by John Marsden
‘“Ever since then, Jimmy’s been hanging round that corner. You smell his pipe and you know he’s there. Everyone who’s lived in your house has had regular visits from Jimmy. May be why none of them has ever stayed there long, though he never seemed to worry any of them much.”
‘Well,’ said Mr Walker, ‘after listening to Len’s story I was shaken, I can tell you. The next time I went out to feed those cats I felt a bit uneasy. And sure enough there it was again. That smell of tobacco was unmistakable — a sharp, acrid smell in that sweet mountain air. I gave the food to the cats, following my usual routine, then I stood and looked across at the dark ground under the trees, and — I don’t really know why — I called out, “Jimmy?” Well, I can’t tell you what it was like. There was the heaviest, most complete stillness I’ve ever experienced. Everything seemed to stand still. Each one of those cats stood there looking at the same place I was looking at, and the hair on their backs stuck up like they’d been injected with something. I called out again, with the last ounce of courage I possessed, “Jimmy? Is that you?” There was a sort of rustle and a shaking noise in the trees, like a quick wind had swept up the gully, the cats gave an almighty howl and shot off in a dozen directions, and that was the last I saw of them, or Jimmy, and the last psychic experience I ever had at Valley Reefs.’
There was a long silence around the fire. I can’t tell you how creepy it had been, listening to Mr Walker tell this story in a hushed voice out there in the middle of the wilderness.
‘Sir,’ asked James Kramer, ‘is that story really true?’
‘It certainly is,’ he replied. There was another long silence.
‘Mr Walker,’ said Rob Hanley-White at last, in impressively hushed tones, ‘I swear to God, I’m tanning my jocks here.’
Chapter Thirteen
We went to sleep with the cries of the feral dogs cutting through the night.
‘They’re definitely getting closer,’ James said.
‘Shut up,’ I said — I was quite close to getting spooked.
In the morning we awoke to fervent cries from the Rat. ‘Snow! Snow! It’s been snowing.’ There was a pause and I could hear someone talking to him in low tones, then Rat said in a small embarrassed voice, ‘Oh.’
I poked my head out of the tent. It was pretty obvious that what Rat had thought was snow was the cloud below us, sitting in the valley. It was spectacular but it wasn’t snow.
I got out of the tent and started looking around in the soft ground for dog-prints. I couldn’t see any, although at breakfast Ringworm swore that he had heard them snuffling around his tent in the middle of the night. Seemed to me that that was more likely to have been Rob Hanley-White.
This was our last full day of hiking. By tomorrow afternoon we’d be back at school, and three days after that we’d be home for the holidays. I felt a sudden intense pain: a deep and terrible desire to be back in those familiar surroundings and a certainty that I couldn’t survive another moment without being there. But somehow it passed. I kept going about the routine jobs, doing them without thinking, rolling up the sleeping bag, pulling down the tent, putting out the fire. Then Mr Dunne called us together for a navigation meeting. We had to plot a course up The Pimple, then across something called the Razor’s Edge to Box Creek for lunch. We set off in good spirits. The Razor’s Edge turned out to be a sharp ridge that we had to straddle in some places to make our way along it. It was good but, as Mr Dunne said, if you fell you’d want to keep your legs together.
We reached Box Creek in record time, without making a single navigation error. It was a kind of boggy place but it was cool and the water was good to drink. After lunch we drifted into the customary siesta but no sooner had we settled down than Crewcut suddenly leapt up with a wild cry.
‘What’s the story, sir?’ I asked, thinking he’d finally crossed his poles.
‘Damn leeches!’ he swore. Sure enough, he had three little black friends clinging to his legs.
‘You can put salt on them or burn them off,’ Mr Dunne advised.
‘I’ll burn them off you, sir,’ I volunteered. ‘Anyone got a blowtorch? This is called the Joan of Arc cure.’
But Mr Scott, that is, Crewcut, must have been in a boring mood because he voted for the salt. It was a bit sad for the leeches. As soon as we shoved the salt on they seemed to turn themselves inside out, disgorging all the blood in the process, then they kind of shrivelled up and died. Mr Scott soon had dried blood marks all over his legs. It was a real smorgasbord for the flies, who quickly moved in to replace the leeches.
Meanwhile the rest of us were hastily carrying out body searches in the most intimate places to see if we’d picked up any of the little suckers ourselves. Sure enough, the census turned up another half dozen or so, which were dispatched with a mixture of salt and matches. Talk about blood sport! While we were busy disposing of them in SAS style, Mr Dunne lay in the sun laughing at us and telling us all kinds of little scientific details about how leeches have three or four brains, and how they can live for a year or more between meals, and stuff like that. I don’t know if any of it was true, but no-one seemed to care much either way.
We didn’t hang around there any longer, needless to say, but instead took a bearing on Mt Turnbull and lit out for it. This proved to be a tough afternoon, especially as some of the troops were looking tired. Ringworm looked like he’d died about two weeks ago, and he was starting to smell like it too. We soon came in sight of Mt Turnbull, and an awesome sight it was.
‘Is that Mt Turnbull?’ Ringworm asked. ‘Gee it’s big for its size.’
Big for its size? What did that mean? He never explained and I never asked. But it turned out to be a tough climb. We started off singing dumb songs, anything, whatever came to mind: ‘Lola’; ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’; ‘Father Hear the Prayer We Offer’; ‘Show Me the Way to go Home’. By the time we got half-way up we’d stopped singing and were concentrating on staying alive, panting like asthmatic hippopotamuses. I was glad I’d given up smoking, sorry I hadn’t done it when I was ten.
Mr Dunne had this theory that once you start a climb you shouldn’t stop until you get to the top, so that was the way we did it, for better or for worse. But a couple of people looked grey by the time we got there and little Paul Watson was crying. I thought he’d have been fitter from so much swimming. But he was pretty small to be carrying that big pack.
From Mt Turnbull we had a view that stretched back over the entire route of our hike. We were quite impressed to see how much ground we’d covered. Our legs were tired, our backs were sore, and our shoulders ached from where the straps of the pack had cut into them. But I was glad we’d come.
The weather was starting to fall apart. We could see clouds building up in the west and the temperature was falling like a dead kite. We dropped down over the crest of the mountain, cracking dumb jokes to keep Paul Watson going until we found the campsite. It was still half-an-hour from there to the water. I didn’t think I could ever walk another step in my life but Crewcut said to me, ‘Come on, Erle, we’ll go and get some water.’
We emptied our packs, then filled them with water bottles, and with James Kramer went down an old four-wheel-drive track to a creek. I hate it when people make my better nature come out like that. And I hated it when we began the struggle back up to the campsite. God, I’ll never forget that climb. Those full water bottles were a dead weight that doubled with every twenty metres of height that we gained. I really didn’t think I’d make it. It was only pride that got me there — what I wanted to do was throw myself on the ground, to sob and scream and beat my fists and refuse to take another step, but rather than embarrass myself in front of Mr Scott and James I put my head down and plodded on. Guess they were feeling about the same. The good thing was, when we got back, someone had put our tent up for us, and a couple of people had cooked us our meal, so at least we felt we were appreciated.
The rain swept in as we started eating. I’d never have thought that
weather could change so fast as it did in those mountains. We were putting on an extra layer of clothing every ten minutes. From a hot sunny day we went to a mess of sleet and hail and rain and wind, till we started wishing we’d brought our skis. After we’d eaten we just crawled off to bed. I’ve never felt so good as I did in that warm sleeping bag, watching the tent tug and lift and rattle but knowing it was going to hold. Even though during the night a few gusts of wind woke me with their strength and violence I never doubted that the tent would stay anchored to the ground. Yeah, it was a mighty little tent, and it was still there in the morning, and we were still inside it.
It was pretty easy getting down the mountain after breakfast. The wind did most of the work for us. We struck the road about 11 am. From there it was a two-hour walk to the vehicles. We’d spent four days walking in a big circle, just so we could get back to where we’d started. I said that to Mr Walker and he quoted a poem to me about how the whole idea of exploring was to be able to return to your beginnings and understand them for the first time, to be able to see them with new eyes I suppose. That seemed a cute way of looking at it, but I wasn’t quite sure how it worked in practice. Maybe it just happened, unconsciously, whether you wanted it to or not.
We finished off our food, then loaded our packs into the mini-bus and Landie. Mr Dunne and Mr Walker and about a dozen students piled into the bus and off they went. Crewcut and the rest of the kids, including me, got into the Landrover and prepared to follow them. It was at that point, with the dust of the bus still lingering in the air, that Mr Scott realised Mr Dunne had the keys of the Landrover in his pocket. There was nothing for it but to wait and hope that eventually Mr Dunne would start to wonder why we weren’t in his rear-vision mirror. It turned out to be a long time before that moment arrived. It was four o’clock before the bus and a sheepish Mr Dunne came back. It was nearly nine o’clock before the vehicles came triumphantly through the front gates of the school. I never thought I’d be so glad to see Linley again.
Chapter Fourteen
Melanie dropped me. On the third last day of the term, the day after the hike. The first time I saw her was at breakfast, and she seemed funny right from the start. I tried to see her after the meal but she said she had to go and see Matron, and rushed off. Then I got a note from her — that really hurt me, that she wouldn’t tell me face to face. And to make matters worse she even put the all-time great cliché in the letter — the one about wanting to stay good friends. God, that was smearing ketchup onto the open wound. At lunchtime Georgie Stenning grabbed me for the big conference — of course she was loving it — and said Melanie still liked me but she didn’t want to be tied to anyone. I’d heard it all before and I wasn’t too impressed, I can tell you.
I was pretty upset though. I just loved her so much it hurt. I kind of crawled off, didn’t speak to anyone, and went through the day doing things automatically. I didn’t go to swimming like I was meant to. Then things got slightly worse. I knew Steven Nimmo, ‘Winnie’, had a bottle of Southern Comfort he’d been keeping for an end-of-term celebration and it was on this very night that he chose to launch it. He asked Adam Marava, Rob Hanley-White and me to share it with him. I don’t know whether I would have agreed normally but on this night I practically embraced him. About an hour after lights out we met in the Drying Room to make a little action. It was a dumb scene, if you want to know the truth. We were all so tired after the hike that we could barely stay awake. Anyway, warm Southern Comfort out of a bottle on its own, nothing to go with it, no food or anything, in that dark airless little room, was about as good as skiing on margarine. It wasn’t a cool way to spend the evening.
After about half an hour we gave up and staggered off to bed, having wiped out most of the bottle. Next morning I had the usual headache but without any good memories to compensate for it. I ran into Crewcut during the morning break and he asked me why I hadn’t turned up to swimming. I was feeling lower and lower with every passing hour, and I suppose I’d gotten to trust him fairly well, so I told him I was having a bad time.
‘What’s been happening?’ he asked, and he sounded so sympathetic I nearly burst out crying on the spot. Sympathy was more than I could handle right then. We only talked for a minute. I told him my love life had got complicated, then the bell rang for classes.
‘Come and see me after school,’ he said, and I thought I probably would, but as it turned out I was otherwise engaged.
At lunchtime I noticed Nimmo was missing from our table. ‘Where is he?’ I asked, and Brian Bell said, ‘I saw him in the Headmaster’s Office.’ I looked at Rat and he looked at me and we both started packing darkies. We told Adam after lunch but he hadn’t heard anything. The suspense didn’t last for long however. I got called to the Head’s just before afternoon classes started, and it was no surprise to find Rob and Adam standing in the corridor with me. We got called in one by one for the grilling. My first interrogation didn’t take long.
‘Were you drinking last night, Gatenby?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘With Nimmo, Marava and Hanley-White?’
‘I’m not sure if they had any sir.’
‘In the Crapp house drying room?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Whose alcohol was it?’
‘I’m not sure sir.’
‘Do you have any alcohol yourself, at this moment, anywhere in the School?’
‘No sir.’
‘Right, wait outside again, thank you Gatenby.’
The second time was a bit more prolonged. In the meantime I’d had a few chances to talk to Adam and Rob. There was still no sign of Steve. We three spent most of the waiting time under the eagle eye of the Headmaster’s secretary, but occasionally she stepped out of the room. Somehow the Rat had found out the full story. He was amazing. It seemed like Punk was so wiped out by the amount that he’d drunk that he didn’t hide the bottle properly and one of the cleaners saw it in his locker. Once he was busted he threw our names into the ring. I didn’t blame him for that. I know what pressure they can put on you. When I was called in I was prepared for anything. The normal punishment for drinking was a week’s suspension, but three of us at least were facing possible worse hassles: Adam, because he’d been suspended in year eight for drinking, and when they’d suspended him he had such a good time he didn’t come back for a fortnight and even then they had to ring his embassy and practically beg him to return; Punk, because it was his grog; and me, because it was my first term and already I’d been in so much trouble and had so many warnings.
The Headmaster sure sold that part of it to me in a big way when I finally got in there. It took a solid ten minutes and his voice was raised for most of it. Then we spent another ten minutes on the evils of drinking and the sheer sacred beauty of every school rule at Linley. Then we dwelt briefly on my general personality and character. I won’t go into that in any detail here, but while the man was talking I was mentally shaking my head and thinking, ‘This goes close to the bone, my man, close to the bone.’
Finally we got on to the good points and although that didn’t take long he did have a few surprises for me. He knew I’d given up smoking. He knew something had gone wrong between me and Melanie the day before. Then he said, ‘Mr Scott has spoken to me strongly on your behalf’, and it became obvious where he was getting his information. He said Crewcut had praised my attitude at swimming recently, and on the hike. Quite decent of the little gorilla, I thought.
Anyway, it turned out that this had saved my life, assuming I wanted it saved. He said I would have been expelled if not for Crewcut. Then he was in a bit of a quandary. Like I said before, the normal punishment was suspension. But with the holidays about to break, they could hardly suspend us for a week. So they did the opposite. We had to stay back at school till the following Monday, doing hard labour around the grounds. We all got the same punishment, which made Adam Marava even luckier than me, I thought. But I was spitting when I realised what it meant. I couldn’t beli
eve it! Another four days in this dump! I wanted to tell him to take his school and shove it. For a moment back there I’d been sucked into thinking that I actually owed Crewcut one. How wrong I was!
Only the thought of my parents stopped me from blowing it right then and there, forever. I was going to have enough problems with them as it was. So I slunk out politely, bowing and nodding and thanking him for being such a kind and generous person. ‘Yes, Mr Teacher’, ‘No, Mr Teacher’, that was me. I guess if you gotta eat coleslaw it’s worth making friends with the cabbage.
I tried to talk with Melanie that afternoon. It went OK but not great. She was really upset about us getting busted and all. She blamed herself, but I said it was nothing to do with that: I would have gone for it regardless, though I’m not sure that was true. That was the last real conversation we had before the holidays. It wasn’t much of a way to end the term.
We crims stood and watched everyone else disappear down the drive for their vacation on the Friday morning before we shouldered crow-bars and shovels and went to work. In the end the whole thing turned out to be pretty slack — the work I mean — but it was a poor situation, being there for those four days. At night we watched TV and smoked a little dope . . . no, just kidding. We did watch a lot of TV though.
