by Andy McNab
So I do what any self-respecting, but slightly panicking eleven year old would do:
I shout for my best friend.
“GIRAAAAAAAAFLLLEEEEEEEES!!!” I yell, so loudly that I’m sure a pack of actual giraffes in Africa hear me as well as the human one I was calling.
There’s no reply. So I call again. And again. And again. In fact, I call so many times that I’m in danger of losing my voice and I start to fear that I might die of suffocation or toxic shock or something.
I feel like one of them people clinging to an iceberg after the Titanic had gone down, except it’s boiling hot in here now and the only way I’m going to drown is in my own sweat.
And then, just when I think all hope is lost, I hear him, like a heavenly angel with a super-long neck.
“Danny? That you in there? You OK?”
“Don’t come in!” I gasp, then realize that no one with half a brain cell would even consider it.
“Giraffles, mate. Disaster. There’s no loo roll in here.”
There’s a pause, then, “So what do you wipe your bum on?”
“That’s why I’m calling you. What do I do?”
“Well I don’t know, do I?”
“Have you got any?”
“Any what?”
“Loo roll, you idiot!”
There’s an agonizing pause.
“No … but I have got this,” and his hand appears through the canvas slit, holding the mankiest piece of tissue you have ever seen in your life. It looks like it’s blown his nose, and everyone else’s for that matter, for the last nine-and-half years.
“I can’t use that!” I squeal.
“Well that’s all I’ve got.”
“Then go and ask Geri for some, will you? Quick! It stinks in here.”
I hear him amble away, muttering, “Too much information,” as he goes.
And he’s gone an age. Or it could actually only be a minute, but it feels like an age, and when he comes back, the news is not good.
“She says she hasn’t got any. Says we have to use a dock leaf, whatever that is. Oh, and she also says, whatever you do, don’t use a nettle, cos apparently nature often makes them grow next to each other. Fascinating that, eh? I had no idea did y—”
“PLEASE,” I squeal, “PLEASE, FOR THE SAKE OF MY NOSE, GET ME A DOCK LEAF, QUICK! IN FACT, GET ME THREE!”
I wait again. Eyes stinging, hope fading, mood falling, until finally, FINALLY, a hairy hand appears through the slit, clutching a carrier bag with a load of leaves in.
I look inside, frowning. I’ve never seen a dock leaf in my life, but these look a bit, I don’t know, spiky… “Mate, are you sure these are the right ones?”
I ask.
The hand gives me a thumbs-up.
“Did you check with Geri?”
Two hands appear, both of them giving me a thumb.
I wonder why he’s not talking any more, then a wave of embarrassment hits me: it must be the smell. It’s obviously killing him, and I feel so ashamed but also grateful that my mate would do this for me that I shove my hand into the bag and instantly thrust the leaves against my bum.
What a relief. I’ll be out in seconds… Nearly done. Nearly…
“AAAAAARGHHHHHHHH!”
I don’t what starts to sting first, my hand or my bum, in fact, it doesn’t even matter. All that matters is that I’m in pain. Red-hot agony. Agony that cannot be ignored. In a second I’m on my feet with the bucket lying on its side, and it’s all my fault. Not that I care – all I care about is the fact that my bum (and my hand) is on fire, and unless I find water, quickly, someone is going to have to call Fireman Sam.
Without thinking, I dash from the tent, not knowing, never mind caring, that my trousers are still round my ankles.
I waddle in circles, falling occasionally, squealing repeatedly for WATER!
There are gasps, cries and laughter. And of course, who is laughing loudest?
Not Giraffles, cos he’s just appeared out of the trees, looking shocked, clutching a load of leaves so soft they sort of look like they’re made of kitten fur.
It’s Dylan. Laughing so loud he’s bent double, wheezing.
And where is he standing? Right by the toilet tent, him and the hairy hands that passed me the bag in the first place.
I want to hurt him. I want to humiliate him. I want to…
STOP MY BUM FROM BURNING!
So, as much as it pains me, I ignore my toe-rag of a brother, and go running in the direction of Miss D, who by now, seems to be trembling. And covering her eyes.
By late afternoon, day two of the single greatest trip of my life, the only thing that is going wild is … my bottom.
Actually, that’s not true. Every other kid in my class, plus my demonic cretin of a brother, is going wild right this second, climbing a rock face. The torture starts as I lie in the tent, ice pack on bum, forced to listen as Geri talks about the day ahead.
“Recruits. It may be day one, but my word this is no easy introduction. Rock climbing demands so much. Strength, stamina and a sharp, analytical mind. And believe me, you will need all of this if you are to conquer the rock I’m going to put in front of you. It will be tough. Your body and your brain will ache by the end, but the views from the top will make it all worthwhile, believe me.”
These are hardly words to cheer me up, and it’s made worse when I hear them excitedly gathering their stuff. Giraffles and Lucky look sheepish when they pop back into the tent for their rucksacks.
Strangely enough, neither of them volunteer to stay behind with me. Not that I blame them.
But this is nothing compared to the torture that follows. Hours and hours of hearing them whoop and yell and laugh.
I can hear it despite burying my head below every sleeping bag, roll mat and pillow that I can find in our tent.
“Stupid tent…” I moan. “Stupid tent with their stupid flimsy walls that aren’t even walls cos they’re not even made out of bricks…”
It’s fair to say that I might be feeling a teensy bit sorry for myself, but you would too if you were me. I mean, when was the last time you had to tell your favourite teacher and a retired female sergeant major that you’re in agony cos you just wiped your bum with a load of nettles?
When was the last time you were in flippin’ agony and in fear of having your bum amputated, yet daren’t let any of the staff inspect the damage cos you’d die of embarrassment if they did?
And when was the last time your older brother told all your mates that you’ve done it on purpose, not just to get sympathy but also because you’ve got a rare brain disease that makes you addicted to bum pain?
Not lately I’d imagine, so forgive me if I’m a teeny tiny bit upset.
All I can do is lie here, without moving a muscle – especially a bum muscle – cos if I do, the ice pack balanced on my injuries falls off and I have to shout for help to get it placed securely on the cheeks again. Oh yeah, this really is the gift that keeps on giving…
So I lie here, thinking of ways of getting my revenge that don’t involve:
A. Killing Dyl stone dead
B. Going to prison, and/or
C. Upsetting Mum
Whilst at the same time causing Dyl the maximum amounts of both physical and mental pain. But as it turns out, I’m not that good at revenge – certainly nowhere near as good as him, anyway. As soon as I let my imagination go, it gets grisly and he ends up being ripped to shreds by a rhino that I hire from a local safari park, which leads straight to point A coming true, followed by B and C toppling like dominoes.
So after hours of dedicated trying, I give up and try to concentrate my mind on both healing and making the most of the two days that I have left. As soon as my bum heals, anyway.
Who knows, maybe it’ll become an asset, my bruised back end. Aren’t there monkeys in Africa that use theirs as a warning beacon to ward off predators?
Maybe I made that up. I don’t know. I don’t know much about anything
any more. Maybe I’m just going out of my head with boredom.
But what I do know is that I’ll fight back from this. And if I can clobber Dyl along the way?
Then.
Bring.
It.
On.
There were two full moons last night. One shining down outside the tent, and a swollen one inside, keeping me awake, along with the hyenas and bears snuffling around outside.
But as the sun kicks the moon into touch, I make my mind up to be positive.
We’ve got two days left, and I’m not going to let damaged cheeks or a mentalist brother spoil either of them.
So I’m up first, exiting the tent without tripping (result) and getting to the toilet tent before anyone else can do something unthinkable in it.
On the way, I bump into Miss D.
“You all right Danny?” She smiles, but not in an “I’m laughing at you” way. It’s clearly more of a “you poor thing having a ravaged bum and a psycho for a brother” kind of way. Which I appreciate. And agree with.
I only nod though. I’m happy to rant about Dyl, but don’t really want to get into a conversation about the other bit. I’d rather pretend that it never happened, and I imagine Miss D feels the same.
Anyway, I’m about to push on to find a real bona fide dock leaf, when she does the kindest thing imaginable, the kind of thing that sums up why she completely and utterly rocks. She hands me a packet of tissues.
“I thought you might not be in the mood for foraging this morning.” She winks, and moves on, leaving me to murmur, “Thank you,” while trying not to blub like a fool.
And, you know what? That spurs me on even further. I practically skip into the loo (being careful not to face-plant into the bucket) and emerge feeling like I could climb anything put in front of me.
Breakfast is next and I manage to pull enough milk from Flossy without giving myself blisters, and we even have time for a Jonny classic, when Geri reveals a load of hens living in the next field, ready to gift us eggs to cook.
Jonny, though, looks terrified and blurts, without thinking, “But how on earth do you milk a chicken?”
Now I don’t want to sound harsh, but it’s the funniest and daftest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and it gives me confidence, cos I know that for the rest of the day people won’t be just giggling about my idiocy.
So when Geri tells us about what the day holds, I am properly bang up for it.
“Morning, troops,”she barks, with an impressive enthusiasm for someone who fought in the Battle of Hastings. “I hope you slept well, because today is going to be a challenge. Tomorrow, we will embark on our final expedition, so to harden your resolve and put muscle on every bone in your body, I am going to test you. First of all, armed only with a compass and map, you will be orienteering—”
“What’s paper folding got to do with anything?” Giraffles whispers, deadly serious.
“That’s origami, you nugget.”
“Oh right,” he says, though I know he’s still none the wiser.
“Trekking from this point, and avoiding any obstacles in front of you, you will proceed to the river, where we will pick up kayaks to sail to a checkpoint. There, you will find a feast awaiting you. There will be challenges, there will be tears, but by the end of it, every single one of you will feel like a champion. So good luck … and steel yourselves.”
We turn to a pile of alien-looking equipment to our left, confused looks on our faces. First, there are a series of square metallic boxes, with glass screens and a map inside. At least I think it’s a map. It just looks like a load of random squiggles and shapes to me.
Lucky picks one up and stares at it, flipping it round and frowning.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“The serial number,” he says. “It looks ancient. And this is either a well old model or it’s just not working.”
“It’s not an iPad, you fool. It’s a map in a Perspex box,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I knew that.” He blushes, though he’s not the only one to make the same mistake. I swear I see Jonny pinching at his screen with his thumb and index finger, trying to make the map bigger.
I choose not to tell him though. I don’t want to draw attention to him when he’s still blushing about milking a flipping chicken.
Next to the maps are a load of clear plastic blocks, smaller this time so they fit snugly in your hand, with lines coming off them and the letters N, E, S and W.
“These are them things from Star Trek,” blurts Marcus.
“Yeah,” adds Maureen, “Kirk speaks to that Scottish fella on them, the one who’s always blowing up the engine on the ship.”
“BEAM ME UP, SCOTTIE!”they both shout into the plastic.
“Hhhhhhm, unlikely,” says Giraffles, though he’s clearly no idea what they do either, and I only know cos I’ve seen Dyl messing with one after he’s been to cadets.
“It’s a compass,” I say, “it tells you which way to go: North, South, East, West … you know… ”
They shrug, bemused.
“Explorers use ’em.”
They shrug again.
“It’s like satnav…” I add.
“Ahhhhh,” they nod, all three idiots together. “I seeeeee… So where’s the power button?”
I could, at this point, shake my head and walk away in disgust, but I remember how supportive they were over bumgate. If they laughed, they at least didn’t do it to my face. So I grin through clenched teeth and explain how it all works, in brilliant, clear detail.
I tell them about how the earth is a huge magnet and how the north end of the compass is drawn to align with its magnetic field. I do it brilliantly, in fact I feel like a teacher, like how Miss D must feel, all smart and proud.
And do you know what they do?
They laugh at me, and tell me the nettles must’ve rotted my brain.
So I do the decent thing, and tell them something they will believe.
“No, you’re right. Harry Potter invented them. Or Dumbledore did at least. It’s all magic.”
“Sounds more likely,” Giraffles adds, and the other nod.
Maybe it’s going to be harder to stay positive than I thought…
And so we’re off, though where we are actually off to isn’t quite so clear.
I can see the river on the map, but between us and that point, there are a LOT of squiggly lines that look like they’ve been drawn excitedly by a toddler who’s just eaten the BIGGEST bag of sweets.
Bemused by where to even start, we do what any novice explorers would – we watch what direction Dylan heads off in, and follow him.
He’s chosen to work on his own (no surprise given the fact that he’s a power-crazed meat head with only one friend, who happens to live in a mirror), and despite the fact that he’s only on this bloomin’ trip to supposedly look after us, he clearly wants to get there first and win the race. Which he will of course, because he’s the only one who knows that the compass wasn’t actually invented at Hogwarts.
Within two minutes, though, he’s out of sight and we’re left to flip between staring blindly at the compass, and then the map.
Our group is bigger than what is probably sensible. There’s me, Giraffles, MandM, Lucky, plus Jonny, who I took pity on when no one wanted him in their group. After two minutes, I can kind of understand why.
“OOH, OOH, OOH,”he shouts suddenly, after almost sticking his nose into the map. “Here,” he points. “HERE HERE HERE! WE HAVE TO GO HERE.”
Giraffles is irritated already. “I think Jonny might have spotted something he likes.”
I give him a gentle dig and ask Jonny what he’s seen.
“It’s the answer to everything,” he beams. “Look, the map says ‘FB’. Right there. And you know what that means, don’t you?”
“No,” we all reply, as one.
“Well, ‘FB’ stands for Facebook, doesn’t it? So there must be a phone mast there, where we can pick up a signal. We cou
ld call a cab to give us a lift to the river. We might even get there before Dylan.”
Now I’m no expert, but somehow I don’t think Jonny’s got that quite right, so I open the map, and look for a list of what the symbols mean.
“Yeah … well, it’s a nice thought, mate, but ‘FB’ means footbridge…”
Cue multiple cries of, “YOU NUMPTY!”from the others. At Jonny, not me.
“And before you ask,” I add, “That ‘i’ isn’t an iPhone charging point either. It means information.”
But Jonny isn’t disheartened by this. If anything he looks chuffed. “Maybe the people there can order us a cab then. They might even have wifi, you never know.”
I walk on, before the temptation to bury his head in a pile of leaves gets too great.
We wander on for ages, and it doesn’t take long till people start bickering about which is the right way. Even MandM disagree on whether left is best or not, which makes me realize just how flipping lost we are.
But then, just when all hope is lost and I consider sending up an SOS flare (well I do till I realize we clearly don’t own one), we see hope up ahead.
It’s Dyl, about fifty metres to our right.
“What’s he doing there?” I ask.
“Maybe he’s lost too?”
“Impossible,” I say. “He’s way too annoying to ever let that happen.”
“I don’t even care,” say MandM together. “I’m following him.”
So we all do, except I do it way more cautiously than the others, because the difference is, I know him. I’ve had eleven years as his brother, so I know full well that he would NEVER let us follow him … unless he was up to something.
“Nettles were just a starter,” I say out loud without even realizing. “And whatever main course Dyl’s cooking up, I ain’t eating it.”
The others look at me like I’m a loon and plough on, no matter how loudly I warn them, so I stay a step behind. If they want to walk into his trap, then they can do it first, not me.
It doesn’t take long to be proved right either. We push on through a particularly thick piece of forest: it’s dark, with endless branches blocking out the light.