The chunky, fair-haired cop slid into the police car; started talking on the radio. Dreadlocks stood, hands cuffed behind him, scowling at the ground. The cops at the far end of the bridge began marching Shaved Skull back along the deck towards us. Marama followed, a huge grin across her face, Melody beside her. A couple of cars had arrived behind the RD van where it blocked the bridge. People climbed out, and stood staring towards us.

‘You all right, Callum?’ Melody’s nana called out as they got closer. The second cop who’d grabbed Dreads laughed. ‘He’s more than all right, lady. This idiot might have got away, if a certain young fella hadn’t stopped him. Good stuff, mate.’ I looked at the ground, too — but not before I’d seen the expression on Melody’s face.

‘You and my grand-daughter here are a real team,’ Marama went on. ‘We saw this guy tearing towards us, and the cops — police officers, sorry, constable — coming after him. I just gawped, but Melody went “Block the road! Block the road!” So I did.’ She gave me a hug, then did the same to her grand-daughter. For a second I thought … but no. Not this time, anyway.

It took about fifteen minutes to give our names and cellphone numbers and my parents’ address and stuff. ‘Be someone out to get more details later, mate,’ the policeman writing it all down told me. I liked his calling me ‘mate’.

Two more cop cars arrived. Dreadlocks and Shaved Skull were taken away. A different cop was taking photos of the smashed black wreck and the bags of dope spilling from its boot. Other police were telling the growing queue of cars and trucks (I recognised Mrs Ross from up the valley and some others) that they’d have to take a detour, sorry. They wouldn’t like that; it’s an extra eighteen ks or so. Time we got another bridge in the valley, I thought. In our valley.

Melody’s nana gave me a high-five. ‘Work to do, eh? I’m late now, thanks to some guys capturing crims.’ Melody gave me one of her smiles. ‘See you, Callum.’

I tried to think of an incredibly cool reply, the sort you’d expect from a crim-capturer, and went: ‘Aw, yeah. See ya.’ One part of my mind announced that it wanted to kick another part.

She was turning away when she exclaimed ‘Oh, look!’ and pointed.

Upstream, in the shimmering air above the swamp, two hawks hung, side by side.

‘Never seen that before,’ Marama breathed. ‘Never. Something special is going to happen, I reckon.’

Wrong. Something special had already happened. More than one thing.

I headed off for home. I felt different. Everything felt different. Man, wait until I told Nathan and my other mates about this.