WHIRLPOOL 

By Tessa Harvey


    Esther struggled along the creek bank. Realising her son would have been carried downriver, she had gone along the flooded water downstream. Thomas  could  swim like a fish. Would he be able to keep his balance in this thundering torrent, and breathe when he could?
    She knew he would no panic, but she was moving as fast as she could over the slick grass, grasping for holds on uncertain clumps of foliage with one hand, the other cradling her belly.
    Lucas was smart. He would drive down river and come to help. But "Oh God, save my child," she cried, desperate, "please save our Thomas." Her cry echoed in the storm. 
    The mother moved swiftly, her thick boots gripping the sodden earth. She was a fighter, had been in battles all her life, but none so grave, so desperate. All she had seen until now was a swirling brown mass of water, but then up near Crocodile Rock the unmistakable red of Thomas's hoodie.

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