A New Kind of Dreaming by Anthony Eaton

Author:Anthony Eaton
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000;JUV030080;JUV028000
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2012-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

sixteen

‘Hey!’

Jamie sat up in bed, startled to find Cameron at the back door.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Nothin’. Come in.’

Cameron climbed the stairs and walked inside, taking in the screened-in porch with a quick glance.

‘Nice place.’

‘It’s comfy.’

‘Yeah.’

While Cameron pulled an old wooden chair up towards the bed, Jamie propped himself on one arm.

‘Haven’t seen you for a day or two.’

‘I’ve been keepin’ out of the way. After the boat and that.’ He didn’t mention his conversation with McPherson. Now wasn’t the time.

‘Yeah. How’d you hold up the other night?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘I slept like a log.’ Cameron grinned. ‘Must have been that lucky punch you got in.’

‘Lucky?’

‘Yeah. You wait – next time I’ll be ready for you.’

‘You’re just soft.’ Jamie began to feel a little less morose. He’d been feeling strange since waking up, an hour or so ago. It was Saturday morning so school wasn’t an issue, but Jamie was bored, and even school would have at least been something to do. In the few days since the episode at the boat he’d been continuing his policy of lying low, so there wasn’t anywhere he could go. He was pleased to see Cameron’s face grinning up through the fly wire. The two of them hadn’t spoken much since that afternoon. At school Cameron always seemed to be hanging around with the other kids, and Jamie didn’t feel like dealing with all the stares and whispers, so apart from a couple of nods the two of them had stayed away from one another.

‘You heard the news?’ Cameron was serious again.

‘What news?’

‘About McPherson.’

‘Eh?’ Jamie sat up. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s dead. Topped himself.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Nah. Hung himself from the lamp pole on the end of the jetty. They found him last night.’

‘When did he do it?’

Cameron shrugged.

‘Dunno. No one had seen him for a couple of days. Last time anyone saw him was the other night in the pub.’

‘Which night?’ Jamie’s heart began to pound.

‘Wednesday, same day as the boat thing.’

Jamie felt the blood draining from his face.

‘Shit mate. I’m in trouble.’

‘Eh? What?’

‘I was talkin’ to him, McPherson.’

‘When?’

‘The other day. After you headed home.’

Jamie related his trip to the pub. When he’d finished speaking, Cameron sat for a couple of minutes.

‘Bloody hell, mate. What do you think he meant?’

‘I reckon there must have been someone else on the boat. Butcher knocked them off and didn’t know about the girl bein’ there. Maybe she saw somethin’. He was just lucky she didn’t speak English, but he had to get rid of her too, before the flying doctor arrived with an interpreter.’

Cameron thought about this, then nodded.

‘Yeah. Makes sense. What about McPherson though?’

Jamie shook his head.

‘That’s what worries me. He tells me this the other night, or at least gives me a few pretty simple clues, and then suddenly he’s dead. You really reckon he killed himself?’

‘Don’t know. Couple of guys found him when they went fishing. No idea how long he’d been there, but the doctor said it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours.’

‘So where’d he go then? Between Wednesday and last night?’

‘God knows.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.