A Talent for Trouble

by Natasha Farrant

  Everything changed in an instant.

  Barney had written!

  He wanted to see her!

  And before you cry, Oh, Alice! and What?, before you try to remind her about white nights and the hare story and the midnight picnics, and the unanswered emails and the not-turning-up-on-Visitors’-Day, and her promise to the major, and his face-your-fears speech—ask yourself what you would do if the person you loved most in the world asked you to meet him at a castle.

  You might, of course, say, No way! You let me down. Don’t come creeping up to me with postcards and secrets and nonsensical ideas.

  Or you might give him another chance.

  Alice loved Barney. It was as simple as that. She knew he wasn’t perfect—she wasn’t stupid. She knew, in her heart, that he was not a great actor, and she knew that there was something not quite right about his going away so much. But she thought—she hoped—that if she just believed in him enough, he would become who she wanted him to be.

  I’m not saying that you would do what she did, or even that you should—but you might. If, in your deep heart’s core, another chance was what you longed for.

  And Alice did long. She longed very much indeed.

  * * *

  Alice did not think, as you might, that what Barney was asking was strange. This was, after all, the man who had once woken her in a blizzard in the middle of the night to make snow angels in the garden. And who one bright sunny day had turned up at school and faked a hospital appointment for her just so that they could drive to the beach. And who one year had organized an Easter egg hunt in the countryside around Cherry Grange so vast and so complicated that they were out climbing trees and scrabbling under hedges long after sunset, looking for chocolate.

  Barney Mistlethwaite was quite the one for extravagant gestures.

  The first thing was to work out what on earth he meant. Alice stared at the picture. There was an island, and there were birds . . . She closed her eyes and tried to think: Barney on her bed for a good-night cuddle . . . the mock sword fight with his phone . . .

  Pow! Zap! Take that, vile intruder! What else had he written?

  The Isle of . . . something . . . is a paradise for ornithologists and seabirds . . .

  Yes—but the Isle of what?

  She left the infirmary as soon as Matron let her and, without even bothering to change, went straight to the library. The rain had cleared up completely now, and the sky was a soft pale gray, almost white, with the loch a still sheet of silver. Most of the lower years were outside. The only people in the library were older students with exams coming up, who barely looked up as she passed. The air smelled of ink and paper and beeswax, and there were books from floor to ceiling. Usually, she found it impossible not to take one out to read. Today, however, she was on a different mission.

  She found a free computer and typed in her search:

  Scottish islands.

  The first result informed her unhelpfully that there were more than 790 islands off the coasts of Scotland.

  Scottish paradise for birds returned an avalanche of information about tropical plants.

  Scottish seabirds . . . That was better! There was the arctic skua . . . the guillemot . . . the gannet . . . None of these rang any bells. The arctic tern . . . the great skua . . . the puffin!

  Barney had definitely mentioned puffins.

  Where are the Scottish puffins? she typed, and snorted with laughter at the comical picture of a small black and white bird with a huge striped beak, its head tilted curiously to the side. She stopped laughing when she realized that the puffins were everywhere, in far-flung places she had never heard of: Shetland, Noss, Muckle Flugga, Hermaness, Nish . . .

  Nish! That was it! She was almost certain. She clicked to find out more.

  The Isle of Nish is the largest of an archipelago of small islands and skerries lying west of Lumm, in Scotland, and part of the Inner Hebrides . . . Its area measures 59 square hectares, and its highest point is 103 meters . . .

  Alice opened a map, but it gave no information other than a vague indication that the Isle of Nish lay off the western coast of Scotland. She went on to Google Maps instead, typed in Castlehaig, then Isle of Nish, and clicked on Directions.

  Aha!

  School was a lot closer to the sea than she had imagined. One hour and twenty minutes driving, to be precise—longer walking, obviously . . . The thick blue line stopped by the sea, where you had to take a boat to Lumm, which you had to cross (two hours driving, about a million years walking) to catch another, smaller boat . . . All the boats’ timetables varied hugely depending on the tides. She copied them down carefully, then peered more closely at the map itself. What a strange shape Scotland was—like a craggy giant’s head, all lowering brows and hooked nose and chin, with deep scars where sea ran in. And no towns, not between here and the sea, barely even a road.

  How was she supposed to get there?

  Twenty-Two

  Partners

  Fergus was cross. While Alice was in the library researching seabird paradises, Fergus was mucking out the pigs.

  The pigs were not the reason he was cross. Just as Alice now enjoyed reveille, Fergus had grown fond of the pigs. Shoveling poop and straw was hard, smelly work, but the pigs themselves were reliable. The pigs came sniffing whenever he called them, and they were always pleased to see him. The pigs were reliable, which meant they didn’t do things like run off on their own to leap into boats and nearly drown. Fergus had seen Alice when they carried her back to school, all white and wet and floppy, and he had been terrified. They had pushed past him and all the other curious students and teachers and taken her up to the infirmary, and he had gone to the boathouse, where he had found the crate of fireworks in the bottom of a boat, and taken one and wrapped it carefully in plastic before placing it in his pocket, thinking she would like him to let it off over her grave as a tribute . . .

  Then, when he realized his best friend was not dead at all, he was furious.

  Yes, his best friend. He’d never told her, but that is how he thought of her. Though now you could make that his so-called best friend.

  Or his ex–best friend.

  Best friends, like fellow criminals, were proper partners. He’d never actually had a best friend before, but he was almost sure that was true. And proper partners didn’t go haring off on their own to produce spectacular fireworks displays in the middle of lochs. Proper partners, he thought, shoveling pig-pee-soaked straw into a wheelbarrow, planned together.

  Everything.

  He was almost sure.

  “Fergus!”

  It was her—here—now! Well, he wouldn’t speak to her. She’d see how it felt to be left out . . .

  “Fergus!”

  “WHAT?”

  She was standing on the middle rung of the gate, dressed in pajamas tucked into wellies, under orange school waterproofs, her unbraided hair exploding down her back in wild curls under an orange school beanie.

  She looked bonkers. His heart warmed.

  “That was a mad, mad, mad thing to do,” he growled.

  “I know. I know! I’m sorry! But, Fergus, Fergus—do you want to do something even madder?”

  A week later, the Great Orienteering Challenge began.

  Twenty-Three

  The Great Orienteering Challenge

  Picture a castle, in a valley. A school bus driving out through a pair of rusty gates.

  There are thirty seventh-years inside the bus, and thirty rucksacks full of sleeping bags and tents and provisions for three days of camping. Soon, the students will be given their itineraries for the Great Orienteering Challenge. None of them know where they will be going, except for Alice and Fergus, because Fergus recently hacked into Madoc’s computer and “rearranged” his files.

  He and Alice and Jesse are about to be given the itinerary that will bring them closest to Barney Mistlethwaite’s island.

  This is Alice and Fergus’s plan: Today, they will follow the
school’s itinerary, which will take them toward the ferry for Lumm. But tomorrow, they will follow their own path and head for the Isle of Nish. The timing is tight, if they are to meet Barney at the appointed date and be back for the Orienteering Challenge finish, but they have it all worked out. They will camp on the school-designated beach tonight, and on Lumm tomorrow. The next day, they will take the first boat to Nish, see Barney, take the last boat back, cross Lumm, catch another ferry to the mainland, camp, and the day after that hike to the finishing point without school being any the wiser.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Don’t worry too much about the details (Alice and Fergus certainly haven’t). The plan is actually pretty much impossible, but Alice has convinced herself that it can be done, just as she convinced herself on receiving Barney’s letter that it’s a perfectly normal thing to be doing. Fergus is less convinced. Alice has fed him the vaguest of stories—that she’s to meet Barney at the castle where he used to play as a child, that he’s always wanted to show her his island paradise, that there are puffins she’s wanted to see since she was tiny. He doesn’t believe her, but he’s going along for the ride, because he loves Alice and knows this means a lot to her, and because he also knows what it means to have useless parents and wants to be there for her if—when?—Barney doesn’t turn up.

  Both of them are trying not think what the Consequences would be of getting caught.

  What else do you need to know?

  They haven’t told Jesse yet. They think there’s more chance of convincing him once they’re on the road. They’re waiting to find the right moment to break it to him that he probably isn’t going to win the Great Orienteering Challenge.

  I told you, didn’t I, that there would be at least two betrayals? This one is the second.

  You want to know where Barney is? Right now, he’s crisscrossing the North of England on a bus, on the run from some very nasty people. He’s wearing a hat and sunglasses, and he’s growing a beard.

  Oh, and Alice has his parcel. Fergus doesn’t know about that. She still hasn’t opened it, but it’s sitting at the bottom of her rucksack like a ticking bomb.

  * * *

  Madoc stopped the bus in the lay-by at the bottom of the hill.

  “Are we there already, sir?” Duffy, as usual, hadn’t been listening in class.

  “No, we are not.” Madoc reached into the glove compartment for a cardboard document wallet, pulled out a clutch of envelopes, and got up to distribute them around the bus. “Right, listen up, Year Seven! Each of these envelopes contains your itinerary, a map, a set of coordinates and instructions, the school’s telephone number in case of emergencies, the emergency services telephone numbers, and also some emergency money.”

  “That’s a lot of emergencies, sir,” worried Samira. Madoc, who had severe misgivings about the Orienteering Challenge’s potential to go wrong, replied that he would be staying at the youth hostel at Grigaich, right at the center of activities, and that the hostel’s telephone number was also included in the pack.

  An excited murmur followed him down the bus as groups began to discover where they were going. “What do these squiggly bits mean?” Zeb asked, and “Sir, which way is west?” cried Esme, and Amir questioned, “Is this blue line a road or a river?”

  Jesse listened, feeling smug, his classmates’ absurd questions further proof, if proof were needed, that most of them were clueless.

  “We’re going to the sea!” He beamed as he opened his group’s itinerary. Immediately he spread out the map, his mind racing to plot out their route.

  Alice and Fergus exchanged what was to be the first of many guilty looks.

  “We might see otters . . . seals . . . dolphins!” cried Jesse. “This is going to be awesome!”

  Madoc, back at the front of the bus, felt it would be a good idea to repeat the instructions Year Seven had heard so many times before yet seemed so intent on forgetting.

  “Each set of coordinates relates to a campsite,” he said. “Each team will be dropped off in a different location, and you will all be camping in a different place for each of your three nights, but you all have the same finishing point. The aim of the Challenge is for you to find your way to the three campsites and from there to the finishing point. The first group to arrive wins. Is that clear?”

  “What happens if one of us breaks a leg, sir?” asked Jenny. “Or if we get lost, or ill, or fall down a crevasse?”

  “None of those things is going to happen.”

  Madoc started the engine. Jesse grinned across the aisle at Alice and Fergus.

  “We have so got this in the bag!” he whispered.

  They both smiled tightly back.

  Twenty-Four

  Someone Has to Be in Charge

  The feeling of guilt worsened steadily as Alice and Fergus failed to find the right moment to tell Jesse the truth.

  Jesse took control as soon as they were alone. Madoc had left them on the edge of a wide, grassy track stretching out over open moorland. The sun was shining, the breeze was light, the ground was soft but firm.

  “Perfect conditions,” Jesse declared. “Come along, team!”

  Away he marched in long, easy strides, map in hand and compass at the ready. The other two stared uncomfortably at his retreating back.

  They did not feel like a team.

  “Should we tell him now?” asked Fergus.

  “Oh, definitely,” said Alice.

  “Are you coming or what?” Jesse, already a hundred meters ahead, tapped his watch.

  “We’ll tell him later,” said Fergus as they hurried after him.

  “When he’s not in such a hurry,” agreed Alice.

  But Jesse hurried relentlessly throughout the morning.

  He read the map. He followed the compass. He ran ahead to check landmarks, then back to Alice and Fergus to encourage them on. He made them sing a marching song. When they had to climb over a recent rockfall, he showed them how to look for holds in the rock, and shimmied up before them to help.

  “Don’t look down,” he warned.

  “It’s not that high,” Alice said, then did look down and was very glad to take his hand.

  When they stopped by a stream to eat, they discovered that Jesse had already organized their lunch into Tupperware boxes. And when Fergus, parched, tried to drink from the stream, Jesse pushed his hand away before it even reached his mouth, saying, “Don’t! You have to purify it first. You never know what might have died upstream. You could get really ill.”

  Setting out that morning, Fergus had been excited about the Orienteering Challenge. He wondered now if perhaps what had excited him had been the thrill of plotting with Alice. He certainly hadn’t reckoned on corpses, or on Jesse being so overbearing.

  “Died?” he asked. “Like what?”

  “You know. A rat! A sheep! A cow! Anything!”

  “Well, aren’t you the fount of all knowledge,” Fergus grumbled.

  “I just love it, I guess.” Jesse chose to ignore the jibe, and gazed around their picnic spot. “Isn’t this amazing?”

  And when someone is so happy, and helpful, and knowledgeable, how do you ask them to do something that goes completely against everything they want? Alice, who had been about to speak, took another bite of sandwich. Fergus batted away a mosquito, risen from the potentially corpse-infected water.

  They said nothing. But the longer they left it, the harder it got.

  That is usually the way, with betrayal.

  * * *

  Poor Jesse! For all his appearance of enjoyment, he too was finding the day difficult.

  They say that in a group of three, one person always feels left out. In Jesse’s experience, that person was always him. He already knew that Alice and Fergus had a special friendship. He just wished that on this trip, they wouldn’t make it so obvious. He had noticed some of the looks they had exchanged that morning when they thought he wasn’t looking. Always one to feel hard done by, he imagined they
were laughing at him for taking the Challenge so seriously. But just as in a trio there is always one who feels left out, so in a group someone has to be in charge, and in this particular group he believed—somewhat unfairly—that everything depended on him. Alice and Fergus were hopeless map readers, he told himself. They didn’t even know how to put up the tent! When they’d practiced at school, Jesse had had to do everything! And when he thought back to the orienteering exercise, when they had both run straight into a bog, he wasn’t sure they even realized how badly that could have ended if he hadn’t been there.

  And on top of all that, Fergus had tried to drink the stream water! No, if they stood a chance of surviving—let alone winning—Jesse was convinced that he, and he alone, must be in charge. Which was fine by him. He knew the other two didn’t really care about winning, but he was confident that as long as they did exactly what they were told, everything would be fine.

  Probably.

  He just hadn’t anticipated how heavy responsibility would feel.

  They set off after lunch on a narrow sheep track along the stream, which almost immediately disappeared, forcing them to clamber from rock to rock and bank to bank to maintain a steady reading on the compass. Alice, lost in thoughts of Barney and the days to come, fell in the water, and they had to stop for her to change her socks.

  “Are you sure this is right?” Fergus asked.

  “We have to follow the stream.”

  “Only, my socks are getting wet too.”

  Jesse, who longed to enjoy the walk, told himself this was going to be a very long three days, and got out his binoculars.

  “There’s a bridge,” he announced. “Exactly what I was looking for. Our road goes over it.”

  Even Alice, who had absolute faith in Jesse, was disappointed by the so-called road, which looked like it had not been used for decades, with most of the tarmac eroded and long grass growing in the middle.