by Susie Day
Max couldn’t see New Potato. He couldn’t see any of the sheep; they must have gone somewhere warm, or sheltered. He was glad of it. Glad of all of it, despite Thelma and the worry and Dad gone so silent. This place. He felt part of landscape that was ancient and wreathed with magic. He felt part of a world where it snowed, and you felt it on your hands and had time to notice. He felt an odd sense of calm, of rightness, that he couldn’t remember feeling for a long time.
From inside the house, a phone began to ring.
Max spun and stumbled through the deep snow, falling on his hands and scrabbling through the drifts to reach it.
‘Dad? Hello?’
‘Oh! No. I’m not Dad, I’m Elis.’
Max let out a breath. Of course not. Dad didn’t have this number.
‘I can tell it’s you, you muppet,’ he said.
‘I’m just being polite, Max. It’s what people do when they phone someone, you know.’
Max almost didn’t care that it wasn’t Dad. It was so warming to hear Elis Evans, talking in his clipped way, a little bit cross.
It didn’t last. Elis Evans had not called for a chat.
‘Now don’t panic, Max, but also perhaps panic just a little. I’d attempt approximately fifty per cent panic.’
‘Elis,’ growled Max.
‘So there’s a bit of a problem about the cottage.’
‘What problem?’
‘Er … my mum found out. And … she’s not very happy, Max. I’m in quite a lot of trouble. She took away my Christmas presents from under the tree. And one of them was shaped exactly like a telescope.’
‘Oh. Sorry, Elis.’
‘Thanks. I’m pretty sad about it, even though I think my dad’s buying me a remote-control plane, which might well take up a lot of my time anyway.’
‘Uh-uh.’
It was no use rushing Elis Evans.
‘I didn’t tell her, though! I want you to know that, whatever happens. But … well, she’s just phoned Mr Bevan who looks after the cottage, to check it was all ready for the snow. You know it’s going to snow a lot, right?’
Max didn’t say anything. Mr Bevan who looks after the cottage was Bill. Max felt a foul guilty feeling expanding in his chest.
‘I expect you do. Anyway … well, Mr Bevan who looks after the cottage said it was so lovely having the cousins to stay, and the kids hadn’t been any bother, and … well, she made him describe them. And she guessed it was you. I can’t believe you’re still wearing my squirrel jumper.’
Max didn’t care about squirrel jumpers. He cared about the wall of trouble that loomed ahead.
‘She’s quite angry, Max. Really very angry. She wanted to phone the police. Mr Bevan said that it might not be the best time of year to do that, because they do get busy at Christmas, and what with the weather. So she’s not doing that. Yet. But … Max, she’s driving up there now. Right now. She’ll be there in about six hours.’
24
Six hours.
Just six hours. Maybe less if Bill Bevan came hurrying over, offering help Max didn’t want. And it would all be over.
‘OK, Elis. Thanks. OK. I’d better go now.’
‘Good luck, Max,’ said Elis Evans.
And the phone went quiet.
Max stood in the peace of the old cottage and looked out at the snowbound valley, still and silent. He claimed this moment, this one last moment, committing every softened edge and gentled sound to memory, down to the hotness of his freezing ears and the rhythm of the snowfall. This was his. If all else was lost, this was his.
Then he hung up the phone, and set his shoulders.
There was nothing for it.
Wait for the weather was good advice, but he didn’t have time for good advice. The snow was only going to get deeper, and time had run out. It was now or never for Max to meet the dragon of Y Ddraig Aur and steal his gold.
Only then would Elis Evans’s mum understand. And Bill and Michael too, and Tal. And Dad. He’d come back with the gold and they’d all see why they’d come, why they’d stayed, and be glad.
They’d understand.
They’d forgive him.
But it had to be now.
Max dressed quickly, pulling on layers so he could strip off if he grew too warm and wrap up again when he stopped for a break before he got too cold. He packed a small backpack with everything he could remember from the day with the dog: the torch from last night, waterproofs, water bottles, bananas and chocolate biscuits. He didn’t have a first-aid kit, but he threw in some plasters from a box under the sink. He found there too a small square silvery shape with EMERGENCY BLANKET printed on it and threw that in too. An extra fleece, just in case.
One of the copper cauldrons from beside the fire.
The old curve-bladed knife from the kitchen.
The fire blanket.
He set a hat tightly on his head. Then he added a waterproof coat that only barely zipped up over all his fleeces. Gloves came last.
He should leave a note. A note to explain, like Thelma did. One that would be calm and reassuring and make no one worry.
GONE FOR A WALK, MAX.
It was vague enough to cover his back. And to make it exciting when he returned laden with gold.
He felt a thrill inside at the thought of it: fear and excitement, both at once.
Time to go.
He pulled the door closed as quietly as he could.
Max looked back across the road, to the Bevans’ house. The lights were on, a golden glow in the dark. The doors of the mountain-centre van were open, ready for that day’s walk.
Michael was taking another school group out today, he knew. Max was invited – or he had been.
He longed to knock on the cottage door. It was Tal’s dragon as much as it was Max’s. Tal should be here with him.
But now that the Bevans knew his secret, it was impossible. He felt his face burning with shame at what Bill would be thinking of all his talk of Dad in bed, unwell in the head; of Michael’s quiet hours of effort. They would hate him now.
Bad Max. Stupid Max. Little Max Kowalski, who couldn’t get a thing right.
So he would do it alone. He didn’t need anyone else. Dad said you could only trust one person, and that was the face in the mirror.
Max turned to the mountain, and swallowed hard. It was pure dark still. There was nothing but flurries of snow in his torch beam: no zigzag path, no purpled moss. This was madness.
He struck out along the field boundary.
The snow was lying deep in places and his boots sank lower than he expected. Snow found its way under the cuffs of his waterproof trousers, damping his socks. But the rest of him was hot, too hot, and he stopped at the foot of the mountain to peel off two fleeces before zipping the waterproof back on, as quick as he could to keep the falling snow from soaking the rest of him too.
There was a soft low mehhhh to his left.
Max looked up, swinging the torch beam, and there was the black sheep, New Potato: wishing him luck or warning him off, Max couldn’t tell. It stood still in the middle of the path, hot breath coming out in steamy gusts and its woolly back dusted with snow. It was quivering.
‘Go back,’ said Max, giving it a push. ‘Don’t come up here, it’s dangerous.’
Mehhhh, said New Potato.
Max walked on and the sheep followed for a few steps, as if it was planning to be his companion. Then it stopped, shivered, and began to lick at a frosty clump of green fronds attached to a fence post. When Max walked on, it didn’t follow.
Max felt bereft. He’d expected company. And a sheep wasn’t Tal, or Elis Evans, but it would be less lonely somehow to have had other eyes on the path.
He carried on, glad to have walked this section once before, grateful for the deep cut of the zigzags. The snow lay less deeply where the wind had blown it up in drifts at the edge of the path. It was falling more softly now, smaller flakes and slower, but the wind was bitter. He felt his cheeks growing ice
-cold and was glad of the hat, wishing he’d worn two.
Dawn began to creep into life, a slow-blooming lightness. The sky was pale grey behind the snowfall, the snow bluish and twinkling where the light caught its crystals. Max turned off the torch, but it was too soon. When he tried again, a few minutes later, he could see the path well enough without it.
He stopped again, peeling off another fleece and shoving it into the bag along with the torch. He pulled out a biscuit – gone in one mouthful.
Got to fuel the engine, he heard, in Michael’s voice.
When he looked up again he could see a shape in the distance, back along the path from where he’d come. It was a person, walking fast, a bright red coat against the snow.
Someone was following him.
25
Max pulled his bag on to his back, and picked up the pace.
He couldn’t be caught. Not now. Not today, when today was his only chance. This mountain was his, his and Tal’s.
He had to get there first.
The path was slippery, snow settled and packed down hard underfoot; slippier still where there was bare rock, laced with ice. Max nearly fell twice in a few footsteps, and told himself to slow down. It would be no use falling and injuring himself.
The wind keened, like a wounded animal.
Max was, he knew, doing something very stupid. He was alone on the mountain, in bad weather. If he did slip and break an arm, or a leg, or even twist an ankle, there was no one to help him. No one knew where he was. Tal might guess, of course. But Tal might not be his friend any more; not when he was here, setting off by himself for gold and glory.
There was that other walker, behind him.
But Max didn’t want their help. He couldn’t let them catch up. This was his.
He chose his steps carefully, pausing every now and then to look back.
The walker in red was catching up.
It was hard not to feel chased; harder not to hurry. But Max stepped and stepped, following the line of the zigzags cutting a clear dip in the snow until it reached a confusing divide, unremembered. He stopped to check the guidebook. Snow fell on its pages and he scanned it quickly, recognizing the line of a stream cutting across the path above, before he shoved it back into his bag guiltily. He’d dry it out later. He’d hang it over the fire and let it steam.
He was smiling when he looked behind him again, imagining it – but the smile vanished at once.
The walker in red was much closer now.
The walker in red was not just a walker.
The walker in red was running towards him, beaming, blonde curls pouring out from under her cap, and his name called breathlessly on the wind.
Ripley.
‘You stopped! Phew. You were going so fast I thought I’d never catch you up.’
‘What are you doing out here?’
Max’s voice came out strangely, his frozen cheeks stiff and unused to talking.
‘Going for a walk. Like you.’
‘You can’t! It’s too far. I’m going a long way, Ripley! All the way to the top.’
Ripley looked up through the lightly falling snow. ‘OK. It’s not very far.’
It was, Max knew; far beyond the rise above them, further than he’d ever gone before.
‘I mean it, Ripley. You can’t come. You have to go back.’
But as he said it, he looked into the white blur of the path back to the house and knew it was impossible. He had no idea how she’d managed to get this far by herself. There was no way he could send her back alone.
He’d have to walk back with her.
But if he walked with her, there wouldn’t be time for him to climb the mountain.
Max looked down at her hopeful face, and turned away, shouting his frustration into the wind. It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. He’d tried so hard to make a good plan, and this wasn’t his fault, the snow and her following him and Mrs Evans on her way to ruin it all.
‘Sorry,’ said Ripley, in a feeble voice.
She looked utterly downcast.
It wasn’t her fault either. None of it was.
Max looked at the path, and the path back. He looked at Ripley in her warm red coat, far too big, and her borrowed boots. She was wrapped up just right. He had enough chocolate for two.
It was meant to have been two of them going on this adventure. He was meant to have company.
‘You have to not moan, yeah? Even if it’s cold and takes a long time. If I let you come, you have to be quiet and sensible and do what I tell you. OK?’
Ripley didn’t bother to answer. She just flung her arms round his middle and whooped.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, peeling her away. ‘Save your breath, you. You’ll need some puff to get up to the top.’
Ripley pressed her lips together and blew out her cheeks, as if she was storing some up.
Max rolled his eyes even though he was smiling.
She let out her breath with a gusty sigh.
And the two of them set off up the mountain together.
26
‘Are we really going all the way to the top?’ asked Ripley.
‘Yes.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s at the top?’
‘A dragon.’
‘Oh.’ There was a long pause. ‘Max, a real dragon?’
‘Yes, a real dragon.’
‘Oh. What do we do if we meet it?’
‘Dragon-slaying.’
‘Oh.’
Max waited for her to ask how exactly he planned to slay the dragon. He wasn’t sure himself, to be honest. But she simply looked thoughtful.
‘Do you mind if I don’t help? Because I don’t think I would be very good at it.’
‘Sure.’
‘OK. You slay the dragon and I’ll watch from behind a tree.’
‘There won’t be any trees, Ripley. Not up at the top of a mountain.’
It would be bleak and barren, sharp spikes of rock and deep-lying snow.
‘Oh. Then I’ll just watch.’
Max nodded.
‘What do dragons eat?’
‘Sheep, mostly.’
‘Oh! Poor sheep.’
Ripley sighed, and he could tell she was fretting about New Potato.
‘Do they eat people?’
‘Only ones who talk too much.’
Ripley sniffed. ‘You’re just making that up.’
He was. And he didn’t mind her chatter; not really. It was good to not be alone in this strange cold place he’d never been before. She believed he could go up to the top, and defeat a dragon when he got there, without question. She believed more than he did.
Max kept walking, up and up and up, repeating the words he’d learned in his head.
The zigzag path ended at the peak you could see from the garden, at a tump that ended in a plateau that was deep in snow.
Max felt panic. He’d been here before, he knew, but it looked utterly unfamiliar. Ahead, there was no path: only a wall of white. The sky was white too, fog hung in the air like a curtain to vanish away the mountain beyond. Max felt a knot in his throat that made it hard to swallow. This was impossible, just impossible. You waited for the weather, otherwise there was no way. There was no mountain to climb. Only endless snow and the guarantee of losing your way.
He made out he was fussing with his gloves, pulling them off and adjusting the fingers. He turned as if to admire the view, and saw the valley lying below clear like a picture on a Christmas card: white-edged cottage roofs, decorated trees, snow still falling softly.
It was not beautiful to him. It was a taunt, the world he couldn’t have. It was failure.
‘Oooh,’ said Ripley softly, behind him.
When Max turned, his lips parted.
The fog had drifted. Where there had been nothing but white, suddenly there was the steeply sloping path up the scree, the route laid out again in the dips of blown snow. It was as if the mountain had heard his h
eart, and laid itself open for him.
He saw a group toiling up the mountain path across the dip in the ridges, on the next mountain: Blaidd Ddrwg, he remembered from the map.
Michael’s school group, here from the mountain centre.
He wasn’t so daft then, being out here. Not if Michael thought it was OK.
Max pulled his gloves on, and gave Ripley’s shoulder a squeeze.
‘Come on,’ he said.
The scree was, miraculously, easier this way, with frozen ground packed hard beneath a layer of snow. Instead of stones slipping and sliding underfoot, Max found himself setting his boot hard into the snow, side on, and edging his way up.
Ripley was slower, and he made her walk in front for a time, until that became slower still. Then he made her step where he stepped, into his boot marks cut clear in the snow.
At the top Max stopped. He thought of the dog, trying not to and having to all the same. He looked up. Then he struck out across the plateau.
The snow was deep. Too deep for walking; Max’s leg sank in to the knee when he stepped into the obvious dip ahead, and taking a step forward was almost impossible. So he stepped back, pulling his leg from the packed snow with difficulty. Ripley giggled as he fell backwards, and Max found himself laughing too. It was allowed, he reckoned. It was work, this, but it was OK if it was fun too.
He tugged a blackened branch from the banked snow, and used it to feel ahead of them, hunting for the edge of the path. There it was, like a lip on a pavement: a higher edge to walk along, still deep but not impossibly so.
He poled ahead of every step, marking the way, yelping when the branch sank far deeper than he’d expected, to keep them moving. The snow’s perfect untouched surface gave way to a ruffled wake, and, when Max turned back to see how far they’d come, he was disappointed – this was slow going, slower than he’d like – but also pleased. They’d find their way back easily now. He’d left them a breadcrumb trail of footprints.
They forged on. Ripley stepped into Max’s footsteps, making little hup sounds with every pull.
When they reached the rocks, Max was sweating hard, and he pulled off his gloves again and fumbled in his bag for a biscuit.
