The Amazing Spencer Gray

by Deb Fitzpatrick

  Had the rescue chopper crashed as well? Or had the crew just not seen the Drifter and decided to look elsewhere, or go back? Spencer’s stomach inside-outed itself. He wondered if he would ever find out.

  31

  ‘Bell Rescue to Skippers Cove, pick up Skippers, over.’

  Reg picked up the receiver. ‘I read you, Bell Rescue, over.’

  There was a bit of static on the line, but Reg could make out the words, delivered with some anxiety: ‘Squally winds making it too dangerous up here. We’re coming back in to Skippers, Reg, I repeat, we are returning to base, over.’

  ‘Copy that, Dan. Take it easy up there. Over and out.’

  Reg looked at the landline out of the corner of his eye. Bugger. The search wouldn’t resume now until first light tomorrow.

  Next to him, the window was suddenly peppered with heavy rain spots. It was dark, and it was only 5pm.

  Reg picked up the phone again and dialed Suzie’s number.

  32

  Spencer’s voice sounded strange in the space around them. ‘It’s getting dark, Dad,’ he said. ‘Here, have some more water.’ Spencer felt like an alien as he dabbed Dad’s lips. He hadn’t told him about the chopper; what was the point?

  ‘I’m gunna see if I can sleep now, Dad. Well, I’m gunna try. And in the morning I’m going to head down to the road.’

  The rain filled the gaps.

  ‘To get help. It might be quicker than ... waiting, you know?’ They’d never come back now. ‘It shouldn’t take too long for me to get down to the road. Not more than a few hours. We’re not at the top of the Bluff—I can’t even see the top—so that’s good.

  ‘And I’ll leave a note, in case someone finds you here while I’m gone. I’ll put our names on it, and say that we’re from Skippers, and that it’s Saturday—well, it’ll be Sunday tomorrow, so I’ll put Sunday—and that I’ve gone to get help. And what time it is when I leave.

  ‘Okay, Dad?’

  Spencer nodded like his dad might. ‘Okay,’ he said to himself, in his deepest voice.

  Then he cleared a bit of space to lie down in. He had to curl up his body to make it fit. He reached over to the door, which was open a crack. Rain dripped over his hand as he pushed it open a little further.

  ‘Bit of fresh air, hey, Dad?’ he whispered. ‘Bit of fresh air.’

  Okay.

  He imagined being at home in his bed, his special super-duper goosedown doona light and warm on top of him. His stomach pulled in tight.

  Quietly, Spencer cried hard. He was so scared. He tried to keep it down in that small space. The rain helped with that too.

  It was the longest of nights. How could the wreck of a plane make so much noise? From time to time it creaked like his dad moaned. It was like the Drifter was alive. The sounds were metallic, as if it was trying to un-wreck itself, twisting against its injuries. The wind found the crack of the door and swept in like an icy ribbon, and Spencer’s thoughts twisted and knotted in sync with his stomach. What if he got lost going down the mountain? What if Dad got sicker while he wasn’t there?

  The square of white light from Dad’s phone was a weirdly comforting companion. He tried to go without it for chunks of time—he didn’t want the battery to die on him; he might need it tomorrow.

  He prayed for a while. He didn’t know how that worked, but he reckoned he may as well try everything.

  Spencer tried to sleep, he did, but how could you when everything around you was hard and cold and groaning? Gliders weren’t designed for night flying. They weren’t meant to provide shelter—and they didn’t. Spencer’s body ached with cold and he kept shifting for a more comfortable position. Poor Dad couldn’t move at all.

  The night crawled by. When would it be dawn? He spent the hours thinking and worrying and planning, and listening to Dad breathing, until he was totally exhausted by it all, by everything he wanted to remember (water! torch! Dad’s mobile! food! the note!).

  But he should never have thought about Mum. He imagined her and Pippa in the kitchen, just flipping out. He knew Mum’d be awake all night, like he was. It sent Spencer further into panic, knowing she’d be thinking he and Dad were dead or something, and not being able to tell her that they were all right. We’re all right, Mum! he wanted to yell across the mountain.

  Finally, briefly, sleep won. His dreams were ghastly and he pulled himself away from them back into the pitch of that night. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the dreams or the reality. And somewhere in there, somewhere in among the waking nightmare, was the distant, brief, war-like sound of a helicopter that never came.

  Watching dawn crack, Spencer felt massive relief and a surge of adrenalin. Time to get moving, get out of there. Get help.

  33

  My name is Spencer Gray. I have gone to get help. Our glider crashed yesterday (Saturday).

  Spencer checked the time.

  It’s 6 in the morning.

  This is my Dad, Rory Gray. We live at 18 Winton Road, Skippers Cove. 9671-1121. Dad has a woond in the back of his head that’s been bleeding. I think his leg is broken too.

  Dad has had some water but no food since Saturday morning. He’s been unconshios

  Spencer tried again but there were too many vowels to deal with.

  unconchious a lot.

  That looked better.

  He reached over to the esky bag and pulled out one of the water bottles. He propped it tightly in the crook of Dad’s arm, and put the half-packet of Scotch Finger biscuits next to it, in case he woke up hungry. He adjusted the blood-wet fleece so Dad’s head looked more comfortable, and spread what was left of the jacket across his chest to keep him warm.

  Spencer looked down at the note in his hand. Had he forgotten anything? If anyone came, would they need to know anything else?

  I am going to walk to the road at the bottom of Bluff Noll.

  He sat for a moment, then signed:

  Spencer Gray

  Spencer pushed the cockpit door full out. Nothing had changed. It was still raining. The sky was heavy and low. His breath puffed out like a winter cloud in front of him. The wet weather jacket he’d laid down to collect water was now a shallow pond of mountain water. That was good. Spencer crouched over it awkwardly and slurped some up, wanting to save what was in his bottle for the walk ahead.

  The other jacket was pulled tightly around him. He checked the pockets again: water bottle shoved into one, the two muesli bars and an apple in the other. Dad’s mobile phone in the inside secret pocket, where it would keep dry. Spencer had checked it in the thin dawn light that morning, hoping someone had sent a message. Of course, the screen was uninterrupted grey.

  Maybe reception will improve as I get closer to the road, Spencer thought.

  He’d forced down one of Mum’s ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, and, as vile as it tasted, he felt better for it. Less jittery.

  Spencer looked back at the Drifter, its elegant arms sprawled out into the bush. He’d left the door slightly open, so Dad had fresh air. He was as warm and as comfortable as he could make him. He had water and food. Spencer had written the note and left it open on Dad’s chest.

  You can’t do anything else, Spence. Just get moving. Get some help.

  And so he did. His neck was rigid as he walked away. He had to make his legs operate, like a robot’s, as he stepped away, into the bush, not wanting to leave Dad but knowing he had to; not wanting at all to face what was out here, but knowing he had to; not wanting to be negotiating his way down the wet side of a mountain so far from everywhere, but knowing that he was indeed here, on the wet side of a mountain, completely and utterly on his own, and completely and utterly in charge of what happened next.

  34

  Once he was going—once he’d got far enough away that he couldn’t see the Drifter through the scrub every time he looked back—it got a bit easier.

  A couple of crows hopped and cawed near him, seemed to follow him on his way, as if they were keeping him com
pany, or chaperoning him, or maybe they were just checking him out. They’re not like vultures, are they? Spencer wondered briefly. They don’t eat ... flesh. Do they?

  Spencer knew that if he didn’t figure out roughly where he was on the mountain he could waste a lot of time ploughing directionlessly through the bush. As much as he wanted to feel the downwards tilt of the earth towards that road under his feet, he knew if he could find a high point now, before he started heading down, it might show him the quickest, easiest way to the road. He needed a tree, or a tall rock.

  Around him, the scrub was thin and low. Spencer looked at his watch, wiping the rain off the face with his thumb. It was 6.10. He wanted to be down at the bottom of the Bluff by about 8.30 or 9. It might take him another hour or two even then to reach help, and then a while still for the rescue people to get up the mountain to Dad and get him out. Spencer realised he had to get down as quickly as he could—getting down too late might mean another night on the mountain for Dad. Or worse.

  The crows were loud and close. The rocks were slippery. Spencer kept his head down, paying attention to where he placed his feet, like he did during the cross-country; a twisted ankle would be a total disaster right now.

  He let out a weak laugh. If only this were the school cross-country, with Leon bringing up the rear and Mr Petrich drilling them from the sidelines. What would he say about this track? Stay focused, Spencer! Pick it up! Stay with the leaders.

  Oh man, if only.

  Straight ahead of him was a steep rock face. There was no way he could get to the top of it without a rope. He only had his boots on—they weren’t exactly made for extreme sports. Spencer tracked around the base of the rock wall. He knew this was the high point he was looking for; he just needed to get up to the top somehow. At one side, tufts of bush sprouted from cracks in the granite. He grabbed one and leaned his weight from it. It stuck. Tough stuff. It hurt his hands but that was the least of his problems. Spencer took turns with his hands and feet using the tufts as hand- and foot-holds, and made his way up to the top.

  As he crawled over the rim, the brief good feeling of conquering the rock face slid darkly away. The total greyness of the sky enveloped him.

  Whooof. The wind slammed into his body. He planted his feet apart and leant into it.

  Terrible thoughts slid into his mind but he forced them away before they could take hold. He didn’t need them. He needed to have total commitment now.

  He wasn’t at the top of the Bluff, and the rain and shifting cloud made it hard to see far, but here he had a view nonetheless. There was a sort of cloud ring not far above him, around the peak, he thought it must be, which told him that they had crashed about three-quarters of the way up the mountain. Spencer knew from when they were here on their family camping trip that it was about a two-hour walk down from the top—along the hiking trail. He knew it could take at least double that time with out a trail, with bush and rocks and other stuff to find his way around. Who knows what’s gunna be down this side, he thought. It could be previously unexplored for all I know! Even when he did it with Mum and Dad and Pips on the camping trip, it took more than two hours, because Pippa had that meltdown on the way down.

  But none of this seemed to matter right now: Spencer was momentarily buoyed by the realisation that it might be only a few hours—three or four or five, maybe—till he got help.

  He looked around again, trying hard to be calm, trying to concentrate. His eyes searched the scrub for a trail to follow—any trail; a bunny trail would do at this stage.

  There was nothing. Nothing. He had to get going. He was wasting time!

  He waited a moment longer for the cloud to slide away.

  C’mon, c’mon, he murmured.

  The crows swooped away suddenly. Spencer scanned the sky. Was he imagining it, that sound—again? In the distance ... could he hear a chopper?

  35

  ‘Right, let’s get this show on the road,’ Dan Milner said, nodding to the two other rescue crew members on board, one of whom was closed-eyed behind his sunnies, trying to catch a few last zeds.

  ‘Mate, it’s not that early!’ Dan said.

  ‘Mate, it’s 6 am!’ Rich croaked. ‘What’s earlier than that?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘No, please don’t answer that. Just shut up and let’s get up there and find these guys.’

  ‘Okay, Doc, we’re coming your way,’ Dan murmured. ‘Second time lucky.’ He picked up the two-way. ‘All clear for take-off, Reg, over?’

  ‘All clear, Bell Rescue, over.’

  ‘Roger. Will radio in again shortly, over.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan. Over and out.’ In the hangar, Reg squeezed Suzie’s shoulder. She sat on an old office chair, and nursed a mobile phone in her hands. Every now and then, she’d wake it up from its slumber and check the screen, just in case.

  Pippa was there too, a sheet of butcher’s paper spread out on the floor, and a pencil-case full of her best textas. She was drawing a picture for Dad, to give him when he got back. When she finished it, she was going to do one for Spencer.

  Spencer almost didn’t want to look up in case it wasn’t true. But there was no mistaking that sound. They’d come back!

  They were hugging the mountain, and flying in an anticlockwise direction. Again, Spencer waved his arms over and over and over above his head, but he knew there was a slim chance anyone could see him. He needed to be wearing a high-vis vest or something! Charlie’s fluoro-yellow shirt would have been perfect for this, he thought.

  Now Spencer wasn’t sure what to do. Should he go back to the crash site, or keep walking down towards the road? Or should he stay put?

  If he continued to walk downhill, he’d be walking away from the help that was surely meant for them. But if he went back to the Drifter, and the chopper missed it again, then it was all just wasted time. Maybe staying here, where it was open and exposed, wasn’t such a bad idea? Then again, if they did find the crash site, and Spencer wasn’t there, then they’d have to search for him too.

  Aaaargh! What to do? Think, Spencer, think!

  He turned back to the sky. The chopper had disappeared from sight and sound. Where were they going? This mountain was big—they might not find either of them at this rate.

  Spencer spun around. Where had they gone? What was this, the Bermuda Triangle or something? On a gnarled tree not far away, the crows sounded like kids practising the violin—badly.

  He checked his watch. It was 6.40. He pulled his jacket up around his neck. All this standing around was making him cold. Spencer had a mountain to get down; he reckoned he’d better get started.

  At 6.45, the Skippers two-way crackled: ‘Wind’s dropped significantly up here today, Reg. We’re nearly over Bluff Knoll’s peak now, over.’

  ‘Roger that, Bell Rescue, over.’

  Mum and Pippa looked at each other.

  ‘Give ’em a few minutes now, to get there and circle the peak,’ Reg said to them quietly. ‘They’ll probably fly in a sort of corkscrew pattern down from the top so they don’t miss anything.’

  It was still raining. The tarmac was slick black with it. Right then, Mum couldn’t imagine what she’d loved about gliding. And she couldn’t imagine what they’d been thinking when they let Spencer go up in the Drifter. Spencer wasn’t old enough. He’s not old enough! She felt like screaming into that spartan, stinking old tin shed they called a hangar.

  He’s just not old enough, she thought weakly.

  36

  With no trail to follow, and visibility so bad, Spencer had no choice but to just take the easiest path in front of him, weaving between bushes and around massive rocks. He listened out for the sound of the helicopter. He couldn’t hear it, but he was grateful to think of it out there, looking for them.

  Spencer focused on the angle of the ground beneath his feet—anything below 180 degrees was good; anything above it was not. He had to do everything he could to get help for Dad. He thought about Dad’s head, a
nd hoped he hadn’t rolled off the fleece ‘bandage’ Spencer had shoved under there. If that cut was exposed it might just bleed and bleed ... and Spencer knew you could die if you lost too much blood. Dad must have a cracker headache. And his knee would probably be the size of a beachball by now. And Dad hadn’t had any water for hours. Spencer had moistened his lips before he’d left but it wasn’t the same as actually drinking, was it? He knew—anyone knew—that you could go for a few days without food, but without water, things got bad quickly.

  He passed a cluster of grasstrees, their trunks like fat black pipecleaners. His boots slid over flat granite rocks, and he tried to slow down over them—he just couldn’t risk falling and getting hurt. Ahead, he could see a fairly clear way: not too steep, with only tufty bushes and smaller rocks to negotiate. Spencer picked up to a walking jog, and, as he got his rhythm, broke into a concentrated jog, hopping over rocks and turning his hips around bushes and grasstrees. As he warmed up, he steadied his breathing, focusing on sucking air in through his nose to avoid getting a stitch. He kept his eyes on his feet and on the ground a little way ahead, anticipating the small leaps he would need to make or deviations around rocky outcrops.

  Don’t drop too far back, Spencer. Stay at the front.

  Air in. Foot down. Foot down. Air out. Foot down. Foot down. Air in...

  Spencer’s calves burned; his knees wobbled under the strain. His nose was running, his cheeks must have glowed. He yanked down the zip of his jacket to let in some cool air.

  The bush around him began to change. Thorny branches poked this way and that, reaching out for his hands and legs, and he was grateful for the protection of his jacket and cargo pants. But the bush got thicker and higher and closer, and Spencer had to raise his arms in front of his face to protect himself as he pushed through. The bushes scratched like attacking cats: so hard that blood immediately sprang out in small red dots along his skin. Another branch caught his hair and yanked hard.