Laura was going to go first. But as she stood at the top, the gorge looked a long way down and she felt scared. Beautiful and sinister, it looked like an open wound slashed through the midst of the dense forest. A brutal torrent of fast-moving river, foaming through jagged rocks before plunging over rapids. It was fed by one stream of clear water, cascading in forked rivulets down an escarpment, and by another that was muddy, like brown volcanic lava, pouring from a cave-sized hole halfway down.

A packed, rickety-looking open-cage cable car was making its way across to the far side, swaying precariously. A short distance from it, a zip wire stretched out across the gorge, sharing the landing platform on the far side with the cable car station.

The two girls had been standing for some while in the searing morning heat, in the queue for the zip wire, licking their ice-cream cones and feeling grateful for the faint breeze that rose from the gorge.

‘I’m worried about Mum,’ Laura said, suddenly. ‘She doesn’t sound right when we speak.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You know, she doesn’t sound herself. She’s normally all excited to get my news. After Dad and Will – we’ve been really close. But there’s something in her voice recently. I have a feeling there’s something she’s not telling me.’

Cassie licked her ice cream, with a studious expression. ‘Maybe she’s just missing you. First time you’ve been away on your own – apart properly – since – you know.’

Laura nodded. ‘I hope so. But she had a mammogram just before I left – she has one regularly because my nan died of breast cancer. Maybe it wasn’t good news.’ She closed her eyes, momentarily. ‘God, I just couldn’t bear to – to lose her. I love her so much. I couldn’t cope, I just couldn’t cope.’

‘You won’t lose her, L, and you’re just being morbid. Your mum probably sounds down because she’s missing you. She’s all alone. Snap out of it!’ As if to drive home her remark, she snapped off the end of her cone with her teeth and crunched the wafer.

An instant later, they were distracted by a scream.

‘Yaaaaaaa-orrrrrrrr-hrrrrrrrrrrr-eeeeeeeeeee!’ a Japanese man cried, either in terror, or elation – or perhaps both – as he was launched, suspended in the harness, screeching all the way down and across to the platform on the far side. He would return, like everyone else, on the cable car.

‘You sure you want to do this, C?’ Laura asked. ‘Looks pretty scary.’

‘Wuss!’

‘I’m so not a wuss!’ she said, indignant. ‘I’m just not that crazy about dying.’

‘It would be quick – the piranhas would eat you the moment you hit the water!’ Cassie replied.

‘Shut up!’ Then she looked at her friend, concerned. ‘Piranhas? Do they have them in this river?’