The Climbers

by Keith Gray

  Mish pretended not to see me scrub my eyes dry as we went downstairs. She was good like that.

  It was still warm out and not quite fully dark yet. Harvey was waiting in my driveway with his phone in his hand. He seemed kind of excited, kind of nervous. He jittered on the spot. My first thought was that I didn’t often see him without his twin brother. He was panting as if he’d been running.

  “I’ve been trying to call you,” Harvey said, waving his phone.

  Our driveway was all cracked concrete and weeds. The fence running along one side leaned worse than the Tower of Pisa. Our car wasn’t there, so I guessed Mum was still at work. She worked at the pub and probably had to send Nev home before he got too drunk.

  “Why haven’t you got your phone on?” Harvey asked. “I’ve been trying for ages and ages.”

  I did own a phone. But I hardly ever switched it on because a zombie had more life than the battery. I was embarrassed because it was so old and crappy – like everything of mine. Except my bike. The bike Mum had got me for my birthday was the newest thing I’d ever owned.

  “He’s stolen your bike,” Harvey gasped. He shoved his phone in my face to show me some blurry photos. “Nottingham has. He’s stolen your bike and hung it up at the top of Crazy Ash Bastard.”

  CHAPTER 8

  I didn’t believe Harvey at first. I really, really didn’t want to believe him. But when I checked, my bike wasn’t leaning up against the wall under the kitchen window where I’d left it earlier. And so I ran all the way to the park.

  Mish ran with me. We left Harvey behind because he’d already run all the way to my house and was too knackered to run any more. I reckoned his massive brain was so heavy it weighed him down. He was always last in sports.

  I was swearing as I ran. The park was only a few streets from my house and we didn’t slow down once. I was swearing and telling Mish just how I wanted to kill Nottingham.

  The park gates were closed, but we knew a gap in the hedge we could squeeze through. The play area was in darkness; the footy pitch was a silent open space under a small moon. We ran across the dry and lumpy grass and saw two figures standing in front of Crazy Ash Bastard. A golf club and a brick. Zoe and Marvin.

  “Where is it?” I shouted at them. “What’s he done to it? Where’s my bike?”

  They both pointed up into the tree.

  I almost tripped over my own feet as I stared up into the tree’s shadowy canopy. Over twenty metres up was my bike, moonlight glinting off the wheels and handlebars.

  CHAPTER 9

  “How?” I said, looking up at Crazy Ash Bastard and my bike. “How did he …?” I could hardly speak. “How did he get it up …? Up there?!”

  “It’s tied up with rope,” Marvin said.

  “You saw him?” Mish shouted. “And you didn’t stop him?” She was as gobsmacked as me at what had happened.

  Marvin shrugged. “Thought it was funny,” he said.

  “None of our business,” Zoe added.

  “I thought you were meant to be my friends,” I said. “Not his.”

  And this time Marvin and Zoe both shrugged.

  “At least Harvey told you about it,” Marvin said. “Your bike might have been stuck up there all night otherwise.”

  “How the hell are we supposed to get it down?” Mish asked.

  But I had a different question. “Where the hell is he? Where’s Nottingham?”

  Marvin and Zoe didn’t know.

  “He lives down Elmore Lane,” Marvin said. “Maybe he’s just gone home.”

  “I thought he lived on Ina Crescent,” Zoe said.

  The anger and stress was making my head boil. “So I can’t even go get him to fetch my bike down if nobody knows where he lives.” I was grabbing at my hair in hot handfuls, almost pulling it out.

  I shouted, swore, bellowed at the tree that had my bike tied up in its high branches. But all my rage and frustration was aimed at Nottingham. I shouted so damn loud I reckoned he might have been able to hear me no matter which street he lived on.

  “This is crazy,” Mish said. “Totally crazy.”

  “Nottingham picked the right tree, then,” Zoe said.

  Nobody laughed.

  “You know he’s done it as revenge for what happened in Spider Trap, don’t you?” Mish said to me.

  I curled my lip. “Nottingham got a few cobwebs in his face and some spider bites,” I scoffed. “Big deal.”

  “What you did was a mean and crappy trick,” Mish told me. “You know it was. You started it.”

  “He put my bike up a tree,” I shouted, jabbing my finger in the air.

  Mish nodded. “Exactly. He’s decided to go twice as mean, twice as crappy.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “Watch me go three times, four times, five times.”

  Mish shook her head at me. I realised she did that more and more these days. I hated that she kept acting so big and clever, like she was so much smarter than me all the time.

  Suddenly my anger was aimed at her. “If you’re not even going to help me get my bike back, then why don’t you just get lost?” I yelled at Mish. “Go home and do stupid French for school instead, if that’s more important to you.”

  She stepped away from me, shocked. And I turned away so I didn’t have to see the hurt in her eyes.

  “You can’t climb, so you can’t help,” I told Mish, despite having my back to her. Then I looked at Zoe and asked her. “You’ve climbed Crazy Ash Bastard before, haven’t you? Can you help me get my bike down?”

  I didn’t watch Mish walk away across the moonlit football pitch. I stepped up to the tree.

  CHAPTER 10

  Climbing Crazy Ash Bastard was dangerous. Climbing in the dark was dangerous. That was why me and Zoe went slow and careful.

  Harvey had finally made it back to the park. He stood with his brother watching us. The pair of them were soon nothing more than chunky black shadows far below.

  Most ash trees weren’t that difficult to climb. They had springy but strong branches that could take quite a bit of weight. They weren’t too bushy with leaves so that you couldn’t see where you were putting your feet or reaching with your hands. And you didn’t get many bugs and insects living in them. If you asked me, I reckoned ash trees were maybe the most beautiful trees too. But not this one.

  In the old days, before I was born, people in the village used to saw off and steal branches from this tree. I supposed because ash wood was great for making furniture and stuff. A special village law had to be passed to stop people doing it in case they killed the tree altogether. But lots of damage had already been done and whatever bits of branches that had been left grew in strange ways over the years. They seemed to stick out at wrong angles or end in ugly stumps. Like I said, ash trees should look beautiful. This one looked crazy.

  Zoe and I had to feel in the dark for the good branches as we climbed. It was extra-slow going. We helped each other as much as we could, pointing out which foothold was safe, which was too risky. If I hadn’t been so mad and angry at Nottingham, I reckoned I might have thought of this as one of my most daring climbs.

  “Sorry if I kind of forced you into helping,” I said to Zoe. “But you know Marvin and Harvey can’t climb like you. Especially not in the dark. It proves you’ve got reach.”

  “You shouldn’t have told Mish to go home,” Zoe said.

  “She can’t climb,” I said. “She couldn’t have helped.”

  Zoe tested a branch. It held. She went higher. “Mish is meant to be your best friend,” she said.

  The branch I was holding didn’t feel strong enough. “She doesn’t act like it much these days,” I said. “She’s changing.”

  “You don’t say,” Zoe replied. “Maybe you’ll start puberty too, one day.”

  “Shut up. You know what I mean.” I yanked on a different branch, but it snapped off in my hand. “It’s Friday night and Mish is doing homework.”

  Zoe showed me which branch was stronger. �
��I heard her talking to Miss Jaden after class last week. And she said Mish was one of the cleverest kids in our year.”

  “We all knew that anyway,” I said as I waited for Zoe to move up one branch higher and then followed.

  “But Miss Jaden said Mish should start using her brain properly if she really did want to go to university one day,” Zoe went on.

  “Why’s Mish even thinking about university when we’re only fifteen?” I asked. “That’s crazy.” I missed my footing in the dark and had to cling on tight. “I bet she changes her mind in a couple of years.”

  “I bet she doesn’t,” Zoe said. “But I bet you she’d be really happy if you said you wanted to go with her.”

  “Why would I want to go to university?” I used the same branch as Zoe, scrambling after her.

  “Because university isn’t this little, tiny, itty-bitty, boring, dead-end village in the middle of nowhere,” Zoe said. “Mish told me she doesn’t want to still be here when she’s as old as her mum.”

  “I like it here,” I said.

  Did I feel guilty about telling Mish to go home? Maybe I would later. After we’d rescued my bike.

  We made it to where Nottingham had tied my bike to the tree. We were about three quarters of the way up. He’d wrapped rope round and round my bike frame and looped even more rope around the trunk.

  “I still don’t get how the hell Nottingham got it up so damn high,” I said to Zoe.

  “He climbed up with the rope first and then pulled your bike up after him,” she said.

  “That’s amazing,” I said, and I realised I really meant it.

  “You’ve got to admit,” Zoe said. “He’s got reach.”

  But I wasn’t going to go that far.

  Zoe shouted down to Marvin and Harvey, telling them that we were going to lower the bike to them. We squatted among the branches and began untying the rope one knot at a time.

  “My mum got me this bike,” I said. “I know she must have saved up for ages to buy it. Especially on her crappy wages. And if Nottingham’s damaged it in any way, I swear I’ll make him regret it. It’s the best thing I’ve got.”

  Zoe grunted as she struggled with the rope and the massive knots Nottingham had tied. I couldn’t see any scratches on the bike’s paintwork, but it was too dark to look properly.

  “I’ve got to get Nottingham back for this,” I said to Zoe. “You agree with me that Mish is wrong to say I shouldn’t get revenge on him, don’t you?”

  Zoe laughed. “What happened today has been the most interesting thing to happen around here in ages,” she said, “with you and Nottingham getting in each other’s faces. I can’t wait for Sunday to see you two racing to climb the last tree.”

  “I’ll win,” I said. “I’m the best climber in the village.”

  “So you keep telling everyone.”

  “I’m going to call it Sullivan’s Skystabber.”

  “We know,” Zoe said.

  “You think King Big and Tall is a crap name too, don’t you?” I went on.

  Zoe didn’t answer but handed me the end of the rope. “When I untie this last knot,” she said, “you better be holding tight. Maybe if you wrap the rope around the trunk it will be easier to lower your bike down.”

  “It’s OK,” I told Zoe. “My bike’s not that heavy. It can’t be heavy if Nottingham managed to drag it all the way up here, right?”

  She nodded. “OK, careful, hold it,” she said. “Last knot …”

  But my bike was heavy enough to pull that final knot undone all by itself. I felt the rope jerk in my grip. I grabbed hold tight. The weight of the bike dragged me forward and I almost lost my footing.

  “Keep hold!” Zoe shouted.

  I grunted and pulled back hard. The rope burned the palms of my hands.

  It took me a split second to realise that if I kept hold of the rope I was going to get yanked right off the branch, right out of the tree.

  I let the rope go.

  I watched my bike fall. It crashed down past the branches, slipping and sliding between the leaves in the darkness. It felt like my stomach fell with it.

  Zoe shouted a warning. Marvin and Harry dived out of the way.

  My bike smashed and shattered when it hit the ground.

  PART 4

  Oak (Quercus robur)

  Deciduous – Europe – 25 metres

  CHAPTER 11

  I carried my bike all the way home. It had hit the ground with its back wheel first and that wheel had been crushed with the impact. The spokes had exploded from the wheel’s shattered rim. The whole frame was bent and twisted. The seat had popped off like a cork from a bottle of sparkling wine. My precious bike was a mess.

  I walked away across the park and didn’t dare say a word to Marvin, Harvey or Zoe. Marvin offered to help me carry my bike, but I just shook my head. I was worried that if I tried to speak, if I even opened my mouth, I’d start crying.

  I struggled home with my wrecked bike and hid it right at the back of our overgrown garden, like a dirty secret. All the time I was trying to think up an explanation for Mum. How could I tell her what had happened? She had worked so hard and saved so much to buy me that bike. I didn’t have a clue what to say.

  It was almost midnight, but Mum still wasn’t home from work. Nev was watching TV in the living room. I headed straight upstairs to my room and sprawled on my bed without taking off my clothes or even my Swift Runs. That was when I began to cry. I pulled the pillow over my head and sobbed.

  My hatred for Nottingham burned like a bonfire inside me.

  CHAPTER 12

  Waking up the next morning was tough. I’d dreamed it had been me who’d fallen from Crazy Ash Bastard, not my bike. Maybe I wished that was exactly what had happened.

  I reckoned I was more tired than I’d been the night before. I didn’t want to get out of bed. So I stayed deep under the duvet listening to bits of conversation between Mum and Nev downstairs. No way did I want to join in.

  At just after nine Mum knocked on my closed door and told me that she was going to the supermarket. She reminded me not to forget my homework. I heard Mum walk down the stairs, open the front door, close it behind her, start the car and drive away. But I still didn’t get out of bed.

  The house was quiet. I wondered if Nev had gone out too. All I did was stare at the ceiling, trying to decide if I should tell Mum my bike had been stolen. I decided to charge my phone for the first time in weeks, thinking I could call Mish and ask her what I should do. But I didn’t even know if Mish was talking to me any more.

  I wished I hadn’t got angry with her last night. But I wished she wasn’t changing so much. Suddenly my friendship with Mish felt as wrecked as my bike and that made me want to cry all over again.

  What at last got me up and out of bed was knowing that I didn’t want to face Mum when she came home again. She’d only need a second to suss something was wrong with me. Avoiding her seemed so much easier than lying to her.

  I told myself I’d go to the park and have a practice climb on the last tree. If I didn’t beat Nottingham to the top tomorrow and didn’t get to name the tree, then everything – EVERYTHING – would be the worst ever!!!

  I went to use the bathroom. Nev was just coming out and he’d stunk up the place to high heaven.

  “So what was last night all about, then?” Nev asked. His face was pale and shiny, no doubt from a headache and hangover.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Didn’t seem like nothing,” Nev said.

  Maybe there are some younger brothers who can ask their big brothers for help and advice. Not in this house.

  I decided to dodge the stench Nev had left in the bathroom. I grabbed my rubbish phone despite it being nowhere near fully charged and headed downstairs and outside.

  Another hot day. I walked to the park but didn’t go near any of the trees yet. There was no one in the play area, so I sat on a tiny swing and phoned Mish. She didn’t answer. I tried to think of ano
ther time, ever, when I’d called Mish and she hadn’t answered. How come yesterday I’d had friends and a cool bike, and I’d been the best climber in the village too, but today everything had gone so bad?

  Nottingham.

  All his fault.

  CHAPTER 13

  Spiteful ideas popped into my head as I dangled on the swing. I thought about smashing Nottingham’s bedroom window by chucking massive branches through it. But I didn’t know where he lived and I reckoned I’d end up in worse trouble doing something like that anyway. No, I decided the best revenge would be beating Nottingham to the top of the last tree. I would prove I had reach and was still the best climber in the village. It would feel sweet and glorious.

  I crossed the park thinking I was going to practise climbing the tree that would soon be called Sullivan’s Skystabber. But halfway across I decided I just wanted to get up high and see the view. Getting above everything down here normally made me feel better.

  The best tree for a wide and amazing view was the oak we called Double Trunker. It was the second-tallest tree of the Big Five and sometime in the past it had been sliced almost completely in two by a huge lightning strike.

  The lightning hadn’t killed the tree. Over the years its two halves had carried on growing, together but always separate. There was a gap between its two trunks that got wider as they reached higher. Down low you could jump from trunk to trunk as you climbed. At the top the gap was so wide you’d need to be damn brave, or plain stupid, to try leaping across.

  We often had races on Double Trunker. Despite its height it was the easiest of the Big Five to climb. Oak tree branches were always thick and sturdy, and Double Trunker didn’t have too many leaves that could get in your face. Some said the south-side trunk was easier than the north-side, so we always flipped a coin to see who got which trunk to race up. The loser was normally pelted with handfuls of acorns. I didn’t care. I’d never been pelted with acorns because I’d never even met a climber who could come close to beating me on either trunk.