Read Online Outback by Robin Stevenson - Free Book Online Page A

uncle’s body and notice something: he’s lying on his bag, one arm clutching it to his chest. “Mel’s bag,” I say.
    She makes a face. “Let’s just go.”
    â€œYeah. Okay.” I really don’t want to touch him again. Those flies…“But what if he’s got food in there, or water purification tablets?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œYou don’t have to help.”
    â€œNo, it’s okay. You lift him and I’ll grab the bag.”
    It’s harder than you would think, lifting a dead body. Mel’s a hefty guy. I lift his shoulders, trying not to look at his face. Nat pulls the bag free.
    â€œOkay,” I say. It’s weird, just leaving him here. I feel like we should say something to him but I don’t know what. Besides, even now he’s dead I’m still angry with him. He’s the reason Nat and I are stuck out here, fighting to stay alive. His stupid ambition, his mistrust, his greed.
    So in the end we just walk away.
    We don’t find any decent shade, but it is too hot to continue walking, so we huddle in the thin patchy shelter of some shrubbery. Nat drinks slowly.
    Then she passes me the water jug. It’s almost empty. After this jug is gone, we are down to nine gallons.
    â€œNat, you should rest here. I’ll walk back to the camp to get the water we left for Mel.”
    Nat nods reluctantly. “I gave him my water bottle too,” she says, pushing his bag toward me. “But I bet all he’s got in there is dead lizards.”
    â€œI’ll eat them.” I unbuckle the bag and flip it open.
    And I can’t believe what I see.
    â€œWhat is it?” Nat asks. “Jayden, what’s in there?”
    Wordlessly, I push the bag toward her.
    â€œOh my god,” Nat says, her fingertips pressed against her mouth. “He had it all along.” She puts her hand in the bag and lifts it out, holds it up. Small, black and silver. It sparkles like a handful of diamonds in the sunlight.
    The satellite phone.
    It takes only seconds to phone for help, but three long days for the help to reach us. It’s a strange three days: We know we’ll be out of here soon, but we don’t quite believe it. We find some shade under some desert oaks, at the edge of a massive dune just a few kilometers north of where we found Mel’s body; and we still ration our food and water, just in case. And we talk a lot, about all kinds of things. Life and death things, but also tv shows, music and what we’re going to eat when we get back to the city. I tell Nat all about Anna and what she meant to me, and Nat tells me about her ex-boyfriend, who sounds like a jerk.
    â€œHis loss,” I tell her. “You deserve better.”
    She sighs. “I think I need to be on my own for a while.”
    â€œYeah. Me too.” I hesitate. “Um, I know you’re a couple of years older and all, but I was sort of getting a crush on you, before all this happened.”
    â€œSeriously?” She laughs. “I didn’t think you even liked me.”
    â€œYeah, I liked you. But now…”
    â€œAh, now that you know me better, you don’t?”
    â€œNo, listen. I like you. But thinking we might die…well, it changes things, doesn’t it?”
    Nat nods. “It changes everything.”
    â€œI want to stay friends, okay? I mean, I have to go home, but we can still talk, right?”
    â€œYeah. We can still talk.” Nat’s eyes are shining. “We’ll have to, Jayden. I don’t think anyone else is going to understand what this has been like.”
    A convoy of two jeeps takes us back to Wiluna. Nat and I ride in one vehicle with an older Aboriginal man called Sam. Mel’s body—zipped into a body bag—goes in the second vehicle. Sam’s quiet and easygoing, but the other driver is a heavy-smoking younger guy who talks loudly and cracks jokes that grate against my