Floundering Read Free Page A

freckles across her nose and cheeks. And all over her skin tiny drops of sweat. She accelerates until we’re going fast again. Jordy scoops the pie out of his lap and flings it out the window. I stick my head out, and have a look and there’s a brown streak of meat down the side of Bert. Out at the edges of the paddock I see a dead eagle slungon a wire fence. No one says anything. I savour my pie, eating it so slowly that by the time I’m done it’s cold.

    Hey, look, says Loretta.
    Jordy is leaning against his door, his back to Loretta, chin resting near the open window.
    Look, she says and slows the car down a little. Salt lakes.
    What? I say. Loretta catches my eye in the rear-view and gives me a smile. She pulls off the road going too fast still, and rocks ping off Bert’s belly. Jordy starts and sits up, gives Loretta a look that makes me shrink down in my seat. She stops the car and I jolt into the seatbelt.
    Through my open window and past a wire fence the air looks liquid. I push the door, popping it open with my shoulder. The sun gets me like the worst kind of hug. Tiny flowers squeeze out from a crack in the dirt and I can see a long line of ants heading to the salt. A little bird is holding like crazy to a stalk of grass. I turn back and look at Loretta, and she’s picking at a pimple on her arm, still in Bert. Jordy’s sitting there, eyes to the front.
    I’m going to look, I say and scuff my school shoes in the dirt. She stares up at me, and through the window I see that her arms are covered in tiny scabs. She puts her hand in the bit between the seats, finds a pair of sunnies from the servo. She chucks them in Jordy’s lap, and gets out of the car. Hers wrap right around her face. I finger mine in my pocket – shiny, smooth – and put them on.
    Let’s look, she says.
    I climb down into the ditch beside the road. It’s filled with rubbish, broken bottles. Hot grass scratches my calves. I slipthrough the barbed wire fence. I walk towards the edge of the lake, but it’s not as close as it looks from the car and halfway out there it’s too hot and I want to turn around.

    When I look back Loretta is caught on the wire. Her arms are outstretched and struggling. Jordy climbs through and doesn’t help her. His eyes are black with the sunglasses, and after this I don’t see him take them off for what seems like forever. He walks out towards me.

    When we get to the salt it’s dirty pink and crusty under my feet. Jordy crunches onto it beside me. He picks at the meat pie on his school shorts.
    I lean over, crack a piece of the salt with my fingers and put it in my mouth. It tastes like potato chips.
    Jordy copies me: picks at a bit of salt, puts it in his mouth. He looks at me, spits it out. It tastes like dirt, he says.
    Loretta comes over. She has a long scratch on her thigh. It’s nasty red. She touches it absently.
    How hot is it? she says.
    Jordy turns to Loretta, the salt cracking around his feet. Why’d we have to run anyway?
    Run where, hon? she says.
    From the servo.
    We didn’t run, honey, she says and goes to tousle his hair. He pulls away from her and she’s left with just one strand. It shines for a moment in the sun.
    Whatever, he says and stalks back to the car. I rub the toe of my shoe in the salt.
    I’m hot, I say to Loretta and look up at her.
    Come on, she says, putting her hand on my shoulder. She gives me a little squeeze. We walk back to Bert. Jordy is in the front, staring straight ahead again. I yank the door open and crawl into the back seat. My mouth is dry and my legs are scratched and stinging. There’s the end of a bottle of Coke on the floor. I sip it and it’s as hot as tea.

2
    This’ll do, eh? says Loretta.
    Are we going in there? says Jordy.
    The town is dark, except for squares of blue television light in house windows. Only the pub is open and a Chinese restaurant that has lace curtains and a red dragon painted across the glass. Loretta parks in front of the