The Runaways

by Ruth Thomas

  Both children slept well that night. Julia wore her jeans and tee-shirt, and spread her new anorak over the sleeping bag. Nathan slept in all his clothes anyway.

  Dawn came, and Nathan was up first. He had a half-formed idea of suggesting they move on this morning, get closer to Exmoor. But when he noticed the flat tyre on the front wheel of his bicycle, he changed his mind. The flat tyre was a problem, and he didn’t feel like facing problems that day. He covered the evidence of the puncture with a few well positioned loose branches, so that Julia would not see it. Then he lit the camping stove and took Julia a cup of tea in bed, which pleased her enormously. Both children were surprised at how fond of tea they were getting, now there was the fun of making it on their own stove.

  Nathan said he thought they should stay here, at any rate for today. For several days, perhaps. It was nice here, and anyway his arm wasn’t entirely well yet, he thought he should rest it for a bit. What did Julia think? ‘There’s ants in my tent,’ said Julia.

  Apart from the circumstance of the ants, she was happy enough to be staying. It was going to be another fine day, she could sit in the sun, down by the stream perhaps, and practise her reading. She didn’t think about what Nathan was going to do.

  Nathan, in fact, found he was very happy just wandering. The children took it in turns to guard the camp, and when it was Julia’s turn to stay behind, Nathan meandered through the wood and down to the stream. Since the day was hot, he did not wear his anorak, but knotted it round his waist by the sleeves. He spent an hour trying to catch the tiny fish which he could see darting about when he bent really close, and when he tired of that he paddled a long way, his shoes in his hand, treading carefully on the pebbles, and making up stories in his head. He pretended to be John Ridd in that story Lorna Doone – though he knew this wasn’t the right river. And when he tired of being John Ridd, Nathan climbed out of the water and wandered over the grass instead, and this time he went back to thinking about Treasure Island, and made up a story in his head about pirates. He wondered vaguely if he would ever get the chance to finish reading Treasure Island.

  Although it was clearly farmland they were on, there was no farmhouse in sight, and the children met no one all day.

  Julia worked hard at her reading. Nathan helped her for half an hour in the morning, but she was so slow, and the story so boring, that he soon made an excuse to drift off. Julia persisted on her own, going over and over the bits she had done with Nathan until she was word perfect, then trying to tackle the next bit by herself.

  In the late afternoon, a farm hand appeared in the next field to round up the cows for milking, and the children hid in the wood until he had gone.

  Later, after supper, Julia went down to the stream with the plastic bag, to fill it with water once before they went to bed. Left alone, and sitting on a tree stump, Nathan’s thoughts drifted back to the punctured bicycle tyre. All day long he had succeeded in not thinking about it. Would the problem have to be faced tomorrow? Not necessarily. They could stay here another day. Several days, in fact. For ever, perhaps, if it came to that. Someone would have to go for more supplies tomorrow, of course, as they were running out of food. Well, Julia could go. Julia’s bicycle was all right.

  Nathan found the beautiful scout knife, and began to carve a ship out of a lump of wood. As he worked, he was suddenly aware of being watched. Not that he had heard anything. At least, he was not aware of having heard anything. He just felt, unmistakably, that strange eyes were being focused on the back of his head. He turned, apprehensively – and there, framed between two trees, was a girl. A girl older than he was, he guessed, about twelve or thirteen, with piercing blue eyes, chestnut hair, and a million freckles. Nathan could not read her expression. She was neither smiling nor unsmiling – just very cool, he thought, and sure of herself.

  ‘Who are you, then?’ said Nathan, scowling at the intruder.

  ‘Who are you?’ said the girl.

  ‘This is our camp,’ said Nathan, discouragingly.

  ‘This is my father’s wood,’ said the girl. ‘He doesn’t like trespassers, In fact, if he finds you, he’ll probably shoot you.’

  ‘Who cares about your father?’ said Nathan, not believing her.

  ‘Please yourself,’ said the girl, without rancour.

  Her gaze wandered over the scene, taking in the tents, the bicycles, and the cooking arrangements. ‘Who sleeps in the other tent?’ she asked.

  ‘My friend – I mean, my sister. What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘Don’t be like that. I won’t tell on you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘You’re trespassing.’

  ‘Oh well, yes – that.’

  ‘What else could there be?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What’s the matter with your hand?’

  ‘Nothing. I fell off my bike and hurt it.’

  ‘Who put that bandage on – your friend, or your sister?’

  ‘My sister.’

  ‘You ought to go to the doctor. It might be broken.’

  ‘It’s all right. It don’t hurt now.’

  ‘Let me see. I know a lot about injuries and things. I’m going to be a doctor when I leave school. Can you move it?’

  ‘Course I can move it. Why don’t you go away?’

  ‘It’s not broken then. Is this your sister coming now?’

  ‘Yes it is.’ Thank goodness Julia was back Two of them ought to be able to get rid of this inquisitive nuisance.

  ‘That’s not your sister, she’s the wrong colour.’

  ‘I’m adopted.’

  ‘Where are your mother and father?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you.’

  ‘Hullo. Are you his sister?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Julia warily. She was not pleased to find they had a visitor.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Ju – Beverley. What’s yours?’

  ‘Oh, I’m Elizabeth. I live here. On this farm.’

  ‘Is it all right for us to stay here?’ asked Julia, anxiously.

  ‘Well I don’t mind. My father wouldn’t let you, but he hardly ever comes this way. This is where I come. This is my special place.’

  ‘I had a special place in London,’ said Nathan, in spite of himself. ‘It was a empty house.’

  ‘Is that where you live then? London?’

  Nathan was silent. He had opened his mouth when he shouldn’t have.

  ‘Are your parents in London, then? Have they let you come all this way by yourself?’

  ‘Our mum and dad’s in Watchet,’ said Julia.

  ‘In the Lorna Doone Caravan Site,’ said Nathan. ‘We just come on our own for a few days.’

  Elizabeth was silent. She seemed to be enjoying a private joke. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said at last.

  ‘Don’t then,’ said Nathan, sourley.

  ‘I think you’ve run away.’

  ‘No we haven’t, said Nathan. ‘We haven’t run away. It wasn’t us on telly, it was two other kids.’

  ‘Oh, have you been on telly? I don’t see much telly. I’m at boarding school and we have to do horrible prep in the evenings. It’s the holidays now, thank goodness.’

  ‘Boarding school?’ said Julia, faintly. ‘Did you do something wrong then?’

  ‘Something wrong? No, of course not. Oh, I know what you’re thinking of – no, not that sort of boarding school. You have run away, haven’t you! You can tell me. You can trust me, actually. I’m always running away myself. I’ve run away about five hundred times altogether.’

  ‘As many as that?’ said Julia, amazed.

  ‘Well, five times. Three times from home, and twice from school. How long have you been out?’

  Useless to resist. Trying to fight this barrage of questions was like trying to push water uphill. Julia looked at Nathan. He shrugged his unwilling agreement, but his face was like thunder.

  ‘I forget,’ said Julia. ‘A long time.�
�� Looking back, it seemed for ever. ‘A week and a half, I think.’

  ‘Really? You’re doing very well then,’ said Elizabeth. ‘The longest I ever stayed out for was six days. They’ll find you in the end, you know. Or you’ll go back by yourself.’

  ‘I’m not going back,’ said Nathan. ‘We’re never going back, are we, Ju. We like it here.’ He did not want to talk about the future. One day at a time was enough. ‘What do you run away for then?’

  ‘Oh this and that,’ said Elizabeth, airily. ‘When I quarrel with my sister, or they give me a detention for nothing at school. What about you?’

  ‘What you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Why did you run away?’

  ‘Nothing. We just wanted to.’

  ‘What about money? How are you managing for money?’

  ‘We got money.’

  ‘Did you pinch it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you get it then?’

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ said Nathan.

  ‘All right . . . These your bikes? They’re new, aren’t they?’ Elizabeth walked over to where the bicycles were propped, each padlocked to its own tree. ‘M-m-m – nice, very nice. Oh look – this one’s got a puncture.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Nathan, furiously. ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’

  ‘A puncture?’ said Julia. ‘You didn’t tell me!’

  ‘Do you know how to mend it?’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘No,’ said Nathan.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Julia.

  ‘I’ll mend it for you,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Will you?’ said Nathan, not daring to believe she meant it.

  ‘Oh thank you,’ said Julia.

  ‘I know a lot about machines. I’m good with machines. I’m probably going to be an engineer when I leave school.’

  ‘When will you do it?’ said Nathan, still not trusting her.

  ‘Well, not this evening. Unless you’ve got a puncture outfit here. Have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll have to bring mine then. I’ll come over in the morning. I’ll come over after breakfast. All right?’

  ‘You won’t tell no one we’re here,’ implored Julia.

  ‘Certainly not. We runaways have got to stick together. See you in the morning.’

  ‘What do you think of her?’ said Nathan, when Elizabeth was barely out of sight.

  ‘S-s-sh,’ said Julia. ‘She’ll hear you.’

  ‘So what? What you think then?’

  ‘I like her,’ said Julia. ‘She’s going to help us, isn’t she. She’s going to mend your bike.’

  ‘If she does. If she comes back. If she don’t tell her father and her mother and her sister and the police . . . ’

  ‘I don’t think she’s going to tell,’ said Julia. ‘I just feel she won’t tell nobody. I just feel it. She said.’

  ‘Huh!’

  Nathan spent an uneasy night. The little world of secrecy in which he and Julia had been living had suddenly been invaded. A sort of trust had been growing between the two of them, a bubble shutting out everybody else, so that only they two, inside it, were quite real. Now Elizabeth was inside the bubble as well, and Nathan didn’t like it. He didn’t trust Elizabeth. He didn’t trust anybody except Julia.

  Actually Nathan need not have worried, Elizabeth was as good as her word. She appeared in the wood at about ten o’clock next morning, with the puncture kit in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. She gave the plastic bag to Julia, since Julia was clearly the friendly one of the two. Inside the bag were apples, pears, and a large slice of ham and egg pie.

  ‘Oh thank you,’ said Julia, quite touched.

  Elizabeth set about mending the puncture, and a very capable job she made of it too. Julia, anxious to be hospitable, lit the stove to make a cup of tea for Elizabeth. Nathan sat on a tree-stump, glaring at Elizabeth as she worked.

  ‘Are you putting the Evil Eye on me?’ she asked, conversationally.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A curse, like a spell. You do it with your eyes. Curses do work sometimes, it’s a well-known fact. Is that what you’re doing, looking at me like that?’

  ‘No. I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘I only asked. Actually it might be quite good experience for me if you were. I need to know about these things because I’m going to be an anthropologist when I leave school.’

  In between being a doctor, and an engineer, presumably. ‘I think she’s mad,’ Nathan whispered to Julia.

  Mad or not, Elizabeth finished mending the punctured tyre in less time that it took Julia to make the tea.

  ‘What’s it like in boarding school?’ asked Julia, while she waited for the water to boil. ‘Is it awful? Is it terrible?’

  ‘It’s all right, quite fun really.’

  ‘I know I wouldn’t like it,’ said Julia with a shudder.

  ‘You get used to it. Oh, thanks, Beverley, or Ju, or whatever your name is. Lovely tea. . . . Where are you going next, now the bicycle’s mended?’

  ‘Must we go?’ said Julia.

  ‘Well – I shall miss you, of course. It’s been fun knowing you. But it’s better for you to keep moving. Less chance of getting caught.’

  ‘How do we get to Exmoor?’ Nathan asked, thinking he might as well make use of her while she was here.

  Elizabeth considered. ‘The way I know you go to Porlock,’ she said.

  ‘How do you get there?’

  She gave them a few directions and then said, ‘Keep straight on that road, straight, straight and follow the signs for Watchet. When you come out on the main road you’ll see the signs for Minehead. Follow that, and when you get to Minehead you’ll see signs for Porlock. You can’t miss it, but it’s quite a long way.’

  ‘What happens when we get to Porlock?’

  Elizabeth frowned. ‘Well, that’s where it gets a bit difficult.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You have to go up Porlock Hill. It’s the steepest hill in the country, I think. You’ll have a job to get the bikes up there. There aren’t any shops on the moor either. Well – there are some, but only very little ones. You can’t use them if you don’t want people to know you’re on the moor, because they’ll remember you. You’ll have to get all your supplies in Porlock. You could hole up on the moor of course, it’s a good place for that, but you will have problems.’

  ‘We won’t go there then,’ said Nathan. ‘We’ll go somewhere else.’

  ‘But you wanted to go to Exmoor,’ said Julia, surprised to think he would give up so easily. ‘You been talking about it all the time.’

  ‘It’s too steep,’ said Nathan. He tried to wink at Julia, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Elizabeth said it’s too steep. We’ll go somewhere flat. Tell us somewhere flat to go, Elizabeth.’

  ‘All right . . . you could go to Sedgemoor. That’s really flat. Good for cycling.’

  ‘How do we get there?’

  ‘Turn right at the main road, and follow the signs for Bridgewater.’

  ‘That’s where we’ll go, then. That’s settled, isn’t it, Julia . . . Julia? Innit settled we’re going to – where was it? – Sedgemoor.’

  ‘All right,’ said Julia, who was fairly indifferent about where they went.

  ‘I think I know a place you could camp.’ said Elizabeth, ‘but I’m not sure how to direct you. . . . Oh! I’ve just had an idea! Why don’t I come with you?’

  ‘No!’ said Nathan.

  ‘Why not? I’d be useful. I’d be very useful.’

  ‘You haven’t got a bike.’

  ‘Yes I have, I’ve got a super bike.’

  ‘You haven’t got a tent then.’

  ‘I could share with Julia.’

  Julia thought that would be a bit of a squeeze, but she didn’t like to say so.

  ‘How about it, then?’ said Elizabeth. ‘Can I come?’

  ‘NO!’ said Nathan, bluntly. ‘
We don’t want you. Me and Ju don’t want you.’

  ‘I know lots of interesting places round that way,’ said Elizabeth, trying to win him. ‘Glastonbury Tor for instance. You can climb right to the top and there’s a marvellous view. And there’s the legends of King Arthur – you know, the Round Table – he’s supposed to be buried at Glastonbury. I could tell you all about it if I came.’

  ‘Who cares about King Arthur?’ said Nathan. ‘King Arthur’s rubbish.’

  ‘I like King Arthur,’ said Julia, ashamed of Nathan’s rudeness, and wanting to make up for it.

  Nathan got up and began to kick his tree-stump. ‘What do you know about King Arthur?’ he snarled at Julia. ‘What do you know about anything?’

  He began to shuffle away, through the wood, kicking at tree-trunks as he went. About twenty metres further on he turned, and shouted venomously at Elizabeth. ‘Anyway you ain’t coming with us! No way you ain’t coming with us.’ Then he sat down on the ground, sulking, with his back to the girls.

  ‘Pity he’s like that,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘He does get the hump sometimes,’ said Julia with a sigh.

  ‘He must be the grouchiest person in the world,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He should go in the Guinness Book of Records.’

  ‘He is my friend though,’ said Julia.

  ‘I know, poor you! Why don’t you ditch him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Leave him. Come with me. That grumpy misery can’t be much company. Now I’d be very good company.’

  ‘Do you mean you want to run away again?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘What for though?’ said Julia, mystified.

  ‘For fun, of course.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Well – you know how it is. The holidays are super at first, but they do get to be a bit of a drag. I haven’t any friends around here.’

  ‘You’ve got your sister.’

  ‘Oh, her. Let me tell you, my sister is an utter, utter bore. She has the intelligence of a pea, and she never wants to do anything exciting.’

  Julia was quite overcome by the implication that Elizabeth’s sister was a poor companion, but she, Julia, was a desirable one.

  ‘How about it then? What do you say? Shall you and I team up?’

  Julia hesitated. She was tremendously flattered that Elizabeth had asked her. This older girl, with the posh voice and the confident manner – fancy someone like that wanting her.