Josephine Rowe

Ahead of me my tiny sister sits regal and unafraid in the middle of the raft that Fynn has built of packing foam and empty chemical buckets, lids fixed airtight with caulk. He's already tested it out in our neighbour's pool and declared it seaworthy, but if the thing falls apart he has promised to carry Sara himself. Fynn is thirteen, older than me by five years, and the only one of us three kids who has been out to the island before. Our mother had long hair then, and Fynn's dad was still around, hadn't yet skidded his motorbike underneath a roadtrain one rainy December night. (p.3)

...Sara scrambles up from the wreckage to ride his bony shoulders, her little starfish hands clenching fistfuls of his tawny hair. It must hurt him badly, his face like a cheap runner mask of itself, but he says nothing while trying to shepherd pieces of the debris ahead of hismelf.

Waves slap at his face, trying to get in through his mouth and nose. He screws his eyes shut, snorts water, while higher up Sara sings, oblivious, her stubby little feet hooked under his wrists. (p.7)