Wayne snorted. “Come on, it’s not that bad. It’s a forest, not the jungle!”
“Yeah, but it’ll be getting dark soon,” Theo said. “Hands up who fancies being out here in the dark without tents or anything.”
Chloe’s hand went up. She looked across at our faces. “Sorry, misunderstood the question,” she said, then she quickly lowered her hand again.
“Right, that settles it, then,” said Evie. “Wayne, get on the radio. Call Mr Heft and tell him we forfeit the contest.”
“Wait,” I said, as Wayne reached for the walkie-talkie on his belt. “Do we really want to do this? Do we really want to quit?”
“Yes,” said Theo.
“Definitely,” said Chloe.
“Not really,” said Wayne. “But what choice have we got? We don’t know where to go.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I know. It’s just ... we came so close. We’re the first team to ever win a round against Foxley Hill. Imagine if we beat them!”
A hush fell across the clearing. “I mean, yeah, Wayne cheated so that we’d all be on the team, because he fancies Chloe and wants to beat me up,” I said.
Chloe gasped. “Wayne? Is that true?”
“What? No!” Wayne blurted, his face turning red. That either meant he was embarrassed or close to exploding with rage. Probably both, I guessed. “I don’t know what he’s on about. I don’t fancy you. Bleurgh! You’re horrible!” he said, then he winced. “I mean, you’re not horrible but... What I mean is...”
He grabbed for the walkie-talkie. “I’m calling Mr Heft. We should get out of here. Right now.”
Wayne thumbed the button on the side of the radio. “Mr Heft. Come in, over.”
He released the button. I’d expected to hear the hiss of static but the radio made no sound at all.
“Huh. That’s weird,” said Wayne, turning the power on and off. “It’s not doing anything.”
He turned the radio over. There was a soft click as he slid the battery compartment open.
“Uh-oh,” I said, as we all stared down at the lifeless radio. “That’s not good.”
The walkie-talkie’s battery compartment was empty.
“Right, let’s not panic here, let’s not panic,” yelped Wayne, clearly panicking.
“Shouldn’t that have, like, batteries in it or something?” asked Chloe.
“Yes!” said Evie. “Of course it should! But that’s the problem – it doesn’t.”
“I bet the Foxley Hill kids nicked them,” said Theo. “Probably in a way that involved acrobatics.”
“Help!” bellowed Wayne, cupping his hands round his mouth. “Heeeeelp!”
We all listened. There was no reply except the distant twitter of birds and something in the grass that might have been a frog.
“Where are the teachers?” Wayne babbled. “Heft said they’d be close by.”
“Close enough for us to reach on the walkie-talkie, maybe,” I guessed. “Not by shouting.”
“We’re going to die,” Wayne announced. “We’re all going to die!”
“So much for not panicking,” said Evie.
I looked down at the map. The flag and the campsite were clearly marked. If only we could get a bird’s eye view, like on the map, they’d be easy to spot.
I raised my head and looked up.
And up.
And up.
Tall trees towered around us, stretching almost to the sky. One tree in particular reached higher than the others.
“If someone climbed up there, they could figure out where we were,” I announced.
Everyone turned to me, then followed my gaze to the treetops. Beside me, Wayne let out a little cheep of fear. He was scared of heights, as I’d discovered during the trip to Learning Land. I’d also discovered I wasn’t all that keen on heights either, but I was nowhere near as terrified of them as Wayne.
“That’s pretty high,” said Theo.
“We should draw straws to see who’s going to climb it,” said Evie.
“What?” Wayne spluttered. “But we haven’t even decided that’s what we’re doing yet.”
Evie shrugged. “Can you think of a better plan?”
“Yes! I can think of twenty better plans!” said Wayne.
“Cool!” said Evie. “Name one.”
Wayne hesitated. He cupped his hands round his mouth. “Heeeeelp!” he cried.
“Yeah, thought not,” said Evie, bending down and grabbing some long straw-like blades of grass. “Right, five of us, five straws,” she said, holding her hand out. Five pieces of grass poked from the top of her clenched fist. “Four are the same length, one’s shorter. Whoever gets the short straw climbs the tree. Who wants to go first?”
Chloe elbowed past me and Theo. “I’m first!” she said. She stared intently at Evie’s hand for a while, as if she was trying to develop X-ray vision using willpower alone. Then, with a quick yank she pulled out a straw. “Is this ... is this the short one?” she asked.
“No,” said Evie. “It’s not.”
Chloe thrust both hands in the air and let out a loud whoop of delight. “In your faces, suckers!” she yelled, then she composed herself. “By which I mean, OMG, that’s a relief.”
“Theo?” said Evie.
After flexing his fingers a few times, Theo reached for one of the blades of grass. Everyone held their breath.
Theo changed his mind and reached for a different blade of grass instead.
Everyone held their breath.
“No, not that one,” Theo muttered, changing his mind again.
“Just hurry up!” Wayne barked. Theo plucked one of the blades free. It was the same length as Chloe’s. He grinned, happily. Wayne groaned.
“It’s going to be me. I just know it.”
“It might not be,” I said, reaching for one of the straws. I pulled it free. It was full-length. “No, you’re right, it’s going to be you,” I said.
“Might not,” said Evie. There were just two blades of grass left now. She held her clenched fist out to Wayne. “Might be me. Let’s find out.”
Wayne stared at the offered straws, his eyes bulging, his face fixed in an expression of utter terror.
“I ... I don’t know which one to pick.”
“Just pick one,” I said. “Any one.”
“But I might pick the wrong one!”
“OMG, it’s only a tree,” said Chloe.
Wayne tried to smile but his mouth was dead set against the idea. Slowly he reached out a hand. His fingertips tightened round the end of one of the straws. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then pulled.
“It’s the short one!” I announced. Wayne made a sound like an airbed springing a leak and stumbled back, staring in horrified disbelief at the half-sized blade of grass in his hand.
“No, but ... I didn’t mean to pick that one. I meant to pick the other one,” he said. “Put it back in and we’ll do it again.”
“No chance,” said Evie. “You lost, Wayne. Up the tree you go.”
Shaking his head, Wayne leaned back and looked up at the tree.
“Wow,” I said quietly. “It’s proper high, isn’t it?”
“Shut up, Beaky!” Wayne hissed. “This is your fault!”
“What? How is it my fault?”
“Because you’re the one who suggested someone should climb up!”
“Oh. Yeah,” I said. “You’re right, it is my fault.” I flashed him a smile. “Sorry.”
To my surprise, Wayne didn’t snarl or growl or try to punch me into next week. Instead he just looked ... sad or something. The hard-man act he always put on had fallen away, revealing a scared kid underneath. He turned away so Chloe wouldn’t notice.
“You really don’t like heights, do you?” I whispered.
“What? Shut up,” he said, the act returning for just a moment. Then he shook his head. “No.”
I glanced up at the tree again. It really was ridiculously high. The thought of Wayne having to climb it should hav
e made me happy and yet... He’d clapped for me at the debate. He’d been the first person to applaud, even though – and I really can’t stress this enough – he hated my guts.
After everything he’d put me through over the years, he deserved to be sent up that tree and he deserved the total humiliation of failing to climb it.
And yet...
It was like with Mrs Munn’s Christmas present, I suppose – sometimes, you have to say and do things you don’t really want to because it’s the right thing to do. Even if that means letting Wayne Lawson off the hook.
I sighed. “Fine,” I muttered, then I raised my voice. “I’ll do it.”
Wayne’s head snapped round. “What?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll climb the tree.”
Theo frowned. “Why?” he asked.
I knew I had to choose my next words carefully. If I just blurted out the first thing my truth-telling brain came up with, Wayne would think I was trying to humiliate him in front of Chloe and would probably beat me up, then force me to climb the tree anyway. If I was careful about what I said, I might at least avoid the part where I got a beating.
“Because being part of a team is all about using the right people for the right job,” I said. “I’m better at climbing than Wayne, so it makes sense for me to go up there.”
Wayne’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped.
“Is that OK with you, Wayne?” I asked.
Wayne nodded, slowly at first then quickly growing more enthusiastic. “Uh, yes. I mean, if you want, yeah. I don’t mind, really.”
“Oh, well, if you don’t mind...” I began, but a yelp from Wayne cut me off.
“No! I mean, yeah, maybe you should go. It makes more sense. Teamwork and all that.”
“Yeah, teamwork and all that,” I agreed, shrugging off my rucksack and taking hold of the first few branches. “Also, you looked like you were about to wet yourself, so there’s that, too.”
“Be careful, Beaky,” said Evie.
“Yeah, don’t fall and break your legs or anything,” added Theo.
“Thanks for that,” I said. “I’ll try not to.”
And then, with a final look up at the treetops towering overhead, I began to climb.
The first ... ooh ... seventy-five per cent or so of the plan went perfectly. Climbing the tree was pretty easy because of the way its branches were positioned and I made it to the top after just a few minutes.
From up there I could see the whole world. At least, that was how it felt. I could spot both our flag and Foxley Hill’s. They were on poles in clearings – ours a violent shade of purple, theirs a sort of faded orange.
As well as the flags, I could also see both campsites and the obstacle course we’d have to tackle in the morning. None of it was all that far away.
I shouted down directions to Theo, who scribbled them on the map. “OK, got it!” he called, his voice distant and faint. And that was when I discovered the problem.
“Ooh, it’s high,” I croaked, looking down at the ground. It seemed a ridiculous distance away. Theo and the others were barely bigger than bugs, and what had been a pretty easy climb up now looked like an impossible climb down.
“Slight problem,” I announced. “I’m completely stuck.”
“Find meaty luck?” Theo shouted. “What does that mean?”
I raised my voice. “No! I said I’m completely stuck. I can’t get down!”
There was some murmuring I couldn’t make out as they discussed this. The tree creaked as the wind nudged it back and forth. I wrapped both arms round the trunk and held on for dear life.
“Have you tried?” Theo shouted.
“Can’t. Completely paralysed by fear,” I shouted back. “I think ... I think I’ll just live here now.”
“Could you jump and use your jacket as a parachute?” Chloe shouted.
“Yes,” I replied. “But I’d die.”
“Oh,” said Chloe, disappointed. “You sure?”
“Pretty sure,” I said. “Also, I left my jacket down there.”
More murmuring. A large, boggle-eyed bird landed on a branch just a metre or so away from me. It tilted its head, sizing me up.
“All right?” I said. “Er... Come here often?”
The bird hopped closer. I’m not really sure what sort of bird it was but its beak was pretty large and there was an evil glint in its dark eyes that suggested it was trying to figure out how to get me back to its nest for dinner.
To eat me for dinner, I mean, not as a guest.
“Shoo,” I said, as it took another hop towards me. My arms and legs were fully occupied with hugging the tree, so I blew at the bird, trying to scare it away. It didn’t work. The bird let out a low rrrawrk sound, then scraped at the branch with its long, curved claws.
“Good birdie. Nice birdie,” I whispered.
“All right, Beaky?” said Evie, suddenly appearing below me. I screamed and almost lost my grip as she scrabbled up the last few branches. The sudden flurry of movement scared off the bird and with a final evil glare it took to the air.
“How did you get up here so fast?” I gasped.
“I climbed,” said Evie. “It’s pretty easy.”
“Right, well, whatever you do, don’t look down,” I told her.
Evie looked down. “It is pretty high, isn’t it?” she said. “We might need to give each other a hand to get to the bottom.”
I nodded nervously. The thought of climbing down was still terrifying but now that I had company, I wasn’t quite so frozen by fear. Maybe I wouldn’t have to live in a tree for the rest of my life, after all.
“It was pretty cool what you did,” said Evie.
“What? Getting stuck up a tree?”
“No, climbing the tree in the first place,” she said. “Personally, I’d have let Wayne do it and laughed when he got stuck at the second branch but ... it was pretty cool that you didn’t.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”
Evie looked out across the trees. “Wow, you can see for miles up here.” She frowned. “Hey, look. Foxley Hill are taking both flags.”
I followed her gaze and, sure enough, Foxley Hill had split up into two groups. One group was in the clearing beside their own flag, while two of the pupils – we were too far away to see which – were untying our flag!
“The dirty cheats!” I yelped. “If we don’t have our flag when we get over the finish line tomorrow, we can’t win.”
Evie smiled at me. “Then we’ll just have to get it back, won’t we?” she said. “But first, we should probably try to get down.”
I swallowed and nodded.
“Not that I’m in a rush,” Evie said. “It’s nice up here – the view and everything. We could stay a bit longer, if you like.”
“I’m about four minutes away from wetting myself,” I said. “Or possibly worse.”
Evie considered this for a moment. “Yeah. Let’s climb down,” she said.
With Evie leading the way and me whimpering and yelping every twenty seconds or so, we clambered back down to the ground. As soon as my feet hit the forest floor, I fell over and spent the next two minutes hugging the mud.
Then, once that was done, I jumped to my feet and went tearing into the bushes, frantically tugging at the button of my trousers.
“It’s OK!” I announced. “It’s just a number one.”
“Ew. We don’t want to know,” Chloe said. She started singing to drown out any noises I made and when I returned to the clearing I found her with her fingers jammed in her ears.
“Evie says Foxley Hill have nicked our flag!” Wayne snapped. “Is that true?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Wayne cracked his knuckles. A grin crept across his face. “Right, then we’re going to get it back.”
“How?” I asked.
“Like you said, we’ve all got our own skills. You’re good at climbing trees,” Wayne said.
“Well, good-ish,” said Chloe. “He did get stuck.”
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“Good point, well made, Chloe,” said Wayne, switching his smile from “wicked grin” to “simpering idiot”. It only took him a second to change it back again. “You’re good-ish at climbing trees and I’m good at getting flags back.”
“Are you?” I said. “Really? Have you ever got a flag back before?”
Wayne frowned. “What?”
“I mean ... it seems quite an unusual thing to have had much experience in,” I said. “I’ve never even had a flag before, never mind had to get it back off someone.”
“Shut up,” Wayne growled. “I meant I’m good at teaching people a lesson when they try to cross me. And Foxley Hill just crossed us bad.”
“We should come up with a plan,” said Theo. “To get it back.”
“Yeah, we should do that,” I said. As the others started forming a huddle, I leaned closer to Theo. “There’s just one problem,” I said. “If anyone from Foxley Hill asks me what the plan is, I’ll tell them. I won’t be able to help it.”
Theo nodded slowly. “Yeah, good point,” he said. “I didn’t think of that. Leave it with me.”
Then, just before we went to join the others in their plan-forming huddle, Theo shot me a smirk. “Oh, and before I forget,” he whispered, then he began to sing quietly: “Beaky and Evie sitting in a tree...”
That night, after we’d eventually found our camp, got our campfire started, eaten the food the school canteen had supplied (lovingly prepared by Miss Gavistock, I hoped) and Mr Heft had come to check on us to make sure we were all still alive, we hunkered down in our tents and grabbed a few hours’ sleep before making our move.
At least, I tried to sleep, but as I had to share a tent with Wayne and Theo, Wayne’s constant snoring and Theo’s twice-a-minute farting made it pretty much impossible. Even without them, getting to sleep would have been difficult. The tents were even more ancient than the rucksacks and the roof lining kept sagging against my head every few minutes.
Super Creepy Camp Page 7
