On the Run by Tristan Bancks Read Free Book Online Page B

the fridge, lowering bread into the toaster, and switching on the heater when it was cold. None of these talents would be useful here.
    He breathed hard and sat up straight. He felt better, even with a bellyache. It was cooler down by the water. The moist, woodsy air and the steady shhh sound of the river seemed to swallow him and make him part of it all. Ben looked up through the ferns and spiky plants sticking out of the rocks, but he couldn’t see the cabin.
    â€œMum,” he called.
    No response.
    â€œMum!”
    The echo of his own voice off the rocks.
    He was alone. Just Ben. And river and bird and frog. And snake.
    He stood and lifted a palm-size rock and threw it into the river just to see the splash. He stuffed the book back into his pocket and grabbed another rock, throwing it as high as he could, the impact kicking splash all over him and putting a smile on his face for the first time in days.
    As Ben turned to look for another rock he saw something move at the corner of his vision. It was a rabbit, a light gray one, hopping from the tree line to the top rock. It stopped, looked down at him, still. Ben began to move slowly up the rocks, but the rabbit skittered off the way it had come. He smiled again, looking all around. At home the closest thing he had to his own secret place was the crusty patch of land at the back of the wrecking yard. The tall grass there was peppered with graffiti-stained cars and the trains speeding by were loud and annoying. But here there was nothing man-made. Only Ben.
    Why would Mum and Dad come out here just because they had sold the wreckers?
    The money. So much money. He took his backpack off, pulled out his notebook, and sat down to jot the following sums:
    $100 × 500 bills in bundle
    = $50,000
    $50,000
    Ã— 20 bundles
    =
    Ben stared at the page. There might not have been five hundred bills in a bundle but Ben figured there must have been close to that. And there might have been fifteen bundles, not twenty. But there could have been twenty-two. How could their old wrecking yard be worth a million dollars? The place was a disgrace. And if they did sell it for that much, why had Dad hidden the money? Why hadn’t they told him about selling the business earlier? And who had bought it? Uncle Chris? Maybe. He had given Dad the bag full of money. Dad didn’t even like Uncle Chris. Maybe that’s why he sold it to him. Payback for all the beatings Uncle Chris gave him as a kid. Dad still had scars from Uncle Chris’s babysitting sessions.
    There were all these missing parts of the story. Adults never told kids anything. Nothing worth hearing anyway. Ben felt as though he spent his entire life trying to work out things that adults knew but wouldn’t tell him. He would do some detective work, search for clues, put the puzzle together.
    Ben pulled the police business card out of his notebook. “Dan Toohey.” The wedge-tailed eagle emblem looked a bit like the bird on the front of My Side of the Mountain. Ben whispered the words “ Culpam Poena Premit Comes” and decided that he would have his own police business card one day. One day when he was in charge of himself. He slipped the card back into the notebook. The river rushed by. Three birds, rosellas, flew past, chasing one another out over the river, then up into the trees. Ben flipped back a couple of pages and read:
    Police
    Vacation
    Uncle Chris. Gray nylon bag. Black handles.
    The new old car
    Haircuts
    He added:
    Pulled over by cops. Drive off and chase.
    The cabin
    Bag full of money
    Sold the wreckers
    Sun emerged from behind the clouds. Bright splotches of light on Ben’s notebook. He reread the notes. One thing was clear—weird stuff was going on. His parents were in trouble. He didn’t know why, but he knew they were.
    â€œWhat’re you doing?” said a voice from above him.
    Ben snapped his notebook shut.

 
    MY SIDE OF THE RIVER
    Ben leaped quickly from boulder