by Andy McNab
Geri is.
I see it first, but can barely believe my eyes…
“Giraffles, oh boy, look! This isn’t good…”
“What is it?” he replies, not wanting to raise his face to the daggery rain.
“The wind. It’s lifting her. It’s lifting her up… off her feet!’”
And it is, I swear it is. I don’t know how, cos after all, Geri is part cyborg, and surely cyborg skeletons weigh more than human ones, no matter how old.
But obviously they don’t, as no matter how hard she tries, Geri is repeatedly plucked momentarily from her feet, before being dropped to the ground.
There is a yell. A yell of pain. But it doesn’t last long, as Geri’s pain seems to turns to fear. The greasy rocks starts to tilt away from her like a slide, and with the rain and the wind still swirling, she moves away from us, quicker and quicker.
Away from us, and closer and closer to the edge of the mountain that we’ve just climbed.
“Miss!” Giraffles and me squeal as one, but Miss is bringing up the rear and too far back to do a thing.
All we can do is watch through our hands, as our leader and guide hurtles, quite literally, towards the abyss…
Time does not stop still, or slow down.
Not even close.
Everything speeds up, especially Geri, her thin bones skidding over the rock like she was riding a bobsleigh.
We watch as she grapples for something to hang onto, anything that would take the edge off the pace she’s motoring at.
Tree roots offer a bit of help, but no matter how strong her robotic hands are, they aren’t tough enough to hang on for longer than a few seconds, and she’s left to ricochet on, powerless.
“MISS!”MandM yell, their two voices definitely better than one. But although Miss D has no problem hearing them, there is no way she can reach Geri in time to be any kind of help.
Dyl neither: he’s too busy trying to look like the weather isn’t troubling him to realize it’s troubling him too much to help.
And this is when something surprising happens. Giraffles sticks his neck out. Properly, for real.
Now, he’s brilliant is G, and that’s why he’s my best mate, but he’s not exactly known for his bravery. He’d run a mile if a spider spun a web within a hundred metres of him. But when he sees Geri flailing past us, something comes over him and those epically long legs of his ignore the wind and take off after her.
For the first few strides it looks completely pointless and weird, frankly, but that doesn’t get in the way of him trying, and you know what, the gap starts to close.
“GERI!”he shouts. “THERE’S A BOULDER! GRAB IT! PLEASE!”
I see what he’s shouting about, and there’s every chance Geri will be able to do it. In fact, she has to, cos beyond that there’s nothing else to grab except air. And although there’s plenty of that between the cliff edge and the valley below, it’s not going to be any help whatsoever.
Geri knows that too, she’s a warrior after all, and so she digs deep, arms outstretched as the rock zooms closer.
Giraffles meanwhile, is still running along, or at least he was, because as Geri’s fingers manage to make contact with the boulder, he flings himself head first on to the ground, sliding like a footballer does after they’ve just netted from the halfway line.
It’s a bonkers decision, but given that I’m still rooted to the spot in fear, I don’t question it, unlike Giraffles himself, who shouts at me over his shoulder.
“Danny, get the others. You need to grab my legs, and don’t you dare let go!”
It’s not a plea we can ignore, and we belt after him, fast enough to reach his ankles without throwing ourselves into the abyss as well.
He’s still on his belly, head pointing down to the cliff edge, arms stretching out for what looks like an eternity, in the direction of Geri, whose grip is loosening by the second. He glances back over his shoulder at us. “Hold on tight,” he says.
“AND WHEN I SAY PULL, PULL!”
With that, his attention flies back to our leader, and he barks instructions just like she has for the past three days. It’d be proper impressive if it wasn’t so ridiculously scary, scary enough for Geri to do exactly what he asks, grabbing onto his hands with her own.
“PULL, DANNY, PULL!”
I don’t need telling again, and nor do the others. We yank at Giraffles’ elasticated legs, digging our heels into the skiddy rock to stop ourselves from toppling over.
Others join in, grabbing us from behind and pulling too, till it feels like we’re the rope in an enormous tug of war, so goodness knows how poor Giraffles must feel.
He doesn’t moan though, or if he does we cant hear him as his head is still face down in the dirt. But we feel him slide closer and closer to us, and see Geri following close behind.
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop,” screams Miss D as she gingerly steps beside us, grabbing onto Geri’s elbows as they slide into range.
We do what she tells us, and with one final tug, we all fall backwards into a pile, Geri catapulting to the top of the scrum, safe, but in pain, offering two words that none of us really want to hear.
“It’s broken.”
I hope she’s not badly hurt, I really do, but I also hope she’s referring to a small part of her body, rather than our way back down to safety…
“You all right there, Geri?” I ask, as we head as speedily as we can for the forest.
“Like I’m sitting on the comfiest sedan chair in the world,” she answers with a grimace and a dollop of sarcasm.
I can’t blame her. Last place I’d want to be when I’m nearly two hundred years old and have a smashed-up ankle is on my idiot brother’s back, especially when he’s revelling in the glory of being the saviour. Honest, I thought he was going to do a hundred press ups before lifting her for the first time, just to get his guns pumping and primed.
I rolled my eyes but said nothing. I wasn’t going to give him any ammo after what he’s done to me over the last few days.
“Keep going, recruits,” Geri rallied, “as soon as we hit the trees the weather won’t be half as bad.”
“It couldn’t get any worse, could it?” asks Lucky, his trademark smile missing from his face. He does have a point though: the tiny arrowhead raindrops have been replaced by a billion massive, bucket-sized ones, the type where a single drop would soak every centimetre of you more effectively than a waterfall.
Still, it drives us on, and finally, finally, we feel the trees take the brunt of the clouds instead of our heads.
“Well done, everyone!” beams Miss D, but the smile on her face looks more like relief than joy. “Not far now.”
We know, though, that that is not strictly true. There’s still the walkways in the trees to pass through, and then the zip line – and how on earth are we going to get Geri through all that, cos although Dyl thinks he’s strong, even he can’t do it.
It’s too much – even just the thought of it – there has to be another way. I pull my phone out of my pocket and stare at the screen.
No bars whatsoever.
“Anyone got a signal so we can ring Mountain Rescue?”
Hands reach into soaked pockets and phones appear, some better than others but none of them managing to reach a satellite successfully, not even Lucky’s, which is so high-tech it should be able to morph into a helicopter and fly us down.
But just as our spirits sink once more, a lone voice cuts through the gloom.
“IT’S WORKING!”Jonny shrieks. “IT’S ONLY BLOOMIN’ WORKING!”
I resist the temptation to shout, What your brain? Finally! because he’s looking at his phone, the screen lighting his delighted face.
“I’ve got a signal. Four bars. Count ’em, count ’em!” and he starts doing a little jig, which almost turns into a full on breakdance, and ends up with the phone slipping out of his fingers and onto the stony ground.
It bounces in slow motion, every one of us yelling
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO”as one.
Our hearts refuse to beat as he snatches it up, desperate to assess the damage.
“It’s OK, it’s OK – it’s not smashed, it’s not smashed.”
“Just call the cops will you, Jonny?” Lucky demands. “Please!”
So Jonny bashes in 999, puts the mobile on speaker and then we hear the greatest words we have ever heard:
“999,”
YES!!!
“Which service do you requi—”
Then… nothing. Silence. And nothing on the screen either. The blue hue flicks to black, and it hangs limply in Jonny’s hand, exhausted. Dead.
“My battery’s died!” he says like his world has been snatched from him.
“Maybe if you weren’t checking it every minute then you’d still have some juice left,” Lucky shouts.
“It’s not my fault, at least my phone got a signal before it died. Yours is rubbish!”
It goes on like this for a couple of minutes, the disappointment turning into frustration and then full-on anger.
But I don’t join in. there’s no point. Instead, I turn up the collar of my coat and walk on.
“Where you going, Danny?” Giraffles asks.
“Down. Home. Hopefully.”
He nods and walks after me, and soon the others start to follow too.
I have always loved watching monkeys.
Gibbons especially.
Not that I’ve ever actually seen one, obviously. We do have exotic breeds of vermin back on the estate, rats mostly, but not much in the way of monkeys.
I’ve seen plenty of them on the telly, though. Seen how effortless they make it look, looping from tree to tree, never pausing or thinking for a second that they might fall to their death.
But it’s only now I realize how rubbish we are – humans – cos we aren’t swinging from anything to anything. All we’re trying to do is walk across slightly greasy wooden walkways. And we’re even doing that badly.
We aren’t even in Madagascar or Africa, we’re just in the middle of nowhere, though we are completely soaked and utterly, utterly cheesed off.
The thought of cheese makes my tummy rumble. We’ve been making our way through the trees for over an hour now, and to be fair it’s partly taking so long cos the planks under our feet are properly soaked, and they’ve collected all the muck off the rained-on leaves, which is making it feel like an ice rink.
On top of that there’s thirty of us, and nobody ever needs to pee at the same time. And there are obviously no loos at the top of trees, or bushes either.
Oh, and our colonel has a mashed-up leg and needs carrying.
To be honest, it’s a wonder we’ve managed to move at all.
But then a voice comes from the gloom.
“Well done, troops. You’ve almost made it. Look ahead and you’ll see one last rope bridge for us to cross, before the final zip line down.”
We squint into the darkness. And it really is dark, despite it only being mid afternoon. The trees are thick and dense, like something from the Amazon, and we can tell from the rain still puncturing its roof that the clouds are no better up above. If anything, it must be raining even harder.
“Can you see it?” Giraffles asks, “The bridge?”
“Yeah, up there. And to the right a bit.” Though to call it a bridge may be stretching it a bit. Bridges are usually designed by engineers, aren’t they? Who go to university for half a lifetime before they’re trusted to make anything? This looks like it was designed by a seven-year-old in science class, then knocked together during a couple of wet lunchtimes.
It’s long, probably thirty metres or so, with a big old dip in the middle, like an elephant’s been napping there for the past eighteen months. My confidence in it doesn’t grow as we move closer either. I can see that rungs are missing along it, and that the rope is fraying and straining in places, as if the storm has left it exhausted.
“It may look rickety, but trust me,” says Geri, “it has stood for years that bridge, and it’ll stand for many more.” But there’s that look on her face again, the one she was wearing when she first saw the cloud falling over the mountain.
“This is how it works,” she continues, “We cross the bridge in groups of three, as space on the zip wire platform is small. One by one, you will travel down the zip line, and the waiting passengers must wind the winch back up to the top in readiness for the next child. Got it?”
We nod and she smiles. “I know this has been difficult – a challenge even. But you have handled it admirably and I promise you, the dramas are over. Finished. Done.”
Which is exactly when the thunder rumbles, scaring us half to death.
Maybe it’s the weather gods laughing at Geri or maybe we are, actually, doomed, but the storm doesn’t hesitate. It tells us it means business: there’s no rumbling in the distance, the thunder is on top of us already and the rain follows angrily, puncturing the last of the treeline and hammering on the rope bridge, making it shake with impact.
“Let’s GO!” shouts Miss D, who I reckon will now be sworn off school trips for the rest of her life, and we shuffle on, the impact of the rain on our shoulders and heads making us flinch.
Up close, the bridge looks no safer than it did from a distance, in fact it looks terrifying. But I keep the sight of the zip line in my mind. One more ride, I tell myself, one more ride and we’ll be back on the ground. It looks like the others agree, as there’s no shortage of volunteers to go first, no matter how shaky the bridge seems.
After much persuasion from Miss D, Geri goes with the first two, bum-shuffling across the wooden planks like she’s done it a million times before, though I see the grimace on her face with every movement, the bridge creaking and buckling as she goes.
It seems to take an age for the first three to get over and Geri almost needs pushing down the zip line, not wanting to leave anyone behind. Passage across the gorge is slow, and while the zip line looks super speedy on the way down, winding the handle back up takes time and energy. All we can do as we wait is try and keep warm, though it’s impossible to stay dry as the rain falls with greater and greater venom.
Minutes pass and the weather worsens – even the wind has picked up as well, presumably as it felt left out.
But we can’t let it stop us, and slowly but surely there are less and less of us waiting on the wrong side of the bridge. In fact, there’s six: me, Giraffles, MandM, Miss D, and Dyl of course.
“Right, Dylan,” says Miss D, “you take Marcus and Maureen, and Danny and I will follow last.”
But Dyl, in true annoying style, has to have the last word. “I’ll wait with our Danny, Miss. With my training it makes sense for me to go last. I can fire fight anything that comes my way, no problem.”
Honestly, the boy is so cocky. If he shoved his chest out any further he’d be pushing us off the platform and into the void.
“Are you OK with that, Danny?” she asks, and I nod, cos I am. What else is Dyl going to do, push me to my death? Can’t see how he’d explain that one away to Mum.
So, with one final look over her shoulder, Miss D shepherds MandM across to the far platform, though how she manages to get them down the zip wire one at a time, I have no idea.
Five minutes later, and once her terrified tones dies away as the zip line whooshes to the ground, there’s just the two of us left. Me and Dyl. Beauty and the Beast.
“Well then, little brother,” he beckons, “shall we?”
And there’s nothing else to say, except yes.
Except I don’t get to say it, do I?
Cos that is the moment when the lightning strikes.
The noise is sickening, like the tree is screaming in pain as the lightning cuts it in two.
It splits slowly at first, but gets quicker as the tear gets deeper, and I realize quickly that although the tree was some distance from us, it would properly wallop us on its way down.
“DYLAN,”I yell, all rivalry forgotten,
“JUMP! NOW!”
But all he does, the plank that he is, is turn and look directly at it, eyes widening as it begins to plummet towards him. He’s frozen. Rigid. And for the first time in my life, I see he’s terrified.
“Dyl! JU—”
But there isn’t time, and without thinking I jump straight at him, rugby-tackling him around the waist. I feel his legs give, and my momentum throws us sideways as I feel the rush of wind and vibrations of tree on earth. It’s like an echo. People probably feel it all the way down in Australia.
As soon as the shaking stops, Dyl throws me aside with an embarrassed huff.
“Get off me, weirdo!”
“Oh I’m sorry, for a second there I thought I was saving your stupid life. Remind me to forget next time.”
But I don’t think he can hear me, as his eyes land on the fallen tree and we both see just how HUGE it is.
“Is that a redwood? I’ve seen them on the telly…”
“It’s massive, that’s what it is.”
And we both realize, I think, just how close we were to being squashed flat by it. It. Is. MAMMOTH. Cut it up and light it and you could warm a town for a good couple of years, not that we had any intention of breaking out a hacksaw.
All I want is to get back down to earth and get out of here.
But as I pull myself on top of the trunk, I see the worst thing imaginable. The tree has fallen across the gorge, and has completely trashed the rope bridge. There’s not a plank or even a frayed rope to be seen.
There’s a fresh crack of thunder and an immediate flash of lightning that lights our faces, and no matter how hard he tries to hide it, I know that Dyl is just as scared as I am. In fact, he seems more scared, cos his ability to think straight is gone.
“What are we going to do now?” he asks, and he looks younger, like a little kid who’s just dropped his dinner money down the drain. I think he might be about to cry.
I know I could tell him to grow up, or ask him what his extensive training would tell him to do, but I also realize in that instant that there’s only one person who’s going to get us down off this mountain, and it’s not GI Joe whimpering over there. It’s me.