Thirteen Pearls (12 page)

Kaito flashed Leon a triumphant look and Leon put down his plate of gluey fish and pasta and stumped out of the home– shed.

Kaito shrugged. ‘You been fishing, Edie?'

I shook my head. Dad sometimes went fishing with a workmate girl friend (girl
friend
not girlfriend – besides Anne had a
girlfriend
) at Yorkeys Knob, but there was no way I'd eat any fish caught too close to the Cairns coast. The mud flats were unappetising as it was, but I knew enough about the effluent coming from boats to make me gag at the thought. ‘You're going to need fish when you're sailing by yourself,' Kaito said. ‘Do you want to learn how to catch them?'

‘Sure. That'd be great,' I murmured, slipping into a fantasy featuring Kaito's arms around me, showing me how to hold the fishing rod. I quickly turned before he could read my thoughts.

Uncle Red didn't want us spending the whole day over at T.I. He needed Kaito and the pump back before the afternoon. I dragged the brush through my knotted-up hair and put on a fresh T-shirt and my last clean pair of cut-offs. After all, it was a special occasion – we were headed into the big smoke.

Aran trailed after me doing annoying things, like emptying my daypack on the floor to reveal a fluff-covered brush, my wallet with the zip he 'd broken, a rolled-up, dog-eared copy of the December edition of
Australian Sailing Magazine
, three tampons, a hair elastic and a random assortment of stainless steel self-tapping screws for the
Ulysses
' bow rails.

I stuffed everything back in and did my best to ignore him. Then he found my organic sunscreen and squeezed half the tube out and smeared it against the wall.

‘Aran! What did you do that for?' I snapped.

Aran looked up from where he was still finger-painting a greasy white pattern against the wall. He almost seemed to be gloating.

I grabbed the tube and cleaned it up with a towel.

Aran snatched the towel and rubbed the rest of the goo onto my bed.

Enough.

I picked him up and put him on the other side of the curtain.

He raced back in, tearing one of the curtains from the length of string holding it up.

‘You little . . .

' Aran went nuts and started ripping the sheets off the beds.

If I'd remained in that stuffy oven-like cubicle one second longer, I would have slapped him. Instead, I marched out of the baking hot home–shed to the water tank. Splashing my face with water that was never quite cold enough, I told myself to take calm, deep breaths. Apart from the spilt milk incident, Aran and I had been doing fairly well over the past few days, and now he seemed to have reverted to devil spawn in the course of a single morning.

Kaito found me out there – my face and hair streaming water. ‘You ready to go?'

‘Nearly. Aran's being a pain in the bum. He keeps throwing my stuff around and getting in my way.'

‘Maybe he's worried you're going to leave him?'

‘Nah, it's not that . . . ' I trailed. Maybe it
was
that. I hadn't told him that he would be coming with us. Maybe he thought I was abandoning him, like Lowanna had. I hurried back inside. Aran was squatting in a corner of our bedroom, his shorts discarded on the bed, and bottom bare.

My nose wrinkled. There was a horrible smell in the room. Oh crap. Literally. Aran had done a poo.

By the time the tinny revved off from Thirteen Pearls, my Enid Blyton ginger-pop-and-sticky-buns level of excitement about a whole half-day off had vanished, probably down the pit toilet along with Aran's smelly little protest.

Aran, however, engulfed in the oversized life jacket I'd found for him and secured as best I could, bounced up and down with excitement. He trailed his hand in the water, clutching his elephant with the other, and staggered from bench seat to bench seat. I wondered what his life had been like in Thailand and if he 'd spent much time in boats before coming here. It was the first time I'd seen him smile without the habitual shadow in his eyes. But once we were back on Thirteen Pearls it would be battle-stations again. Where
was
Lowanna? More and more, I was finding it hard to buy Red's mumbled excuse that she was looking after her mother in Thailand. Maybe she was escaping Aran too.

I sat on the middle bench, brooding, with my feet planted wide on the ribs so that the bilge water didn't soak my sandals. I thought about grit and pearls and about the icy, rejuvenating air in the coolroom at the kebab shop. Surely Kevin had to be the lesser of two evils?

‘You all right, Edie?' Kaito shouted over the motor.

I nodded, pulling my straw hat tighter around my head to avoid it being blown off.

It was a sparkler of a day – the water was a deep, dazzling blue. In the distance, islands rose up out of the sea on a single sharp point, like cut diamonds. ‘Can I drive?' I asked. Steering a boat by myself always made me feel better; made me feel in control.

‘Not in this bit,' Kaito said. ‘Sea looks calm, but the tides here are some of the most treacherous in the world. If we ran into trouble we could end up drifting towards New Guinea. A few years back, a family went out fishing in a tinny and ran out of fuel. Boat was found a couple of weeks later off the coast of New Guinea with seven people dead.'

I shuddered – the surface looked so serene. It was disturbing to imagine the murderous currents criss-crossing beneath us. A large streak of silvery-grey flashed through the water only metres away. My first thought was – shark! Was it going to knock into our boat? Instinctively, I grabbed Aran and clutched him close.

In the scrabble to pull him next to me, Aran let go of his elephant at the exact moment the tinny hit a wavelet and thumped back down, sending the grimy toy flying overboard. The elephant floated for a moment and began to slowly sink.

Aran's scream threatened to burst my eardrum.

‘Stop!' I yelled to Kaito. ‘We 've got to go back.'

Kaito promptly turned the boat in a wide arc and we slowed as we neared the sinking elephant. I leaned over the side and scooped my hand down, ever mindful of the grey sea creature that could be lurking just beneath. My fingers missed the elephant by the slightest distance.

Aran was bawling beside me.

‘I can't reach it,' I said to Aran. ‘We 'll have to get you another one.'

‘I'll go in,' Kaito said. ‘You'll have to hold the tiller.'

Treacherous currents and a large shark-like flash. ‘No, we'll have to leave it.'

In the second I took my eyes off Aran to answer Kaito, he somehow managed to clamber up the seat and was over the edge of the boat with an ominous splash!

‘Aran!' Without thinking, I stood, making the tinny rock violently back and forth, and dived in.

I latched onto Aran, whose face was sinking into the oversized life jacket where there were air pockets between the jacket and his shoulders. With my other arm I reached down and only just managed to grab hold of the elephant's trunk. As I did, I saw the grey shape slide beneath us and turn. I tasted metal. Everything slowed down.

With almost superhuman strength, I hoisted Aran back over the side of the tinny.

The creature turned beneath. I vividly pictured it chomping off one of my dangling legs as I attempted to heave myself back up over the side.

And then it was too late. The grey shape burst up out of the water, less than a metre away. It stared at me with soulful little eyes, its bulbous, mallet-shaped nose and whiskers quivering.

I froze. Nature 's oracle. The creature looked directly into my eyes. Then, with a gentle plop, it dived back under.

Kaito's strong grip helped to pull me back over the side, and I sprawled against the bottom of the boat, not caring about the bilge water fouling my already soaking shorts.

‘Sea cows,' Kaito said. ‘They graze the sea grass. They're very gentle.'

I nodded, still stunned by the encounter.

Aran pointed at the dugong, delighted. Something about those squeals of laughter made me want to giggle too. Maybe I was in shock. It wasn't every day I pressed up face-to-face with a dugong in dangerous waters.

‘Islanders say they make good tucker too. It's nice, but oily. I prefer whale.'

‘You've eaten
whale
?'

Kaito nodded. ‘In Japan we eat everything we harvest from the sea. But a couple of years ago I went on a boat to Lady Musgrave Island for uni. A humpback swam right under the cruiser, and I know it sounds crazy but it winked at us. It was like it was telling us something. I haven't eaten whale since. Off the coast of Tonga you can actually swim with the whales. Imagine that! Imagine what an experience that would be.'

I instantly resolved to sail the
Ulysses
to Tonga.

By the time Thursday Island loomed closer, I'd calmed down. It was surreal seeing so many houses dotted above the mangroves. I was dry-mouthed with excitement. There was something about living on a tiny island – it made everything seem so insular and monotonous. Here there were houses and shops and
people
!

We puttered into the bay where the bakery stood opposite, and Kaito hopped out to drag the boat up onto the sand. He hoisted Aran out then held out his hand to me as though I was a lady from the olden days (Edith Sitwell without her body cage perhaps), alighting from a carriage. ‘I'll help you with the shopping,' he said.

I bit my lip. On the trip over I'd been formulating plans. None of them included having Aran with me. After our unexpected swim and near-dugong encounter, I still felt protective towards him, but I needed a break. ‘That'd be great but . . . um . . . do you reckon you could look after Aran for half an hour? Maybe even an hour? There's something important I have to do.'

Kaito dragged the anchor chain back off the mud flat. ‘He can come with me to pick up the pump.'

‘Aran.' I squatted to make our faces level. ‘I have an important errand to run. Kaito's going to look after you for a little while. But I'll be back soon. Okay?'

Aran glanced anxiously from me to Kaito. Kaito closed slender fingers around Aran's salt-crusted little paw. ‘Would you like to come to the bakery with me? We 'll get some doughnuts.'

The promise of extreme sugar worked every time.

I was on a mission. Smiling at people sauntering down the wide street, I finally found what I was looking for and pushed open the door. ‘How much is the internet?'

The girl behind the counter shrugged and pointed to a laminated sign. ‘What it says it is.'

I looked, feeling stupid. The price had been printed in 72 point font: $5 per hour.

During my week's imprisonment on Thirteen Pearls I hadn't craved chocolate or trips to the hardware store or even a decent morning run (well, that last one was no great sacrifice), but now I dived on the computer like a starving woman. Technology . . . bliss. Mum had told me that she 'd heard on the radio (ABC Radio National – as if there 'd be any other sort at my house) that my generation were characterised as digital natives while hers were digital immigrants, not born into it, and only embracing it as far as their perceived needs reached. She reckoned my generation lived and breathed technology and took to every innovation like ducks to water.