I pushed forward as well. The remains of Zach’s trousers started to burn. He screamed again and told Demelza to stop.
‘Seems I can.’ I was worried how long I could keep this up. I really might have to put him right into the fire unless we sorted this out. ‘So tell me before it’s too late.’
‘Let him go first.’
I wasn’t going to trust her. I could see that they were just waiting to jump me.
‘Ok,’ I said which surprised Demelza but she couldn’t keep the slimy grin off her face. Then I turned Zach round and smashed his head into the side of the cave. It worked better than I’d hoped. Zach slid unconscious to the floor, or actually half into the fire. I stood back and let them pull him out.
‘You’ve killed him,’ Demelza hissed at me.
I was a bit worried that I had killed him but Zach soon let out a groan although he certainly wasn’t up to anything else. Demelza made Ryan pick Zach up and carry him out of the cave.
‘We’re moving to another cave.’ Demelza tried to make that sound like a victory. It didn’t but they started to leave.
I turned to Jenna and gave a puzzled shrug. Was that their plan? Then Demelza threw her parting shot.
‘Don’t think you’re going to get any more chuckerns. They’re ours now. If you try then we’ll throw you in the river.’
I didn’t believe what Demelza meant until the next day. Sam had slipped off with Ivy. I guess they thought they should try and outsmart Zach’s lot and get some more chuckerns. It didn’t work out. Zach was waiting for them. They had to run for it.
Zach had found a cave further down the slope, nearer to the forest, and our track to the chuckerns went right past it. We could have made another route but they’d hear us. I didn’t think we’d do well against them in the open. Zach wasn’t going to let me take advantage of him again.
‘We need to go down and have it out with them,’ Jenna said to me outside the cave.
Bad idea. We could hear their shouts and laughter. I thought Zach was doing that on purpose. I wondered if we should retaliate and stop them coming up and getting fruit, but if they came in a group that would be difficult.
Then Zach appeared with the other two boys. I thought it looked stupid but they’d plastered themselves with chuckern blood and feathers as though they were warriors. Zach let out some sort of hoot before he stepped nearer.
‘Tomorrow we want Emma. She’s got to come down to our cave and work for us.’
‘In your dreams,’ Jenna called back.
‘Else we’re going to come up and burn you all alive in the night.’
Jenna and I had been alone, but everyone else heard Zach’s threat. I heard gasps from inside our cave. Zach turned and left. The rest of our lot came out.
‘What are we going to do?’ Sam was trying to make himself stand tall and brave. I didn’t think it worked.
‘Well for a start there are enough chuckerns round here without having to go down to the river at all.’ Jenna was obviously going to be positive.
There were a few birds near our cave but they wouldn’t last long. If we couldn’t find something else to eat then it would be easy for Zach to do whatever he wanted, and I was sure he’d want to do something painful to me. We needed to have our own plan, but Jack broke in before I could say anything, good job because I didn’t have a plan anyway.
‘We need to ambush them if they come up here to do what they said.’ Jack looked around to see if people were listening, they were. ‘I’m assuming we’re not going to send Emma down to them?’
Emma looked terrified. Most of us were nodding, but the other younger ones looked unsure.
‘One of the things Mary and I have been doing ...’ Jack looked at Mary who nodded, ‘It’s not perfect so we weren’t going to tell you until we’d got it right. But we’ve been making these ...’
Jack walked to the back of the cave, and I was surprised to see his limp had nearly gone, returning and saying, ‘... bows and arrows.’
Jack and Mary were both looking proud of this invention. They’d made bow strings from dried chuckern guts. Maybe it would work but the arrows weren’t very straight and the whole idea looked a little crazy. But Jack got everyone making more of them, then setting up ambush points. At least it gave them something to do. It’s what adults would have done, like Jenna said about the grave.
While they did that I spoke to Matt and Ivy: Matt being the biggest, even if he was a bit slow, and Ivy because I thought she was crazy enough to attack anyone. If Zach really was going to try and burn us out then he’d have to come up the slope to our cave. I suggested we just ran at them and did as much damage as we could.
‘Better than being burnt alive,’ I said to Ivy’s grim face.
‘The other thing we must do,’ Jenna had been taking stock of the food we had and catching a few chuckerns from the bushes, ‘we’ve got to make sure we know where everyone is. If Zach catches someone on their own he’ll use it against us. So no wandering off.’
‘Where’s Lisa?’ Sam asked and we all looked around.
‘Haven’t you noticed her wandering off?’ Ivy obviously had. ‘She’s been doing that nearly every morning. She’s up to something I guess.’
‘I saw her too,’ said Matt. ‘I tried to follow her once but she turned on me.’
Matt was always trying to follow Lisa. She didn’t like it, he didn’t get it.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ Jenna barked at them.
‘Why should I? What’s it to anyone? She’s not found a way back home, I’m sure.’ Ivy wasn’t going to let Jenna tell her off.
‘But ...’ Jenna was really cross.
‘But what? Does it matter what she’s doing?’
‘It does now. We need to go and find her.’
Ivy just shrugged.
‘She’s only away for a little while. She goes down by the river. Near where we’ve found the rock pools, near the waterfall,’ Sara said.
‘So you knew she’d been going off as well?’ demanded Jenna.
‘Sorry.’ Sara looked more worried than Ivy. But I could see Ivy’s point. It didn’t really matter what anyone did. It wasn’t exactly as though we had to answer to anyone. That was until Zach had taken to savagery.
No one felt like going to look for Lisa. Jenna tried to persuade me but I didn’t like the idea of us splitting up. Zach’s lot were probably spying on us. So most of the group carried on with Jack’s ambush plans.
I ended up sitting with Jenna and talking about my home stuff. It didn’t seem to matter anymore, but I still couldn’t get it out of my mind.
‘They’re really going to throw you out?’ Jenna had heard most of it before but still tried to sound surprised.
‘Well they will if we ever get out of here.’
‘Can they do that, just chuck you out?’ Jenna said.
‘Seems so, when I’m sixteen. They say with Dad and my brother inside for years and Mum off with this bloke, they don’t see why they should look after another Carter.’
‘So your aunt and uncle aren’t in the same business?’
‘What, drugs? Definitely not! They’ve never got on with us – can’t blame them. I got dumped with them because there’s no one else.’ I poked the ground with a piece of stick. I think it was one of the arrows. It broke.
‘There must be someone who can help.’
I shrugged at Jenna’s idea. ‘And I didn’t tell you but I think I saw that Tregarthur woman talking to my aunt.’
‘WHAT! Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’ve no idea if it meant anything.’ I tried to calm her down. ‘It might explain why my aunt and uncle were so keen to send me on this walk.’
Jenna didn’t look any calmer. We didn’t have more time to talk about it because Lisa di
d come back. She wasn’t on her own.
‘What’s that?’ Jack jumped up, pointing.
Behind Lisa was a caveman, or actually a cavewoman. Short, hairy, swinging arms but walking. In front of her, Lisa carried a small furry bundle.
‘Neanderthal,’ said Mary and Jack nodded as we watched the three of them coming up the slope. I had no idea if they were right, it just looked too weird. But I was getting used to weird.
Lisa looked happy, smiling. Now we could see the bundle she carried was a baby. She didn’t look happy for long.
Zach and his lot had been hiding in the bushes, watching and waiting for us. Lisa didn’t see them until it was too late.
Zach leapt from the bush, eyes wild and his club swinging. He was on them in seconds but watching it felt as though it happened in slow motion. Zach smashed his club down on the cavewoman’s head. We even heard the crack. The Neanderthal, or whatever she was, turned, dazed, baring her teeth. Zach lashed out again. He must have smashed her skull. As she sank to the ground the bundle Lisa was carrying jumped out of her arms and ran to the body of what was her mother. Lisa went berserk. She threw herself on Zach, kicking biting gouging. It took all of his lot to drag her off. Even then she was still fighting and sobbing when the rest of us arrived. We stood back. Lisa fought her way to the baby, who was still pawing at her mother.
So there we were. Zach and his group of six on one side, me with a strange group of less than brave kids on the other. Between us the dead body of the cavewoman, her baby and Lisa.
‘I thought that cave-thing was going to attack,’ Zach half screeched as though he’d done the right thing. But he had wildness in his eyes: ‘That’s what you’ll all get if you don’t do what I say.’
The others around him looked a bit scared. It would have been a good time to take them apart. But I felt sick at what had happened. It looked like murder. Zach was a killer. That wasn’t going to make him change into anything but worse.
‘Zach,’ I said with as much force as I could. ‘Zach, just go back to your hole, now.’
I saw Zach looking as though he would challenge me, but the others were already backing away. Soon he would be alone. I saw his face change, fear replacing his bravery. He turned and they disappeared into the wood.
Then the baby looked up from her dead mother. Her great brown eyes stared at us, helpless. Lisa moved and cradled the small creature. Jenna went forwards and put her arms round them both.
‘I was coming to tell you,’ Lisa said with tearful eyes.
Then Lisa gave us the whole story. She’d been down at the rock pools on her own one day when Trog, as she called the cavewoman, appeared.
‘She seemed to like the name I gave her, and Zog for her baby girl,’ Lisa said patting the little one.
‘Weren’t you scared?’ asked Stevie who had been staring at the dead body.
‘Yes,’ said Lisa. ‘But she was really friendly, brought me some berries to eat. Each day we sat and played with Zog.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Jenna asked more tenderly than she had before.
‘I know I should have, it’s just they somehow made me feel better. I can’t take this place much longer. I know it wasn’t right but ...’
I couldn’t understand why Lisa meeting up with a cavewoman and playing with her baby should seem right – but it did. I guess in this place you had to just accept what happened. But we couldn’t do that with Zach, couldn’t accept what he’d done.
‘Where did she come from?’ I asked.
‘Somewhere down by the waterfall.’ Lisa stood up holding Zog.
I guessed that we had seen signs of Trog before, hiding in the bushes. The first day I went down to the waterfall and heard something. That was probably Trog and maybe she wasn’t on her own. Perhaps I’d not seemed as friendly as Lisa, so she’d stayed hidden.
‘Did you see any more of them?’ It seemed unlikely to me that she was the only one. There must have been a father to the child. What would happen if he turned up with a lot more of them and found we killed her?
‘There weren’t any more. I think Trog might have been left behind.’
‘If we can sort out Zach we need to go and look,’ Jenna said putting her hands on her hips, her taking charge position. ‘If there are more then they might know something useful about this place.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ sobbed Lisa. ‘In case there were more. That’s why we were coming to tell you. Now I wish I’d never planned to tell anyone.’ Lisa looked down at the dead body. ‘But we’re going to have to find something to feed Zog. She was just starting to eat fruit, so she’ll have to manage on that. There isn’t any milk.’
‘Someone’s going to have to bury ... to bury,’ Jenna seemed unsure whether to use her name.
‘Trog,’ said Lisa.
‘Yes, Trog.’ Jenna turned to me, ‘Alvin?’
I stepped forward and Matt followed. We had become the official burying party. We lifted the body, carrying it down towards the grave of Other-Sara. Later Trog had a grave stone and flowers, but today we just covered her up with whatever we could find.
When we got back to the cave Zog had already started playing with anything and anyone she could find. She didn’t seem to understand that her mother had died. I wondered if that would last. Lisa was trying to feed her berries, but she was much more interested in Jack and Mary’s pottery. They were trying to keep her away from the better bits.
The idea of the ambush seemed to have vanished. I didn’t think it would have worked so I just made sure that Matt and Ivy knew to stay near me. I asked Sam to stay at the cave entrance and to shout if anyone appeared. Later Jenna swapped with him. But Zach didn’t appear. Several of us took turns to keep watch. I wanted to check down by the waterfall to see if there were any more cavepeople, but that wasn’t a good idea with Zach still wandering about.
I was there most of the night. I was there when one of Zach’s group, or actually one of Demelza’s hangers-on, came creeping out of the forest alone in the early morning.
‘It’s just me – Zoe,’ she called. ‘There’s no one else,’ she added as she saw me stand up with my own club in my hand.
Break-up
-8-
‘They’ve gone,’ Zoe said in a flat tone.
I knew nothing about Zoe. I didn’t even know her name until then. I’d seen her as one of Demelza’s lot. Someone to forget.
‘Just stay where you are and tell me what you have to say.’ I didn’t trust her or any of them.
‘I hid when they left. I guess they’d gone before they missed me. And I ran off into the bushes. I’ve been there most of the night,’ she said and looked nervous.
Our voices brought everyone else out of the cave. Zoe just moved up to me. There didn’t seem to be anyone with her.
‘Gone where?’ asked Jenna, probably a bit cross that I had even started talking to Zoe on my own.
‘When you sent us away.’ Zoe looked at me. ‘Zach was completely wild. He said he’d come up and club you all to death in your sleep. He knew you’d be waiting tonight. His idea was to keep sending someone up to scare you, wake you up, soften you up. Then when you were all exhausted he’d creep up in the dark and batter you to death.’ Zoe choked on her words.
‘Good plan,’ I said thinking it would have worked. I got a lot of black looks though.
‘We were scared of him. I thought he might want a bit of practice with his club and start on me. Maybe Ryan thought the same. Anyway he persuaded Zach that we should go down to the river and see if there were any more cavemen. That seemed to frighten Zach but he’d set himself up as a conquering hero so he couldn’t say he was scared of anything – which he was.’
‘So how did you know where to go?’
‘Zach made one of us follow you when Lisa came back he
re. We heard all about her story. So we went down to the river. We couldn’t find where she’d lived, but Ryan climbed up on a huge tree that had fallen into the waterfall. And he found a ledge that runs across behind the water. It comes out on the other side.’
‘Good of you all to come back and tell us,’ Jenna snarled.
‘Zach said it must be the way home. He said you all deserved to rot here forever.’
‘Why didn’t you go?’ I wondered if Zach was right and this was the way out.
‘I didn’t believe him.’ Zoe gave me another look. I thought she was trying to get my sympathy. It didn’t work. She’d still been one of the girls demanding water when Jenna had been hit.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘Why would it be any better over there?’ she waved her arm in the direction of the waterfall. ‘You can see there’s nothing there. Zach said he’d make for the mountains. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. Just shouting and waving his club. I had to get away.’
There was more but I gave up listening. I was thinking; mostly thinking that we’d got rid of Zach and we didn’t want him back. But where had he gone, was there something?
‘I’m going down there. Down to the waterfall. Matt, Sam.’ I interrupted Zoe, stood up and led them out of the cave. Gone were all my worries about making suggestions. This needed leadership and until someone better came along I was going to do it. Maybe not having Zach there helped though.
‘You will come back?’ Jenna shouted after me as she stood at the mouth of the cave. I gave her a smile.
We found the tree. Standing on the trunk gave a better view of the grassy plain on the other side of the river. Matt pointed out a herd of animals. Sam said they were deer and I could see him chopping them up in his mind. We looked around for signs of where Trog had lived but didn’t find them or signs of any more cavepeople.
We climbed over the tree and found the ledge. By that time Stevie had joined us and was asking lots of annoying questions including: ‘Do you think killing Trog would count as murder?’
Tregarthur's Promise Page 8
