Outback Hero (6 page)

But still I could feel myself slipping.

"Hang on," I heard Charlie whisper in a
croaky voice.

Finally, his fingertips reached my
hands.

"One hand at a time," he said.

That was easy for him to say. Why would I
want to let go of this nice branch and hold his hands, which were
only stuck to two skinny arms? It would've been different if he
were a big strong firefighter.

Still, I didn't have much choice. I let go
of the branch with my left hand and held his hand. His grip was
firm. I wondered if these would be the last moments of my life. How
could he hold my weight?

I let go of the branch with my right hand
and gripped his other hand. I felt myself drop. I screamed, but
Charlie held on.

Slowly, I felt us both being raised. It
seemed to take forever. Least I could see we were getting closer to
the top. Charlie had to look down the whole way.

Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me up. It
hurt, but I didn't complain. Charlie was safely at the top, then I
felt myself sliding over the top. I heard the man who'd pulled me
over let out a big groan.

Charlie and me lay on our backs. We just
breathed and looked up into the clear blue sky.

"Thanks, Charlie." My voice sounded weird.
"You saved me again." I couldn't believe it; he was the hero
again.

I
heard Mom scream and come
running toward us. I didn't get up and neither did Charlie. We had
no energy to do anything. Only then did I realize we'd be in
trouble. BIG TROUBLE. I guess it had been pretty dumb to stand
right on the edge of a million-mile drop. My insides were still
shaking, but I had to come up with a plan. A good one.

The way I saw it I had three options. Option
one - deny everything. Option two - say a gust of wind blew me off
the cliff. Option three - say there was a big landslide.

Charlie and me were covered in red dirt, so
denying everything probably wouldn't be smart.

Could a gust of wind blow me off a cliff?
Maybe. But today there was no wind, so that mightn't be the best
option.

A landslide, I decided, just as Mom and Dad
kneeled in between us, was the best option. And it was sort of
true. Mom held our hands. Her eyes were wet. She couldn't even
speak; she was so upset. I felt sorry for her.

I managed to raise myself up on my elbow.
"It's okay, Mom. We're fine. I was checking out the view when the
ground underneath me disappeared and I fell. I grabbed the tree and
then Charlie and those guys saved me. They're real heroes."

Dad patted us both on the shoulder and got
up to talk to the guys who'd helped Charlie save me. Mom began to
cry.

It was the third time on this holiday that
she'd almost lost me forever. I guess losing your favorite son must
be the worst thing ever.

A park ranger wearing a hat and a brown
uniform appeared with a black bag. He acted like he was important.
First, he checked Charlie's pulse. Charlie was real white, as
though he'd seen his own ghost. The ranger asked him questions and
Charlie barely answered him. It was weird. Wasn't I the one who'd
almost died? Why was he carrying on like this?

A crowd of people had gathered close by. I
stood up because now I felt okay, except my shoulders felt like
they'd almost popped out of their sockets.

A few minutes later, the ranger had finished
with Charlie, who was now sitting up. He spent thirty seconds
checking me out and announced that I was fine. Then he asked us
what had happened. Dad, Mom and the two guys who'd helped crowded
round us.

I was sure glad Charlie didn't feel like
talking. I said real fast, "Charlie and me were checking out the
view - it's real good from just here - I was just standing there
thinking how amazing the canyon was and how if Dad had been with us
he would've been carrying on about water carving out the whole
canyon millions of years ago - he always does that - when the
ground beneath me disappeared and I fell down and down and I
thought I was going to die - but I wasn't too sad because it was a
better way to die than being eaten by a croc - and then my legs hit
a tree and I managed to grab onto a branch - I thought my hands
were going to slip and I'd fall right down to the bottom and
splatter all over the place - and the birds and snakes and spiders
would eat me. And then what would go in my coffin? But then,
Charlie yelled out to me and those brave men lowered him down by
his ankles and Charlie took my hands and hauled me up. And
everything is okay." I took a big breath.

The ranger nodded. Dad slapped Charlie on
the back as if to say
well done
. Mom
gave me one of her funny looks, which meant she wasn't sure whether
to believe me. Then she said, "Max, show me where you were
standing."

I swallowed. "It'll be hard to tell because
of the landslide."

Mom, Dad and the ranger went over to the
edge. They looked down at the tree sticking out from the side of
the cliff.

The ranger turned to me and said, "You must
have a guardian angel. If you'd fallen anywhere else you'd be
dead."

I liked the idea of a guardian angel. I bet
she had long blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. Maybe she'd saved
me from the crocs as well.

"MAAX!" said Mom. She pointed to a whole lot
of footprints in the red dirt. "Do these footprints belong to you
and Charlie?"

I swallowed again. Charlie and me looked at
each other. We each knew what the other was thinking. The red dirt
showed up the tread marks of our trainers real good. They only had
to match the tread marks of our trainers to the footprints and
they'd know we were standing right on the edge. But it was okay,
because I had a plan.

I walked over real casual. First, I dragged
my feet where Charlie's footprints were and then I walked over all
my footprints and kicked at the ground - all before Mom realized
what I'd done.

"What footprints?" I asked.

"Maax." She sounded angry. "So you were
standing too close to the edge. How stupid can you be? You're not
immortal, you know."

A second later, Dad must've realized what
we'd done and he gave us one of his killer glares. That meant he'd
deal with us later - in private, not in public, because if anyone
saw him lose his temper they might think he wasn't fit to be a
father.

The ranger shook his head. "Boys," he said,
"you've got to be careful. We expect people to use their common
sense. Just last week, the rescue chopper had to fly in to save a
man who'd got too close to the edge and fallen - just like you.
Except he wasn't so lucky. He fell onto a ledge over the other side
of the canyon and he died shortly after he was picked up. Such a
waste."

"Wow," said Charlie, who now sounded normal.
"I've always wanted a chopper ride."

T
he next day, Charlie spoke
up from the back of the LandCruiser. "We'll see it best from a
chopper."

"Yeah, I'm not climbing it," I announced.
I'd almost died three times on this trip and I still wanted to be
alive at the end of it.

"The Aboriginal owners prefer that people
don't climb it," said Mom. "I'm happy to walk around it."

Dad hit the steering wheel with his
fist.

I slid down in my seat.

"We're only doing this trip once," he said.
"I've been wanting to come on this holiday for years ... and now we
get to the highlight ... and you're all too lazy to climb it."

"Okay," Mom said, "we'll climb it."

He nodded. "And we'll get to the top, even
if it takes us all day."

Charlie called out from the back, "We could
climb it and go on a chopper ride."

"No!" Dad hit the steering wheel again.
"Helicopter rides are expensive."

Charlie couldn't help himself. He said, "But
this might be the only time in our
whole
lives we're here. We'll kick ourselves for
the rest of our lives if we don't fly over it."

"Too bad."

When Dad said
too
bad
that meant the conversation was over.

"If only I go, then it won't be
expensive."

"Charlie!"

Charlie finally got the message and slouched
back in his seat.

No one said anything for ages. But the more
I thought about climbing Uluru, the more worried I got. My time for
this life must be up. Obviously, only a little more effort was
needed to kill me off. If I were stupid enough to climb Uluru,
that'd be it. And when I died, Dad would regret forcing me to climb
it. But what could I do?

Eventually, I turned round to Charlie and
said, "Do you know how many people have accidents on Uluru?" I knew
he'd tell me if people died climbing Uluru - I didn't have to
ask.

"Yep." He folded his arms and stuck out his
chin as though he were real smart. "Last year there were
sixty-three accidents. One person died, six needed to be airlifted
off Uluru and twenty-five needed to go to hospital."

How did he remember this stuff? Unless he
was making it up ... that was possible. "So," I asked, "how did the
person die?"

Charlie screwed up his face. "How would I
know? I only know the stats, not the whole tragic story."

He was telling the truth, I could tell by
the offended look on his face. "So you found out those stats on the
internet?"

"Yeah."

"So, what else did you find out?"

He sat up. "That almost everyone who has an
accident on Uluru is a tourist. That Uluru is as high as a
ninety-five-storey building. That some of the people who have
accidents get lost - how stupid are they? And if it's too windy,
too wet or too dark or the temperature goes above thirty-six
degrees, then no one is allowed to climb."

"Really?" Wow, there was hope. I leaned over
the front seat and asked Dad, "How hot is it?"

"Twenty-eight degrees," he said. "It won't
get up to thirty-six at this time of year."

I glanced out the window. The sky looked
like a blue dome - it wasn't going to rain. And if there were any
wind, there'd be red dust above the ground, but there wasn't. It
looked real still. I couldn't depend on the climb being closed; I
had to convince Mom that it was too dangerous for her favorite son
to climb.

I leaned over the front seat and whispered
in Mom's ear, "Do you think that every person has a date when it's
time for them to die?"

She stopped reading, turned to me and
frowned. "No."

She'd wrecked my whole argument before I'd
even started. I whispered again, "But just say that's the way it
is. Don't you think it's a bit weird that I've almost died three
times in less than two weeks?"

She shook her head. "You're accident-prone,
that's all. You've always been. Most kids work out pretty quickly
that it's dangerous to take unnecessary risks. For some reason,
you're taking a long time to work that out."

She might as well have hit me with a cricket
bat. I heard Charlie sniggering behind me. I turned round and
glared at him.

Then he announced to Mom and Dad, "If Max
falls off Uluru, I won't catch him."

I felt myself go real hot. I wanted to punch
Charlie.

"That's a horrid thing to say," said Mom,
without looking up from her book.

I glared at Charlie. "You won't need to
catch me," I folded my arms, stuck out my chin and said real calm.
"I won't fall. Actually, I bet I'll get to the top before you."

D
ad was so obsessed with
Uluru. He'd already gone on and on about how once there was a
mountain range and an inland sea. He reckoned the earth faulted and
Uluru rose up and flipped on its side, so that the left-hand side
of Uluru is fifty million years older than the right side. I liked
Charlie's idea, that aliens gave Uluru to the Aboriginal people as
a gift, a lot better. We had to drive straight to it, even though
we weren't climbing it until tomorrow because Dad had to make sure
it was actually there.

Charlie and me were starving because we
hadn't had lunch. But we didn't complain. I knew Mom liked to check
in to the hotel first to get organized. But she didn't complain
either.

We passed lots of weird-looking trees. They
looked like people who'd been standing to attention when an evil
witch turned them all into trees. I could see Uluru in the
distance. It got bigger as we got closer. It was very big and very
red. But the really weird thing was that it was stuck in the middle
of nowhere. There wasn't one other big rock near it. Yeah, Charlie
must've been right; aliens must've given it to the local Aboriginal
people as a gift. Why they'd want a humungous red rock, I didn't
know. Maybe rock-giving was what you did on the aliens' planet.

We parked and Dad went on, "Oh, look at
that! Stupendous! Magnificent! I can't wait to see the view from
the top."

Mom turned and looked at Charlie and me. And
Charlie and me looked at each other. I knew we were all thinking
the same thing:
It's seriously steep. I'm
puffing just looking at it.

There were black slide marks going from the
top to the bottom - like the aliens had got mats and slid down the
sides for fun.

Then before we'd even got out of the car,
the Jacksons pulled in next to us. They
were
following us! Alyson, Tyson and then Harry
jumped out of their LandCruiser, which had so much red dust on it
you couldn't tell it was white. Charlie and me had no choice; we
couldn't stay in the nice air-conditioned car forever. We got out.
Yep, it was hot. Charlie and me said hi to Alyson, Tyson and Harry,
and to Mr. High-Pants Jackson and Mrs. Jackson.

Harry came and stood with me. He noticed my
Manchester United shirt and said, "That's my team, too."