It was late afternoon when the five travellers finally reached land. During the walk, Cartman had given up hope and had to be towed by a long piece of seaweed; other than that the trip had been fairly uneventful.
"I am so tired," Jess sighed as they finally left the water and felt dry sand under their feet. Jess and Hannah immediately fell onto the sand in an exhausted heap. Patrick and Jimmy carefully lowered themselves down onto the sand next to the girls, abandoning Cartman, who drifted gently back and forth with the tide.
"Oh… my back…" Jimmy moaned, falling back onto the sand.
"Shut it, you wuss," Hannah demanded, "you're meant to be brave and macho."
"Sorry."
Jess looked up at the sunset. The sky was deep red; like bad sunburn. "Isn't it… um… oh, what's the word…?" she said, leaning towards Patrick.
"Romantic?" he suggested, hopefully.
"I was going to say red, actually."
"Oh."
Jimmy edged himself across the 20cm of space between himself and Hannah.
Hannah got up. She walked towards the sea and fetched Cartman in.
"If anyone asks, we fell out of the sky…" she started.
"Wha…?" said Jimmy.
"We'll get chucked into jail if they know we walked across the reef." Everyone nodded slowly. "Also, I advise we sleep on the beach to avoid large spiders, big, absurd insects and dingoes."
"Check," said Patrick.
"We should write a book about this," said Jimmy.
"Nah, some screwball would copyright it," said Cartman.
"No, someone's probably written about it already," said Patrick.
"Dammit, they're probably writing one now," said Hannah. "It's probably got loads of 'saids' in it." She laughed.
"Yeah," chuckled Jess.
"Nah, it probably makes a rank book. Would make a good movie, though," said Jimmy.
"No way!" said Jess. "Would be better as a book. None of the romantic stuff."
"None of the romantic crap – more action." Said Hannah. "Yeah, that'd be good."
"What romantic crap?" Asked Jimmy, confused.
"Aw, come on!" Hannah sighed. "It's pretty obvious this is a romance based story."
"Yeah, even I worked that out!" Patrick said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh." Said Jimmy apologetically. "I'm sorry… I'll do better."

"Do we have to sleep out on the beach?" Asked Jess, as the others sheltered behind a nearby sand dune.
"It'll be fine," Hannah assured her. "We'll be sheltered from wind and rain by the sand dune, and we'll be perfectly safe."
"As long as we stick together." Patrick concluded.
Jess reluctantly sat down in the sandy hollow and scooped Cartman up in her arms. Cartman seemed to be the only solid and real thing around her at the moment, and that was worrying, considering he was a cartoon character.
"It's going to get a bit chilly." Hannah observed, looking up at the sky.
Jimmy responded to this by reaching forward, wrapping his arms around Hannah and pulling her back against the sand dune.
Hannah snuggled gratefully into his chest and closed her eyes.
"I hope Crocodile Dundee turns up tomorrow," Smirked Patrick.
"Why?" Asked Jess, too tired to think.
"We've got to trek through that." Patrick pointed at the great expanse of bush in front of them. They had their backs to the sea.
"Oh, crap." Said Jess. There was a little pause. Then Jess asked: "Whereabouts in Australia do you think we are, exactly?" Patrick was about to attempt a guess and try and impress Jess before there was a long murmur from Hannah. Jess and Patrick turned around and looked at Hannah, thinking she was talking in her sleep, before realising she was talking into Jimmy's shirt. "What?" Asked Jess.
Hannah sighed. "We're probably near Cooktown, on the East Coast."
"Good," Said Jess. "I'm hungry.

<< back to Book 1.2

� Jess and Hannah 2001