Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Author:Melina Marchetta
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

The spot is way on the other side of town. As we drive I follow the river, right through town and back out into the middle of nowhere again.

The place is almost as majestic as Hannah’s property. Big weeping willows shade the area by the river. Ropes hang off branches ready for swimmers to throw themselves into the water.

We sit, the four of us, watching the river, not saying much because it’s not as if we’re friends who have things in common to discuss. But strangely enough, it’s not awkward—just silent, apart from the typical nature soundtrack buzzing in the air. Once in a while some little flying insect stations itself right in front of my nose and then it’s off doing a crazy three-sixty turn before flying away in a manic direction.

“You’re not another one who’s obsessed with that serial killer, are you?” I ask Santangelo.

“No.”

“Then why mention a boy who disappeared almost twenty years ago?”

“How do you know it was almost twenty years ago?” Santangelo asks.

“You said.”

“No he didn’t,” Griggs says, looking suddenly interested.

“And I didn’t say it was a boy.”

“Was it?” Griggs asks him.

Santangelo nods.

“I’ve probably been told about it before,” I say. I didn’t want to tell them about Hannah’s manuscript. “You?”

He shrugs, but I keep my focus on him until he fidgets uncomfortably. “I saw a photo of him once,” he says quietly. “It left an impression.”

“Because he was our age?” Raffy asks.

Santangelo thinks for a moment, as if he needs to figure something out himself while trying to explain it to other people.

“Do you ever wonder how someone our age can possibly be dead? There’s just something really unnatural about it.”

I watch his face as he tries to explain.

“If you saw the photo you’d understand. You’d want to say to the kid in it, “Why weren’t you strong enough to resist death? Didn’t that look in your eye stop anything bad from happening to you?”

“But you’re not talking about someone’s age; now you’re talking about their spirit,” Raffy says.

“Maybe I am. It’s like when I was in year eight and we had to study The Diary of Anne Frank. I mean, she died of typhoid. Can you believe it? How could Anne Frank die of typhoid? The girl never kept her mouth shut, she was bloody annoying, and it was like nothing could kill what was inside of her. I thought, okay, maybe a gas chamber or a firing squad could kill her but not an illness that other people survived.”

I’m very disturbed to find out that the leader of the Townies has a soul and I’m beginning to develop a bit of a crush on him.

“At the end of the day it’s about heart beats and blood flow,” Griggs says flatly. “People’s spirits don’t keep them alive.”

Santangelo looks at me again. “The kid in the photo…his hair was kind of wavy, like a golden brown, and his eyes were that colour that’s not blue or green and he was smiling, so he had this kind of cut in his face.

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