Then I realise – there’s no way I’m going to be able to swim with my heavy bag. It will pull me under in seconds. But I don’t want to give it up – we’ve gone through so much to get it. I scan the area for somewhere to stash it.
There’s a roar of anger behind me and I turn to see Hoche’s shoe is caught in the rope net. Digger stops to untangle her. This is our chance. There’s a gap between the underneath of the pier that goes out into the water and the muddy bank of the lake. I rip the backpack off and shove it into the hole as hard and as fast as I can. It will have to do.
I grab Chets’ hand and pull him along the pier to the centre of the lake. ‘Jump!’ I yell, as Hoche and Digger resume the chase. Chets and me splash into the water. I’d like to say I dive gracefully like an Olympian or a dolphin or something, but diving isn’t one of my skills, so it’s more like dumping an elephant in the ocean. We splutter to the surface and swim for the opposite shore.
After twenty metres or so, I risk a look back. Hoche is standing on the pier, glaring at us and screaming at Digger, who is in the water, swimming after us. But he’s not enjoying it. He’s slow and his face tells me he’s struggling. I allow myself to breathe – we’re going to make it.
We reach the other side of the lake and pull ourselves up out of the water. Every muscle in my body is begging to be allowed to curl up and die, but I force myself on, step by step.
Chets says nothing, just follows me a few paces behind. As we reach the treeline, we turn to see Digger crawling back to the lawn side of the lake, his minotaur butt wiggling from side to side. He and Hoche are having some kind of grown-up discussion, also known as an argument. Whatever it’s about, they’re going to have a tough time following us. By the time they get around the lake, we’ll be long gone and they know it.
We disappear into the trees.
12
Alone in the Crater
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ These are the first words Chets has spoken since we got out of the lake. After everything we’ve just been through, I don’t think it should matter.
‘Jeez, Chets, why are you asking me that now?’
‘Because it’s important.’
‘Our alien teacher just spat venom at us and we barely escaped. We’ve left the one thing that could help us behind at the lake. Hoche and Digger know we’re outside and are going to be hunting us down. Now is not the time.’
Chets stops walking, grabs my shoulder and spins me round to face him. ‘But you’ve had millions of time! It happened nine months ago. Nine months. You could have told me at any point. We spoke about it loads. I defended you when other people accused you! How could you let me do that?’
‘It was something I needed to keep to myself. I don’t have to justify what I did to you.’
‘We’re supposed to be best friends. I thought I knew you. How could you do something like that to Trent? How could you lie to me?’
‘Like I said to Hoche: Trent deserved everything he got.’
‘He didn’t deserve to be trapped in the school toilets!’ Chets is so angry, I’ve never seen him like this. ‘He missed his entrance test for Bing – if Miss Hoche hadn’t persuaded them to let him reschedule, he wouldn’t have got in.’
‘So what?’ I’m so mad with him. Why is he always so stupid and blind to stuff that everyone else can see?
‘So that’s a jerk thing to do. And then to lie about it. I never thought you were like that.’
‘I don’t regret anything I’ve done,’ I say, my mind raging, my head thumping. ‘Except making friends with you. I should have left the wasp to it. I should have let you get stung.’
Chets chokes out a sob and runs off through the trees.
I stomp off in the opposite direction.
I’m halfway back to basecamp when the realisation of what just happened hits me. And the chasing and spitting seems nothing in comparison to arguing with Chets. All I can see are those chocolate eyes, looking at me like I just decapitated his kitten. Well, maybe not kitten, cos Chets is actually scared of cats. But I’ve tried to keep him safe from shock and pain for the entire time I’ve known him. And now I’m the one who’s caused it. The anger that burnt through me a few minutes earlier seems to disappear all at once, though it’s possible that I sweated a lot of it out, cos I’m dripping wet, and not from my swim in the lake.
Chets is afraid and upset and all alone in the woods. What do I do?
When he ran off it was in the direction of basecamp, so I should go there, find him, apologise. I’ve been walking fast cos of the rage, but for a while I was going the wrong way. It’s easy to get confused in these woods. Trees look like trees. Even when you find one that’s especially twisty or covered in ivy and you think, I’ll keep that one in my mind so I’ll know if I pass it again, five minutes later you’ve looked at so many other trees that you can’t quite picture that twisty ivy tree anymore. You couldn’t pick it out of a line-up. But I have developed a strong sense of direction by navigating through various worlds in computer games, so I get back on track.
I’m nearly at the camp and I’m hoping, wishing so hard, that Chets is already there. But when I reach our hollow bush, only Katja, Mak and Adrianne are waiting for me.
‘We saw you coming,’ Big Mak says. ‘Where’s Chets?’
‘And did you get what you went for?’ Adrianne asks.
Katja doesn’t say anything. I think she can tell something’s gone wrong just from looking at my face.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ I say, bending over, hands resting on my knees, hoping I’m not gonna cry.
‘Have some water. And a snack,’ Kat says, giving me a bottle from her bag. ‘Mak, get back up the lookout tree and we’ll have a team meeting underneath.’
I walk to the tree and sit. The swim just about finished my arms and legs, and all I want to do is lay down and sleep. The others aren’t looking so good either, and now I have to tell them that not only did I fail, I completely messed things up.
‘I got what we needed,’ I say. ‘But we were caught and chased. Our only chance was the lake, and it was too heavy to swim with, so I left it.’
‘And what happened to Chets?’ Katja asks. ‘Did the bug-eyes get him?’
‘No, but Hoche said some stuff – stuff about me and the past and things I’ve done. As soon as we were safe, me and Chets argued about it and we split up. I thought he’d come back here, but…’ I close my eyes for one, two, three breaths. When I open them, Kat and Ade are looking at me, not in a hateful way like I expected, but like I’ve just rescued their kittens from a house fire and burnt my hands off in the process. Katja and Adrianne are OK with cats.
‘So, top priority is to find Chets.’ Mak’s voice calls down from the tree.
‘And then we go back for the bag,’ Adrianne says. ‘If it’s by the lake it’ll be much easier to grab than if it was still inside the building.’
‘We should all go. Stick together.’ Katja starts packing up our things. ‘That way we can separate into pairs if we have to. Nobody will be left on their own.’
‘And we’re going to have to abandon this camp anyway.’ Big Mak is making his way down from the tree. ‘Just in case.’
It takes me a second to work out what he means, and then my guts twist when I realise. He means in case they got Chets.
No point in thinking about that now.
I make myself get up as though I’m full of energy and ready for action.
‘Oh yeah,’ I say. ‘There’s something else I should tell you, about the bug-eye hunters, I mean.’
‘What is it?’ Ade says.
‘Um … they spit.’
We walk through the woods, calling to Chets as loudly as we dare but there’s no sign of him. Every now and then, Mak crouches down to inspect the ground, rub bits of leaf between his fingers or sniff objects he picks out of the mud though I don’t even know what they are.
‘He didn’t come this way,’ he says. ‘We’ll have to try closer to the
treeline.
We get quiet as we move nearer to the centre. The hunters know where to look for us now. They could be anywhere: behind that tree; under that bush – well, maybe not that one cos it’s prickly, but under a bush; hidden in those shadows. We all look around nervously as we walk, except Mak who is concentrating on tracking Chets.
‘He was here,’ he says, picking up a bit of broken twig.
‘How do you know?’ Ade asks.
‘Look, you see that patch of ferns.’ He points. ‘He sat down there, I’d say for at least ten minutes. Then it looks like he got confused about which direction to go in – you can see he was turning around. Look at those marks.’
He points at the ground and I see nothing but dry dirt and some pine needles.
‘Then he walked…’ He pauses a second and sniffs the air like a flipping Labrador ‘…this way.’ He points back towards Crater Lake.
‘He didn’t want to stay in the woods on his own,’ I say. ‘So he went back to the centre to hide.’
This is really bad.
13
The Hunter
‘I wish I’d brought my binoculars,’ Mak says, trying to see where I’m pointing. ‘They’re Celestrons.’
‘Wow, really?’ I say. I have no idea what Celestrons are.
‘Yeah, they’re as awesome as you’d expect.’
‘So you and Adrianne go for the backpack. Me and Kat will look for Chets. We’ll meet back at the lake, probably with the hunters on our tails, so be ready.’
‘Understood,’ Mak says. ‘We’ll be ready.’
‘Be careful, you two.’ Adrianne squeezes Katja’s hand. ‘Look after each other.’
‘And you,’ I say. And we move towards the building, skirting the treeline. Things have moved on so much since last night – it’s like a new level of danger has set in and we’re all feeling it. And, you know, being dead tired doesn’t help either.
‘Where do you want to start looking?’ Kat whispers.
‘I know Chets as well as I know myself,’ I say, ‘and there’s only one place he’s going to be.’
We keep moving right towards the river and I’m sweating cos it’s midday and the sun is blazing, and because for the first time since it all kicked off, I’m feeling properly scared. I hate thinking of Chets alone and terrified, and the memory of his look of betrayal plays on repeat through my mind, broken only by images of Hoche with her lips stretched back, pincers out and balls of poison shooting from her mouth.
To get to the gift shop without running straight across the lawn, we have to get close to the dam site, and cross the river over the bridge that the bug-eyes use.
We hear them long before we see them – the movement of lots of people – no chat, just footsteps, the crack of twigs and rustling of trees. We get as close as seems sensible and lie on our bellies in the shrubs to watch.
‘Where are they going?’ Kat says, as the bug-eyes walk in their steady way, down the path, towards the bridge. Some of them are carrying the tree-cutting equipment. Others are pushing the generator and heater.
‘Looks like they’ve finished the dam,’ I say.
‘That can’t be good.’
‘No, it can’t. I wonder what the next stage of their plan is.’
‘They don’t like the water, right?’ says Katja, scratching her nose in a really cute way. ‘So now they’ve blocked the river, maybe they’re going to try to empty the lake.’
‘Once we’ve got Chets and the backpack, we’ll have to try to work out why,’ I say.
‘But Chets first.’
‘Chets first.’
We wait for the bug-eyes to pass and then cross the bridge ourselves. The river isn’t flowing fast anymore, but the water hasn’t completely gone and I’m sure the bed is sticky with mud. We don’t want to leave muddy prints across the centre and give away our movements.
Once we’re across, we don’t follow the path they took; we keep moving right. This way we’ll flank the building and can enter right in the place where I know in my heart Chets is going to be.
The entrance door is unlocked and apparently unguarded. We ease it open and slip into the gift shop.
I see him instantly, standing on the other side of the shop, in front of shelves full of Crater Lake baseball caps, beanies and sunglasses. His back is to us, so I can’t see his face, but something about him is different. Maybe it’s the way he’s standing. Maybe it’s because, instead of shaking in a corner, he’s out in the open: tall and straight-backed.
‘Chets?’ I say. ‘Are you OK?’
‘No thanks to you.’ He doesn’t turn around.
Something is definitely up. I signal for Katja to stay behind me.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what happened with Trent,’ I say. ‘But I had my reasons and I hope you know me well enough to believe that they were good.’
‘I’ve been asking myself what I really know about you, and what I’ve come up with is this…’ He turns to face me. He’s wearing a Crater Lake polo shirt and sunglasses. There are only two reasons I can think of for him covering his eyes. The first is to hide the fact he’s been crying and the second is so awful that I’m going to ignore it and root for reason one.
‘We’ve been so-called friends for five years. In that time you’ve never invited me to your house. You’ve only come to mine a few times and only for a couple of hours. You keep secrets from me. You lie to me. You act the big man like you’re my saviour or something, but really you just stop me from experiencing anything for myself. You’ve been controlling me.’
‘Chets, that’s completely unfair. I’ve looked out for you and I’ve done my best to be a good friend. How can you say such horrible things?’
‘Because you’re nothing special and you’ve tried and tried to drag me down with you,’ he says. ‘All you are is average. Average grades, average at sports, average at everything.’
I feel tears prickle the backs of my eyes. Chets never says anything mean about anyone unless they score higher than him in a maths test and then he gets a right strop on cos he hates not being the best at maths. He’s never said anything this nasty to me before. I won’t cry, though. Not in front of Katja. ‘Why are you being like this?’
‘Because I’ve had an awakening,’ he says.
‘I’m thinking this is either something to do with puberty or alien spores,’ I say. ‘Never thought I’d say this, but I’m hoping for puberty.’
‘I’ve always been better than you.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that, Chets. I already know how special you are.’
‘But you made me feel weak,’ he says. ‘When I ran into this shop earlier, I was scared and sad, and so very tired. But now I’m strong, and fast, and brave, and more powerful than you can possibly imagine.’
‘Puberty, alien spores, puberty … Still can’t tell.’
‘When I left you,’ he says, ‘I was but the learner. Now I am the master.’
He takes off the sunglasses.
Katja gasps.
The centres of his eyes are black, ringed with bright yellow. Chets is an alien sporeling. And not just any sporeling – a hunter.
‘Only a master of bug-eyes, Chets,’ I say, backing towards the exit and thinking how this would be such a cool moment if my best friend hadn’t just become a host to a parasitic alien.
‘I’m so sorry this has happened to you. I really am,’ I say, my brain racing.
‘I’m not,’ he says, stepping towards us. ‘And when you become one of us you will understand.’
There’s a moment of silence, filled with anticipation. Who moves first? Him? Me?
He leaps towards us, pulling back his head and making that flipping awful gurgling noise and the moment is gone. I pull over a bucket of Crater Lake frisbees and follow Kat through the shop. Chets trips on a frisbee and his spitball goes wide.
‘I’ll find a way to make this right,’ I call over my shoulder.
‘You won’t get away,’ he says
. ‘You’ll turn. Everybody will. Our species will dominate this planet.’
We reach the door, throw it open and leg it to the lawn. There’s no point trying to hide in the trees now, we just need to get to the lake. Chets is right on our tail. He seems faster than usual, and Kat and I are tired.
‘Just a bit further, Katja,’ I gasp. ‘You need to try to go faster.’
‘I can’t,’ she says. struggling through the tyres on the obstacle course.
I slow down, turn back to help her at the same time as Chets launches a giant spitball towards her. I try to shove her out of the way but it grazes her arm as it flies past. She retches like she’s going to be sick but picks herself up and carries on running. Chets is gaining now. We’re not going to make it.
14
An Unexpected Ally
I urge Katja forwards, knowing in my heart that Chets is going to catch us. Kat is slowing even more and I have to push her from behind. We’re close to the lake but we’re not going to get there.
I hear a shout, ‘Out of my way, Chubs!’ and a thud. I turn around and Trent is sprinting up behind us. ‘They’re after me,’ he says.
The main entrance is flung open and Digger and Hoche come running across the lawn. Chets is rolling around on the ground.
‘Chets!’ I say. Idiot Trent must have shoved him out of the way in his desperation to escape. He’s such a jerk.
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