growing up writing

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When Gilly McMahon sets out to build a billy-cart to enter a local racing derby she decides to do it without the help of her big brother, Cracker, and his friends, Trann and Bone.

And keep the $1000 prize money.

She is busy hunting for wood from a deserted shack in the dark of night to build her billy-cart when she overhears a conversation that makes her realize she needs her brother’s help after all.

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When Gilly watches her older brother, Cracker, and his friends, Trann and the Bone, disappear over the cliff in front of their family’s holiday shack on a secret expedition she is determined that she will not be left behind. Accompanied by her cousin Bobby she follows the boys around the rocks to Pretty Point where she discovers dozens of black onion-like bags filled with stinking black shells in Cracker’s secret cave.  Someone is stealing abalone and the spent shells are being washed into the cave. Cracker is annoyed that Gilly has made such an exciting discovery – it is his expedition after all – and he suggests a daring plan to catch the abalone thieves.

RELEASED SEPTEMBER, 2014

When Cracker McMahon and his friends, Trann and Bone, set sail up the Clyde River for a three day camping trip the last thing they expect to see is an old man loom large out of the mist in a boat swinging a lantern to light his way across the river.Every morning, under the cover of the mist, as the boys watch from their camping spot the old man works, guiding his boat back and forward across the river, his path illuminated by the soft yellow light of the lantern. As the mist clears, the old man covers the boat with reeds and disappears into the scrub. Never once does he look in the boys’ direction or acknowledge their presence.

But he must know they’re there, mustn’t he?

It’s not as if they can’t be heard all along the river as they land, pitch their tent and set up camp. Not to mention their campfire that seems to send smoke signals all by itself.

As the boys watch the old man work, their curiosity grows.