by Andy McNab
Thirty seconds later and they’re screaming, when another livid mother does exactly the same thing, so I rush to the door only to be collared a third flipping time, which leads to another refund. By the time I make it to class my pockets are lighter.
Twelve quid lighter.
And the money is due in T-minus ninety seconds. Now, I’m a quick thinker, but even I’m stumped. What can I do? Beg for more time? Beg Mum for more? I can’t do either, as Miss made it clear that today is the absolute deadline with no exceptions.
So I slump to my seat, allowing my head to whack on to the desktop, where I intend to leave it until 3.15 p.m.
“OK everybody, good morning,” sings Miss D from the front. “So, who has trip money for me?”
I watch a trail of classmates wind their way to the front, fist-bumping and grinning as they sign up to the single greatest activity ever. I push my forehead even harder on to the desktop.
“Danny?” Miss D is calling me now. “Danny, have you got yours, love?”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t say it out loud, cos it’s like admitting I’m a complete pauper in front of everyone I know, so, with pockets jangling, I slump to her desk.
“Come on, sunshine. Hand it over. I know how hard you’ve been working for this.”
“I’ve decided not to go, Miss,” I say, quietly. “Not sure it’s for me.” Forcing out the lie hurts way more than any bruise in the world.
Her eyes widen and her jaw goes limp. “But you’ve been walking all those dogs.”
I feel the tears gather behind my eyes, and I know she sees it.
“What is it, Danny? You can tell me.”
“I can’t afford it, Miss. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
She sighs, and peers over my shoulder at the rest of the class before lowering her voice as she says, “Do you have your money with you?”
I nod.
“Then pass it over and let me count it. Perhaps you’ve just totted it up wrong.”
I tell her I haven’t, but she insists, so I pile the coins up on her desk like a molehill, and she tells us all to get on with silent reading for ten minutes.
So we do as she says – well, the others do. I pretend to read while watching her move the money into piles, then see her frown and sigh as she too realizes that I’m twelve quid short.
I want to look away then, out of shame, but for some reason I don’t, and instead I see Miss reach under her desk and into her bag, where she rummages for a few seconds.
Then, with the deftest of hands, she palms a note and two coins besides my pile, before lifting her head and smiling.
“Oh, Danny, you soft lad,” she grins. “We really do need to work on your addition, don’t we? It’s all here. A hundred and fifty pounds. Perfect.”
I don’t know what to say. I know what she’s done, and it’s just about the best and kindest thing anyone could ever do for me (except perhaps teaching me to cut hair properly). I spend the next hour till playtime trying not to get all cry-y about it.
So when the bell rings and the others file out, I pretend to tie my laces, until there’s only me and Miss D left in the room.
“I know what you did,” I tell her. “And I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
She smiles. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Daniel Mack.”
She’s embarrassed now and I don’t want to make it worse. So I simply say, “I’ll pay you back, Miss. Promise I will,” and walk on.
And as I reach the door, I hear her faintly reply, “I know you will, son. I know.”
Off into the yard I go, to find something to jump off.
If I’m going to do this properly, then I’m going to need all the practice I can get.
There is no way I am missing the bus.
I know this because I am an hour early for it. In fact, when I arrive I’m the first person in the playground, apart from the fox that’s rifling through the bins.
Mum gets a bit teary when I say goodbye, unlike Dyl who doesn’t even surface from his coffin of a bedroom. Mum makes up for it by pulling me into a bear hug that would surely suffocate a lesser man than me. Then the phone rings, which allows me to escape before she can do any actual damage.
I don’t feel the weight of my rucksack, even though it’s holding just about every item of clothing I own. There were loads of things that I didn’t have. I mean, who has walking boots when they only ever set foot on tarmac?
And as for a head torch: have they never heard of streetlights? Or phones?
Anyway, the minutes pass, the excitement builds and so does the number of us waiting in the yard.
Giraffles pitches up with a lump of a rucksack on his back that makes him look like more of a camel than a giraffe, MandM arrive in matching everything, while Lucky makes the biggest entrance. Literally everything he’s wearing or carrying is brand new and top of the range, though he doesn’t make a fuss about it. If anything, he looks slightly embarrassed by it all. With a bit of luck, he might have some spare stuff that I can borrow…
There’s a cheer and a Mexican wave when the coach arrives, then a scrum as we pile on, fighting to get to the back seats, as far away from the bog as possible, though we’ve already been warned that it’s a “pee-only facility” by the driver.
Anyone attempting anything else will be “hung, drawn and tortured”, then “tarred and feathered.” We all smile politely as the driver issues the threats, but to be honest I don’t think any of us have a clue what he’s banging on about.
Instead, we sit there excitedly, and break open our packed lunches for the good stuff in there, but then … nothing happens. We go nowhere. And out on the playground there’s a cluster of teachers scratching their chins and checking their watches. We know something’s going on, and it can’t be good cos they’re not saying a word to us. So when Miss D gets on, looking unusually flustered, I ask if there’s anything wrong.
“Well, we are running a little bit late, as one of the adults due to be coming to help has twisted her ankle, and without another responsible person to come and supervise, I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to go.”
There’s an enormous groan of disappointment, but I’m not feeling it. No way. I’m not disappointed; I’m freaking out. What if we can’t go? After all the hard work and bruises and near-death experiences? Are you kidding me?
It throws me so badly I think I’m going to be sick, and I wonder what the driver would do to me if I threw up in his wee-only lav? But just as I start searching for a paper bag to breathe into, Miss D chirps up with the punchline.
“But it’s all fine now. We’ve found, at the last minute, a replacement helper.”
I punch the air, narrowly missing Giraffles by accident.
“Now it’s not another teacher, but I want all of you to act respectfully to our volunteer, just as you would anyone else.”
There’s an unusual force in her voice, and she seems to be looking at me a lot as she says it, with a strange expression on her face that seems to change from apologetic to forceful and back again, as if on rotation.
I don’t get it. Why is she singling me out? I’ve never had a detention in my life. If I wasn’t so stoked at the fact that the trip’s back on, I might even be a bit offended.
“Now some of you will know our knight in shining armour, so please can you give him a huge round of applause?”
Clapping fills the bus, and I join in – ’course I do. But only momentarily, as our saviour appears between the front seats.
And let me tell you, this is no knight.
It’s a rat.
A lousy, stinking rat that’s going to ruin my fun.
And his name … is Dylan.
Older brothers are put on this planet for one reason: to make life a living hell.
All my life Dylan’s been doing that. I swear, my earliest memory is of him leaning over my cot and rubbing his hands together before nicking the dummy from my mouth.
Since then, he’s kick
ed me and punched me, drawn on me when I’m asleep and told me I was the world’s first living brain donor.
He’s done everything in his power to make me his victim, and look at what he’s done now: hijacked the one thing that I thought I might get some joy out of.
I’d write down a rude word for him right now, but he’d probably find a way of ruining that for me too. Make my pen squirt ink in my face or something.
Instead, I ignore him for the entire journey, despite the fact that I can feel him looking at me and hear him laughing.
Miss D does come to talk to me though, pulling me aside to tell me what happened.
“I can see that you’re not very happy about this situation, Danny.”
I shrug, which takes some restraint, as I actually want to scream “THIS IS MY WORST NIGHTMARE BROUGHT TO LIFE!!!”
“I know how much this trip means to you.
More than anyone else in the whole class. And I know that your relationship with your brother isn’t always the best…”
I raise my eyebrow so high it almost hits the roof of the coach.
“…But believe me, Danny, I had no choice. It was Dylan or no trip. No one else could come at such short notice, and we needed a responsible adult to help out.”
“Responsible? Dyl?” The words catch in my throat like I’ve tried to swallow a killer whale in one gulp. “He can’t even spell the word, and he DEFINITELY doesn’t know what it means. He puts pepper on my cornflakes and worms in my bed. He has the intellect of a mashed potato. I wouldn’t put him in charge of a sunflower seed, never mind thirty of us!”
Miss does everything I expect of her. She smiles sadly and nods. It’s like she can actually feel my pain. It’s like she actually agrees with me. But then she also says this:
“He’s sixteen years old, Danny. Which means he can help us. I promise I will not let him spoil your trip. You have my word.”
I plaster a smile on my face and thank her. But she doesn’t know Dyl like I do. He’s slyer than a fox. I stare out of the window, trying to pre-empt every bit of torture heading my way.
The next four hours drag by. Well, they do until we get out of the city, which is slow and painful work. I could walk quicker on my hands than our bus moves for the first ninety minutes. In fact, it takes so long I expect it to get dark by the time we reach the countryside. But it doesn’t. If anything, it gets lighter, and after staring confusedly for a while, I work out why: there’s no tower blocks blocking out the sun. No huge ad boards or phone masts either, just the occasional looming pylon.
It’s weird, like I’ve just landed on the moon or something. It looks alien. And even though I’m safely tucked inside a comfy bus, with a “pee-only” bog, I feel a bit weird too. Like I’m a long way from home. Like the rules outside are different to the ones I’m used to. The cars move quicker here. There are fewer traffic lights. And there’s way less people, but more animals.
It seems like I’m not the only one feeling the change either. There’s a kid in our class called Jonny Walker. He’s all right, harmless enough, but for the last two years I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with his head out of his phone. Until today, cos Miss D has banned all screens until tonight, so poor Jonny is watching the world go by, his head twisting backwards and forwards so quickly it’s like he’s watching a game of tennis on fast forward.
Anyway, about two hours in, Jonny spots a bunch of animals in the distance, grazing in a field, and I swear to you, no word of a lie, he shouts:
“Look! Rhinos!”
And like a bunch of idiots we all spin round, to see … not rhinos, but cows.
It is, without doubt, the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life, but for a minute, a split second, we all think it’s true.
Jonny blushes when he’s called out on it. I’m pretty sure one of the cows even shakes his head as we sail past.
“What?!” says Jonny with a shrug. “Anyone could’ve made the same mistake. It’s not like I’ve ever seen one before.”
And that makes me think, cos you know what? It’s the same for me – for most of us, probably. Foxes, yes, rats occasionally. But cows? That weren’t on a TV screen?
Nope.
So I do what I can to make him feel better “Easy mistake to make,” I say. “We’ve got a Giraffles inside the bus, so why not a rhino out there?”
And he laughs, and so does old Giraffles, and you know what? For a while I stop thinking about our Dylan, who’s still staring out the window, probably mistaking the cow for a Stegosaurus.
Once, we get there, I think to myself, it’ll be fine.
And I think it so hard that it rolls around in my head on a loop, even when I manage to fall asleep against the window.
I wake with a start, Dyl screaming in my ear.
“FIRE!” he yells. “SAVE YOURSELF! WOMEN, CHILDREN AND IDIOT BROTHERS FIRST!”
I know I shouldn’t buy it. I’ve known him all my life, witnessed his wind-ups every day of my freaking existence, but I was properly asleep when he did it - dribbling, and dreaming about abseiling the world’s biggest mountain. (Somehow I managed to do it without any kind of rope, like Bear Grylls crossed with Dumbledore.) So when Dyl sounds the foghorn in my lughole I jump instinctively on to my seat, cracking my head on the luggage rack above.
I crumple, half of my brain probably clinging to the rack still, and Dyl brays like a donkey, slapping Giraffles and MandM on the arms, reminding them of just how hilarious he is.
But as they’ve met him before, they actually know what a dufus he is, and turn instead to help me up.
“C’mon,” says Marcus.
“We’re here,” says Maureen, which cheers me up no end.
Even Miss D isn’t impressed with Dyl, fixing him with a look so sour it could turn milk to cheese in seconds.
I stumble from the bus, rubbing my bonce, taking in a couple of HUGE mountains in the distance, my ears hearing something that has to be a river. It gets my pulse racing, dreaming about the excitement that lies ahead.
But right outside the bus, there’s not really a lot to see.
Perhaps I was expecting log cabins, or shacks at least, with little chimneys pumping smoke from them. Maybe I thought we’d be greeted by a team of buff-looking outdoorsy types too, but neither of these things are anywhere in sight.
All I can see is a huge pile of long canvas bags and a woman stood beside them, who at first sight appears to be around one hundred and thirty two years old. She’s not stooped over or anything, far from it, she’s stood bolt upright, almost like she’s on parade, but her face is crumpled like a ball of paper, her hair as thin as spiders’ webs, and her arms … well, they wouldn’t look out of place on a snowman.
The second she opens her mouth though, we know who’s in charge.
“MY FRIENDS!” she booms, the force of her voice blowing us all back a pace or two.
“WELCOME TO WILD OUT!” She has an accent that is impossible to place, though it is most definitely posh. Posh but properly, properly friendly.
“My name is Geraldine Farquaharson-Smythe, though my friends and recruits,” and she points at us in turn, “call me Geri. I am the founder of this wonderful establishment.” Again, she points a skeletal finger, this time at the field that surrounds us.
We turn as one, looking for what she’s pointing at. Unless all the buildings are really well camouflaged, there is literally nothing to see.
“I wish I could explain to you fully about the delights that are heading your way. I wish I could tell you fully about the perilous climbing, and mind-bending orienteering. I wish you could picture the river kayaking or zip-lining, but I don’t have the words. All I can do is insist that you savour every moment that comes your way. It will test you physically and mentally, but you WILL never forget it, you have my word! Now, you must be exhausted after such a long and arduous journey, but, worry not, I have a feast fit for the hungriest platoon waiting for you, just as soon as you build your accommodation. So, my new recruit
s, bend your backs, get stuck in, and soon you will be eating nothing but the freshest and finest cuisine we can offer.”
Giraffles looks confused “I didn’t see a McDonalds on the way in, did you?” he whispers.
I shake my head. “There’s probably a drive-in disguised as a tree or something,” I say. Though, to be honest, I’m more confused about how the canvas sacks in front of us are possibly going to turn into a hotel.
Unlike the others, I have the sense to keep my mouth shut…
“Er … Miss?” asks Hannah Sycamore. “Are we sleeping on the bus or something?”
But before Miss D can answer, Geri shakes her head and points a bony finger at the canvas sacks.
“What? The hotel’s underground?” asks Rosie Sim, sparing Hannah’s blushes but causing a rainbow of her own.
“No, no, my dear old thing,” booms Geri. “Tents! In the bag there. Each tent sleeps three. So get stuck in. Last one to get theirs up is a rotten egg! And besides…” She stops, raises her head to the clouds and sniffs, long and hard… “There’s a storm brewing.”
Our eyes narrow in confusion, and I look up and sniff too, but only get a whiff of our Dylan, who hasn’t showered in the last six months.
“Best do as she says,” I whisper to Giraffles, and we grab Lucky to share with us, because we know he’s bound to have the best snacks in his bag, plus there is NO WAY I am sharing with Dyl and his toxic feet.
We haul a bag from the pile, pull it to a flat piece of field, and tip its contents at our feet, frowning at the endless poles, ropes and canvas sheets that sit there.
“Where’s the instructions?” I ask sensibly.
Giraffles searches, almost climbing inside the sack and wearing it as a balaclava before muffledly shouting, “There aren’t any.”
“Indeed there aren’t,” confirms Geri, appearing at our shoulders. “Missions don’t come with a manual. So fire up your initiative and engage your instincts!”
She marches on, and we hear a whirring as she walks.