The first run is the school boat. Children with bags are waved on and not charged. Everyone else puts four dollars in the tin by the wheel, a bicycle is two, and there isn’t a machine that takes a card. If you miss it, the next one down the river is a bit after nine, then midday both ways, then the school boat back up in the middle of the afternoon, and a last one on weekdays just on dark.
That’s the day. It moves if the river is up or if the engine is in a mood, and the notice is a person on the ramp, not a board. What the crossing is actually like is the longer version. How to find the ramp is the short one.
Tied up, waiting on the school bags. She sits low when the bikes come too.
After the last one, the ramp is just a ramp.
Looking back, the morning the mist sat on the water past eight.
Don’t run for it. If you are on the timber when the rope goes, you’re on. If you are still on the bank, you are waiting. There isn’t a later boat that is secretly the same boat.