A Croc Called Capone by Barry Jonsberg Page B

Brendan said. ‘When Al comes alongside, Julie will dangle the chook and, hopefully, Al will jump to get it. Saltwater crocs jump when necessary in the wild to get prey, so we’re not doing anything “unnatural”.’
    I could hear the speech marks in his voice. He was probably doing that annoying finger-twirl in the air but luckily I was spared witnessing it. All my attention was fixed on Al’s approach.
    â€˜Most importantly,’ Brendan continued, ‘it’s a great opportunity to get a photograph. So have those cameras locked and loaded.’
    Julie brought the pole over the side and splashed the chook into the water a couple of times. Al glided closer. I could see knotty lumps along a portion of his spine.
    But nothing could have prepared me for his sheer size when he glided alongside the boat. His head was huge and the tip of his tail broke the surface way off to my right.
This beast could swallow me in one gulp and I wouldn’t
touch the sides of his throat. Judging by the silence all
around, the rest of our party was similarly awed. Al’s eyes
were flat and expressionless but his entire body radiated
purpose. To eat. And you knew nothing would get in the
way of that.



I wrenched my eyes away for a moment. I needed Dyl next to me, to share this with him. The crowd was tight and I couldn’t see past the solid wall of bodies. I glanced to my right, towards the rear of the boat. Some small movement caught my attention. I was the only one who noticed. Everyone else’s eyes were pinned on Al.
    Maybe Dylan had tried to force his way through the throng and failed. Maybe he’d simply gone to the one place where he could get a decent view. Trouble was, in order to do that, he’d pulled himself up onto the railings. He balanced on a thin wire, one hand holding a guideline, his body arced out over the brown water, directly above the tail of the crocodile. I saw his feet tremble on the wire.
    I’ve read that dramatic things often seem to happen in slow motion. To be honest, I’d never believed it until that moment. I saw Dylan’s left foot slip on the railing. I saw the look on his face as gravity pulled and he tried to compensate. I saw his other foot go. But everything took an age. I wanted to scream. My brain gave out instructions, but that was in slow motion as well. The sound bubbled deep down in my diaphragm. The distance to my throat seemed impossibly far. I tried to pull away from Dad towards where Dylan was toppling sideways. My muscles, like my vocal cords, were on a go-slow. I hadn’t moved more than a centimetre or two before Dylan reached the point of no return.
    He didn’t shout, he didn’t scream.
    He plunged into the dirty-brown water, hitting the tip of Al’s tail. Even the water arced up in a slow fountain as he went beneath its surface. The only part of the scene that wasn’t trapped in a strange time warp was the crocodile.
    Al Capone whipped round, the chicken forgotten. As Dylan’s head broke the surface, the croc’s slid beneath it.
    And finally, finally, my scream made it through to my throat.

Imagine you are watching a movie on single-frame-advance and then someone presses play. That is the best way I can describe what happened next.
    For the briefest fraction of a second there was stillness, a gathering of energy before explosive release. Then my scream shattered it, was joined by other screams, and there was a rush of movement down to where Dylan’s head bobbed in the swell. Everything now was frantic, arms waving, voices shouting, rush, bustle, panic. But it was obvious to me – to everyone, I guess – that nothing we did really mattered. There was Dylan’s head. There was a crocodile somewhere beneath the surface. Those of us safely on the boat had no power to alter events out there.
    Brendan moved quickly. So did Julie. She picked up the remains of the chook and hurled it off to the left.