Free Sailmaker by Rosanne Hawke

flying up for no reason sometimes. Could they know a storm is coming? He’s pulling at his beard, watching me packing my little cooler.
    â€˜Came in your tinnie, boy?’ I nod. He knows I did but I can tell what he’s getting at. He doesn’t want me to risk it. I check the sky behind me; might be an hour before it comes in.
    â€˜Only took us half an hour to get across,’ I say.
    â€˜Might take longer in this wind,’ Vern says. He’s pushing his hair out of his eyes now. For once Mei’s urging me to do the more dangerous thing. She wants to go home. Stopping on the island would be even freakier for her than racing a storm across the gulf. She’s been on her dad’s trawler in a storm but I wouldn’t want to be in a tinnie in a storm.
    Vern’s not happy. ‘Wish you’d reconsider, boy.’
    â€˜We’ll be okay. We’ve got the motor. And I’ve rowed it across heaps of times before.’ That was in the summer though, when the sea was like glass. It’s not any more. Just to make Vern feel a bit better I give him Grandad’s fishing rod and the cooler. ‘I’ll come back for them.’ It’ll be better to have less weight in the tinnie. Mei’s headed down to the water’s edge. For someone quiet she’s pretty insistent about this. Hasn’t budged a footstep. I check the clouds again. Surely the storm’s got to be an hour away. The tide’s up already and Vern’s watching us from the verandah as we put the life jackets on. Just the stiff way he’s standing, while his grey hair blows in the breeze, shows what he’s thinking.
    The motor doesn’t start first time, nor the second, and Mei’s getting fidgety. Then it splutters into action on the third pull. She sits back, more relaxed. If it was just me I would sleep over. I’d have another chance to prove Vern can stay on the island. The water isn’t as clear now; it’s moving somewhere, anywhere, like it’s got things to do before the storm hits. The wind is much worse out in the open. It’s not as easy going back as it was coming over – we keep getting pushed sideways. I’ve never been out in the tinnie in this kind of wind. The clouds are building up behind us like a fast-forwarding movie.
    It’s when we’re about a quarter of the way home that the motor dies. One splutter and that’s it. Nothing I do will start it again. Mei’s watching the sky behind me while I’m trying hard not to swear. The motor’s fine, it shouldn’t do this. Bet Mei thinks something is conspiring against us. It’d be easy to imagine that, with all this talk of the head keeper’s ghost. I’m just wondering what she’d think was worse – being caught in a storm or staying on an island with a ghost, when she says, ‘Let’s row.’ That answers that one. I pull the oars out and click them into place.
    â€˜We’ll have to take turns,’ I say. I start off but I know straightaway that we won’t make it home. It’s started to rain and I’m getting nowhere in the wind. Was this what happened to the head keeper all those years ago? And that guy from the detention gang in Vern’s tinnie? He didn’t even have oars. What chance did he have?
    â€˜Mei,’ I shout. ‘We have to go back.’ She doesn’t argue. Her eyes are huge in her face. Her hair’s stuck to her cheeks and I suddenly feel like hugging her, telling her it’ll be okay, but I turn the tinnie instead. It’s even worse rowing back but at least we’re not heading into the wind. The only thing that keeps me going is that I know the island is closer than the mainland. The waves are pounding on the side of the tinnie like we’re a little rock for the sea to have some fun with, like Shawn does with me. The wind is buffeting us and we keep slewing to the side, rising and dropping like