by James Erith
And so long as it continued raining and the three big water containers were topped up using his upside down umbrella water-catching device, they would survive. If it stopped raining for more than three days, then they were in trouble.
After chewing the food as best they could and swilling it down with a cup of water, Gus tried to not think about kissing and the quite extraordinary buzz that tingled all the way through him and set about thinking about how they could get The Joan Of back to land.
They talked as he went about his tasks, the first of which was trying to make a sail. Occasionally he would ask Sue to hold things or to pass him a nail or a piece of wood. Then he gave her a length of string and Sue threaded it down a section of the tarpaulin which he’d cut with his penknife and as she did this he wrapped it around a long length of wood which was to be the mast. When this was done, he wedged the upright tight between the seat and the prow of the rowing boat so that it stuck up in front of The Joan Of. For good measure, he nailed the timber into the prow and bound it with rope.
The course they sailed would be the direction the wind blew and he hoped like crazy they’d catch an easterly wind which would blow them back to the English coast.
Wherever they were going, perhaps now they would get there faster.
WHILE GUS MOVED up and down the tiny boat, making adjustments and checking his ropes and trying to get wind in his sail, Sue reached into the wooden box stowed under the main seat and fetched out a fishing line. She remembered a conversation between Archie and Kemp when they’d been discussing their fishing tackle. Something to do with sweet corn as bait and shiny objects that she thought looked like large earrings. Lures. She looked in their supplies. Three tins.
She checked the nylon line. It seemed fine, as far as she could tell. She found a rounded, double hook that looked like a tiny anchor which curved back on itself. Surrounding it were some faded feathers with a hint of sparkle. She opened the tin and popped two corns onto the spikes and a couple in her mouth with her fingers and savoured the sweet juice.
Carefully she removed one of her own earrings and, using the fishing line, tied it close to the hook below the feathers. Very slowly she let the line out, further and further until the lure disappeared behind a gentle roll of water.
Gus popped his head down. ‘Everything OK? Mind if I squeeze past? I’ve just got to tension the mast and then we’re done.’
Sue shuffled along as Gus stood up, threw the rope above the canopy to the other end and scuttled after it.
The moment he pulled the rope, the wind caught in the tarpaulin and the boat lurched forward.
‘Wa-hey! It works,’ he exclaimed. He reached down and squeezed her shoulder. ‘We’ll get somewhere in no time,’ he joked.
‘Or is that nowhere in some time?’ she threw back at him.
Gus beamed. The sea was calm and the lapping of water as the waves bent around the bow of the boat was a truly positive sound.
He sat down next to her. ‘Now, would it be alright if we go back to just before “tuna”?’
She giggled, turned to him and they kissed, briefly.
But now Sue broke away. A look of panic filled her face.
‘What is it now?’ Gus said.
‘Fish!’
‘What?’ This time it was Gus’ turn to be confused. ‘Hell. Where?’
‘FISH!’ She pushed him away. Her arm was outstretched at a ninety degree angle.
Gus stared at her with a puzzled look on his face.
She stared back. ‘Help me!’
‘Uh?’
‘Look.’ She pointed to where her other arm pointed out to sea. ‘I think I’ve got a fish!’
Gus suddenly understood. Gently he helped her wind in the nylon line around the plastic unit. His hands on hers, keeping a steady rhythm.
‘Not too fast, but you’ve got to keep it moving.’
‘I think it’s a big one,’ she said, before turning pink.
Gus didn’t notice. ‘Let the line slack a bit and then pull it in again. Don’t lose the tension!’
She did as he said and slowly started to bring it home.
‘You can do it!’ he said. ‘Go on, land it yourself!’
Sue’s arm was about to fall off and she shot him a look of panic. ‘It’s too heavy!’
Gus’ hand came back on hers. ‘OK. When you think you can, we’ll pull it firmly in one fluid movement into the boat.’
The fish was close and angry. Sue could see it thrashing in the water. She wound the line twice round the plastic coil, stopped and turned to Gus.
His face was beaming. ‘Keep going, it won’t bite!’
Sue could see its dark silvery coils, its black eyes staring back at her. Two more twists. Her fingers hurt. She pulled gently, wondering if her muscles could take it. Gus, with his big hands on top of hers, steadied himself.
‘One more and then up and into the boat,’ he said.
‘Ready?’
Together they heaved and the fish slipped out of the water and thudded into the boat.
The fish thrashed, its tail flapping and sliding and thudding against the wooden planks, until Gus grabbed a hammer and bashed it on the head. The fish stopped, its battle lost.
He beamed at Sue, his eyes sparkling. ‘You did it, Sue!’ he cried. ‘First go.’
He had no idea what kind of fish it was but it meant that, if they drifted out to sea, at least it would give them more time. They wouldn’t starve. Brilliant, brilliant Sue.
‘Sushi for tea?’ he said.
‘Yeah! I love sushi,’ Sue replied, her face radiant and her eyes sparkling.
FIFTY
THE BOULDER
Archie fell to the ground. Rock and stone dislodged from the ceiling and thudded down over the cavern floor. He rolled under an overhanging lip as the tremors shook. His heart pounded.
‘Old Man Wood!’ he screamed. The old man stood in the middle, covering his head. ‘Move! Here!’
When the tremor ceased and the noise of the gears kicked in, he wondered what sort of hell the girls must be going through deep down in the depths of the cliff.
Another tremendous rumble forced his hands over his ears. The boulder at the front of the cave began to move. Slowly, incredibly, it rose up from out of the ground. Archie jumped out from under the ledge and thumped the air.
‘Come on! Keep going, keep going!’ he yelled.
But as quickly as his euphoria started, it ceased, for the boulder simply stopped. And there it sat, the same size, the same width, but with no part nestled under the ground. It was perched in the entrance.
Why didn’t it roll away?
His attention was grabbed by a ghostly noise whistling up the stairs.
Hell, the girls.
He ran over. He could feel the wind, stronger now, as an awful, swirling noise grew louder and louder. Without warning, and just as Daisy threw herself out of the small hole, a huge jet of water smashed into the ceiling. Archie ducked as spray douched the cave.
In the following moments, all hell broke loose. Going at the speed of a cannonball, Isabella smashed into the ceiling and crash-landed directly on top of Daisy.
Both lay on the ground. Motionless.
Archie’s heart nearly stopped. He ran to Isabella and found her smothered in gashes – some deep, dark red, others pink where skin had been peeled away by the rock. Blood ran through her hair and streamed across her face, her arms and her legs. Her body was limp, her arms shattered and bent over like towels over a washing line.
‘QUICK!’ he screamed at Old Man Wood. ‘Quick! The girls – your potion.’
Together, they carried the girls to the far end of the cave, away from the spray, and laid them down on a stone slab.
Archie turned and swore. The cavern floor was already filling with water, the boulder acting like a seal, holding the water in.
OLD MAN WOOD’S face was as pale as milk as he nursed Isabella. Her clothes were shredded to bits, her arms dangling.
He moved both girls as high as he could and pulled out his little bottle of healing liquid which he placed to their lips. The Resplendix Mix would mend and make them stable. He didn’t know how – but it would – so long as the bottle opened.
Almost immediately, Daisy opened her eyes.
Now Isabella’s turn. He pushed the bottle to her lips and she gasped as the first drop hit her tongue, coughed on the second and screamed as the third drop set to work.
Old Man Wood kissed her forehead. ‘Be brave, young Bells,’ he said soothingly. ‘Healing, littlun, is a painful business.’
And this, he thought, as he studied her torso, was really going to hurt.
ARCHIE WADED THROUGH THE WATER.
He had to move the boulder and fast. But how? He weighed it up and heard Isabella moan, then scream in agony. She was alive. It spurred him on. He had to try – even if it was impossibly large. There was no other alternative.
If he could turn it a fraction, jog it a couple of millimetres, then at least some water would rush out.
He waded around to the side of the huge boulder, put his hands and chest in the water and tried to find a hand-hold. Too smooth. By the time he’d worked his way round to the other side, water lapped at his chest. He dived down and this time his fingers touched on a little ridge. Perfect. He stood up and took as big a breath as he could, sank down under the surface, bent his knees and, with every ounce of strength, he heaved. And he didn’t stop lifting until every particle of oxygen in his frame departed.
Archie resurfaced, with only his head and shoulders above water. He gasped, drew in a huge lungful and went again. He found his hold and heaved once more.
He felt something shift. It definitely moved.
He kept it up until, once again, he had to surface for air. Archie stood on his tiptoes, gulping. One more go. He looked over towards Old Man Wood who held the girls over his shoulders his eyes shut tight.
Archie’s eyes were bulging. It had to be this time.
He ducked under. His fingers grasped the stone hold and he crouched low, bending right back on his haunches. Then, gritting his teeth and using every muscle in his body – he heaved. It moved again, surely, but not enough.
Archie resurfaced, treading water. So, so close. Maybe one more try.
He wondered whether he had enough strength left in his body. Treading water wasn’t helping. Could he do one more? He swam up to the boulder and, as he looked up at the sphere, an idea struck him.
Why not shove it from the top? He’d have more of a hold. Perhaps he could rock it – create a gap for the water to wash out and away.
He swam to the side and climbed on top of the stone, so that while he pawed the ceiling with his hands, his feet gripped the crown of the boulder.
Archie sucked in a couple of huge mouthfuls of air, bent his knees and pressed.
Nothing. He felt hopeless.
At least Old Man Wood had clambered up onto the stone ledge with the girls. He had a couple more minutes.
Archie shut his eyes as an image of him trying to push a boulder came into his head. How could he possibly be expected to move a boulder?
He grinned and then chuckled as again he saw himself, in his mind’s eye, doing something so dumb, so stupid, so ridiculously impossible, that it was hard to believe.
He chuckled louder, seeing himself – a boy on a boulder, trying to move it. Then he started roaring with laughter. He smacked and kicked the boulder in total hysterics.
‘What a stupid, stupid fool you are, Archie de Lowe,’ he sang, between howls of laughter.
As he did this, he reached the top of the boulder and, using the ceiling as a prop, he pushed and pulled in a rocking motion, singing and laughing like a maniac.
He was still laughing when he felt the extraordinary sensation of movement. Then a wobble, then a feeling of water flashing by.
Archie held on to the top of the cave like mad and only when he realised what was happening did he allow his grip to lessen.
‘OH MY GOD! It’s moving!’ he screamed. ‘HEEELP—!’
And in the nick of time, as the boulder started to rotate, he hurled himself off and landed in a pool of muddy water.
As the roar of water rushed by, he watched the huge boulder smash everything in its path as it thundered down the hillside, the cave water following closely behind.
FIFTY-ONE
MRS PYE’S STORM
A heavy drizzle from low grey, clouds in the failing light matched the de Lowe’s sombre mood. Looking around, it was hard to imagine the place they knew so well could look so smashed, pulped to bits, beaten up. And it had all happened in a few wretched, brutal hours, almost exactly one day ago.
Boulders, rocks, sand, mud, trees, bushes and branches lay scattered and splintered randomly, with no care or enterprise. When they stumbled on a few paces and rounded a large, protruding section of rock, the valley opened up beneath them and, even in the dank gloom, they gasped. From their vantage point on top of the hill, the surroundings were significantly less mangled than in the valley where the water had obliterated everything in its path. Beneath them, a moving body of water stretched as far as the eye could see like a big, flat, silvery-grey monster. In the distance, where the tops of the gentle valleys of the Vale of York rolled, small hillocks had emerged like little islands, stretching out like the backs of crocodiles lying in a river.
When they turned towards the school, only the reflective grey of the water and the distinctive school tower and chapel roof reached up into the sky.
For several minutes the four of them stared, agog, at the extraordinary sight. This was destruction on a terrifying scale and, from where they stood, it seemed quite possible that only they had survived.
Archie looked on while holding Daisy’s hand, who in turn held Old Man Wood’s hand who carried Isabella over his shoulder.
A sudden emptiness and helplessness threatened to overcome them.
‘It’s so quiet,’ Daisy whispered, ‘so, sort of … dead.’ Her strange red eyes bulged, full of tears. ‘Like we’ve discovered a different planet.’
‘No birds, not a twitter,’ Archie said. ‘Everything churned up as though it’s been in a gigantic mixer.’ He felt sick.
Isabella woke, and moaned. The accelerated healing effect of the Resplendix Mix potion had knocked her out, and the pain had dropped off to mildly less excruciating. Already, astonishingly, the multiple scuffs and lacerations over her body were beginning to close. She too wanted a look.
Old Man Wood set her down, and for a while the four of them sat quietly on the fallen bough of an old oak and viewed the landscape, a gentle wind brushing their faces.
‘I hope the house is still in one piece,’ Daisy said at length. ‘And Mrs Pye’s not been flushed out.’
Old Man Wood groaned. ‘Only one way to find out. Ready to go?’
Collectively, they turned away and limped slowly on, their feet squelching in the mud. Old Man Wood hoisted Isabella back over his shoulder and picked out a path, mindful of larger puddles and steep banks of slippery mud.
Before long they came over the brow of the hill and looked out over where the cottage should have been.
‘It’s gone,’ Old Man Wood said, wiping away a tear.
‘No it hasn’t,’ Daisy said. ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Daisy, it isn’t there anymore,’ Archie said.
‘Trust me, please,’ Daisy said. ‘It is. You’re all being very dramatic.’
And there, as they approached, perfectly camouflaged amongst the debris at the top of the hillside, sat their stone cottage, its roof covered by moss and lichen, blending in seamlessly with the greens and browns of the forest. An impressive oak tree now leaned into the courtyard in such a way that the crown of the tree enveloped the house, making the buildings all but indistinguishable from the carnage around.
Only Daisy, with her extraordinary eyesight, could see it.
For a while their thoughts were of the worst, but when Daisy spotted
a thin plume of smoke curling out of the chimney they exchanged glances and smiles, their eyes sparking into life. They knew that Mrs Pye was safe and that comfort and food and warmth and sleep were not far away.
Never had the rough, misshapen, stone house in the middle of the forest on the edge of the Yorkshire moors been a more welcome sight.
MRS PYE WAS SITTING in the kitchen, fretting when she heard scuffling noises in the courtyard. Must be my imagination playing tricks again, she thought. The sound of a soccer ball being kicked over the paving slabs, a sound like sandpaper on wood, was a noise she associated with Daisy and Archie. That and shouts and laughter: happy sounds of the children.
She tried to put it out of her mind and concentrated on lighting the fire again.
Then her ears instinctively pricked up again, just as they had at every sound since she’d caught a glimpse of the old man leaving the house the day before wearing a builder’s hard hat. What an astonishing rainstorm – blasting out of the sky hour after hour. She’d never seen or heard anything like it. And as the hours slipped by she didn’t dare go to bed, just in case they returned. In any case, the lightning was simply terrifying. So she went round the house, cleaning and mopping up water and singing loudly. For in her heart she knew something terrible was happening.
An ache, like a stubborn splinter, pierced her and, for the first time in years, the long scar beneath the mop of bright orange hair on her forehead throbbed, giving her a pressing headache. She pined for the children. It was as though a cord had been severed between them, as though part of her soul had become detached. She tried to put these feelings behind her and soldier on. She had to. They would return, she was sure of it. What would she do if they didn’t?
A staggering amount of water had poured down the various chimneys dotted around the house. Mrs Pye had waddled round as fast as her legs would carry her, placing buckets in every grate and under every chimney flue. She’d been entirely preoccupied with mopping water out of each fireplace, rolling up the hearth rugs and adjacent carpets and then emptying the buckets outside or down the sink. Round and round the house she went, from the children’s bedroom in the attic to Old Man Wood’s room to the parents’ room, then downstairs to the kitchen and sitting room and the study, across the courtyard through sheets of rain to her apartment and then back again, and again. Each time drenched to the bone. She was thankful that the house sat at the top of a hill and had a big, oversized roof which made the water run away. Or else, she thought … or else.