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Authors: Sally Gould

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BOOK: Outback Hero
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Alyson told Charlie they were climbing Uluru
now.

Tyson asked me, "Are you climbing it
too?"

"Tomorrow," I said. "We're going to see the
sunrise and then climb it." Unless I suddenly got real sick during
the night and I couldn't. That was possible.

Mr. High-Pants Jackson must've heard me
because he said, "Oh, don't wait until tomorrow. They're predicting
tomorrow will be windy so the climb will probably be closed."

If we had to climb it now, we'd never get
lunch. I'd die of starvation. I felt my stomach, but there was
nothing there - just a hollow space. I might die hungry.

Dad muttered, "We've got to climb Uluru. We
haven't come all this way to miss out." He put his hand up to block
out the sun and stared at the big red rock.

Mom said to Dad, "I'd rather wait until the
morning when it's cooler."

"I'll take you to the hotel, if you like,"
replied Dad. "But I'm going to climb it now. If the climb is open
tomorrow, I'll do it again with you."

Very generously, I offered to stay with Mom.
Dad stuck his hands on his hips and glared at me.

Then Mom shook her head and said, "No, we'll
all go together."

"Good idea," said Dad, "let's get
ready."

I sucked in my breath. Would this be the
last day of my life?

After scrounging in the car to find three
cracker biscuits that Charlie and me had to share (I tried not to
think that might be my last meal), slopping on half a tube of
sunscreen and grabbing our backpacks, we all set off for the base
of Uluru.

Tyson came in between Charlie and me and
challenged us, "Bet ya I beat youse to the top."

I remembered telling Charlie I'd beat him to
the top. But now I didn't feel like competing. Not with anyone. I
wanted to concentrate on staying alive.

"I'm not interested in racing," said
Charlie.

"Wimps," he said as though we were totally
pathetic, and he ran up ahead.

Charlie and me looked at each other. I knew
we were thinking the same thing.
One of us has
to beat him.

"You beat him," I whispered.

"Why me?" asked Charlie. "Why can't
you?"

"You're the fastest runner."

"You're better at climbing trees," he
said.

I hadn't thought of that. Actually, Charlie
didn't even like climbing trees. But he was bigger and stronger, so
he should beat him.

'Max, I've got to tell you something ...
don't laugh.'

Just the serious look on his face made me
feel like laughing.

He grabbed my arm and whispered, "I'm scared
of heights - really scared. I only realized I was afraid of heights
at Kings Canyon. Last night, I had a nightmare about being pushed
off a tall building."

I began to laugh, but I stopped. That made
sense ... how he'd gone a weird color when we were standing on the
edge. Then it hit me just how hard it must've been for him to be
lowered down to grab my hands. He'd been looking down at the canyon
floor the whole time. But then I thought about me. I wanted to say,
Obviously I'm so good I have to die young. I
mightn't make it to the top. My dying wish is for you to beat Tyson
to the top.
But, of course, I couldn't. He'd saved my
life. Not once, but three times.

"Okay," I said, "I'll beat him."

I swallowed as I looked up. Uluru almost
seemed to go straight up. Up ahead I could see a couple of little
kids coming down. That was sort of a good sign.

Mr. High-Pants Jackson turned to the rest of
us and announced, "The first section is the most difficult." Then
he stepped up onto Uluru and marched off like he was some famous
explorer.

Harry whispered to me, "Can we go up
together?"

"Sure," I replied. I couldn't tell him we
had to try to beat his older brother before I probably fell off
Uluru and died.

No one talked as we went up because it was
slippery as well as steep. We had to concentrate. By the time we
reached the chain rail, all I could hear was huffing and puffing. I
listed the fifty US states in alphabetical order to stop myself
thinking how I was so puffed I might run out of breath. By the time
I got to 'Rhode Island', Mr. High-Pants Jackson had decided we
should all stop for a breather. No one complained. Everyone took a
few gulps from their water bottles.

Harry tugged at my Manchester United shirt.
"Let's go,' he said. 'They're too slow."

"Don't you want to get your breath?"

"Got it," he said.

Great. I couldn't really say that I needed a
bit longer. I nodded and he bounded away. Far out, I had to keep up
with him!

7. THE
CLIMB

"
N
ot too fast. You need to
pace yourself," I yelled out to Harry. My soccer coach yelled that
out to me every week at training.

Like me, Harry didn't answer. He just kept
bounding up like he was one of those goats who ran up and down
mountains. His hand wasn't even touching the chain.

I heard Harry's father yell out not to race
ahead. Then Dad yelled out, "It's not a competition, Max!" We
ignored them.

Somehow I kept up with Harry. The tips of my
fingers brushed along the chain. I was ready to grab it in case my
time was suddenly up and the wind tried to blow me off Uluru. The
backs of my legs were killing me, but I had a responsibility. Harry
was only seven years old and I couldn't let him climb on his own. I
glanced back down. Tyson was a fair way behind.

I called out to Harry, who was up ahead,
"Let's stop for a sec."

"Why?" he yelled back.

Was he stupid? I kept going and tried to
remember the rest of the US states. A blue cap flew past me. I
pulled my cap down; the wind was getting stronger. I turned round
to see where Mom, Dad and Charlie were. I saw Charlie's green
T-shirt. It looked like they were heading back down. Could Charlie
have got scared of the height already? It didn't matter; if I kept
up with Harry, I'd beat Tyson. Turning back, I saw Harry was
getting too far ahead, so I made a big effort to catch up. Now it
wasn't as steep, but it was getting harder to walk with the wind
blowing me sideways.

Lots of people were coming back down. They
were talking to each other in a strange language. Actually, it
seemed like only Harry and me were going up and everyone else was
on their way down. They were all holding on to the chain real
tight. Still, they weren't huffing and puffing like me.

A guy with heavy walking boots and a funny
accent said to me, "Hurry, to top. The climb close soon - the
wind."

I nodded because I was too puffed to answer.
How did they close the climb? Wrap this humungous rock in a big
black curtain and pretend it wasn't there? And who would close it?
Two giants at the bottom who stopped people climbing and two giants
at the top who made people go back down? I went faster, cutting
through the wind.

When I reached the end of the chain, I
wanted to lie flat on my back and recover. I knew how Nanna must've
felt when she tried to keep up with Charlie and me when we'd walk
to the shops near her place. But I kept going. Now broken white
lines showed us the path. Harry was way up ahead - the
smarty-pants. At least it wasn't steep any more. Uluru changed -
now it was like sand dunes made of red rock. I caught up to Harry,
who, of course, wasn't puffing at all.

Eventually, the path turned, so we must've
been on the top. But still it went up and down and up and down.
Some of the rock dunes were so steep we had to take a run up to get
to the top and then slowly and carefully go down sideways. When we
were at the top of a rock dune we could see forever. It was like
being on top of the world because the ground below was so flat and
went on and on. The Olgas, another famous Aboriginal sacred site,
looked like a pile of random rocks in the distance. Every now and
again there was a miniature mountain of stones, like someone had
made gifts for any visiting aliens. We kept going up and down, up
and down.

Finally, we saw a few people crowded round a
fat stone post. We ran to it. Harry touched it first. Beaten by a
seven year old again - embarrassing, I know. There was a brass
plate with lots of arrows pointing to places.

Harry said, "Let's get to the end of the
rock."

We ran off and danced in circles while we
whooped as loud as we could. We'd done it! We'd reached the top. We
probably should've got in
Guinness World
Records
for the fastest ever time for two kids to climb
Uluru.

I stopped because I got dizzy from going
round in circles. Then I realized we were the only ones on the top.
Everyone else had gone back down. Suddenly it felt spooky. It was
too quiet. That sort of quiet there is when something bad is about
to happen.

Harry was still running around in circles
like a maniac. "Come on," I called out. "We should get going."

He yelled back, "I like it up here."

I couldn't be stuffed arguing with him. I
did what Mom used to do with me. "Fine," I said, "but I'm going
back down." I turned my back to him and walked back over to the
path of broken white lines. For several seconds, I heard nothing
and then ...

"WAIT!"

I stopped. Then I heard a sound that stopped
my heart beating.

8. THE
HERO

I
heard a long piercing
scream, then a thud. I turned and ran back to Harry. He was face
down and wailing at the top of his voice. His foot had caught in a
deep gap in a rock and he'd fallen flat on his face. A broken
branch had pierced his shorts and there was blood seeping out. The
branch must've stabbed his thigh as he fell.

He turned his head so I could see his face.
"My leg, my leg."

I kneeled beside him and freed his foot.
"You'll be okay."

Tears streamed down his face; his wails
quieted to sobs.

I stood up and looked round. There really
wasn't one other person on the top of Uluru. We were alone. I felt
sick. Real sick.

"Harry, I'm going to roll you onto your
back. You're bleeding; we've got to stop it." He was too terrified
to move. I was real gentle, but he screamed a few times. Still, I
guess he was pretty brave. His leg had a bend in it that shouldn't
have been there, but I didn't tell him.

"I don't suppose you have one of those big
grandpa hankies in your pocket?" I asked.

"Nooo," he moaned.

Of course he didn't. I had no choice. I took
off my Manchester United shirt, cleaned the wound with it and tied
it tightly around the very top of his leg. Harry made a couple of
sudden movements, but like magic, the bleeding stopped. I tried not
to wonder if Mom would be able to get the blood out of my shirt.
Near us, I found a rock that I put under the foot with the broken
leg. And then I put my backpack under his head and gave him a few
sips of water.

"Thanks," he whispered.

I knew there was a reason I'd broken my leg
last year. Maybe Nanna was right:
Everything
happens for a reason.
But there was still one thing to
do. The problem was that if I did it wrong I might make things
worse. I thought hard and decided I had to try.

From the bottom of Uluru you'd never know
there were small trees on top. The aliens must've put them there in
case someone broke their leg and needed a splint. I broke off two
branches. They weren't perfectly flat like my splint had been. The
cord from the surf jacket that I carried in my backpack would have
to do to tie the splint. It wasn't long enough, so I used one of my
shoelaces as well. Harry asked me if I knew what I was doing, so I
told him the story of how I broke my leg.

"One day," I said, "I told my friends, Thomo
and Chook, I could fly. I jumped out of the oak tree, flapped my
arms, fell and broke my leg. The pain was real bad, but I couldn't
cry because my friends were all crowded around. First the school
nurse came, and then the ambulance. The nurse stopped the bleeding
by tying a bandage real tight around the top of my leg. Then she
put something under my head and under my foot. And someone put a
blanket over me. The ambulance guy put on the splint. He said it
was to stop my leg moving and that would help it heal."

If I'd hurt Harry, he wasn't saying so. He
said, "You were lucky. What if no one rescues us?"

"Of course they will," I tried to sound real
sure. "Our parents will send a ranger up as soon as they work out
we're not coming down."

"What if they don't know where to look?"

"We're on top of a rock, not hidden in the
jungle."

"What if it gets dark?"

I shivered. "We won't die or anything. We'll
just get cold."

"What if the evil spirits come out at night
and they try to kill us?"

"There's no such thing as evil spirits," I
said. I shivered again. "We'll be rescued before it's dark. It's
not like our parents have ninety kids; they'll notice we're
missing." I hugged my knees. "My mom will only wait about ten
minutes before she looks for a ranger. She says I'm accident-prone.
She'll assume I've broken my leg - trust me."

"But the ranger won't be able to get me down
to the ground." He sounded like he was about to cry.

"Of course he will. He'll have a rescue team
and they'll bring a stretcher."

"It's too steep."

"People have accidents all the time. The
rangers are always bringing people down. They know what they're
doing. You'll be okay. Last year the rangers rescued sixty-three
people." I tried to sound real certain, but I couldn't see how
they'd get him down either. It was a long, long way down and it was
real steep, especially the bottom bit. And Charlie had told me
there'd been sixty-three accidents, not sixty-three rescues. But I
guess most of them got rescued. Except for the guy who died. Lucky
Harry didn't know about him.

BOOK: Outback Hero
13.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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