Past the Shallows Read Free Page B

higher so that Miles could see it properly. ‘I got Stuart a Redskins bag and I got a Cadbury’s
     bag, too, and a Redskins and a Bertie Beetle. You can share if you want. There’s a dart gun game. We can play it later.’
    Harry noticed that Miles was holding his hands strangely. They were red and swollen. They looked bad.
    ‘Did you hurt your hands on the boat?’
    Miles sat up slowly. ‘I just gotta wait for the blisters to heal up, that’s all.’
    ‘You could put fish cream on ’em?’
    ‘Maybe later.’
    Miles went to lie back down but Harry stopped him.
    ‘We’ve got to unpack the shopping. It’s at the door. I’ll carry the bags, you can put the stuff away. We got six bags – we
     got everything! Cup-a-soups, macaroni, Milo, peanut butter.’ Harry dumped the show bags on the bed and headed back to the
     door, hoping Miles would follow.
    They unpacked quickly, without talking. Harry grinned when he handed Miles a family-sized packet of Teddy Bear biscuits.
    ‘Another beer, Dad?’ Miles asked.
    He nodded, and Miles took over a can from the fridge.
    Harry walked back to the bedroom and started arranging his chocolate and lollies on the floor.
    ‘What are you gonna have first?’ he asked, when Miles came in.
    Miles just shrugged.
    ‘I think I’m going to eat the plain Freddo and one Redskin. Then I’ll choose two things tomorrow.’
    ‘Maybe you should just eat what you want now.’ Miles sat on his bed and looked at the pile. ‘What are you saving it all for
     anyway?’
    Harry put all the sweets back in their bags, except for the Freddo.
    ‘If I save them they’ll last longer – they’ll last until school,’ he said.
    He looked up at Miles.
    ‘Aren’t you going to have any of yours?’
    ‘I’m just tired.’ Miles lay back down on the bed again. ‘You’re lucky you get seasick, Harry. You won’t ever have to work
     on the boat.’
    Harry sat on the floor and took small, quiet bites of his chocolate frog.

M iles kept his eyes on the water and listened to the engine. He listened to the
chug-chug
and the air pump’s whirling churn. As long as it kept pumping, as long as he sorted in time, as long as he steered the boat
     carefully, everything would be OK. But out at the Friars, steep and black, seals watched the boat from the rocks where they
     lay in piles half asleep. The cliffs behind were like giant guardians standing tall.
    And God, it felt like some kind of ancient place.
    The water sucked and moved, smashed against the rocks, and no matter how Miles positioned the boat, no matter how hard he
     tried, he couldn’t keep a clear fix on the airlines. He wiped the sea spray off his face, checked the air pump one more time,
     and he thought about going into the cabin for a minuteto thaw out. To get out of the wind. But he saw something on the water. A catch bag.
    It broke the surface, inflatable buoys pulling it up from deep, and Miles edged the boat closer. He hooked the bag with a
     long metal rod and dragged it around to the back where the boat was flat and low. With his hands on the netting he leaned
     back and used his body weight to get the abalone up on deck. Yesterday he had fallen backwards when the bags lurched out of
     the water, but not this time. This bag was light, not even half full.
    Inside, the abs stuck fast to each other and formed one giant rock. Miles used the blunt metal blade to separate them out.
     He sorted them by size and put them in the plastic tubs. Most of them were small, undersize, but Miles knew better than to
     throw them back. Dad would kill him. The cannery turned a blind eye to these things. They never asked questions. Not of Dad,
     anyway.
    When the bag was empty, Miles checked over the abs. Most of them had stuck to each other again, piled high in the corners
     of the blue plastic tubs. He reached into the water and picked one up, held it upside down. The black slimy disc of flesh
     flinched against the cold air. And it was strong, that muscle.If