Yellow by Megan Jacobson Page B

It’s light, so I can carry it without the wind knocking me sideways. I can ding it as much as I want, and if I lose it, well, Lark’ll be happy to have the extra space in his shed. I grin up at him.
    â€˜Thanks!’
    â€˜Want me to give you more lessons?’
    I shake my head no, he’s tried to teach me loads of times, and I know that nothing would make him happier than to have me out there, chasing the swell with him in the early mornings when the sun hasn’t yet fully risen, and the sky’s still a bruise amidst the sneaking yellow. The thing is, he’s a terrible teacher. The pull of the ocean’s such a strong thing for him he’ll forget me when he senses a good set rolling in, and while he dances on the lip of a clean six-foot break, I’m left pounded and pummelled until I’m dumped, spluttering onto the shore, sand wedged in my ears and right up into my swimmer bottoms.
    Lark’s a bit disappointed that I’ve refused his offer, but also relieved. As much as he’d like to teach me again, he’s not really one to commit to anything. Besides, the surf might be pumping on the afternoon we’ve arranged it, and then he wouldn’t want to be stuck with me in the shallows.
    â€˜Fair enough, but make sure you stay at Main Beach. And where the lifesavers can see you, yeah?’
    â€˜Yeah, of course,’ I reply without meeting his gaze, and he musses up the top of my hair where it turns up into a cowlick.

I race home and change into my faded Kmart cossies, wiggle into Mum’s old board shorts, and I grab the Coolite under my arm. I’m still not talking to Mum and she’s usually in bed when I get home, her eyes vacant as though she’s somewhere else and it’s someone else lying there, wearing her skin. The wind has picked up and it makes me zigzag as I near South Beach, as though the ocean itself doesn’t want me near, and it’s pushing me away. The waves are big out near the reef, which is about a hundred metres from the shore. My stomach jumps to the upper cavities of my chest, and I want to walk back home again, but I made a promise. If I back out now, I’ll never get the guts.
    The waves come in sets. A series of ten, maybe fifteen eight-footers break at the outer edge of the distant reef, gaining power as they barrel across the coral shallows, and then crashing hard like a tackled footballer, all force and spittle and fury, followed by a lull. The lull lasts a while, enough to almost make you forget the bombs were ever there, and I figure that there might be enough time between sets to cross the reef into the safe zone, where the waves haven’t yet broken.
    Where Boogie’s supposed to be.
    There’s only one other surfer out there; he’s a small silhouette, so small that if I close one eye and point I could make him disappear behind my fingertip. I spear the water with the tip of my board and duck dive under the smaller waves near the shore. Soon, once I pass the breakers, there’s no noise but my own hands slicing through the water and the sound of water splashing onto the board. After fifteen minutes of paddling the shore seems so far away, and I’m only halfway there. My breath is jagged, and the ocean swells and falls with its own deep lungs. I try not to think of the board’s shadow below me, which looks like a shark. There are enough real sharks to be scared of, and real sharks go unseen for the most part, right up until it matters, that is.
    Slice.
    Slice.
    Slice.
    My arms are two dull aches by my side. The shore seems small and unreal now, like a world that sits inside a snow globe, and all that truly exists is the water, swallowing the horizon in one fat gulp, and then the other surfer who emerges triumphantly every now and then from the liquid tunnel of a distant wave. I sit on the board near the edge of the reef and dive under the waves when they come, until it feels like my nose and