She pressed the book into his unresisting hands and put a postcard on top of it.
‘This came for you earlier. As you’re aware, Dragon Ridge cadets are strictly forbidden from receiving outside correspondence, but somebody kind left it in my staff room pigeon-hole. They clearly intended that I should pass it on to you.’
Jude’s heart began to thump. The postcard was a photo of a boy on an old jetty with weathered boards, looking out over a blue bay. Printed on the sky was a quote:
You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending . . .
The postcard was addressed to Jude but unsigned. The anonymous sender had written just two words: God speed.
Jude stared at them. Was it a coincidence that those precise words had been the sign-off to the email the twins had found in Gabe’s cabin? Could this postcard have been sent by the same person? Instinct told Jude that it had. That could only mean that Gabe’s friend or enemy had tracked Jude all the way to Dragon Ridge in Wales.
It was unnerving to say the least, but he tried to keep his voice casual. ‘Ms Flowers, do you happen to know if it came in an envelope? There’s no stamp or postmark on it.’
‘If it did, it’s been recycled,’ answered the librarian. ‘Is there a problem? I assumed the card was from the Blakeneys . . . ?’
‘I guess,’ Jude murmured vaguely. ‘OK, I promise I’ll read two pages of Lone Wolf tonight. And I’ll build your bookcases if you’ll let me. I’m not going to pass up a chance to be warm and dry in –’ he grinned at Teddy – ‘unrivalled company.’
That night, Jude finally opened The Book. Lone Wolf was a story about Markus, a troubled boy who stows away on a plane carrying supplies to the Arctic. When it crashes in the Swedish wilderness, Markus has to form a bond with the wolf that starts hunting him – or die trying.
Jude was gripped by the third line. He was on page five when the prefect came to turn the lights off.
He lay in the dark, thinking about the boy in the story. How would Markus tame the savage wolf? Would the pair survive the coming snowstorm?
He leaned towards the next bed. ‘Torquil? Torquil, are you awake?’
‘I am now. Gray, has anyone ever told you you’re a royal pain in the butt?’
‘Too many to count. Please can I borrow your torch? I’m at an exciting bit in my book. I need to know what happens next.’
There was a smothered laugh. ‘Yeah, it’s full of cliff-hangers, that one. If you like it, I have a zombie-invasion book I can lend you.’
‘Thanks. Uh, goodnight.’
‘Night, Jude.’
25
SACRED GROUND
Jude did three fruitless searches of his locker and the changing room before accepting the inevitable: someone had stolen his trainers.
He knew they’d been taken, because he’d spent the previous evening cleaning them and changing a broken lace in preparation for today’s Explorer’s Challenge.
It didn’t surprise him they were gone. Outside of the library and the classes of a few caring teachers, Dragon Ridge was a jungle. The majority of boys were in survival mode. It wasn’t quite ‘kill or be killed’, but toughness and a cutting wit were highly prized among the lords of Dragon Ridge.
Jude thanked his lucky stars daily that his library-building job kept him out of the clutches of some of the bigger, rougher boys on the rugby pitch and in cadet training. It had even earned him the respect of those boys who did want to study and read.
But the endless struggle to keep his head down without reacting to vicious jibes and spirit-sapping pranks – the nicking of his trainers was just the latest of many – was exhausting.
Today, though, Jude’s mind was on something more important than missing shoes. He was thinking about the article Ms Flowers had read to him when he’d swung by the library first thing:
BLAKENEY SET TO REAP MILLIONS IN SALE
OF ANCIENT FOREST TO DEVELOPERS
Fury at Plan to Build 250 Apartments in
Woodland Idyll by the River Severn
According to the Guardian newspaper, hundreds of oaks and pines were set to be ‘razed to the ground’.
‘How do you raise something to the ground?’ Jude had asked the librarian.
‘Not raise with an “i” – raze with a “z”,’ replied Ms Flowers. ‘It means to destroy.’
‘Kind of like what happened to your library?’
Her lips twitched, but she’d stayed looking at the newspaper article. ‘Indeed. Not so easy to put right, however. You can’t restore a three-hundred-year-old oak the way you can shove up some shelves.’
‘Shove up some shelves?’ Jude said in mock outrage.
‘Naturally, I didn’t mean your bookshelves, which are, of course, an architectural masterpiece,’ Ms Flowers had joked, and they’d both laughed.
Rebuilding the library had been a mammoth job. Some nights Jude had fallen into bed with his muscles on fire from the sheer physical effort of it. But it was worth it to see Ms Flowers walking between oak shelves that she, Jude and Teddy had co-designed, chatting to boys lolling on bean bags or studying in book nooks. The library had gone from being mostly empty to mostly full.
That morning it had been quiet again because half of the school had been out competing at a sports event, and the rest had been preparing for the Explorer’s Challenge.
Jude, who should have been getting ready himself, had instead been reading the article over Ms Flowers’ shoulder. ‘Go on.’
‘It says here that if the sale goes ahead on May third, the developer plans to chop down the trees and replace them with landscaped gardens, luxury apartments, shops and cafes.’
Jude had been distraught. He’d never forgotten that day in the forest with Jess. The cathedral calm of it had been a balm to his soul. There had been something so soothing about the rustling and tweeting of the woodland creatures going about their daily lives as the winter light filtered through the leaves.
The forest had felt like home in a way that the Blakeneys’ museum house never would. It had felt sacred.
‘What about the rare owls, woodpeckers and roe deer?’ Jude had asked Ms Flowers. ‘What about the foxes? Where are they supposed to go if there’s no forest? And what about the three-hundred-year-old oaks? I thought that Robbie Blakeney bought the estate to preserve those things forever? Clifford might not give a hoot about the owls and oaks, but you’d think he’d honour his father’s wishes.’
‘I’ll venture that you’re cut from different cloth, Jude,’ said Ms Flowers. ‘You’ll always value love and nature over money. But these are difficult times in the media world. Many newspaper owners are in trouble. The millions Clifford Blakeney expects to make from the sale of the forest land might be needed to prop up Daybreak Media.
‘As for being loyal to his dad’s wishes, it’s well known that they had a rocky relationship. It’s possible that he doesn’t have any sentimental feelings towards the forest. Or maybe he does care, but is more concerned with saving the business his father built than a few oak trees and birds.’
Jude doubted that. He remembered Jess telling him about the documentary she’d watched on the plane. How Clifford’s mum had run off with a cement millionaire when he was nine. How he’d fallen out with his dad after Robbie had reneged on his promise to buy him a Rolls Royce for his eighteenth birthday.
As Daybreak Media grew, had there been some kind of power struggle between them?
‘If only we could tell the Water Rats about the forest being sold to greedy developers,’ Jude had said to Ms Flowers. ‘Apparently, they’re eco-warriors. Jess and I helped them stop a fox hunt. Maybe they could hold a protest or tie themselves to trees or something.’
‘If they have a website or a contact email, what’s stopping us from letting them know about the rare owls and woodpeckers?’ Ms Flowers had replied. ‘Leave it to me, Jude. If I can find a way to send them the article, I will. They might not be aware of it.’
Jude had sprinted from the library, smiling. Ms Flowers had a way of making him feel they were in things together. Like Jess, she was always in his corner.
Now, as he sat beside his locker wondering whether he could run the Explorer’s Challenge in his school shoes, a familiar feeling of defeat was creeping through him. With minutes to go until the bus left for the Brecon Beacons, his trainers were still missing.
‘What’s up, Gray?’ asked Garrick, smoothing his hair in the mirror on his way through the changing room. ‘Need any help?’
Jude was taken aback. He couldn’t remember the last time Garrick had called him anything but Stink Bomb.
‘I’ve lost my trainers.’
‘Hard luck. Hope you find them.’ Garrick turned to go, then paused. ‘What size are you, dude?’
‘Nine.’
‘I have a spare pair if that’s any use. They’re trail runners, better suited to hilly terrain than trainers. You’ll be less likely to twist an ankle in them.’
Jude hesitated, sensing a trap. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. Look, I know I gave you a rough time for a while after you got here. I’ve always felt bad about the swimming trials. This is my way of saying sorry.’
He opened his locker and handed Jude a box of shoes. ‘I’ve worn them once. Try them. They’re cutting edge tech. Bouncy as slippers.’
They looked brand new. Jude put them on. They were as bouncy as slippers. Tight slippers.
‘Cadets, what’s the hold-up?’ demanded the PE teacher from the doorway. ‘If you’re not on the bus in the next three minutes, we’re leaving without you.’
Garrick grinned. ‘Just helping Gray out with some fell runners, sir. His have been mislaid.’
Mr Vesper, bouncing on his own top-flight fell runners, grinned back. ‘Helping the competition? That’s the spirit, Lord. Come on then, boys. Let’s move.’
26
TOMBSTONE
The Explorer’s Challenge combined running, hiking and orienteering. Teams of six competed in different sections of the Brecon Beacons National Park for the most prized trophy in Dragon Ridge history.
‘Remember, cadets, this is more about teamwork than speed,’ Mr Vesper told the boys as the bus rattled through the narrow sunlit lanes. ‘A unit is only as good as its weakest link. The forecast is for a March seventh high of twenty-two degrees today. That’s climate change for you. Keep hydrated. If you feel faint or otherwise incapacitated, stop where you are. We’ll collect stragglers later. In an emergency, your team lead will call my mobile.’
Before Jude had reached the top of the first hill, his left heel had been rubbed to a pulp by Garrick’s ‘cutting-edge’ shoes. Three kilometres on, he was limping so badly that he had to quit the race. He hobbled to a patch of shade and painfully peeled off the fell runners.
Two of his toes were bleeding. Three had been reduced to bloated, blistered piglets. His teammates went on without him.
Mr Vesper, who came by soon afterwards, was unimpressed.
‘You’re pathetic, Gray. Truly,’ he said pityingly, jogging on the spot as if to prove that he was three times as fit as Jude, despite being three and a half times his age.
Jude lifted a bloody foot. ‘It’s Garrick’s shoes, sir. They’re a size and a half smaller than he said they were.’
‘Don’t try to shift the blame to a boy who’s done you a kindness,’ barked Mr Vesper. ‘It was your responsibility to check they were the right size. Now you’re going to have a long boring wait until I can send someone on a quad bike to collect you. Two hours minimum, I’d say. Put on sunblock and keep your fluids up. Don’t add heatstroke to your problems.’
He shook a finger at Jude. ‘And don’t you dare move or talk to strangers. A person can vanish in a heartbeat out on these hills. Mr Blakeney will have a fit if you’re on the front page of the Daily Gazette for all the wrong reasons.’
After the teacher had gone, Jude made himself comfortable on a bed of heather. A slow grin spread across his face. He wasn’t angry with Garrick for pranking him yet again. He could not have cared less about the Explorer’s Challenge.
Garrick had actually done him a favour. Sore feet were a small price to pay for a few hours of freedom and the chance to lie in the sunshine drawing in lungfuls of sweet, herby Welsh air.
To Jude’s irritation, Explorer’s Challenge competitors and instructors kept stopping to ask if he was OK, so he relocated to a better position fifty metres off the trail. From there, he could see without being seen. When the quad bike came, he’d hear it. Until then, nobody would bother him.
Relaxing in a heathery hollow, he had a roof-of-the-world vista of hazy blue mountains and a patchwork quilt of farmlands in the valley below. He made out the crest of a dried-up waterfall and, beneath it, a silver lake like something out of the legend of King Arthur and his knights. Jude could imagine himself pulling an Excalibur-style sword out of it.
The landscape reminded him of the characters in Lone Wolf, a story he’d fallen in love with. The Brecon Beacons were hardly the Swedish wilderness, yet hikers, campers and the army recruits who trained on the moors were frequently caught out and even killed by the fickle Welsh weather.
It occurred to Jude that what happened in fiction could happen to him in real life. He could soon be the star of his own high-stakes adventure. If Mr Vesper forgot to send a quad bike, and a snowstorm moved in, would Jude survive if he wasn’t found for days?
Could he build a shelter like Markus in his book? Could he start a fire and find water to drink? Could he eke out his sandwiches?
Jude thought he probably could. He understood now where Jess’s inner confidence came from. She was armoured by the detectives in her books. Lost in a snowstorm, Jude would choose to be armoured by the adventurers he’d read about, both fictional and real. If they could survive polar temperatures and gales, attacks by savage beasts, and hunger so extreme that they ate their own shoe leather and were thankful for it, surely Jude could cope with a little Brecon Beacons’ blizzard?
He squinted up at the blue sky. For the time being, there was approximately a 0.0001 per cent chance of snow. Unzipping his backpack, he took out the mysterious postcard and studied it for the hundredth time.
You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending . . .
God speed.
Whoever had sent the postcard cared about him, Jude was sure of it. That ruled out the Blakeneys. And Jess had flowy, artistic handwriting, so it wasn’t her.
Who then?
Out of nowhere, he was struck by a thought. His mum had told Gabe that her husband had died saving his best friend. When the twins moved to Blakeney Park – where Jim had once been a humble groom, and their mum had been a carer changing sheets and bedpans – they’d assumed that the best-friend story she’d told Gabe was an invention, like her name, Ana.
But what if it wasn’t? What if Jim and Robbie Blakeney really had been best friends?
How would Clifford have felt about Jim, a mere servant, replacing him in his dad’s affections?
Jealous enough to send Jim’s widow packing the moment he passed away?
Spiteful enough to accuse Joanna of stealing a ring?
It was worth investigating when he returned to Blakeney Park for the Easter holidays, but Jude parked the thought for now. It was too glorious a day to waste thinking about the Blakeneys. He was about to tuck into a sandwich when he noticed a band of wild ponies on the slope below.
Jude couldn’t resist going to see them. After getting a fix on his position – lining up a twisted tree, a sharp boulder and a gap in the hills – he picked his way carefully down a steep path, wincing when the prickly undergrowth came into contact with his injured toes.
He’d almost reached the horses
when he heard Monty’s plummy tones. ‘Trust me, it’ll be fine. I’ve scoped out every angle. From the trail, it’s impossible to see us.’
Jude had a split second to avoid being seen. He belly-flopped behind a boulder, landing heavily in a clump of bracken and gorse. He had to bite his fist to stop from crying out when a wicked thorn pierced a blistered toe. By the time the pain had receded, the boys were so close he could hear one of them burp as they clomped past.
‘What could go wrong?’ Garrick was saying cheerfully. ‘At least fifteen boys I know have done it. That’s why I told you to bring microfibre towels. We’ll dry off, take the shortcut and be at the rendezvous point on schedule to meet the bus.’
‘Why do they call it tombstoning?’ asked a boy whose voice Jude didn’t recognize. ‘The name creeps me out a bit.’
Jude was shocked. Teddy had told him that tombstoning was a craze in the area around Dragon Ridge. Kids risked death and broken necks jumping off cliffs, piers and waterfalls.
He risked peeking around the boulder. His worst fears were confirmed. Garrick and his pals were headed to the ledge of the old waterfall that Jude had seen from his vantage point earlier.
‘No one forced you to come, JJ,’ Monty was saying. ‘If you were scared, you could have stayed behind. If it makes you feel better, it’s called tombstoning because you jump in feet-first, not because you wind up needing a tombstone.’
‘Right. Cool. Can’t wait,’ said JJ.
‘Won’t it be freezing?’ said Thomas. He sounded nervous too.
‘What’s got into you both? It’s February, so, yes, it’ll be a trifle chilly,’ Garrick said impatiently. ‘If you’re a baby about cold water, you shouldn’t be on the swim team. And if you’re worried about dying or getting paralysed, don’t be. There are no rocks in the landing area. It’s quite safe. We’ll be in and out in five minutes. Everyone I’ve talked to tells me this is much more of a rush than Dead Man’s Cove.’
Wave Riders Page 17