Free Floundering by Romy Ash Page B

going to be inside the jug. She had three lots of cordial in the cupboard, orange, green and red – like traffic lights. She never made it strong enough, but it was always cold and a surprise. When Jordy poured it he would measure each cup of cordial with a ruler so it was exactly equal. He’s taking great big breaths and my breaths are big too.
    Did I say you could talk? he says.
    No.
    Did I say you could talk then?
    No.
    What about then?
    I just look at him with my mouth open, full of my tongue wanting to make a word.
    Okay, okay, you can talk.
    I don’t even want to talk to you.
    Well, you’re talking now.
    I kick a bit of hose. It’s weird here, I say.
    It’s alright, he says.
    We can make a cubby in the dune.
    Loretta said not to dig in ‘em.
    I imagine getting a face full of sand, and the thought of it crunching in my mouth against my teeth makes my whole body shudder. Jordy goes to a tall bit of the dune and kicks it. Kicks it again until the sand falls over his feet. I make sure to stand a good way away so that if it all collapses I’ll be there to pull him out by the edge of his shirt, or his foot.
    Let’s go find a drink, he says.
    We walk through scrub for a while before we get to the tents. I hadn’t realised how far we’d run. The tents have their ropes out really far to trip us. There’s a mum out the front of one and she smiles and says, Merry Christmas. I just look at her, keep walking and don’t say anything back.
    I think I’ve got sunstroke, I say to Jordy.
    You have not.
    I have, I feel dizzy and I’m going to vomit.
    How would you even know?
    They’re the symptoms.
    As if.
    Eventually you get so thirsty you go crazy.
    Whatever.
    Both of us stop when our caravan comes into sight. Bert still isn’t here. Just the caravan screen door banging open and shut.
    Come on, says Jordy and we walk up to it. I click the screen door shut and sit on the step in the sun. Jordy looks under the caravan.
    There’s chairs, he says and pulls out two canvas chairs with cobwebs all over them. Jordy opens one of them and sits down in it. It looks broken but he doesn’t fall. I swipe a fly from my face. He gets up. His chair buckles.
    It’s hot, I say.
    Did I say you could talk yet? Look, an awning, he says.
    He taps at a metal lever sticking out the side of the caravan, then pulls. The metal screams, and flakes of rust and dirt fall all over me.
    Hey, I say. I jump up and out of there. I try shake the dirt off me. Be careful, I say.
    Jordy pulls it all the way out. It’s wobbly, but it stays there, and it makes a small square of shade out the front of the caravan. The edge of the canvas is black with dirt and disintegrating, but the bit that was rolled up inside the metal is brown-and-orange striped and looks new.
    Cool, says Jordy. He sits back in his tumbled-down chair, righting it first so he can get in it. I sit back on the step. In the shade the rest of the world looks hotter. We sit there for a while not saying anything, then Jordy gets up.
    I’m going to the beach, he says, without looking back at me. I want to follow him, but I leave it too long and then I’m just sitting there alone. I scratch a bite on my leg. I scratch it until it bleeds, then a fly lands on the wound. My stomach grumbles. Ihear a car on the gravel. I see the dust before the car and I stand up, ready to run to Bert, but it’s not Bert, it’s an old white ute. It stops across from me, pulls up beside the old man’s caravan.
    He gets out of the ute and looks over at me. I don’t wave at him, or say hello. He pretends he hasn’t seen me. Walks to the back of the ute. He tries to lift a crate from the tray. He scrapes it along the metal and up to the side, drops it. He tries to lift it again. It falls back into the tray with a shudder. He gives up and carries the two-litre Coke bottles inside two by two, then the crate. In the caravan he would have to put them all back in the crate. I hear a generator jump to life with a loud