Fish Page 8

  With every nerve and muscle tight like a bowstring, it only took a bird launching itself from a tree nearby to send me rushing into a panic again. I was near a small hole, not big enough to be called a cave mouth, in the side of the outcrop, and I flattened down and wormed my way in.

  Once inside, I lay and listened and tried to pull myself together. Even then, I was sure it was men I had heard, crashing through the trees. I decided to carry on along the passage as I would be safer there than outside.

  It was dark and cool, even cold, but once my eyes got used to it there was somehow enough light to see. Surely that meant it had to open out somewhere ahead?

  The last part was quite hard to crawl along like a caterpillar, because your backside hit the ceiling as you pulled your knees underneath you to shove forward again. Every so often my backpack, which I'd forgotten about, would catch on the ceiling. I heard Fish's water glooping about from time to time, and wondered what he thought of all this, as his little world turned dark and chaotic.

  Suddenly I came to an opening at the end, held on to the sides, and lowered my legs onto a convenient ledge. I was out of the passage, and into a large cave, but high up on a ledge. It was just possible I could jump down and land without hurting myself, but that wasn't what was worrying me.

  The cave had obviously been lived in, and recently. There were the remains of a campfire in the middle and goatskins around on the floor. I started to think about crawling back down the tunnel, but at that moment angry voices, men's voices, froze me to the spot. They were walking right into the cave, arguing, and it was too late to move.

  I was perched sideways on the ledge opposite and above them, with the narrow hole of the tunnel behind me offering the only hiding place. If I moved, though, there was no way they could miss seeing me, and I couldn't make it back down the tunnel quickly enough—they would be waiting at either end for me to come out. Unable to move anywhere, I stayed rigid and silent, with my toes and fingers touching the sandy ledge, and my knees almost on my chin. I told myself that, unbelievable as it might seem, they might not look up and notice me.

  As they paced around the ashes of the fire, waving their arms about and discussing fiercely, I recognized them as the men who had visited us. Though I couldn't follow what they were saying, it became clear that the one I'd nicknamed Stocky was picking on the young man who had seemed so uneasy about the Guide.

  The younger man said little, but, with the same scared eyes of the night of the visit, firmly kept repeating something and putting his hands up in front of him, shaking his head in a way that clearly enough said “No way.”

  Leader, with his impressive beard, was saying very little, shaking his head now and then as if tired of the younger man. He said something briefly in a pause, and the argument seemed to die down for a moment.

  Now I looked at Stocky, his back to the light coming in through the cave mouth, I recognized him as the man who'd opened fire on us. The same man who had smiled so much at my parents, and said what wonderful work they'd done. A chill ran through me and I felt pins and needles in my legs. I felt I would have to move soon, or I'd be stuck like this forever.

  Just then, he stirred the ashes of the campfire with his foot in a cross way, and I saw that it wasn't quite out. It came to life with a soft red glow, and a waft of smoke drifted up toward me with the gorgeous smell of some kind of roasted meat. I could see a few burnt bits of bone on the edge of the embers, their leftovers from breakfast. They'd obviously had plenty to eat after all.

  I was just thinking that they had been lucky getting away with a fire in a cave like that without anything like a chimney to take the smoke away, when I had a new and terrible problem to deal with.

  My mouth started to water and my poor stomach, hungry as ever, came to life and let out a loud, rumbling gurgle. Horrified, I stiffened all over. none of them appeared to have heard it. They continued moodily staring at the fire and saying nothing. I willed them to start arguing again. You will know, if you have ever had a rumbling stomach, that there's nothing you can do to stop it.

  Again, my stomach growled—this time, surely they would hear it.

  In fact, the youngest man looked around, but luckily behind him, at the mouth of the cave, and said something that might have been “What was that?”

  That was all it took for Stocky to start having a go at him again—I guessed it went along the lines of him being scared of everything and imagining things.

  Then Leader stood up and spoke low and menacingly to the youngest man, who, to my surprise, began to get very agitated and shout back, flinging his arms about.

  The echo of his voice bounced and crashed around the cave walls as I cowered on the ledge—Stocky began to shout too, till all the echoes met each other and made a booming that seemed to hum between my ears, and make my heart in my chest shake with the vibration. Just when it seemed unbearable and I thought if I didn't get out of there, I'd fall, there was a tremendous blast that thumped through my skull.

  I opened my eyes; to my surprise, the roof of the cave was still there, and I was still on the ledge. But the youngest man was doubled over, clutching his side. I saw the sunset glow from the fire streak along the barrel of a gun that Stocky was lowering from his hip, and realized that he had shot the younger man.

  The injured man turned in a flash and ran, staggering out of the cave mouth. Leader, who seemed almost bored by the whole business, said something to Stocky, and they hurried out too. Now was my chance, I decided. I had to get out. They could be back any moment.

  I tried to haul myself back into the hole, but found my arms had no strength left and I could barely straighten my legs. Again I tried, but just could not lift myself.

  With no choice, I sat on the ledge, looked down, and making sure I missed the fire, pushed off.

  As I'd expected, my useless legs buckled on impact and I rolled over and over on a floor that had looked sandy from above, but that just about every part of my body told me was in fact very rocky. There was no time to check Fish's bottle. I trusted and somehow felt that it would be OK.

  I bolted for the cave mouth and darted through it, fear now making my legs work instead of freezing them. I didn't know where I was going, but I turned instinctively in the direction opposite to the one the men had taken.

  Only a few paces on, I heard a shout, and glancing back over my shoulder, saw Leader looking behind him and straight at me. I hurtled on, along a path that led steeply downward through scrub and trees, trying hard not to fall over my own feet.

  Because the path twisted and turned, I could hear them following, but knew they lost sight of me from time to time. What to do? Come off the path and hide in the scrub? It didn't look thick enough to hide a dog. Outrun them? Where to?

  I knew I couldn't run for long, but I put all my effort into a final sprint. If I could get distance between us, I might have a moment to hide—somewhere. I turned a corner and there—in front of me—was the narrow mud-stream. I sized it up in a moment. It was about four feet across, and normally I might have jumped and cleared it, but I had just used my last ounce of energy in the final sprint. Cramp was seizing every muscle in both legs.

  I also saw that the other side was clear and open— if I made the jump, I'd be right out in front of them and they could just stand and shoot. Don't ask me what I was thinking of, or how the idea came to me. It didn't—I just—well, jumped straight into the mud.

  I went down slowly at first, and I remember having time to think. It's an odd situation to find yourself willing yourself to sink faster, faster.

  Down, down I went, and just as the mud came up to my ears, I reminded myself to take a big breath, and imagine I was swimming, or going under the bath-water.

  The most terrifying moment was as I saw the surface of the mud stretching out from the bump on the middle of my nose and I shut my eyes and pulled my head under.

  The mud was freezing and it wasn't like being underwater. You can shut your eyes underwater but it isn't the
same dark as the blackness of closing your eyes under mud. You don't become instantly wet, like in water. Even under the surface, the terrible cold oozing and trickling carried on, as the mud rushed under my clothes, around the neck and armholes, crawling everywhere, as if searching out every part to take control.

  I hung on to my dad's voice in my head, reading something out of a book of amazing facts, something about: “People can hold their breath for …” What was it? Three minutes? Three minutes, I told myself, whether it was true or not. Three minutes would surely do. It was the best anyone could do.

  The blackness and the cold and the complete silence were starting to terrify me. “Pearl divers, however …,” continued my dad's voice. I forgot the rest, but struggled desperately to remember. That was it! I couldn't remember how long they could hold their breath, but anyway, they could go deeper underwater and hold their breath longer than anyone. I found myself thinking that I didn't need to know how long as I couldn't have timed myself with a watch if I had one, as I wasn't going to be able to look at it right now. At first, that made me want to giggle, but then I was scared I was going mad, so I gave myself a little shake.

  My feet had hit the bottom, I realized with relief. That was something, at least. The mud settled and held me very firmly. I could be a pearl diver, with practice, with believing in it, I thought.

  But slowly, surely, my chest started to ache and a pulse pounded in my head and I knew I had to get up to the surface again for air. I tried to imagine the men running up to the edge and wondering where I had gone. How long would they stand around and wait? Maybe they would have a lengthy argument again. Surely they'd take the path along to the right? But maybe they had seen the movement in the mud— they'd know what I'd done.

  I put that out of my head. There was nothing else I could do now. My chest was bursting and I decided to let the air out, which would at least buy a second or two more time. It was like keeping yourself busy— something else to do.

  I had worked out that I would do that, and then surface for air. But as I said, mud isn't like water. I blew the air out as slowly as I could as I started to paddle for the surface with my arms, but it was almost too hard to blow out through the sticky mud, which started to ooze in between my lips straightaway. For a moment I didn't move upward at all, and I thought my feet must have stuck in the mud forever and would hold me there until I died.

  But the drought must have made the bed of the stream hard enough to be firm and solid, even under the mud, and a push with my knees meant I was slowly moving upward at last, pushing down with my hands and arms like the slowest, clumsiest bird you ever saw.

  The hardest part was pulling my arms up against the mud for another push down, and my backpack dragged painfully on my shoulders and seemed to weigh five times as much as before.

  Suddenly I remembered Fish. I had rescued him from mud like this—what must it have seemed like to him to be sinking into it again? Then I remembered that the lid of his bottle would be screwed on tight, and that he was still breathing easy in his own element. The mud would be too thick to squeeze through those tiny pinprick holes. He would have coped much better than I. He would be fine, if I could just get out of this.

  A frog-style kick with my legs and suddenly I felt no resistance on my arms, as they must have come out into the air above the mud. One more push down with them, and my head would be out.

  As my face broke the surface, I opened my mouth and dragged in a great gulp of air. I couldn't see a thing, and mud was between my teeth, over my tongue. Somehow I flailed, blind, toward the bank, got my hands on it and felt my feet firm on the stream's bed again, at the shallow edge.

  The terror of not seeing, now, was everything. Were they standing there, guns aimed? Would I hear a shot and then it would all be over, without seeing anything? Would they stand there and wait for me to get out and just take me captive? Eyes still tight shut against the mud I could feel streaming down my face, I scraped the backs of my hands over the sparse grass I could feel on the bank, then pulled my fists over my eyelids.

  When it seemed I'd cleared away enough of the mud, I opened them. Everything was blurry and my lashes were still caked, so I looked out on a world fringed brown at the edges.

  The first thing I saw was some type of rough material, right in front of my nose. I couldn't make sense of that at all, so I looked up and slightly beyond it, then stiffened. There were the two men—Leader and Stocky. They were looking straight at me.

  It was all over, then. It was almost a relief. I wanted to say, “All right, here I am.” But I didn't. For some reason I just stood there in the mud still, and waited.

  It all seemed strangely calm. They spoke quietly to each other in a bored way, as if they'd finished a job, and to my surprise, started to turn and walk away. It hit me suddenly. They hadn't seen me!

  As they disappeared along the path, I looked again at the rough material almost against my nose on the bank. My eyes were clearing. I looked along it—it was something about the size of a large tree trunk. It must have blocked their view of me as I surfaced.

  Slowly, slowly, I realized the fabric was clothing. Slowly, slowly, not wanting to look, I saw feet at the end further away from me, and turning my eyes unwillingly to the end of the shape nearest to me, I saw dark, curly hair, the back of someone's head. It was the body of a man, lying with its back to me along the bank.

  Though it was further to wade to the end with the feet, fear made me choose that way. Clinging to the bank and going crabwise, I made it as far as I thought I'd need, past the feet, to be able to get out without touching it.

  Painfully I dragged myself out of the mud and crawled on all fours a little way across the path. I don't know why, but I seemed to have lost all fear of the men, and didn't think about them returning. I peeled off the backpack and set it upright. It looked like part of a brown statue. I wiped a finger over Fish's bottle, to make him a window, and saw him dart and flash behind it for a moment. Like a dog drying itself, I scraped myself over the ground and rough grass, anywhere, to get the worst of the mud off.

  Then, when I was ready, I sat down and faced the dead man.

  It was, of course, the youngest man, who'd been shot. It wasn't as scary, or as bad as I thought, to look at him. He had a nice face, and he just looked peacefully asleep. There was a terrible dark stain on the side of his clothes nearest the ground, but you didn't really notice if you didn't look at it. And I decided not to.

  I must have sat there for a long time, but I didn't notice that either. I felt lots of things that are hard to put into words. I wondered if he knew he'd helped save me, even though he was dead. I was angry with the other man for shooting him. And for just leaving him here like he wasn't worth anything. I sat there and felt that somehow I was keeping him company. none of this makes any sense, I know, but maybe my head was a bit mixed up from being in the mud and everything.

  Then suddenly something changed, and I felt I didn't need to be there anymore. He was gone, after all, and there was just a useless body. And at exactly that moment, Mum, Dad and the Guide appeared from the path to the right of me, and Mum rushed up, but I couldn't stand up or even look pleased, I just sat with my arms around my legs, and my forehead on my knees, and started crying for no good reason, just when people could see me.

  I managed to stop fairly quickly when they all put their arms round me, but then I started to shudder and shake and couldn't talk and tell them what had happened because my teeth were chattering too much.

  They were very good, and didn't ask questions or tell me off for running the wrong way in the first place, like you'd expect grown-ups to.

  One of them got a blanket from somewhere and put it round my shoulders as I was shaking so much, and Mum said, “It's the shock,” and I managed to stop my teeth clanking together long enough to say, “What shock? I'm freezing because the mud was so cold.”

  Then Mum and the Guide started to rub me all over with the blanket, which was very rough and hairy, so
it did work really well at getting off the mud and warming me up. I wondered why Dad wasn't helping and looked across at him sitting next to me and was shocked to see he was crying—my dad— crying!

  “Dad! Please don't!” was all I could think to say. He was very quiet about it, I will say—but still. Then I felt guilty, I don't know why, and said, “I'm sorry, Dad. But I'm all right.”

  “No, no, Tiger. It's not your fault. It's all mine. I'm just—it's just happiness, you know, like women do at weddings sometimes.”

  I didn't know. I'd never been to a wedding. I looked at him doubtfully. The Guide touched his shoulder.

  “Come on, now,” he said simply.

  NINE

  Like me, the adults seemed unhurried and calm now. The Guide stepped across the mud to the other bank, using a huge log that had fallen, and collected other bits of tree and wood, making a dam. Then Dad sort of passed me across and we took the path on the other side with no problems.

  There, at the end of the path, stood the donkey, with her back to us. When she heard us coming she turned and gave a little wheezy bray of welcome. It was so good to see her, I had to run up and give her a hug, though I think it was the Guide she was pleased to see really.

  “What happened to her when we all ran off?” I asked.

  “Good as gold,” said Dad. “She seemed to just tuck herself away somewhere, and popped back out when we did.”

  The path this side was clear of scrub, and wide, and we sat down at the edge where the mountain fell away again below us. Here we told our stories in quiet voices.

  Mum and Dad had run in the same direction as the Guide, who had practically had to fight them both, by the sound of it, to stop them rushing off to find me while the armed men were still racing about looking for them. They had managed to remain hidden in the scrub until it was safe, and had then started to search. All of them were very cut about by thorns.