He’d decided to go up to the forest and then on to the mountains. You could live up there—he’d seen it in movies. He could make a spear and catch fish in the river, and Bonnie could help him hunt kangaroos. Dad had told him about people finding gold in the mountains, so maybe Max could find some too. Then he could pay for all the things he had stolen, and everyone would forgive him.

But the forest was still a long way away, and he was already tired. He saw the road to the tip. Maybe he would find something useful there.

The gate to the tip was open and no one was around, so he went exploring. It was amazing what people threw out. He climbed a pile of rubbish and dragged a blanket from under some tin. He found a backpack with broken straps. Some knotted string. A rusty bike with no tyres. An old loaf of bread in a plastic bag; there were green bits on the bread, but he kept it anyway. He rode the bike around but it was slow and the wheels squeaked—it wouldn’t be good enough to take to the mountains.

Bonnie was in the garbage, pushing things around with her nose. She found a tin and started licking it, her pink tongue going in and out. Max surveyed his pile of potentially useful stuff, then checked out the weather. The clouds were thick, and fat raindrops had started to fall. It was dark and windy. The rubbish was banging and creaking. Any minute now, it was going to piss down.

Within moments, the skies opened like someone had turned on a tap. In seconds, his clothes were drenched and stuck to his skin, and he was shivering. He ran through the tip looking for somewhere out of the rain. Down the back, he found a dead animal on the ground. It had a huge festering lump instead of a face, like a zombie out of Call of Duty. Max’s legs stiffened and he couldn’t move. What if it came alive and chased him? It could eat him and suck his blood.

Suddenly his legs were working again. He raced through the tip to escape the dead animal, but he was lost and couldn’t find a hiding place.