Tregarthur's Promise

by Alex Mellanby

  The headless bird brought Sam back into action. ‘Now you stick your finger in its neck and pull out stuff – I think it’s called the crop.’

  Matt gave the bird to Sam without saying more. I thought it was a waste of time. But Matt’s help seemed to work. Sam took over and scooped something out with his finger.

  ‘Now you’ve got to pull off the feathers – pluck them.’ Sam gave a running commentary as he pulled at the feathers. I wondered if he was trying to sound like his dad. Sam found the feathers hard to pull out and it took a long time.

  ‘Sam, this is going to take for ever – we’ll have to help.’ Jenna grabbed one of the birds. ‘Matt can you cut some more heads off and we can all do this.’

  ‘No way!’ said Demelza, who had been unusually quiet. She tried to strike a pose, one hand on her hip, pouting. It looked stupid. No one took any notice of her, even her own two hangers-on.

  ‘No plucking – no food,’ Zach said with a nasty grin.

  Demelza pouted again, this time at him. He looked confused and his blush was red enough to be seen even through the mess of chuckern still plastered on his face.

  Demelza turned to her friends with a mischievous smile.

  ‘Demelza’s got him. As if we don’t have enough problems,’ Jenna whispered. At the time I didn’t get what she meant.

  In the end we all tackled the birds and, with a bit of help from Mary and Matt, everyone ended up with a scrawny headless chuckern with most of the feathers removed. It smelt, we smelt and the feathers stuck to us. There were a few birds left over.

  ‘What now? Do we cook them?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Um ... not quite.’ Sam, having finished plucking his bird, had been staring at it while we caught up. ‘You’ve got to make a hole near its bum and pull out the guts.’ He tried, and failed, to make it sound easy.

  His words met a stunned silence. Zach might be the only one holding a club, but everyone looked pretty angry. Sam had to do it. He took the sharp flint piece from Matt and chopped into the bird’s belly. The stone sliced into the soft skin, exposing a tangled mess of guts.

  I watched him stick his fingers through the cut, into the bird, and with some wiggling he pulled out the squidgy innards, which he plopped onto the grass. They slithered on the slope, almost as though they were alive. Sam looked relieved, and rather proud. ‘Just be careful when you do that, don’t damage the guts, and get them all out,’ he said, his voice sounding much firmer.

  ‘Why?’ asked Stevie, who had been crouching over Sam, watching everything he did.

  ‘Dad always said you must remove all the guts ... something important about it. I can’t remember exactly why, but he went on about it.’

  ‘Because they stink?’ Stevie suggested.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Sam poked the slithery mess with his sharp stone and the guts came apart. Stevie reeled at the smell.

  Sam tackled a couple more birds before the rest of us tried to ‘draw’ our own chuckerns. It wasn’t easy and I could see that not everyone carried out the task perfectly. Sam still didn’t remember the really important thing his dad had told him. Soon all of us, smeared and bloody, sat near a pile of stinking innards.

  ‘Next time we do this by the river,’ Jenna said, looking at the mess of guts, feathers and birds’ heads.

  ‘Next time? How long are we going to be here?’ wailed the ginger Sara.

  Jenna leant over to me and said, ‘That’s the ‘Other-Sara’. Sara and Other-Sara in case you get confused.’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘One Sara is blonde, the other is more ginger. The ginger one is Other-Sara.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I was only half listening and I was confused. ‘Any ideas on how to cook them?’

  ‘Sara or the birds?’ I wasn’t sure Jenna was joking.

  I looked at my chuckern. ‘The fire’s not much good.’

  ‘We can’t keep the fire burning in the cave if it’s going to smoke like this.’ Jack’s leg made it difficult for him to get out of the smoke.

  ‘Isn’t the smoke meant to show the rescuers where we are?’ the Sara who wasn’t ‘other’ said.

  ‘No one will find us without it,’ added the other one, they were both looking at me. I wasn’t answering.

  ‘Not sure who or what might see the smoke,’ Jenna replied for me. ‘There isn’t anything normal out there. Maybe we should only make the fire smoke if we hear something. But now it doesn’t look any good for cooking.’

  ‘It smokes because of all the green stuff on it. We need to use dead wood, as dry as possible.’ Matt seemed to be a bit of a survival expert.

  While we’d been searching for food, no one else had gone into the forest to get firewood. So they had just collected bits of bush from near to the cave – wet green bits of bush that burnt with a dense smoke.

  ‘Let’s go.’ I set off to get some dry wood. After a few steps I turned. No one else had moved. ‘Matt, Sam come on. And the rest of you.’ I stood watching, feeling a bit stupid. Would anyone take any notice and follow me? They did, at least most of them came – slowly. Zach and Demelza held back with their group.

  It was easy to find dead brushwood amongst the trees and soon we had a blazing fire near to the entrance of the cave.

  ‘We should make a spit,’ Matt said. ‘You know, put the birds on a long stake and turn it over the fire.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Zach said sticking his bird onto the end of his club and holding it in the flames. The flesh soon burnt and the burning bird fell into the fire.

  ‘Give me yours,’ he said to Sam.

  It went very quiet. Sam stared, looking frightened and confused. No one else moved. Did the others expect me to do something? I just wanted to work out how to cook my own bird and didn’t see why this had to be any of my business. Sam looked as though he might refuse. Zach lifted his club slightly. Sam hung his head and handed his chuckern over.

  ‘Good boy.’ Zach knew how to make it so much worse.

  A red-faced Sam shuffled off. Everyone watched him and no one helped. Sam started to prepare another chuckern.

  The fire had burnt down a little, making it easier to get nearer to the hot ashes. Like Zach, each of us stuck a bird on the end of a stick and held it to the fire, trying not to set our chuckerns alight.

  ‘How do you know when they’re cooked?’ Stevie had latched onto Matt.

  ‘No idea. I guess you try one and see.’ Matt pulled his bird out of the fire and took a bite.

  We were all shouting, ‘What’s it like ...’ ‘Yeah, Matt, can we eat it? ...’ ‘Tell us ...’ ‘Hurry up! ... I’m starving.’

  ‘Umm,’ Matt replied with chuckern fat running down his chin. ‘Tasty, well sort of tasty,’ and he took another bite.

  Matt’s words set us all ripping the birds apart, eating every last piece of meat – cooked, partly cooked, or uncooked. Apart from munching, the cave remained quiet as we ate, except for Ryan who seemed unable to eat without farting.

  I was sitting next to Jenna on a stone outside the cave. We watched the sun setting as the sky darkened and turned a deep orange before darkness settled. Only the moon and stars lit the sky. The smell of burnt chuckern still hung in the air. I’d told Jenna all about the teacher, well most of it, not the bit about seeing her at home.

  ‘What do you think will happen?’ I asked because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Why ask me?’

  ‘No one else around, like you said before.’

  ‘Maybe this is just your dream,’ Jenna sounded rather hopeless. ‘It sounded dream-like when you told me.’

  ‘I suppose dream-like is better than you saying it was some drug ...’

  ‘I said I was sorry.’ Jenna made it clear that the subject was closed. You didn’t win arguments wit
h Jen.

  ‘Ok it’s a dream. You mean pinch me and I’ll wake up?’ I wasn’t sure where this was heading.

  Jenna was quick.

  ‘Ow. That didn’t work, we’re still here.’

  ‘Probably didn’t pinch you hard enough.’ I was lucky Jenna was smiling. Then she looked more serious: ‘Have you worked out what that teacher meant by her promise?’

  ‘No idea.’ I picked up a stone, looked at the chipped flint absentmindedly feeling the sharp edge with my finger. ‘I don’t see how we’re going to survive to find out anything, whatever she meant.’

  ‘And I don’t think we need to get the fire to smoke again – there’s no one out there to see it.’ Jenna got up and wandered off.

  The fire still burnt with occasional flames making flickering shadows on the cave walls as each person tried to find somewhere to lie down, avoiding Zach who kicked anyone who came near him.

  I stayed outside alone, staring out and trying to imagine what the teacher could have meant. Then when nothing made sense I ended up going over things from home. If they did chuck me out where was I going to go? Nothing seemed clear. Maybe being stuck here was the answer.

  In the dark, grunts and howls started again in the trees. I gave up thinking and found somewhere to lie down, nearly treading on Zach – deliberately. I didn’t expect to have a comfortable night and I was right, but the thing that Sam had forgotten made it so much worse.

  It was a new noise that woke me up. Blonde Sara was the first. She had dealt with a chuckern by herself. Probably she hadn’t understood what Sam had said and probably she had been too scared to ask for help. Sara groaned, ran to the cave entrance and threw up spectacularly – silhouetted in the light of the moon. A foul smell of half digested chuckern wafted into the cave. Sara wasn’t alone for long. Soon there was a row of them – clutching stomachs, retching and moaning.

  A little later I felt Sam tap me on the shoulder. ‘I’ve just remembered what dad said.’

  ‘What?’ I shoved him away, holding my hands to my ears and trying to blot out the noise.

  ‘He said you must get all the guts out whole and clean the inside otherwise bugs get into the meat.’

  I had no idea what Sam was going on about.

  ‘The bugs cause food poisoning – vomiting, diarrhoea; people can get very sick. It’ll be worse because not everyone cooked them properly.’

  I rolled my eyes although Sam probably missed that in the dark.

  ‘Can’t do anything about it now,’ Sam sobbed.

  ‘At least ‘chuckern’ was a good name,’ I said wondering if I’d done enough to my bird.

  Not everyone was sick. Sam and Matt had done a good job cleaning their birds and those they had helped were alright. I guess I was just lucky.

  The first Sara slumped down, sitting with her back to the rock, holding her tummy, and it seemed with nothing left to bring up. Others joined her. Mary started taking water round to the sick, stumbling over rocks to fill plastic water bottles from the pool near the cave.

  Other-Sara was the worst. She didn’t stop retching, over and over again, her ginger hair matted and streaked. Jenna told me her friends had talked about the pills Other-Sara needed to take. Some strange disease that no one could pronounce. Mary tried to hold her hand, but let go when Other-Sara’s body shook with another fit of retching. It went on for hours.

  ‘What do we do with her?’ Mary said to Jenna.

  ‘How should I know?’ Jenna shrugged her shoulders and sounded cross. That’s more like Jenna, I thought, but it only lasted a second. Jenna changed her tone: ‘I’ll try her with some more water,’ and she went and sat on the damp earth beside her.

  The water made Other-Sara sick again.

  Jack had taken on the task of keeping the fire going but stopped when he became exhausted, so the fire died down as the night drifted on. Only a faint red glow lit the cave, when I saw Other-Sara try to stand. She vomited one more time and groaned loudly before falling to the ground with a heavy thud. I heard the fall and yes, I knew something awful had happened, but like the others I went back to sleep in the silence that followed.

  This time it was a poke that woke me. I opened my eyes, seeing Jenna’s face about an inch away from mine, behind her the faint light of dawn.

  ‘Wake up,’ Jenna hissed in my ear.

  ‘What?’ I grunted.

  ‘I think she’s dead,’ Jenna’s voice cracked as she whispered the words.

  ‘Who?’ I muttered stupidly.

  ‘Other-Sara, you idiot,’ replied Jenna. ‘I couldn’t sleep and I’ve just checked on her. She’s not moving.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I tried to turn over. ‘Too tired ...’

  Jenna hit me hard on the arm. ‘We need to do something before the rest wake up. They’ll go berserk.’

  I shook myself awake. An irate Jenna was too difficult to resist and I followed her to where Other-Sara lay on the hard ground.

  ‘How do you know she’s dead?’ I looked at her pale face shining in the early light. To me she looked more peaceful than when she’d been sick.

  ‘I tried to wake her, but she doesn’t move and she’s icy cold. It was just like when I went to hospital with ...’ Jenna stopped, sounding too choked up to explain.

  Matt appeared and a few others stirred, but no one else joined us.

  ‘Should we do something?’ Matt said in a hushed voice.

  ‘What? Give her the kiss of life you mean?’ I looked down and shivered.

  ‘Too late,’ Jenna said. ‘It’s too late to do anything. She’s dead, can’t you see.’ Jenna’s whispers came in angry bursts. ‘We need to move her. We need to ...’ Jenna seemed to find it impossible to say what we needed to do, but in the shadowy light we carried the small body from the cave and down into the trees.

  ‘What now?’ asked Matt, looking at the lifeless form.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything we can use to bury her.’ I looked around.

  ‘Cover her up, I suppose,’ Jenna said eventually.

  In silence we covered her with earth and stones. It wasn’t easy and took ages.

  ‘Are we meant to say something?’ The mound over her looked awful. I backed away from the grave. Neither Jenna nor Matt replied. In the end we all shuffled away saying nothing.

  I knew that burials weren’t a normal part of school trips, but I didn’t think this was going to be the only one.

  Another Day

  -4-

  Leaving the grave, we stumbled back, not speaking, and sat on the rocks outside the cave. No one wanted to meet the others. Jenna hugged herself and shivered; silent tears streamed down Matt’s face. I was staring into space, the sight of her body played over and over in my mind.

  As the sky lightened the rest began to move. I wondered how we were going to tell them. I couldn’t do it. I got up and left, scooping up a drink from the pool, I followed the cliff. I could almost feel Jenna’s eyes burning into my back. I’d left them to explain and since Matt probably wouldn’t know what to do, that meant I’d left Jenna to do it. I headed for the waterfall.

  At the top of the slope I could see water crashing from the cliff and pounding the rocks below. The river ran out of sight towards the bank where we’d found the chuckerns. Thinking about the birds almost made me retch. Was there anything else to eat? Would we have to eat those birds again? The wide river foamed and frothed, plumes spouting into the air against the rocks; too dangerous to try and cross. Wherever we were, it seemed as though we were trapped. Were we all going to die like Other-Sara?

  Not concentrating, I stumbled over a root. Looking up at the tree, it was loaded with purple fruit and I saw that many of the bushes were covered with red and black berries. Was any of this safe to eat? Other-Sara’s pale face kept coming back to me; ev
en though I was hungry I left the fruit and scrambled down to the river.

  Early morning sunlight started to shine through the mist thrown up by the waterfall, but the mist made the air cold and I shivered. Along the rocky uneven river bank water swirled into pools. I tried to wash off some of the dirt and remains of chuckern. Then I heard movement in the bushes and I froze, listening. Nothing except the noise of the water. I started back.

  ‘Sam make sure you always do my chuckerns properly.’ Zach’s nasty laugh met me as I neared the cave. Zach went on, ‘And you can share them with me, just to make sure I don’t get poisoned like that ...’

  I stood at the entrance. Against the sun my body cast a large dark shadow across the cave floor. That seemed to stop him.

  ‘Like what?’ I said staring at Zach.

  ‘Zach’s been telling us how Other-Sara died – haven’t you Zach? Tell us again,’ Jenna said.

  ‘Nooooooooooo.’

  I heard wails from the back of the cave.

  ‘Go on Zach. You do a great imitation of her retching noises.’ Jenna twisted the knife.

  Zach sneered and turned away.

  I looked around the group. They were crying, tired, angry and frightened, surrounded by the remains of last night’s awful meal. Zach had really wound them up.

  I knew something was needed. ‘We can’t do anything about Other-Sara, but we’ve got to survive. If someone is going to break through that tunnel it could take ages, remember how much rock fell down behind us, we’ve got to keep going until ...’

  ‘No one’s going to break through that.’ Ivy pointed to the back of the cave.

  ‘Maybe, but I’d like to try and stay alive long enough to give them a chance.’ I was almost shouting.

  ‘How? How do we survive?’ someone else called out.

  ‘Look. I don’t know what we should do ...’ I searched for my words.