The Longest Night of Charlie Noon
Page 5
Hope rising, we all look up at the same time to see a pitch-black sky. It takes a second or two for my eyes to adjust away from the torch beam’s glare, but then I realise that it isn’t the sky that’s black but the woods themselves that have shut out the sky. The criss-crossing branches hold up a roof of leaves, now painted the colour of night.
“So much for your bright idea,” Johnny sneers. “We can’t even see the stars.”
Frustrated, I rest my hand against the low bough of a nearby tree, drumming my fingers against its outer skin. I thought I’d found a way to escape, but the trees seem to hide every way out.
The feel of the rough bark beneath my fingers seems suddenly familiar to me. The memory of another time and place travelling from the tips of my fingers until this forgotten moment flowers again in my mind. I remember a picnic in the park, sitting squashed between my parents on a blanket beneath a tree. I remember staring up into its branches, telling Mum and Dad that I reckoned I could climb all the way to the top. Then I remember my dad suddenly lifting me up, his hands around my waist as he hoisted me into the branches. “Go on then,” he said, the look on Dad’s face challenging me to prove that I wasn’t a disappointment. I remember starting to climb, my toes squeezing into the grooves in the bark as my fingers scrabbled for the next handhold. I remember clambering higher and higher until the branches started to bend beneath my touch. Then I remember looking down at my parents’ upturned faces, so much smaller than I thought they’d be, my heart bursting with pride and terror as I clung to the crown of the tree.
This memory makes my heart ache as I stare up into the shadowy branches. But it also shows me how we can find our way home.
“If we climb above the leaves then we’ll be able to see the stars,” I say. “If we get high enough, we might even be able to see the lights from the village and then we’ll know exactly which way to go.”
Slinging his bag on the ground, Dizzy slumps against the trunk of the tree that I’m leaning against.
“I’m not exactly cut out for climbing trees, Charlie,” he says quietly, stretching out his bad leg as he sits with his back to the tree.
“I didn’t mean you,” I stutter, the shadows falling across his face unable to hide Dizzy’s grimace as he rubs his right knee. “Johnny’s the tallest – he should be the one to climb up.”
“No way,” says Johnny, swinging the torch so it’s aiming straight up into the branches. “That tree’s at least a hundred feet tall. I’d break my neck if I tried to climb it in the dark.”
I tilt my head upwards as the yellow glare of the torch illuminates the boughs and branches rising from the vast trunk. Between their leaves I glimpse green acorn cups, the oak’s sturdy branches turning into walkways in my mind as my gaze climbs the tree. The torch beam turns to mist before it reaches the highest branches, unable to show a way through their curtain of leaves, but the feel of the rough bark beneath my fingers tells me I could get to the top.
“I could climb it,” I say, turning towards Johnny. “If you’re scared of heights.”
Lowering the torch, Johnny fixes me with a scornful stare.
“Don’t be stupid, Charlotte,” he says, using the name that he knows I hate. “Girls can’t climb trees.”
I feel myself bristle. I’m not stupid and I’m sick of people telling me what I can or can’t do. Whether it’s my dad telling me I can’t join the scouts or Johnny saying girls can’t climb trees. I can do anything a boy can do. Reaching down, I take off my shoes and socks and then, before Dizzy can even start to protest, I catch hold of the lowest bough and hoist myself up.
“Charlie!” Dizzy scrambles to his feet. “What are you doing?”
“Climbing the tree,” I say, my bare feet gripping the grooves in the bark as I reach forward towards the trunk. “Keep that torch pointing up to give me some light.”
Using the trunk as a banister, I lever myself up on to the next branch. Twisting upwards to the left and right are more branches, and testing my weight on each of these in turn, I start to work my way up the tree; my anger helping me to haul myself higher. Twigs and leaves brush against my face as I climb, then I spit as a furry caterpillar lands upon my lips, my body swaying as I bring up my free hand to quickly wipe it away.
It’s getting darker, the leaves spreading out beneath me now hiding the light from the torch. I brace myself against the trunk, trusting my hands and feet to find the safest holds. I feel like I’m escaping into another dimension, my fingers tingling as a fresh breeze rustles the leaves around me.
According to Miss James, we come from the trees. Human beings, that is. In class the other day she was telling us about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. She said that scientists now think that our oldest ancestors were apes who lived their whole lives in the trees. Maybe that’s what’s helping me climb – I’m just remembering how we used to live.
My hands feel clammy as I haul myself higher, the branches around me starting to thin. As I reach for the next one I hear Johnny shout from far below, the sound making me glance down in surprise.
“Can you see anything yet?”
Then my hand closes around empty air, my body swinging sideways as the branch I was reaching for turns out to be a mirage. Darkness yawns beneath me as my feet begin to slip, but then my fingers find the furrowed bark of the trunk and I grasp hold of this with every ounce of strength I have left.
“Charlie!” Dizzy’s voice sounds like it’s coming from miles away. “Are you OK?”
I can’t even open my mouth to reply as I cling to the tree for dear life. I screw my eyes shut, pressing my face against the rough bark as the world spins around me.
As my ear flattens against the tree trunk, I feel a strange vibration pulsing through it. At first I think this must be the blood pumping through the veins there, my heart still hammering in my chest. But then I realise that this rhythm I can feel isn’t a pulse, but a melody.
And that’s when I hear the music coming from the heart of the tree.
It’s the same dance music that Dad always plays on a Friday night, the sound of this drifting up the stairs to my room. The swelling melody makes me feel sick as I cling to the swaying trunk, my eyes still screwed tightly shut. I hear the staccato horns as they punch out the rhythm of the song, the beat winding its way from deep inside the tree straight into my ear.
I hold my breath, trying to make sense of this. People say that when you hold a shell to your ear you can sometimes hear the sound of the sea. But as the rough bark scratches my face, all I can hear now is the sound of music. My mind reels, the world spinning as the song flows through me.
Then I hear my dad’s voice suddenly loud above the music.
“No! You listen to me!”
My fingers slip, the sound of Dad’s voice almost jolting me out of the tree. When I’m up in my room this is usually the signal for me to clamp my hands over my ears, desperate to block out the sound of the argument that I know is on the way. But I can’t do that now.
Instead I cling grimly to the tree, feeling the bark splinter beneath my fingernails as my parents’ voices rage within. I can’t hear what they’re arguing about – only the odd angry word punctuated by the sound of a plate smashing against the wall. Dad said that things would be better when we moved here, but the arguments have been getting worse.
Mum and Dad arguing about all the things that have gone wrong.
Mum and Dad arguing about how to put them right.
Arguing about the future.
Arguing about the past.
Arguing about me.
And there’s nothing I can do to make them stop.
I want to shout at them. Tell them that I’m lost in the woods and that I need them to come and find me. But as their argument storms, my words only come out in a whisper, my whole body shaking as a fresh gust of wind rocks the tree.
“Help me.”
Then the music swells, drowning out Mum and Dad’s screaming voices. For a second, this is al
l I can hear before the tree suddenly shudders with the sound of a door slamming shut. The song is cut off into silence and all I can hear now is the rustling of leaves.
Even though my eyes are still closed, I can feel the tears rolling down my face.
Then I hear the sound of Dizzy’s voice, calling from the ground below.
“Charlie!”
I force my eyes open, unable even to reach up to wipe the tears away. My hands grip the tree trunk, the pain I can feel seeping into its fissures as the darkness surrounds me.
“Charlie!” Dizzy calls out again. “Are you OK? What can you see?”
Tilting my head, I peer up into the inky blackness, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dark. Through the thinning branches, I can see slivers of silvery light splashing through the leaves.
“I’m nearly there,” I call out, the words tasting like dust in my bone-dry mouth.
Gritting my teeth, I reach up to the slender branch above my head, praying this won’t break as I haul myself higher. My arm aches, fear thumping in my chest as the tree sways again. But then my head breaks through this final curtain of leaves and I’m forced to squint as a sudden brightness fills my eyes.
Blinking, I look up to see the moon shining down directly overhead. It looks almost close enough to touch – if I dared to let go of the tree – a swollen crescent, white against the darkness of the sky. My head spins as I take a deep breath, the air so sharp and cold up here.
My eyes scan the horizon as I try to get my bearings.
I’m searching for a sight of the village, certain that I’ll be able to glimpse its lights somewhere in the distance, but all I can see is a dark-green carpet of leaves, the moonlight illuminating the tops of the trees. Holding tight to the branch, I crane my neck in the opposite direction, but my gaze just rolls along an unbroken sea of treetops. The woods stretch out in every direction as far as my eyes can see.
In the distance, I hear the chk-chk sound of a nightjar and I remember with a shiver its Morse-code call.
A storm is coming
Fighting to keep my fear under control, I lift my head to the sky. The lie of the land might be making it look like the trees go on forever, but if I can find the North Star we’ll still be able to find our way out of the woods.
According to Scouting for Boys, the best way to find the North Star is to look for the Plough. This is a group of seven bright stars that, when you draw lines between them, make the shape of a plough in the sky. Although I think they look more like a saucepan. The two stars at the tip of the Plough are called the Pointers because these point the way to where the North Star is.
I blink, my eyes taking a moment again to adjust to the full glare of the moonlight. From up here the stars seem so much brighter than I’ve ever seen them before. But as I search the sky for the familiar shape of the Plough, I realise that something’s wrong.
It’s not just the brightness of the stars that hurts my eyes, but the patterns they make in the sky. I can’t see the Plough pointing the way to the North Star. The stars look all wrong. I stare up in confusion, trying to make sense of the pinpricks of light scattered across the darkness.
There’s no sign of Orion or any of the other constellations that the scouting book said I should learn to find my way in the dark. For a second I think that I’ve found Cassiopeia, but then I realise that the final two stars look all wrong: the familiar W-shape of the constellation flattened into a question mark.
This isn’t right. The constellations should always look the same no matter where they are in the sky. I used to stare out of my bedroom window at night, memorising their shapes and wishing I could just float off among them to escape. But now their strangeness scares me.
“Charlie!” The sound of Dizzy’s voice pulls my head out of the stars. “Are you all right up there?”
I shake my head, my fingers trembling as I cling to the tree. I thought by climbing up here I’d find the way out, but I feel more lost now than I ever did before.
“I’m coming down.”
As the roof of leaves closes over my head, it’s almost a relief to descend into the darkness again, the leaves whipping back against my face as I clamber from one branch to the next.
I have to look down with every step that I take, making sure that each foothold I find won’t send me tumbling out of the tree. My heart thuds in my chest, the fear so much worse than when I climbed up. Between the branches I catch glimpses of the ground far below, the tiny figures of Dizzy and Johnny almost lost among the shadows.
Down and down and down I go, the moments blurring into an endless nightmare as I descend. But then I’m pushing past the last curtain of leaves, the yellow glare of the torch beam swinging up to greet me as my feet touch down on the final bough.
“Charlie!”
Dizzy scrambles to help me down from the tree, my body shaking uncontrollably as I finally feel the earth between my toes.
“Are you all right?”
I feel Dizzy’s arm on my shoulder, his voice filled with concern, but as I look up the first face I see is Johnny’s looking down at me.
“So,” he says, “did you see which way we have to go?”
I look around. Beyond the fuzzy circle of light cast by the torch, the woods seem even darker than before. The spaces between the trees are painted black, and as I peer into their shadows I can’t stop myself from picturing the strange constellations that filled the night sky. No sign of the North Star. No way of knowing which way to go.
Looking up to meet Johnny’s gaze, there’s only one thing I can say.
“No.”
There’s no way out.
“I told you girls can’t climb trees,” Johnny explodes. “We’ve wasted all this time waiting for you when we could have been finding our way out of here.”
I pull on my socks and shoes as Johnny waves the torch wildly around the trees.
“Tell the truth, Charlotte. You just got stuck on one of the bottom branches and were too embarrassed to come down.”
I feel my face flush with anger as I climb slowly to my feet. Next to me, Dizzy holds out a hand to help me up, but I brush it away. My body aches, but I don’t need any help. I made it to the top of the tree. I just don’t know how to explain what I saw there.
“What’s the point in finding the North Star anyway?” Johnny continues, swinging the torch round in a circle. Its fuzzy beam illuminates the broad trunks of the trees and the bushes that lie between them. “All we need to do is pick one direction and then stick to it. We’re bound to find our way out eventually. The woods can’t go on forever.”
I remember what I saw as I clung to the swaying treetop, the moonlight illuminating an unbroken sea of leaves. I take a deep breath, ready to tell Johnny that it looked to me as if the woods covered the whole world.
But then I hear voices in the distance.
The sound is so faint that at first I think I’m mistaken, but then the murmuring noise comes again, drifting through the trees away to the right.
“Did you hear that?” I ask, keeping my voice low in case I drown out the sound.
“Yes,” Dizzy breathes as he peers into the darkness. “Maybe someone’s come to find us.”
Thoughts of Mum and Dad swim into my mind. We’ve been gone for hours now. The first thing they would’ve done when I didn’t come home on time is march round to Dizzy’s house. And then when they found out I wasn’t there, maybe the woods is where they’d look next. Maybe they’re all looking for us. Mum. Dad. Dizzy’s parents. Maybe even Johnny’s dad.
“We’re over here!” Johnny shouts, waving his torch in the direction of the sound.
But then I remember the sound of the voice whispering in my ear. Charlie.
“Shush,” I say, holding up my hand to try to stop Johnny from shouting out again. “He might hear us.”
“What do you mean?” Johnny says, flashing me a contemptuous stare. “We want them to hear us. Don’t you realise – they’re looking for us.”
H
e turns away, holding the torch high as he aims it into the trees.
“We’re over here!” he calls out, walking towards the direction of the sound. “Follow the sound of my voice.”
I glance across at Dizzy, a strange expression of hope and fear on his face as the darkness sweeps over us. Johnny is already disappearing into the trees, the yellow glow of the torch quickly fading as he calls out again.
“This way!”
We don’t have any choice if we don’t want to be left in the dark.
Hurrying to catch him up, we follow Johnny.
He’s only a short way ahead, pushing his way through a curtain of ferns. Shadows dance between their leaves and I hold my breath as a low babble of voices rises in the distance. As my heart quickens, I feel Dizzy’s hand steal into mine as he gives it a reassuring squeeze.
“Over here,” he shouts, his voice echoing Johnny’s as they both call out again. “We’re over here.”
I pull my hand free to push past the ferns, Dizzy following close behind as we find Johnny waiting for us in a circle of torchlight. He holds out a hand to tell us to keep quiet.
The three of us stand completely still, ears straining against the dark as we wait for an answering call from the search party that must be out there.
“Over HERE!” Johnny shouts, flashing the torch on and off to signal where we are.
But in the darknesses between each flash, a worrying thought creeps into my head. What if they’re not coming to find us? What if they’re coming to get us instead?
“Who’s out there?” I say, keeping my voice low as the distant babble of voices seems to blend into one. But inside my head I can’t stop myself from answering my own question.
Old Crony.
I turn towards Dizzy, a frown furrowing my friend’s face as he strains to make out the sound. Then this look of concentration suddenly breaks as his eyes open wide.
“This isn’t voices we can hear,” he says, reaching out to grab the torch from Johnny’s hand. “It’s the sound of running water.”