Page 9 of Nothing Without You

His sisters stood to the other side of her, their feet also busily trying to find pipis buried beneath the sand. ‘Don’t tell our mother that,’ Rose said. ‘That house is where we usually stay, but we changed our dates this year. You must have booked it before we could.’

‘We’re in the first house that backs onto the beach. It’s new and it’s called The Salty Dog,’ Lily added.

Evie forgot about her fishing for a moment. ‘You’re staying here at Flinders?’

Chris held a pipi up high. ‘We’re here for two weeks,’

‘So are we.’ Evie said. Even though the girls were older than she was, they talked to her as if she was the same age, asking her questions about where she lived and what she thought about starting high school next year. Rose filled in some more details. ‘We’re in year twelve and eleven. Chris is in year ten. Don’t worry, we’ll look after you when you start. You know they’ll call you a vegemite. That’s the name for year eights.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ She must have sounded nervous because they reassured her she would be safe because she knew them. No one would be game enough to hide her bag or flush her head down the toilet. They were just some of the initiation acts they did to new kids.

Chris changed the subject. ‘I’m going to fish. What’re you two doing?’

‘We’re going for a walk,’ Lily replied. ‘See that headland. We’ll jog there and back.’

Evie concentrated on her rod. She thought she felt a tug on her line, but the waves bounced the bait around, and it was difficult to tell what was a bite and what wasn’t.

As the girls started to walk away, Rose turned around. ‘Do you play cards? Poker or Pontoon?’ She turned to her sister. ‘Evie could make up a four when we play Five Hundred.’

Evie took her focus off the fishing. ‘Yes. I love playing cards. My dad and I play all the time.’

‘Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?’ Chris asked.

‘No, it’s just me, Mum and Dad.’

Lily did a cartwheel, then came to stand beside Evie. ‘Will your mum let you come over and play cards with us? I can ask her on the way back. We’ll look after you.’

‘Sure. Yes. That’d be fun.’

The two girls waved as they walked away, playfully pushing and shoving each other as they jogged up the beach.

Chris was busy collecting pipis, and had put a bit of distance between himself and Evie. He walked back to her though, and threw some more in her bucket. ‘I have heaps,’ he said, pushing his hair back from his face.

‘Thanks,’ she said, focussing back on the fishing. She turned her reel slowly and stood firm. Something heavy was dragging on her line, and she let it pull a bit more before lifting her rod high, winding steadily and hanging on tightly.

‘I’ve got something,’ she called out.

Chris came and stood beside her, watching the tip of her rod as she hoisted it high and then wound. The rod bent over, and she moved her feet to gain a better balance in the sand. ‘Do you think I should wind or let it have a play?’ she asked Chris.

‘Just give it a sec and then pull that rod up again. That’s it, hold it tight, now wind.’

‘Whoa, it’s gone for a run.’ The reel spun in her hand as the line was pulled out by whatever was on the end.

‘It might be a shark. It looks big by the way the rod is bending over.’

She found it hard to talk as she concentrated on trying to reel the line in. Back and forth. Wind in. Pull up. Wind in. Pull up. At one stage, whatever was on the end of the line came in close before going for a second run. The line spun through her fingers as the fish tore away from the shore, then changed direction and swam parallel to the beach.

‘What will I do now?’ she asked as she followed the path of the fish.

‘Go with it,’ Chris said as he walked beside her, stopping when she did. ‘It must be getting tired.’

‘I wonder what it is?’

‘Wind again.’

‘My arms are hurting.’

‘Keep going. Come on, you can do it.’