  ‘Get off!’ I jerked my legs up to my chest, frantically, and it shot off into a dark corner of the cave.

  Wide awake now, I stood up and stretched against the stiffness from a night on the hard stone floor. Our campfire was dead and everyone else was still asleep. Leaving them huddled together, I slipped out of the cave and wandered through the trees to the beach, squinting at the sunlight.

  The storm was long gone, leaving in its place a powder-blue sky and an even rolling swell. The only evidence of the previous night’s mayhem was a line of seaweed pushed high up the beach by the storm tide.

  I dropped onto the sand and tuned into the sounds of the island. The gentle hiss of foam bubbling as each wave receded, the hum of cicadas and the chirping of a zillion waking birds.

  Looking down at myself, I noticed for the first time that my legs and arms were covered in deep scrapes and blue-green bruises. Other than some stinging deep cuts on my hands from gripping the wire railing on The Dolphin, and a few aches, I didn’t feel too bad. But when I thought about what had happened the day before, I could hardly believe we’d survived.

  The beach we’d crawled onto was crescent shaped, no more than a few hundred metres long. At the farthest point, the rocks we had narrowly avoided the night before jutted into the ocean. But they were no longer covered in an eerie mist. Instead, the sun sparkled off rock pools and highlighted the colourful patterns in the stone. Behind me, a dense jungle of trees and bushes stretched back to the base of an almost vertical rock wall. As high as a skyscraper, the wall spanned almost the full length of the beach. It was like being in the middle of a stadium and looking up at the grandstand.

  At the near end of the beach, the trees were not so tightly packed together and I could see through to the boulders where the cave was. Then the beach closed out into another wall of rock, the beginning of what I recalled to be a long line of cliffs all the way down to the southern-most tip of the island. This tiny beach was the only landing spot for kilometres. I thought, not for the first time, about just how lucky we’d been.

  ‘Welcome to Survivor Island,’ said a voice behind me.

  George sat down next to me, digging her brown summer feet into the sand. I noticed the bright red polish on her toenails and realised that we’d all lost our shoes or thongs at some point during the night.

  ‘Hey. Get much sleep?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Those rock beds, they’re gonna catch on big time,’ George said, extending her arms behind her in a long, luxurious stretch. She pulled her hair back from her face, tying it loosely in a bun on top of her head, and leant forward to rest her chin on her knees. A nasty scratch ran down the side of her neck, angry and red against the tan of her skin.

  ‘What?’ she asked squinting against the sun.

  ‘Nothing. Just looking.’

  ‘Weirdo,’ she teased, nudging me off balance with her elbow.

  ‘Bully,’ I replied, elbowing her back.

  ‘So how long do you think we’ll have to wait to be rescued?’

  ‘Not long,’ I said, surveying the water. ‘Nick’s dad must be worried out of his mind. I mean, we said we’d call and we never did. Bet he’s already on his way.’

  George looked skyward, as if expecting to see a rescue plane appear at any moment. ‘I hope so. You think we have time for a swim?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  Without warning she pushed me so hard I rolled over onto the sand just as she sprang to her feet ‘Race you!’

  George stripped down to her bikini and raced towards the water. Wrestling with my shirt as I ran, I only just managed to grab her as she was about to dive in. She squealed as the force of my tackle pushed us both under and as we surfaced a school of tiny baitfish darted out of our way.

  We splashed and dived and bombed and laughed our way along the shoreline and then floated back with the current. I watched the way she glided through the water effortlessly, how the sun made her wet skin glisten. She stood up in the water to retie her hair and flashed me a wide smile. She really was stunningly pretty. I felt a familiar sensation, which always ended with me having to remind myself she was my cousin and if I was being truthful, I wished she wasn’t.

&nb
sp; I could have happily hung out with her all day, just the two of us. So when Matt and Nick finally appeared on the beach I felt a little annoyed. As soon as he spotted us, Matt raced into the water, and Nick plonked himself down on the sand.

  The three of us mucked around for a bit, splashing each other and bodysurfing waves. At one point, Matt swam up behind me and said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve found a warm spot.’

  I splashed him in his goofy face, and happened to catch a glimpse of Nick, sitting alone on the beach as I did so. With a departing wave over my shoulder, I waded ashore and headed over to him.

  Walking up the beach, I started to feel uneasy again. The vision of Nick drifting away was still fixed in my head. He was sitting, flicking sand with a stick. He didn’t look up as I sat down beside him. Nick was not super easy to talk to in the mornings at the best of times, but he seemed even more stand-offish than normal.

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’ I said, after a moment’s silence.

  ‘Not bad,’ he replied, with a non-committal shrug.

  I picked up a stick and started to break it into smaller pieces. ‘Water’s nice. You should have a swim.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe later,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘How’s George?’

  ‘She’s good. I guess we were pretty lucky, huh?’

  Nick nodded absently. Even though part of me felt like this was a pretty typical ‘new day’ type conversation with Nick, something was different. He was avoiding talking to me, I was sure of it. All of a sudden I felt all tongue-tied, like I was trying to start a conversation with a stranger. It was a welcome distraction when Matt came bounding over and sprayed us both with a shower of water, like a dog after a bath.

  ‘This is unreal,’ he said slashing the air with a piece of driftwood. ‘I’m Robinson Caruso!’

  ‘Crusoe, idiot. Robinson Crusoe,’ I said, smearing water off my face.

  Matt ignored me and speared his stick into a fat clump of seaweed. ‘What’s for breakfast?’ he asked. ‘I’m starving.’