She had still made me pack a big hunk of cheese wrapped in plastic and more beef jerky than we’d ever be able to eat.
“Here, Ben.” Lizzie pressed a cup of tea into my hand. The first sip burned my tongue, but heat wound down my throat and settled in my belly like a hot-water bottle.
“Any luck, Will?” Lizzie handed him a cup of his own.
Will shook his head. “Grady’s right. I’ve tried everything.”
Carmen tucked her sandwich wrapper back into her rucksack. “Let me try.”
“Whatever.” Will backed off ungraciously.
Carmen twisted her hair in one finger and leaned close to the box. She touched the screen experimentally.
“¡Hola!, little box,” she breathed.
Then she tilted her head and sat up with the box held in both hands.
“¡Hola!” she said again breathily, a question in her voice.
Then she smiled and blew hard on the screen. There was a click and the box opened.
Will stared. “How did you do that?”
“I’m not stupid, you know!” Carmen tossed her head. “The answer was wind, wasn’t it?”
“But that was just to activate the game.” Grady looked up from his dinner. “Not to solve it.”
“It was both.” I cupped my hands around my mug. “Well done, Carmen!”
“The image moved a little when I breathed on it,” she admitted.
“What’s inside, Car?” Lizzie asked.
“More coordinates and another riddle, etched into the lid. There’s a coin glued to the inside and … another box.” Carefully Carmen tipped the smaller box on to the ground. I held my torch close to the open lid and stared at the information written on it.
I held it up for everyone to see. “That’s not even English!”
“Well, at least the coordinates don’t seem to need messing with this time,” Will muttered as he and Grady shone a torch on the map. He pointed. “There. Right on the coast.”
“What about the riddle?” Grady stared at the letters.
“Not now.” Lizzie carefully copied it into a notebook, took a pencil rubbing of the coin and tucked the book back in her rucksack. “Let’s get this box finished with, then find somewhere to camp for the night. I don’t think we should go for the next checkpoint till the morning – does everyone agree?”
“Definitely.” Grady nodded.
“But I still think we aim for no more than six hours’ sleep and set off early.”
“Works for me.” I was relieved I’d wrapped my sleeping bag in a plastic bin bag – at least it would be dry.
Carmen was holding the smaller box. “This is so exciting.” She stroked it with a finger. “I wonder what’s inside?”
“Our first geocache.” Grady rubbed his hands together. “Five more and we’ve won the game.”
Lizzie grinned. “All we’ve got to do is replace what’s in there with something of equal or greater value. What do you think it is?”
“If they’re clever,” Will said, “it’ll be a compass or torch.”
“It’s too small to be a torch.” Carmen turned the box over in her hands. “And it’s really light.” She held it to her ear and gave it a shake. It rattled.
“Just open it!” Will was impatient.
An owl shrieked in the woods below us. Carmen jumped and clutched the box to her chest as the wind dropped to almost nothing. Holding her breath, she unlatched the box. Almost reverently, she opened it.
Her hair fell in dark curtains around her face as she peered down and her hands started to tremble. Then she snapped the box shut and shoved it at Will.
“W-Will?” Lizzie’s voice quivered. “What’s in the box?”
Will opened the lid, then he looked at me. His eyebrows rose, ever so slightly. I’d never seen Will disturbed before.
“What is it, Will?” I tried to remain calm, but my mind was racing.
“What’s in the box?” Grady yelled.
Wordlessly, Will held up the small metal container for us all to see.
Inside, still bloody, with pieces of gum hanging off it and a corroded silver filling glinting in the torchlight, was a tooth.
Chapter Eight
“That’s a human tooth,” Grady said weakly. “It’s got a filling.”
“Well … it’s not a compass.” Will cocked his head to one side, then looked around. “Is someone pranking us?”
“It’s a tooth, Will. This isn’t a prank.” I wrapped my arms around my chest.
“It’s one of the other teams. They’re trying to make us give up,” Lizzie breathed.
“Dirty tricks!” Grady’s eyes flashed.
Carmen was shaking and mumbling “¡Dios mío!” under her breath.
“Someone’s taken out the original item and replaced it with something we’ll never be able to match.” Lizzie shut her eyes. “It’s the only explanation.”
“But who?” I felt numb. “Who’d pull out their own tooth to sabotage another team?”
“Someone we don’t want to run into.” Carmen rubbed her elbows as if she was cold.
“A team who really want to win,” Grady added.
“We really want to win, but we wouldn’t do this. It’s … cheating.” I clenched my fists impotently.
“Actually, it’s a pretty good plan,” Will said thoughtfully. “I mean, what do we do now? Either we have to do the same or give up. We’ve no idea what was in that box before they got to it, so we can’t put in something of equal value to the original item.”
“Can we guess what it was?” Lizzie pulled off her cap and started tugging at her hair. “I mean, it’s a small box – it might have been a compass.”
Grady rubbed his temples. “It could have been almost anything – a watch, food, jewellery, the map, an iPod, money, insect repellent … anything.”
Carmen sat down. “This was meant to be fun!”
“It still can be.” Lizzie crumpled her cap in one hand. “We just have to work this out – like another puzzle. Then we show we won’t be put off and move on to the next checkpoint – there are five more to go after this one.”
“This could even work in our favour,” Grady added. “Thin out the crowd a bit.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Lizzie, this has kind of ruined the game for me.”
“You want to give up?” Lizzie stared.
There was silence, broken only by the buzzing of the midges and the distant shush of the sea.
“If we’re not, then we have to follow the rules,” Will said eventually. “Replace the tooth with something of equal value.”
“But … what’s of equal value to a tooth?” Lizzie looked at him.
“Someone’s boots?” Grady suggested.
Lizzie rubbed her eyes. “What if the judges don’t agree – we could lose the money.”
“And how are you going to get boots in that box?” Will sneered.
“Money, then,” Carmen said.
“But how much?” Will tilted his head. “How many pounds for one tooth?”
“Fifty?” Grady offered.
“Did you bring fifty quid with you, Grady?” I asked. “I mean, the shopping opportunities here aren’t great.”
He glared. “I bet we all brought money for the airport. We should have enough between us.”
“I’ve got about a tenner.” Lizzie scratched her head. “But is fifty pounds going to do? Is that what they want?”
“I hate to say this, but it feels like money is an easy way out,” I mused. “It doesn’t have the feel of sacrifice that I think they’d be looking for.”
“You want sacrifice, chico?” Carmen stared. “You think Lizzie or I should have packed a white dress?”
“Funny.” I shook my head. “You know what I mean. Whatever was in that geocache, the Gold Foundation weren’t looking for money to replace it. This game doesn’t feel like the kind of set-up rich kids could just pay their way through.”
“So, we go home?” Carmen asked s
hakily.
“No!” Grady snapped. “We keep thinking.”
“There’s really only one thing we can leave in the box.” Will rubbed his chin again. “A tooth.”
Carmen surged to her feet. “That’s loco.”
“If we leave something else,” Will said, “we run the risk of getting it wrong and being disqualified at the end of the course. If we leave a tooth, we’re following the rules. We can argue that we left something of equal value to what we found. They can’t take us out of the running for that.”
“Then what if we say we found a compass or an earring?” Carmen said.
“Don’t you think they’re monitoring us?” Will asked. “They must know what’s in the box now.”
“I don’t care,” Carmen snapped. “They can’t expect us to—”
“Maybe we should vote on it,” I heard myself say. “Our choices are to give up and go home or leave a tooth … right?”
Carmen looked defiant. “I don’t like this.”
“How badly do you want to be a vet?” Lizzie asked her, and her shoulders sagged.
“How do we vote?” Grady asked.
I picked up some smaller stones from around the cairn and handed them out. Then I lifted the checkpoint box, empty of everything except its glued-in coin. “We all turn our backs and I’ll pass the box around. If you think we should leave a tooth, put your stone in the box. We’ll count the votes when the box gets back to me.”
I stared from the box to the stone in my hand. Give up, or go on? We were stuck on the island until the estuary cleared safely – another two days. But we could set up camp near the deck on the beach, chill out and then walk back the way we’d come. Not what we’d planned, but at least we’d have had a holiday.
“How many T-shirts?” I stared at Lizzie’s bed, where she was laying out her things ready to be packed.
“It’s August. It’ll probably be hot and we will need changes of clothes this time.” Lizzie raised her eyebrows, a reminder of the first time we went camping, when Will and I had brought only one shirt and one change of pants each. My argument that turning my boxers inside out was the same as putting clean ones on hadn’t gone down well.
“What else are you bringing?” I had the master list with me. It had taken almost a whole day to put together – all the things we thought we might need for the trip. So long as the whole list was ticked off, between us we’d have everything.
“Climbing gear, obviously.” Lizzie pointed to the pile. “We’ll each need the basics, but I’ll take my full kit: the carabiners, hexes and the rest.” She grabbed a stove and tucked it into her rucksack.
“You’re taking a stove?” I sat on the floor.
“We might not have time to make a campfire at every stop. Right, medical kit, spare socks, food, energy drink, mess tin, spork, cup, teabags, milk powder, phone, notebook and pencil, pack of cards.” She scanned the bed. “What am I missing?”
“Compass, torch, bedroll.”
“Under the bed from last time.” She pulled them out and added them to the pile. “What else?”
“Towel?” I asked.
“And toothbrush.” She made a note on a piece of paper. “I’ll add it to the medical kit once I’ve used it in the morning.” She bounced over to her dresser. “Deodorant, moisturiser.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s important.” She opened a drawer. “Swimsuit.”
“You think we’ll need one?”
“Maybe. One of the checkpoint boxes could be underwater.”
There was a crash as her door swung open. Carmen stood in the doorway, one hand on her hip.
“Your mami sent me up. You’re not done yet? I am all packed and I finished my last shift. Now we just need to win and I won’t need my terrible job back!” She raised her phone and made me take a selfie with her. I grimaced into the lens.
“Mrs Arnett let me dye her hair,” she said as she put a filter on the photo, then held it up to show me. “It came out very purple. She complained, but Rosa had warned her I was only learning. She was so ungrateful. I would have been happy with purple hair.” She smiled widely. “I will much prefer working with animals, who don’t complain.”
Lizzie laughed. “Did you pack a swimsuit, Car?”
Carmen shrugged. “No. If I need to swim, I have my underwear.”
Lizzie tucked her swimsuit into her rucksack firmly.
“I did pack vodka.” Carmen nudged me.
I rubbed my hands. “Cards, vodka, music on our phones… Plenty to keep us occupied around the campfire then. I can’t think of a better trip.”
Carmen looked around. “Where’s Will?”
“With Mum. She’s acting like she’s never going to see him again.”
“Seriously though.” Carmen leaned forwards. “This is going to be fun, right?”
“The best.” I looked at Lizzie.
“We could even get together with some of the other teams in the evenings,” Lizzie suggested. “Make a real party of it.”
“It’s a competition,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but I’m sure they’ll all be good guys.” She finished rolling up her bivvy and attached it to the top of her rucksack. “There, something to sleep in, that’s everything.”
I ticked her items off on the master list. “Is there anything else you think we should take to help us with the riddles?”
“We’ve got our phones,” Carmen pointed out. “Wikipedia is our friend.”
Lizzie frowned. “You reckon we’ll have reception?”
“We could pack a dictionary and a calculator,” I suggested. “Just in case.”
“Good idea.” Lizzie found a little pocket dictionary in one of her desk drawers.
“Why do you have that?” Carmen stared.
“Won it in a school competition,” said Lizzie as she added her calculator. “Anything else?”
“Um … tools?” I said thoughtfully.
“Why would we need tools?” Carmen said. “You’re just adding weight for poor Lizzie, chico. You have your Swiss army knife, don’t you?”
“Yes. But we might have to build a raft or–”
Carmen snatched the list from me. “Look, Grady has a pick and pliers, Will has a shovel and axe, we’ve got rope that we can use for tying logs together. I have my own Swiss army knife. What else would we need? Stop worrying!” She returned the list. “We’ve thought of everything. We have our strategy – to keep moving and do as many checkpoints as possible each day. We know what to do. We can win this.”
“It feels a bit too much like we’re winging it.” I glanced at Lizzie.
“We can’t make much more of a plan.” She shrugged. “We don’t know what the checkpoints will be like or where they are. Our priority is getting to the last of those seven coordinates as fast as we can.”
“And winning five million pounds,” Carmen said.
“Three days to set us up for the rest of our lives.” I held out a fist, beaming, and Carmen knocked it with hers.
Now, if we went on, someone would have to lose a tooth.
When Will was seven, he developed an abscess. The dentist said he needed the tooth out and Mum insisted we both had to be in the room with him to make sure he wasn’t frightened.
The dentist told Will that the numbing injection would hurt more than the extraction itself and that even then he’d only feel a little prick. The dentist’s smile was very wide and blindingly white, and his hair was rigidly slicked back. Will cried out when the needle went into his gum. After the dentist removed the syringe, he poked Will with his gloved finger to make sure that the area was numb. Will bit him as hard as he could.
When the dentist’s partner came in to complete the operation, I sat on the chair at the back of the room and watched Mum hold his hand as Will shuddered and shook and finally screamed – a high-pitched note that shivered through my whole body.
“It isn’t hurting him,” the new dentist insisted. “It just feels weird. A lot of ki
ds don’t like the sensation.” She gave a twist and a yank and held Will’s tooth up for him to see before turning to put it in an envelope so he could take it home.
The look Will gave her…
I’d never forgotten that look. Having that tooth out had hurt Will. If we decided to keep going, someone would have to go through the same experience with no anaesthetic. Maybe it would even be me.
Did I need the money that badly?
Or rather, did I want to fix cars my whole life?
If we kept going and won, I could study civil engineering, Carmen could go to vet school, Lizzie could pay off her parents’ mortgage and her own uni fees, Will could start his working life without debt and Grady … well, he could entertain the trolls by exposing the world’s conspiracies.
OK, I didn’t much care about Grady’s ambition, but everyone else’s felt important.
Part of me wanted to keep going just to show the team that left the tooth that we wouldn’t give up so easily. I thought about the other teams. How many of them would go back when they saw a tooth in the box?
Right now, our chances of winning were one in nine. If some of the other groups dropped out and we kept going, then our odds would go up.
Quietly I put my stone in the box and passed it to the next person.
How would everyone else vote?
I tried to listen for stones going in. The box was rattling as it went around the circle. At least one other person must have voted to keep going. What would Will do?
Finally, Carmen put the box back in my hands. I swallowed.
“Everyone turn back round.” I shook the box. There was more than one stone inside. If there were only two, we were giving up.
I opened the lid so we could all see at once.
Three stones. I gasped in a mix of relief and fear. Keep going.
I tipped the box so that the stones fell on the floor. “OK, then.” I rubbed my face. “We’ve got another decision to make.”
Eventually Grady spoke. “We could draw straws.”
Lizzie straightened. “I’m the team leader. It should be me.”
“No,” I insisted. “Not you. You are our team leader, so we need you to be at the top of your game and you’ve already hurt your ankle.”
Savage Island Page 7