Read Online Ghost River by Tony Birch - Free Book Online Page A

were trapped in the rusted metal frame separating the pool from the river.
    â€˜What’s that?’
    â€˜Deep Rock. The same man who put the money up to bring the diver here paid for the swimming pool to be built. People used to swim there every weekend, when the water was clean. A long time ago.’
    â€˜Why haven’t we swum there?’
    â€˜It’s dangerous. The bottom of the pool is full of broken glass. It was done on purpose to stop kids swimming there.’
    Sonny worked up a full gob of spit and shot it into the sky. He watched it fall through the air. ‘Sure is a long way down.’
    From where they lay the boys were able to trace the journey of the river, snaking towards the city from the hills in the distance. The wheelhouse and the pontoon lay to the other side of them, and further on, factories and narrow houses along the river.
    â€˜Would you try jumping from here?’ Sonny asked.
    â€˜If I could fly.’
    â€˜I reckon I could do it.’
    â€˜I would bet you that you couldn’t do it, except I’d never get my money cause you’d be dead.’
    Sonny moved away from the cliff edge, sat on a stump and rolled himself a cigarette. As Ren crawled back to join him, his heel clipped the front wheel of the bike. It rolled forward. He threw a hand out to grab hold of a wheel, but the bike picked up speed and shot by him. Sonny watched, his mouth open, as the back wheel of the bike tumbled over the cliff.
    â€˜Grab it,’ he screamed.
    â€˜Too late. It’s gone.’
    â€˜Gone?’ he said, as if he hadn’t just seen it disappear.
    â€˜Gone as it gets.’
    â€˜Fuck! You should have grabbed hold of it, Ren.’
    â€˜I tried. It was moving too fast.’
    While Sonny swore and spat Ren realised something wasn’t right. ‘Listen.’
    â€˜Listen to what?’
    â€˜To nothing. There was no noise. No splash of the bike going in the water.’
    He crawled back to the edge of the cliff. The front wheel of Sonny’s bike was hooked over the branch of a tree growing out of a crack in the rocks on the riverbank. The branch had almost snapped in half and the bike was swinging precariously over the water.
    â€˜Whoa!’ Ren yelled. ‘Take a look at this, Sonny.’
    Sonny crawled across to him, a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip.
    â€˜What a shot! Can we get down to the bike from here?’
    â€˜There’s no way down. We’ll have to cross at the falls and swim over from Deep Rock.’
    â€˜We have to be quick, before the branch breaks off and I lose the bike to the river.’
    Deep Rock was bordered by a concrete ledge separating the pool from the river. Sonny stood on the ledge and looked across to his bike, dangling from the tree above the water.
    â€˜How we gonna get it down?’
    â€˜Easy. We swim across, one of us climbs the tree and unhooks the bike and lowers it to the water. We tow it back across the river between us.’
    â€˜I don’t reckon we have much time before that branch snaps.’
    â€˜After you then, Sonny.’
    Sonny dived into the water, swam to the far bank and rested on a tree stump at the bottom of the cliff-face, waiting for Ren.
    â€˜Hurry.’ He waved.
    Ren dipped his hand in the water and scooped out a bug. It swam in circles in the small pool of water cupped in his hand. He was about to slam his hands together and squash the bug, but changed his mind and dipped his hand into the water a second time and watched as the bug swam away. He stood up, dived, turned under the water and swam across the river backstroke, catching the sun on his chest. He threw his head back as far as possible, until he could see the hanging bike. He flipped over onto his stomach and swam the last few strokes to the cliff edge.
    Sonny welcomed him by spitting a mouthful of water in his face. ‘Could you be any slower, face ache?’
    â€˜Don’t be calling me