‘I won’t forget. I will think of Australia.’ A wave reared up. They froze as somehow the boat shuddered up and past.
Jadda reached into their bag and brought out the flask of water. She held it to him. ‘Drink it. Drink it all.’
We should save some for later, he thought. And then, Perhaps there won’t be a later. That is why I need to drink it now. For strength, to keep going, to get to Australia.
He said, ‘You drink half. Then me.’
He thought she was going to refuse. But he was too old now to do his grandmother’s bidding just because she said so. Instead she took a sip, then another. He knew that was all she’d take.
He took the flask and drank the rest. If fresh water could make him stronger, he could help Jadda.
He put the flask in their plastic bag. He bailed again.
Scoop and throw, scoop and throw. A man vomited. The storm carried the muck away.
Waves. Wind. Air thick with water for so long that at last even the screams and sobbing stopped.
Faris tried to keep his eyes on the tin can as he scooped the water up and out. Think of Australia, whispered Jadda’s voice in his mind. Don’t think of the storm, the fragile rusty boat. He tried to think of a quiet bedroom, with clean sheets. But how could any dream help you survive when the world was ripped by storm?
The small grey boat still floated. And slowly the waves began to slacken.
At last Faris looked up. The sky was pale again, as though the darkness had fallen with the rain. A sea like a rocky plain. He turned to Jadda, to try to smile at her, to tell her that dreaming of good things worked. He had ridden the storm without screaming. They had survived.
And then he saw the wave.
Had it waited till the storm had eased, the better to show its majesty? It reared like a sea beast from the ocean depths, as high as a three-storey building. Foam danced about the top.
Jadda’s hand gripped his. She yelled, ‘I love you!’
The wave crashed down.
Pain. His body was crushed down, then up, then sideways, and down again. The water tried to tear him apart. Water that was green, not grey, and filled with bubbles. A sensation that was only down, down, down, but no knowledge of where ‘up’ might be. His arms and legs seemed lost. They didn’t work. Nothing worked, except his eyes, no air to breathe, no ears to hear. More pain.
No, he thought. This is not happening. We will reach Australia! Keep thinking of Australia …
I will open my eyes and I’ll be safe, he thought. I will be in Australia, in my room. Safe in bed, a real bed.
And then darkness.
CHAPTER 2
The bed was soft. The sheets smelled of sunlight, soft on his skin.
Faris opened his eyes.
The room was white. The striped curtains on the wide window looked out onto palm trees and a pure blue sky. A big bookcase stood full of books; the desk held the latest model computer; and there was a bright blue-and-red carpet on the white-tiled floor.
His bedroom, here in Australia.
Something niggled him, like a mouse nibbling a loaf of bread. A boat. A wave, cold against his skin. For a second his body was a balloon, about to burst, wanting to scream for air, but if he opened his mouth the water would pour through his body …
No! There was no darkness here. No wave. Faris kept his eyes wide open, in case shutting them would bring the darkness back. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. Ten o’clock! He was late for school.
‘Ah, the king of sleep wakes up.’ Jadda appeared in the doorway. She wore her favourite red dress and gold combs in her black hair. ‘It’s good there is no school today. The teachers would be weeping, “Where is Faris? We can’t have maths class without Faris to correct our mistakes.”’
Faris laughed. He swung his legs out of bed. He grabbed the jeans and T-shirt from the chair by the desk. They felt crisp and new. He patted the computer. Its screen shone. He went to the blue-tiled bathroom and turned on the silver tap. Water gushed into the bath. Green water, bubbles above his head. Water that crushed him down …
This was Australia! Australia where the water was clean and tame as it trickled into the tub. The wave had never happened. But it did, said a whisper in his brain. It happened. It is still happening …
No! Faris forced himself to see the clean water fill the bath. The wave was in the past. Yes, that was a safe place to put it. In the past where it should be forgotten. He stepped into the warm bath. It smelled of orange blossom.
Breakfast was ready when he came out, his hair damp. It was the Australian buffet breakfast they had every day: food laid out on a long table — sliced chicken and fluffy bread rolls, red-cheeked peaches in a bowl of ice, a pineapple, a big cold fish and bowl after bowl of salad — in a room of tall windows.
For a moment — just a moment — he longed for another breakfast, for soft flat bread and …
‘Eat,’ commanded Jadda. She sat at the table opposite him and smiled as he piled food on his plate from the buffet: orange salad with chopped onions and sliced cold chicken.
Something scratched at the door. Jadda grinned. ‘Someone else demands his breakfast too.’ She opened the door. A fat koala sat on the doorstep, its arms folded against its furry chest. It looked annoyed.
‘Nosey! Have we neglected you?’ Jadda picked up the koala.
It growled. ‘Gffrff.’
Jadda laughed. She sat the koala on her lap and fed it lettuce leaves, then a chicken leg. The koala grasped the chicken leg in its furry hand, gnawing the meat, muttering contentedly.
Faris had thought he was hungry. But the food seemed strangely tasteless, even the pineapple, when he cut off the top and spooned out the inside as though it was a boiled egg.
Something nibbled at his brain again. He reached for it tentatively. His father! He was in Australia, so his father should be here.
He relaxed as he found an answer for that too. It was ten-thirty in the morning. His father was at work at the hospital.
‘Now, go and play,’ ordered Jadda. ‘No books today.’ She gave him a look. ‘And no computer either. Today belongs to the beach.’
Faris grinned. Before breakfast he had longed to turn the computer on, to wander from topic to topic, a highway of knowledge, one question leading to another. But Jadda was right. He wanted to be at the beach today, the bright Australian beach.
He kissed her cheek, smelling the perfumed oil she used on her hair, her hand cream, the special scent that was Jadda alone. He opened the front door.
Green-and-red birds sang in a garden of red flowers and green leaves. A small fountain bubbled by the orange trees. The world smelled of roses and orange blossom.
Jadda saw his look. ‘Paradise is a garden,’ she said softly. ‘Now down to the beach, with your friends.’
CHAPTER 3
He knew what the street would look like before he stepped through their front gate. Of course I know what it will look like, he told himself. I have been here before.
The houses stretched down the street, two-storey houses with bright green grass and rose bushes and orange trees laden with fruit. Each house had a car outside its garage, a new car that shone under the blue sky. Kangaroos munched peacefully. One peered up at him curiously as he passed.
Faris smiled as the road curved around the corner towards the beach. Two more houses and then a sand hill, hot dry pale sand tufted with tussocks and small spreading bushes, rising too high to see the sea.
The beach would be over the sand hill. Golden sand would stretch to the horizon, with dark green forest on one side and blue waves on the other. There would be young couples wandering hand in hand, the men in shorts and flowered shirts, the women in flowered sarongs. They would be barefoot. In Australia it wasn’t rude to go barefoot on the beach.
Faris bent and unlaced his joggers. He left them neatly at the base of the sand hill and clambered up what was almost a path. Other feet had trudged this way before him. The sand was dry, breathing heat onto
his skin. At last he reached the top.
And there was the beach, curved like a smile between two rocky headlands. He felt a faint surprise at its beauty, then shock …
This wasn’t his beach! He had never seen this beach before.
It was a small beach, ending in two jagged cliffs of tumbled black rocks at either end. Six great stones rose like giant’s teeth across the small bay, with a few metres of rippled blue water between each of them. Small waves purred a little way up the beach, then slipped back, leaving the shine of water on the sand.
No crowds, no beach chairs, no couples looking into each other’s eyes. This beach almost felt wild, as though few had ever trodden it. It was so clean it seemed to glow, the neat waves as blue as the sea further out. The only signs of civilisation were an old doorframe jammed up between the rocks below the nearest headland — washed in by the sea perhaps — and the prints of children’s feet.
And laughter. Down on the sand two boys and two girls tossed a ball to each other. A little boy with black hair sat nearby, building a giant castle on the sand.
Faris stared at the group, shocked. He had never played with girls, certainly not like this.
The oldest girl wore a modest shawl in green and gold tucked around her head and shoulders, and bright green pants and a long shirt. The young girl was about ten. She was bareheaded, with her hair in two red plaits. Her shabby knitted shawl and long dress and apron hung almost to her ankles.
The older boy stood in the middle of the group, as though he controlled the game. He looked to be about fifteen and was short and stocky, in too-bright red trousers and a blue shirt. He had the whitest skin Faris had ever seen.
The other boy was about Faris’s age. He too had white, white skin, though not leached of all colour as the older boy’s. He wore a strange woollen suit, with short pants and long grey socks. No one wore flowered shirts, sarongs.
But this beach held something even more shocking than boys and girls playing together.
At the far end of the beach a dark-skinned young man waded knee-deep in the water, holding a fishing spear. He was naked. Naked in Australia! No clothes at all except for a string about his waist, with what looked like a stone knife dangling from it.
Faris gulped.
A dark-skinned young woman sat on the sand, watching the young man fish in the waves. She wore two pieces of what looked like soft furry leather, one tied about her top and the other like a tiny skirt. Strands of beads and tiny feathers hung about her neck. Tiny bright feathers were plaited into her hair.
Faris tried to force his eyes away. He had never seen a girl show so much of her body, or a woman either, except in the medical book his father had shown him, so many years before he could hardly remember what they looked like. Some of the boys at school had tried to find naked people on the internet, or girls in underwear or bathing costumes called bikinis. But of course those sites were blocked, as they should be blocked. Naked people should not be seen.
He should find another beach. His beach, the one he dreamed of. A true Australian beach …
It was too late. The boy in red trousers had seen him. The boy shouted. The words were carried away by the sea wind, so Faris couldn’t make them out. But suddenly the game below stopped.
The players turned to look at him.
If he left now, he’d look like a coward.
The boy in red gave a high and lazy toss of the ball, over the heads of the other players. The older girl leaped up and caught it. She looked at Faris curiously as the older boy jogged towards him The others stared too. Only the girl in the shawl smiled at him and waved. Her smile looked like a small sun of welcome.
The stocky boy in red drew closer. His eyes were blue. The white-mouse colour of his skin under too-long brown hair looked even more startling close up.
‘A new cove! How’s things, matey? I’m Billy Higgs.’ The words were friendly, but there was a challenge like steel too.
‘I’m Faris,’ said Faris. He tried to keep his gaze away from the near-naked girl.
Billy grinned, showing a gap in yellow teeth. ‘Far Eyes.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Faris politely. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your name. It’s Far Eyes.’
‘Faris,’ corrected Faris.
Billy’s grin didn’t change. ‘If I say your name is “Far Eyes”, then that’s what it is. On this beach I’m king. You understand?’
Faris nodded slowly. I should leave, he thought. Find my beach.
He didn’t move.
Billy nodded, as though satisfied. ‘Two more laws then. No questions. Not on my beach. You takes us as you find us.’
‘What’s the second law?’
The grin had gone now. Billy stared at him, intent. ‘We don’t speak of the past on this beach. None of us. Never. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, an’ that’s what we do.’ The grin returned. ‘It’s good here, matey. The rules keeps it good for everyone. Now are y’ stayin’? Or goin’?’
How long had it been since Faris had played with friends? How long since a day had been simply for fun?
A small flock of red-and-green birds flew above them, making dapples on the golden sand. The wind blew, warm from the land and the sun. The waves here were blue, gentle as curtains. Suddenly he knew that laughter and sunlight would drive away all thoughts of dark waves and tumbling water.
‘Staying,’ said Faris. He followed Billy across the sand.
CHAPTER 4
The game stopped as Faris and Billy drew close. The little girl in the apron and knitted shawl who had waved stepped towards them.
‘Hello,’ she said. The freckles on her nose danced as she smiled. ‘I’m Susannah. It’s grand to have you join us.’ Her voice had a strange music to it.
‘This is Far Eyes.’ Billy glanced at Faris, as though daring him to correct him.
‘I’m Jamila.’ The girl in the head shawl looked down politely as she spoke. Faris wondered if Jamila also knew that a modest girl shouldn’t play with boys on a beach.
‘That there is David,’ said Billy. The boy in the strange short woollen suit gave a small bow.
Faris nodded. ‘Hello.’
‘And the little cove building the sandcastle is Nikko. He’s always building sandcastles,’ added Billy. His voice almost sounded indulgent. ‘Ever since Mei Ling showed him how to.’
‘Who is Mei Ling?’ asked Faris. Surely the near-naked dark-skinned girl wasn’t called Mei Ling.
‘Mei Ling ain’t here no more,’ said Billy curtly. ‘No questions. Remember?’ The blue eyes stared at him. Faris felt fear whisper through his belly. What would Billy do if he broke the rules? Tell him to leave? Hit him, or …
‘Catch!’ said Jamila suddenly. She threw the ball hard and high, over Billy’s head. David, the woollen-suit boy, leaped up to grab it. He looked around, then threw the ball to Susannah. Billy jumped. His white hands grabbed the ball before Susannah could catch it.
Susannah laughed. Faris’s fear vanished in the breeze. Billy held the ball, calculating for a moment, then threw the ball above Faris’s head to David again.
It took Faris five minutes to learn the game, to see that there were no rules, as such. You threw the ball to whoever was furthest from you, and leaped high to catch it before someone else could.
Billy was in the middle, always in the middle. No one ever threw the ball to Billy, but half the time he caught it anyway, snatching it from the air, crowing with laughter, circling his white feet on the sand till he chose someone to throw it to.
The fourth time Billy caught the ball he grinned at Faris. ‘Hey, Far Eyes.’ Suddenly the ball headed across the others’ heads. Faris jumped to catch it. Its force knocked him onto the sand. He scrambled up, winded. Had Billy meant to hurt him?
‘Grand catch!’ yelled Billy.
Faris grinned. It had been a good catch, especially for a boy who had never played a game like this before. He looked at the ball more closely. It was made of leather, brown and ro
ughly stitched.
He hesitated, wondering who to throw the ball to next, trying not to keep glancing at the naked young man and the near-naked young woman, now kneeling by a smoky fire further down the beach. Billy hadn’t mentioned their names and for now, at least, Faris would keep Billy’s rules. No questions.
Two silver-scaled fish lay in the sand beside the fire. Faris could smell smoke, sweet above the scents of salt and seaweed.
‘Come on, Far Eyes! Throw!’ yelled Billy.
At last Faris chose little Susannah. There was something about her eyes — cloudless eyes that looked straight at him. It should have looked immodest, a girl staring like that at a boy. But instead it just felt as if she truly saw him …
He thrust the thought away and threw the ball. It soared above Billy in the middle. It was going to pass over Susannah as well. To his delight Susannah ran backwards on the sand, grabbed it with a laugh, then tossed it to the almost naked black girl, who had jogged up behind.
And suddenly the girl’s bare black body didn’t matter, nor did Billy the bully. The shadows of the wave disappeared too. There was just the game, the sunlight, the laughter.
The ball flashed across the deep blue sky. Slowly Faris began to learn how the others played. Jamila caught the ball as though she had never known that women shouldn’t shove their way past men — or perhaps she, like Jadda, had deliberately forgotten. Thin David in his woollen suit played as though his mind was somewhere else. Billy threw the ball with strength and laughter. But the laughter seemed to tell everyone that he was in control.
The sun was high when Jamila and Susannah vanished over the sand hill. Susannah’s shawl flapped in the breeze. She came back lugging a giant basket and a stone flagon in the other hand. Jamila walked a little way behind, carrying a tall silver jug and a cloth.
Faris ran to help with the basket. Susannah grinned at him. ‘A gentleman you are indeed. Thank you.’
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