Savage Island

by Bryony Pearce

  The brightness faded slightly as I got used to the stabbing light. A gull sat on a stone in front of me, cawing angrily.

  A gull?

  Now I moved. I managed to get on to my elbows.

  I wasn’t home.

  I rubbed sand and grit out of my eyes, and rose painfully to my knees. I ached everywhere. How long had I been out? Where was I?

  Slowly my mind caught up with my body. Gold! That’s right. I had to get help. The current had taken me to a shore. Now all I had to do was find someone. I swayed on to my feet and turned round, seeking some kind of clue to show me which direction to go.

  Then I fell back to my knees.

  On the beach in front of me was a plane. A small passenger plane with one broken wing. There was a burning smell and the wreckage was blackened.

  Some of the seats had been torn from the plane in the crash. Carmen lay on one. There was a spur of metal sticking out of her chest and the whole of one of her arms was missing. Her pink-tipped hair was splayed over her face. I began to retch.

  Others lay around the plane. Some in seats, some out. Wang An was lying on top of one wing, his body spattered in sand. The girls, Somia and Pasha, were curled up together as if they were asleep. Curtis was there, his red hair splashed with blood, his freckles pale. There was no sign of his friend, Elliot.

  Finally, I located Will. He was inside the plane. I tottered towards him, hands outstretched, whispering his name.

  His hair was hanging over his face and there was a large bloody bruise on his forehead. He wasn’t moving or breathing. His usually mobile hands were utterly still.

  I looked for a reaction, but I was empty – as if my soul had been hollowed out with a spoon. I staggered backwards, then turned to the beach.

  “Lizzie!” I screamed her name. Where was she?

  I found her in the water. Tangled in a seatbelt, her legs were trapped beneath the fuselage and her face was half-submerged. Her blue eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted.

  I fought to pull her free and then dragged her into my arms. I kissed her, gently, on the lips, half-thinking it would wake her. She was rigid and chill.

  “Lizzie?” I pleaded.

  They were all dead. All of them. It was so real, so unquestionable that I started to wonder – had we actually been in a plane crash? Had the last three days been a … nightmare?

  Then I realized that someone else was missing.

  Grady.

  “Hello, Ben.”

  I turned. He stood there, clean and showered.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Guess who’s been given his first job?” And he walked towards me, smiling.

  Acknowledgements

  There are many people whose hard work goes into making a book, too many to thank, but special mention must go to my father-in-law, Charles Pearce, who, by telling me all about geocaching one day, sparked off the idea for Savage Island. What if you were geocaching, I thought, as he explained it all, and you found a finger in the box?

  Writing inspiration comes from a hundred different places, but this time, it came from Charles.

  Thanks also to all the schools that I visited with this very idea – “What do you think would be in the boxes?” I asked them, “and what would you do, if it meant winning a million pounds?”

  And thanks to my nephew, Ben, who gave me information about his time doing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and who told me that at the first geocache, he would have given up a tooth.

  Thanks to my editor, Ruth Bennett, and the wonderful design team at Stripes, and to my agent, Catherine Pellegrino, whose help and support is beyond price.

  Thanks also to friends and family, who have tolerated me along the way. Particularly to my husband, Andy, and children, Maisie and Riley. Always filling my heart.

  And to the other authors who have been shoulders to cry on, voices of sanity and cheerleaders. You’re all amazing!

  Thank you.

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Press

  1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2017.

  First published in Great Britain in 2018

  Text copyright © Bryony Pearce, 2018

  Cover copyright © Stripes Publishing Ltd, 2018

  Mountain illustration © Shutterstock/PNE

  Circle illustration © Shutterstock/Hakki Arslan

  Map illustration © Artful Doodlers, 2018

  eISBN: 978–1–84715–871–0

  The right of Bryony Pearce to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  www.littletiger.co.uk