Fish Page 6

  Mum absolutely never cried. Even now, you wouldn't have known it. She sniffed a bit, and her nose went a bit red, but she kept on walking without making any other sound.

  I looked back at Dad, and he must have seen something in my face, because he came up alongside us, put his arm around Mum's shoulders and gave her a sort of sideways hug. That made her stagger and nearly lose her footing, so that she hit his shoulder and they laughed a little.

  By now, we had tracked to the right, away from the bank, and were onto a proper path. As this climbed, it grew narrower.

  We all pressed on, especially when the Guide called back, “We can be at the top before nightfall, if we keep moving.”

  “And then it's all downhill from there,” said Dad, and called forward to the Guide: “Do you reckon a day for coming down the other side?”

  “Yes, yes, less than that. But the downhill part might be trickier.”

  I didn't see how, and our spirits rose. Maybe only one more night out in the open, with our vitamin C tablets and porridge and mouthfuls of water.

  Up, up we went, and I was hardly bothered that my sandals were starting to rub the old sore patches again. After the good breakfast we'd had, we decided not to stop for lunch—we hadn't much food left, and the path was becoming so narrow, there wasn't really anywhere to camp.

  “It flattens out on the top,” the Guide called back, “so there will be a place for the fire tonight.”

  We had come to the narrowest part of the path so far, so that you almost only had room for one foot in front of the other. There was a scrubby, sheer drop to the right, where the mountain plunged down into what looked like a bottomless gorge, and another, larger mountain loomed up beyond that. To the left, our mountain continued up, higher, above the path. The rocky outcrop, dotted with a few bent bushes, nearly knocked your shoulder as you passed. I found it easier going if I didn't look down.

  I looked ahead to see how the donkey managed. She was now in the lead, as the safest one to check the way for us.

  Under the packs her little rump was, I saw, narrower than any of us, except maybe for me. Her hocks almost bumped together, and her hooves were tiny, tip-tupping along on the hard rock.

  “Maybe your wolf will bring us something else for tea tonight, eh, Tiger?” said Dad, always a big eater, and missing lunch more than the rest of us.

  Suddenly, I saw the donkey tilt her head sideways, roll her big eyes and jump to the right with all four feet at the same time. I just had time to glance up at the rocky outcrop to see what had startled her, before I realized that she was almost over the edge.

  Her front and back hooves on the right-hand side slithered off the path. Frantically, she managed to twist so that both front hooves were on the path, but in doing so lost her other back hoof over the edge. Her back end swung out over the gorge, so that for a second she seemed to be only touching the ground with her front feet. She let out a bray of fear.

  We froze for a second. Then, as the dust whirled and the loose pebbles bounced away down the gorge, we realized that she was still there. Somehow, just the toes of her back hooves balanced on a jutting edge of loose rock.

  The Guide rushed to her head, but there was no rope to grab. Instead, he threw one arm around the trunk of the nearest bush, which clung perilously to the edge of the path in the thin soil, and the other arm around her thin neck. He had her, but she wheezed and gasped, whether in fear, or because the Guide's viselike grip was throttling her, I didn't know.

  Mum seized her spiky forelock, as she would have led a pony back in her home country, and braced herself on the path, but the Guide said urgently, “No, or at least, take the bush with your other hand, or she will take you over when she slips again.”

  I didn't like the “when” instead of “if.” Mum and the Guide had the donkey, for the moment, but there was no way they could pull her up, and no way the donkey could pull herself up, with both hind feet balanced on rubble that would give way at any moment.

  SIX

  Dad, who had been standing thunderstruck, seemed to give himself a shake. “It's the packs,” he said, darting over to the Guide and fumbling for his knife in its sheath at his side. “She could get up if it wasn't for the packs.”

  The Guide said nothing, but held desperately to donkey and bush. More stones slid away with a hollow rattle, down into the gorge. The donkey stood, tense all over with the effort of balancing, her eyes wide with fear and her mouth open and gasping.

  Mum said, “But …” and then fell silent.

  Dad sat down on the edge of the path by the donkey's front feet, and his fingers felt along an old tree root. It curved out and back into the soil again like a perfect handle. He pushed his left hand between it and the rock, and gave a good pull. It seemed to hold well enough to satisfy him, and, crouching down, keeping one foot on the path and one just below the root, he reached up with the knife in his right hand and slashed and sawed at the straps holding our bags.

  The Guide's knife must have been very sharp. As quick as a flash, one after the other, the bags fell and crashed away down the gorge.

  “Now!” said Dad, backing up and reaching the path, and he seized a handful of the donkey's mane, and one of her ears, disregarding the advice about holding on to the bush, and all three of them heaved.

  The donkey realized what was going on, made a desperate effort with her shoulders, and managed to get her back feet onto the edge of the path in one bound, almost treading on her front ones. She made one spring forward and was safe, Dad leaping out of her way in the nick of time, with the Guide and Mum almost knocked flying.

  No one could speak for a moment, but coughed and gasped, and banged the dust off themselves, while I just stood as rooted to the spot as I had been when the donkey had first shied. The whole thing must have been over in a few seconds, but it had seemed like a lifetime.

  “Well done, that was very well done,” said the Guide to Dad. “I would not have acted quicker. Only you had the arms long enough to reach so far. But your packs …” And concern crossed his face.

  “If the donkey went, all the packs went too, anyway,” said Dad. “Better save the donkey and at least half of our stuff.” He tried to sound matter-of-fact, but tried a bit too hard, so we all realized at once that he had really only thought of saving the donkey.

  Parents are so strange. You would have had Mum down for the animal lover, as Dad didn't seem to be too interested in them, to be honest. But he had grown fonder of the donkey than any of us, except maybe the Guide—though he wouldn't admit it.

  We all looked at him, the Guide puzzled, and me and Mum surprised, and then Mum laughed and threw her arms around Dad and gave him a big kiss, and then did the same to the donkey. I'm not sure anyone else had done that to the donkey before, but she seemed not to mind and perhaps even liked it.

  The Guide's smile disappeared as he turned to examine his previously expertly tied load, or what was left of it. The donkey now had bags only on one side, but still had the cut straps attached, so he could unload her and redistribute the weight evenly. This was very difficult on the narrow mountain path. The Guide battled to tie on the bags with his back to the rocky out-crop, when there was really only room for either donkey or man, but not both alongside each other. Understandably, the donkey seemed nervous of standing on the edge of the path, and pressed against him.

  Eventually, however, he managed.

  “We've lost none of the blankets, at least,” he said. “Some firewood, but that is not too serious. Most of the cooking equipment has gone, and all but one bottle of water. I am sorry.”

  We were all surprised at his apology.

  “It wasn't anyone's fault,” said Mum. “Something frightened her. I'm sure she wouldn't have fallen if she hadn't been badly scared.”

  “I saw it,” I said.

  Mum and Dad looked at me. The Guide added, “I too.”

  It was true. When I had glanced up to see what the donkey was looking at just as she jumped sideways, I
'd caught a glimpse of a disappearing bushy tail, held low.

  “Some kind of dog again,” I said, checking across at the Guide with my eyes, for confirmation that he'd seen the same thing.

  He nodded.

  “And I'd just made that quip about your wolf bringing us another rabbit!” said Dad. “I bet it was the same one!”

  “No, it couldn't have been,” I said firmly, and they all looked questioningly at me, except perhaps the Guide, who looked as if he knew what I was going to say.

  “Because the donkey saw my dog, or wolf, last night. I think that's why I wasn't scared. Because she wasn't.”

  Mum and Dad didn't seem to know quite what to make of this, but looked over interestedly at the donkey, who just looked back at them rather blankly.

  After this incident, the Guide walked in front of the donkey, to give her reassurance in case she saw anything scary again. I felt sorry for her. She kept well away from the edge now, but kept tilting her head to look up at the outcrop, just in case there was anything up there about to leap upon her.

  In the end, she must have grown tired of twisting her neck, because she settled down to her normal way of going, and we made good progress, reaching the top of the pass just as night began to fall.

  SEVEN

  Just as the Guide had said, the path flattened out and disappeared at the top of the pass. The earth was hard and dry, and scattered with stones and boulders that had slipped down from the top of the mountain, but there was a patch of ground that looked beaten and trampled, with the gray ash of a dead fire in the center of it.

  “Other travelers have stopped here,” said Dad, noticing it. “A wilderness hotel.”

  “Many people have come through this way, to the border,” agreed the Guide, unloading the donkey.

  “There's not much for her to eat, up here,” said Mum. The donkey, free now to wander, looked rather dejectedly around her, and then wandered up to the only bush—sticking out scraggily from the side of the outcrop—and started ripping off the leaves.

  “She must have a castiron mouth,” said Dad, impressed, as the donkey battled calmly with the twigs and thorns.

  “I'm pleased to say you were thoughtful enough to spare her last rations,” smiled the Guide. “There's a handful left. And she knows it.”

  Sure enough, the donkey kept one eye on him, and hurried back to the packs as the Guide pulled out her bundle of dried grass.

  “Can't see a drop of water, though,” said Dad.

  “She can manage a long time without,” said the Guide, “long enough to cross the border, though she'll be pleased to have some then. It is we who have the problem, however.”

  This reminded everyone that we had run out of food, and had very little water as most had gone over the edge with the baggage Dad had had to cut away.

  Mum started sorting through our remaining packs in a hopeful sort of way, and eventually pulled out two more sachets of powder, which were a salt and sugar mixture you could mix with water.

  She sat back on her heels and looked at them in dismay.

  “Not really a lot of use with only a couple of mouthfuls of water each. I don't know—do we want our water plain, or flavored?”

  “It might be medically advisable to use that stuff, but I'd like to keep it plain for some reason,” said Dad, and we agreed. It didn't exactly taste bad with the sachets added, but not that good, either.

  Dad started digging around in his own pack, and after a lot of fumbling around said, “Aha!” and pulled out a crumpled piece of silver foil.

  “I saved four pieces for just such an emergency. From the food parcel Granny sent last month.”

  “Chocolate!” me and Mum shrieked.

  The Guide smiled and then laughed at us as we clamored round Dad, but no amount of encouragement from us would persuade him to take his piece, so Mum and Dad gave me two.

  Although we tried to suck and not chew it, it soon melted and was gone, and then we had to have a swig of the valuable water to wash it from our dry mouths and throats.

  Meanwhile, Dad had started to make the fire. He was good enough at it now, it seemed, to satisfy the Guide, because he let Dad get on with it and stopped hovering and helping, as he had done when Dad had first tried.

  “I am not a hunter, just a guide,” said the Guide, passing the water bottle back to Mum after his turn, “but I will just see if there isn't a rabbit. I don't know why there would be, with so little to eat up here, but the dogs we've seen must eat something.”

  And he dusted off his khaki shirt and trousers and set off, with the donkey watching after him, but seeming to know she wasn't supposed to follow.

  While Dad fussed around the fire, poking in a twig here and there and blowing on it when it was going perfectly well, I checked on the Fish.

  He seemed all right, but hung near the bottom, looking smaller than I'd remembered and paler. Mum had tutted about the little plastic water bottle the first night we'd camped after transferring the Fish to it from the bowl.

  “It's far from ideal,” she'd complained. “Fish need a nice big open area on top to let in the air. The shape of this bottle does exactly the opposite. I would normally cut it down about halfway, but you can't carry it open like that. The water would come out as it sloshed about.”

  Finally, she'd had to make two tiny holes in the plastic top with a needle, and we'd jammed the bottle upright for carrying, among my clothes in the top of my backpack, so that the neck of it just stuck out from the flap into the air.

  “Sorry, Fish, there goes your view,” I'd said.

  Whenever we'd settled for the night, I'd taken off the lid to try and let in more air, and just hoped no one would knock the bottle over. I always found the best rock I could to avoid this happening, and twitched and shouted, “Watch the Fish!” every time anyone went past it, until the grown-ups started mimicking me.

  “What do you think?” I asked Mum as she came to inspect the bottle and its contents. “Do you think he'll make it?”

  “How do you know it's a he?” she asked, staring at him.

  “I don't. Actually, he looks as much like a she. I just don't like calling him ‘it,’ ” I explained.

  “Anyway, he, she or it is going to make it, I'm sure,” she answered. “As the Guide said, none of this is ideal. We are just hanging on because things will be better soon.”

  “Does the Fish know things will be better soon, though? Maybe he—or she—won't really try, if he thinks he will always be stuck in that bottle?”

  “Creatures are so tough,” said Mum, “it's amazing what they'll put up with. Poor Fish was still trying to breathe in the mud puddle, wasn't he, when you pulled him out. Maybe thinking, It's worth it, more rain might come and fill this pond again—who can tell?”

  “That's true,” I said, “I do hope the Guide finds something to eat. I'm so hungry. I can't imagine walking tomorrow on no tea and no breakfast and no lunch.”

  Mum put her arms around my shoulders and gave them a big squeeze. She is small, as I told you, but has arms with an iron grip.

  “But we will if we have to. And we can, can't we? Because we know the border is at the bottom of the mountain. And Dad can call a truck from the other aid workers to carry us to the camp. And there'll be food and water at the camp. And then—”

  “ Then we get to go on an airplane?” I asked hopefully. You have to remember, I was only small when I'd come to this country on a plane and couldn't really remember it. The idea was still pretty exciting to me.

  Mum laughed.

  “Yes, then, then we'll go on an airplane, back home. And we, at least, will be a bit more comfortable.”

  While we had been looking at the Fish and talking, night had come and gathered the sky, dark and cold, around us. There were a few stars, but the moon only shone as a grayish haze.

  “Cloudy,” said Dad, squinting up at the sky from where he crouched by the fire, rubbing his hands. “That's good. A clear night up on the top here would be even colder.”


  There was a silence for a moment, and I think we all thought about the Guide at the same time, because we would normally be eating by now, and we hoped he might find something. I saw the donkey pause in her chewing for a moment, and stare with pricked ears toward the direction the Guide had taken.

  When we heard the sound of a footfall, we all looked up hopefully. But out of the gloom, not one, but three ghostly figures emerged.

  Mum and Dad stood up and faced them straightaway, while I grabbed my Fish's bottle instinctively and clutched it to me.

  The three men stopped just outside the circle of light thrown by our fire. They were dressed in the normal, pale robes of villagers, but they clasped guns slung across their chests and had belts of bullets low around their hips. I suddenly realized that they looked as cautious as Mum and Dad.

  There was silence for a moment while they took in the scene, and my parents stood there, looking ridiculously as if they were about to tell off someone they'd found wandering in their back garden. For a moment I felt a terrible urge to giggle rise up inside me, but I stared hard at the men's guns to frighten it back down again.

  The first man, who had a bit more of a beard than the other two (which was maybe why he got to be in the lead), released his hold on his gun and let it swing, looking relieved, but puzzled. The two behind him, seeing this, did the same.

  Dad spoke first, in a language he'd learnt before he came to the country, but which wasn't used by the local people. I only knew the language of the village— a dialect, Mum called it—so I didn't understand him, but I thought it sounded questioning, welcoming but firm all at the same time—a bit like a head teacher asking what a new kid is doing hanging around in the corridor, if you know what I mean.

  The first man looked even more relieved and pleased, obviously because he understood Dad, and he prattled back at great speed. I could see Mum and Dad looking a bit perplexed and concentrating hard. They still found it difficult sometimes when people spoke quickly. Dad gave up trying to follow what the man was saying, rubbed his forehead and said to Mum, “He's speaking in another dialect, isn't he?”