Uluru Disaster

• Ahmad Samad, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

In front of Jack, sat an ancient maroon bold boulder. “Beauty!” Jack muttered under his breath. He saw the tourists look just as excited as himself. “Beauty!” he exclaimed out loud. Charlie, Jack’s best mate, suggested going to the local pub to get drinks. “Yeah mate I’m game, let’s go to the Pira Pool Bar and ‘ave some brekky? Jack agreed but was a little disappointed because they had just arrived. After they both reached the pub, they ordered nine shots and a banana bread each and consumed them. They realised they were only a little drunk for now, so the two mates took the road back to the Uluru area.

“It’s bloody beautiful”, shouted Jack, as he happily waved his arms towards the sighting. They both laughed and chatted whilst still mesmerized by the old boulder. After a bit of time passed, they were feeling quite drunk. They decided it would be a funny idea to climb on top of the now, Uluru, looking like a monstrosity. They walked up to the warning tapes which had a “DO NOT PASS” label on them and looked around to see if there were any coppers lurking around. As the coast was clear, they whipped up the warning tapes and clambered their way up Uluru.

They hurried up Uluru’s rocky terrain, it was like stepping on multiple thumbtacks for every step. The thong straps were digging into their foot souls, and the base of it was tearing up because they were made out of cheap foam. “Just ditch ‘em thongs,” Charlie sighed. Now it felt like thumbtacks in their foot soles. Anyway, the mates hurried up to the top, and eventually, they made it. “Take a pic for the gram,” Jack jokingly said.

Then, the ground raged to some cheery Aussies. “Crikey!” Charlie yelled. Now, the two worried and confused Aussies were frightened. CRACK! Uluru was breaking into two chunks of rocks as the mates tried getting down Uluru as fast as lightning. “Agh this way!” directed Jack. Charlie did not hear a word he said, Charlie was too busy scrambling down Uluru, away from Jack. Charlie over jumped the gap he was trying to evade in front of him. The crack in his ankle was as loud as multiple thin twigs snapping.

Charlie tumbled down the edges of the awfully massive Uluru. Jack was still rushing to the bottom not being able to see Charlie’s fall. Charlie wasn’t able to recover his balance because his ankle was at a 90-degree angle. One of the large rocks came tumbling down, striking his face, declaring him unconscious. Jack was halfway down Uluru, there were cracks and holes everywhere on the surface of the boulder. The tourists and civilians were screaming their heads off while the cops were evacuating everyone and taking them to safer grounds to tend to their wounds. “I will make it!” Jack panted. But, he was rather unlucky as a crack had opened up under him, he slipped right in.