Tregarthur's Promise

by Alex Mellanby

  Confrontation

  -6-

  I didn’t get much rest and it wasn’t only because I’d forgotten to check behind the rock before I lay down.

  ‘Get me some water.’ Demelza’s impatient voice soon woke me.

  She was pointing at Emma. I could see that Zach’s lot had taken up the space near the cave entrance. Sandier ground, more comfortable and less smelly than amongst the rocks at the back. When I’d returned they slept on, not noticing me. Most of the rest, including Jenna, were deeper in the cave.

  Later, Jenna told me that I’d somehow done something to help Emma back at school, something about getting her lunch box back from Zach. I didn’t remember and to me it seemed unlikely. But perhaps Emma’s lunch box experience at school made her believe that I would help her and she didn’t move. Demelza repeated her order. Getting no reaction, she dug her elbow into Zach who leapt up holding his club.

  ‘You heard – get the water,’ Zach shouted. ‘Or else ...’ he added smacking the club against his open hand.

  Emma stayed still. Now I slowly got to my feet. It must have been the way I did it because Zach looked confused. I enjoyed that, so I moved a pace forward.

  ‘What’s it to you, Alvin?’ Zach said with a slight tremor in his voice.

  I didn’t answer. I just ran my fingers through my dark hair. This felt like a movie showdown. But what was this to me? Zach was a bully, but so what? Was it my business to do anything about it? Zach annoyed me, and his question annoyed me, but still I hesitated. Then I saw Jenna, and saw the wound on her head.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, ignoring Zach.

  ‘Him!’ Jenna pointed at Zach who stood still wielding his club.

  Last time Jenna had stopped me. Did she want to stop me now? It didn’t look like it. Anyway Zach attacking Jenna made it personal. No matter what happened I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. I also thought it might get me out of the interrogation I expected about being away with Mary for the night. Ok, we weren’t some sort of item, but well ... I took another step forward, into the growing light.

  ‘How about you getting me some water Zach?’ I said in a slow firm voice. I was milking this challenge, my words echoed in the quietness of the cave. Zach swayed, looking bewildered and angry.

  ‘She can do that.’ He pointed his club at Emma.

  ‘No. You get it Zach.’

  ‘No way.’ Zach turned to Ryan and the others, gave a half laugh as though it was a ridiculous suggestion and tightened his grip on the club, then he turned back.

  I moved again – closer. I had to believe that he would lose his nerve. I had to expect that he was a true bully. I’d know that if he turned again to the others. That would mean he was scared to face me alone. I needed to see that move. Otherwise I didn’t know what would happen. Maybe I’d run for it. I saw Zach’s face tense. I saw him move his club back, ready for a strike.

  I gave him a slight grin. ‘Ready for this are you? Because I say you’re just a pathetic coward really.’

  Zach tried a snarl, it looked weak. He looked at his club. Then he did it, turned to Ryan and nodded, expecting help. Too late, with his face turned the other way he didn’t see the blow. I aimed for his soft belly with all my force, with the anger of everything that had happened to me. Perhaps it was unfair to take it out on Zach, but he got all that had built up, as though he was responsible for me getting thrown out of my home, for us being here, for Jenna. As Zach doubled with the pain of my fist I thumped him on the head and he went down, dropping his club. I looked over at Ryan. He looked away. I picked up the club and stood over Zach. My pulse was still racing and my breath coming hard, but it was over. Then the rest started up:‘Hit him ...’ ‘Smash his face in ...’ ‘Kill him ...’ came the shouts from hidden faces at the back of the cave.

  Demelza, her friends and Zach’s two followers tried to shuffle away; perhaps they decided they would be next. I tried to catch Jenna’s eyes, but she avoided my look.

  Zach had rolled himself into a ball, cringing and covering his head with his hands. He was a pathetic bully. But Zach wasn’t going to do anything other than snivel from his position on the ground. Yes, he would try and get revenge later, but so what? And I wasn’t happy with the shouted voices, hiding in the shadows.

  ‘So, who wants to do it,’ I said, offering the club for someone else to take, as I looked around the cave. No one moved. Jenna lifted her eyes and seemed to smile.

  I hurled the club towards the forest, picked up one of the empty water bottles and held it towards Zach saying, ‘Just get the water.’

  Zach peeked out from behind his hands, not certain, expecting this was a trick.

  I poked him with the bottle. ‘Do it!’

  Zach took the bottle, hauled himself up and limped out of the cave. His two followers did what they did best – followed. Demelza and the girls stayed still.

  As soon as Zach left, the cave came alive with chattering voices. Ivy grumbled while Matt and Lisa argued about something. Jack poked the fire.

  I squatted down next to Jenna. ‘You Ok?’

  ‘No, but I’ll get over it.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You wandered off with your little nurse for the night.’

  Ok so I wasn’t going to get away without the grilling. Even though Jenna was smiling a bit.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ I said looking back at Mary who gave more of a smile than I would have liked.

  ‘Is that what she thinks?’

  I didn’t answer, a bit because I didn’t know. Mary had hung on awfully tight during the night. I think Jenna read my thoughts.

  ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘Anyway you wanted to know what happened here.’

  I nodded.

  ‘After you left me with the kids –’

  ‘You got them together. I saw you ...’ Jenna’s face told me I should shut up.

  ‘So we got on with things. I thought they’d need to be busy after Other-Sara’s death. That’s what would happen at home, stop them asking questions, take their minds off it. That’s what adults do. But it was the opposite, they dealt with it in their own way. Emma pretty much demanded to be taken to the grave and they set about tidying it up, making a marker with her name, and decorating it with flowers.’

  ‘I guess we hadn’t made a very good job of it.’ Thinking of the grave made me shiver.

  ‘That’s what Sara said. But after that we did a bit of clearing in here. If we hadn’t then where you lay down would have really smelt. That rock was the one most used in the night for the loo. We didn’t do that well – you might want to wash a bit sometime.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said giving myself an all over sniff.

  ‘Things were going Ok. Ivy and the others found some fruit which seemed safe to eat, better than safe, it was delicious.’

  ‘How did Ivy know it was safe?’

  ‘I think we have to watch Ivy. I think she just ate it and didn’t really care if it killed her. She’s not just ordinary miserable. I’d guess she has full on depression, my mum had that.’

  ‘Not much we can do about it.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we don’t want more deaths here.’

  I thought more deaths were very likely but kept that thought to myself.

  ‘Then Zach came back.’ Jenna stopped and her shoulders dropped. Misery creeping over her face. ‘They’d made Sam carry all the chuckerns, but he had bruises as well so I guess Zach had smacked him around with his club just for fun.’

  It made more sense of everyone’s shouts to hit him again and I felt that perhaps I hadn’t punished Zach enough.

  ‘Demelza was being really nasty, Zach put her up to it. I said something and Zach hit me. Knocked me down.’ Jenna rubbed her head.

  ‘Did you want me to hurt him mor
e?’

  ‘It was enough,’ she smiled again. ‘I stopped you before, so I can’t complain now.’

  At least she was smiling. But that stopped when she went on. ‘They cooked the chuckerns but wouldn’t let us have any. Just threw us the bones and scraps when they’d finished. Zach had Emma running to get water for him and the rest of his group. Jack got kicked for trying to stop them, his leg’s bleeding again.’

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more. Jenna seemed to read that in my face.

  ‘That’s it really. They talked about tying us up. But I think they were just too lazy for that. It might have happened later if you hadn’t come back.’

  ‘Would it have made a difference if I hadn’t stopped before?’

  ‘Might have been worse, if you’d knocked him about then, he would have wanted revenge.’

  ‘Not if I’d fixed him permanently.’

  ‘Save it,’ she said. ‘Just don’t leave us here alone again with him, unless you do fix him first.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, with a casual shrug. I rather liked my role as an enforcer. But I looked over and caught Demelza’s eyes. The hatred on her face told me this wasn’t over. There were six of them. I wasn’t sure I could count on any of the rest being any use if it came to all out war. Didn’t we have enough problems?

  Now Mary wanted to tell them about our exploration, but I said we should wait for Zach and the other two to return. None of them had come back or brought any water.

  ‘Go and get them,’ Jenna spat the words at Demelza and the two stared at each other.

  Demelza didn’t move. But Zach had been within earshot and he tried to swagger back into the cave, chucking the half filled bottle towards me.

  ‘Tell them Mary,’ I said handing the water bottle to Emma, which made Zach snort and Emma blush.

  They listened in silence as Mary told them of our climb, the note and the mammoths. ‘We wondered if the tremor might have opened the tunnel here,’ she ended and looked at Jenna.

  ‘We didn’t feel anything,’ Jenna replied sounding huffy. ‘Very peaceful night we had here. It must have been really awful out on that mountain alone.’ And she made the word ‘alone’ sound like a challenge.

  Mary didn’t react and I wasn’t sure what she was thinking. But everyone started asking her questions about the note and the promise and everything else, in particular about the mammoths.

  ‘Mammoths haven’t been around for thousands of years,’ Ivy mumbled from the back of the cave.

  ‘So we are back in time,’ Jack said.

  ‘Might be, I suppose ...’ Mary’s voice trailed off.

  ‘No, we are,’ Jack raised his voice. ‘It’s the stones.’ Jack paused and looked around, everyone was listening but no one seemed to grasp what he was saying. ‘Mary said the stones you saw looked like the ones we were heading for on the moor only much bigger. Well, they are the same but thousands of years from now. After thousands of years they get worn down.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ Mary seemed to want to agree with Jack. Maybe I didn’t need to worry about her. ‘That fits with the mammoths. Something happened to us in the tunnel.’

  ‘And Miss Tregarthur has been here before, but she’s not here now.’ I kicked at the fire. ‘So we’ve no idea what she was doing or anything about this stupid promise.’

  My words met silence until Stevie asked, ‘What else lived at the same time as mammoths?’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ said Jack.

  ‘Might there be dinosaurs?’ Stevie said in a hushed voice.

  ‘We saw some very large bones in the cave by the river.’ Mary had avoided giving too much detail about the jaw bone and the teeth.

  ‘But that teacher – what’s that about?’ Ryan got a hard stare from Zach, who maybe thought he should be united in silence with him, but Ryan went on, ‘There’s just got to be something or someone here that she wanted to get back for.’

  ‘We’ll never find out, ever,’ Ivy added.

  ‘Rubbish Ivy. We will find out but only if we survive long enough. That means we have to do more stuff.’ Jenna started to take over. Her injury didn’t seem too bad. ‘Ivy, can you and Lisa get some more fruit? Matt – more wood.’ She hesitated as she looked at Zach, but again Ryan suggested that they went hunting. Zach seemed happy to have a reason to get out of the cave.

  I thought Demelza would stay now Zach had been humiliated. I hoped that would happen. Then at least their group would be spilt. But the three girls trotted after Zach.

  ‘How’s the leg?’ Mary knelt down next to Jack, by the fire.

  ‘Worse.’

  ‘Can I change the bandage?’ Mary spent the morning looking after him. Making it very clear to Jenna that she needed to do it. Jenna seemed to look happy about it, but Mary gave me a sidelong smile when no one was looking which worried me.

  ‘We need a proper toilet,’ Sara suggested. ‘No one took any notice when I said that before, but we’ve got to make one.’

  ‘How?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Dig a hole,’ Stevie replied.

  Sara was right. Cleaning out the cave was too awful. It was getting pretty bad outside the cave as well. During the day everyone wandered off to find somewhere to use as a loo, and it was getting smelly and squidgy behind every rock and bush.

  ‘How do we dig a hole?’ Jenna said almost as though she was cross that the toilet wasn’t her idea. ‘Nothing to dig with.’

  ‘Couldn’t we use a hole that’s already there? I found one earlier.’ Stevie pointed to it.

  ‘Have to make sure you don’t fall in,’ said Sam.

  ‘Especially if it’s full of ...’

  ‘Shut up,’ Emma interrupted Stevie. ‘We just need to screen it off with some branches and it’ll be fine.’

  They fetched branches and tied them together with creepers and covered the branches with leaves and piled lumps of grass on top to stop the leaves being blown away.

  Sam stood back and looked at it. ‘Looks almost good enough to live in.’

  ‘Won’t be soon.’ Stevie wrinkled his nose.

  ‘It needs one more thing.’ Jenna handed one of the flat stones to Sara, on it she had written ‘WC’ with a burnt stick. Sara lent the sign against the hut.

  ‘Where’s the loo paper?’ I asked while helping Matt to stack the wood he’d fetched.

  Lisa and Ivy had brought back more fruit. Jenna picked up one of the soft berries and threw it at me, catching me on the nose, we both laughed.

  Ivy and Lisa had been swimming in one of the pools down by the river edge. They said they would show the others the best place to get in. It felt as though Jenna giving out instructions had made us all feel better.

  Soon Zach came back bringing more chuckerns and bad feelings with him. But we ate, drank, and used the toilet. We did the same the next day, and the next. No clues to show what Miss Tregarthur had been doing. Ivy started scratching a mark for each day on the cave wall. The toilet stank. Zach brooded.

  A Visitor

  -7-

  I counted the scratches on the wall: Six scratches, six more days. No rescuers, no people, nothing. I didn’t need to count the scratches. It was just something to do.

  Jenna had started a sort of rota with cave cleaning, and wood collecting. No one could get Demelza to do anything. Zach would only hunt chuckerns.

  Jack’s leg had improved. He and Mary were spending more time together. She helped him hobble around and together they were doing things. One day, after Mary had helped him down to the river, they came back with a pile of mud from the bank. We all laughed at them but they took no notice. We watched as they moulded the mud into shapes and put them into the hot ash from the fire. The first efforts didn’t work but it wasn’t long before they’d made a real bowl.

  ‘How
did you know how to do that?’ I asked looking at the round brown object.

  ‘Read about it somewhere,’ Jack replied as though making pottery in a cave was quite a natural thing to do.

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ Stevie said, and he wanted to try making pottery as well.

  But that was the moment Zach came back from a chuckern hunt as he liked to call it. Shadows from the six of them fell across the mouth of the cave. This looked like trouble.

  ‘What’s fantastic?’ Zach’s sneering voice sounded a challenge.

  ‘Nothing,’ Mary and Jack replied together.

  ‘I know you’re nothing,’ Zach said with sniggers from behind him – loudest from Demelza. ‘But what’s that you’ve got there?’ Zach pointed.

  ‘A bowl,’ said Jack after a pause.

  ‘No it’s not,’ said Zach, crushing the fragile object under his foot.

  Jack struggled to get up, but Zach kicked him and he fell to the ground with a shout of pain.

  ‘I wouldn’t get up again,’ Zach taunted. Demelza gave a little giggle.

  The numbers didn’t look good. Matt and Ivy stood up but the rest just looked scared. Jenna might be fierce by nature but she wasn’t built for fighting. Still I couldn’t let this rest. I could see that they had a plan, so I needed to make that go wrong. I leapt up, grabbed Zach by the neck and held him next to the fire, facing the rest of them.

  ‘So you’ve been planning have you? Coming up with some stupid little scheme.’ I could see I was right by Demelza’s snarl. ‘Well you can tell us all about it. And if I don’t like it then Zach goes in the fire with your chuckerns.’ I felt Zach squirm so I tightened my neck hold and moved him closer to the flames. He must have felt the heat and his over dramatic scream made Demelza start talking.

  ‘You can’t fight us all.’ She took a step forward, brave with the other four alongside.