The Wild Way Home

by Sophie Kirtley

  As if he’s only just noticed it he reaches up and feels the dark oozy gash across his forehead. ‘Yoooo make this?’ he says in horror, looking down at his bloody fingertips, staggering backwards.

  ‘No! No! Of course I didn’t. I just found you. I found you in the water and I …’

  I hesitate, what just happened catching up with me suddenly. ‘… I … I saved you … I think …’ I don’t quite believe it myself; I’ve never saved anyone before. I smile at the boy, dazed, proud almost.

  He doesn’t smile back, instead he ignores me; he’s fiddling with one of the twisted string bracelets on his wrist. ‘Mothga …’ he murmurs, stroking the bracelet tenderly. ‘I member Mothga …’ His eyes flick back to me, fast and accusing. ‘Where Mothga? You take Mothga, Cholliemurrum?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t know what you’re on about. What’s Mothga? ‘

  The boy gazes sadly at the string bracelet. ‘Mothga my sister. Mothga my baby sister.’

  ‘Baby sister,’ I echo softly. My heart pangs and a strange ache pulls at the pit of my stomach.

  I see a sudden cloud of remembering cross the boy’s eyes. ‘Mothga!’ he shouts, looking all about in a panic. ‘Where Mothga? Mothga all alone! I need make safe! Fast! Fast!’

  Before I can say or do anything, he leaps to his feet and instantly his face turns ghost pale; his eyes roll back and he collapses in a heap again like he’s melted.

  I run over to him. He’s OK, he’s breathing thickly; he just fainted I think. I stare at his blood-streaked, sandy face. What’s wrong with him?

  A memory pings into my head.

  Concussion? I think to myself, from when he bashed his head on the rock. Beaky had concussion once, when she fell off the climbing frame in primary school. She called it conk-cushion afterwards, when she was better. But it wasn’t even slightly funny at the time. She was properly knocked out and she just lay there in the playzone, really still and pale so we knew she wasn’t pretending. Then when she woke up she didn’t know Lamont or me at all; she just stared at us like we were strangers. I remember how she screamed and shouted Go away! at us. That was the scariest part. She didn’t even know who we were or who she was or anything. Mrs Rodriguez had to call an ambulance.

  An ambulance! That’s what I need. If only Mum and Dad had got me a phone then it’d be easy. I scan up and down the river for Beaky, Lamont … anyone … but there’s still nobody.

  ‘OK,’ I say to the boy, whether he can hear me or not. ‘I’m going to get help.’ I straighten Dad’s backpack on my shoulders, then I scramble on to the ridge and run towards the path back up through the forest to the hospital.

  But I stop dead in my tracks; the path is gone.

  THE PINNACLE

  I stare at the place where the path should be. This can’t be right. I scan left and right along the forest edge, but there are only trees.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘Where … ?’

  With a shaky hand I use the spear to lift the hanging fronds of fern and ivy where the path used to be. I take a sharp breath. There’s no sign that anyone has ever passed this way before. But … I ran down here myself only twenty minutes ago … didn’t I?

  I peer into the forest shadows, breathing fast; it all looks different somehow: darker, greener, thick with briars and tangleweed. Even the air is strange; it has a heavy, flowery stink, too sickly sweet, like mouldy rottenness. I try to breathe through my mouth as I stare into the twisting undergrowth, searching desperately. It’s as if the path has been swallowed up by the forest.

  ‘Haaaa! Haaaaa! Haaaaaaa!’ taunts a bird from high in the canopy.

  The forest squawks and buzzes and hums with noises like I’ve never heard before, even in midsummer. An animal shriek rises from somewhere ahead of me, like something in pain. I freeze. What even was that? Mandel Forest is like my home but suddenly nothing is familiar and I’m afraid.

  I look back over my shoulder at the boy, still lying where he fell. I glance down at the pale spear in my hand. I listen to the harsh chakka-chakka chatter of a bird I don’t recognise. A strange thought strikes me then: maybe that boy’s not the one who’s lost; maybe I am. Panic presses down on me like a cold weight as I walk to the river’s edge, my head spinning.

  I know this place, but I don’t know it. How can that be? The river looks more or less the same, but … there’s no bridge. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that before! How can a whole bridge just disappear? I gaze upstream, and my heart leaps: there is something I recognise.

  I race along the beach to the stepping stones, where the river runs shallowest, and I rock hop until I’m at the highest boulder, the one that’s right in the middle of the river. We call it the Pinnacle, Beaky, Lamont and me. The Pinnacle’s almost as tall as the Spirit Stone but less smooth and more craggy; easier to climb, and as I scramble up, it feels just as it should – the footholds and handholds are all in their same normal places. I stand on the flat bit at the top of the Pinnacle staring around me.

  What is going on?

  All I see is endless green; too much green. Not even a bench or a signpost, or a glimpse of rooftops above the treeline. Nothing is right.

  But then my heart soars: high up on the hill behind the beach I see the Spirit Stone, right where it always is, like an old friend. I turn and face the other way, across the river from where the boy lies … hoping … hoping as I peer through the rippling thickness of trees … and … yes! There it is! Half hidden in the undergrowth, I can just make out the open black mouth of Deadman’s Cave.

  This is still my forest after all! Well, it is … and it isn’t. A breeze trembles through the leaves, the softest whisper. The hairs on my neck prickle.

  Suddenly an idea strikes me … What if … what if … I’ve entered another version of my world? Gone through a portal or something into another dimension – like in Doctor Who! Then I stop myself.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Charlie,’ I mutter, and I almost smile, because without even meaning to, I’m doing an impression of grumpy Mr Pasco, our science teacher. Mr Pasco’s about ninety-five and he doesn’t like me one bit. ‘Charlie is somewhat prone to flights of fancy,’ he said to Dad on parents’ evening, only last week. I took it as a compliment.

  Parents’ evening! Dad! Mum! I twist and turn my head, frantically searching for something familiar as panic rises all fluttery in my chest: Mum and Dad are going to absolutely kill me. I squint my eyes towards where the hospital should be … but it’s not there, of course it’s not there – no hospital, no town, just endless endless forever forest. And on the horizon purply-grey clouds are bubbling: ominous, like a storm is on its way.

  I stand on the Pinnacle and try to think. What would Lamont do? He’s ‘got common sense’ as Mum always says.

  I make a list in my head, adding up the facts like Lamont would:

  1.Right now, for whatever crazy reason, I’m lost: everything is different … and I don’t know how to make it normal again.

  2.The only other person I’ve seen since everything changed is that boy.

  3.But the boy is injured. He needs help …

  4.But I need help! I need to get back home again.

  The facts don’t even sound like facts! And they certainly don’t add up. They just spiral about the place like a big old mess. What am I going to do?

  HELP YOU

  I slip down off the Pinnacle and cross back over to the boy on the beach.

  I crouch next to him, listening. His breath bubbles like his lungs are still half-full of water. The cut on his forehead is dark and oozy and I flick away a fly. A thin cloud passes across the sun and suddenly the boy’s black-hole eyes shoot open. I draw back.

  ‘Cold,’ he whispers. His voice is thin, his lips purple. It’s like all the fight has drained out of him and he doesn’t look vicious any more; he just looks really sick.

  I realise I have no choice. ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to help you.’

  ‘Help you?’ he echoes, and for a second his
eyes meet mine. ‘Help you,’ he says again weakly.

  He reaches fast, grabs my hand, stares at me hard; his eyes are glazed and fearful. ‘Mothga,’ he says, and even though his voice trembles I hear him clearly. ‘Mothga. Make. Safe.’ His eyelids flicker and his eyes roll so that I can only see the whites, then they close again.

  ‘Mothga. Make safe?’ I repeat quietly to myself. Mothga? A chilly breeze blows ripples in the river. I shiver. ‘I don’t know how to help you,’ I whisper to the boy.

  I lay the pale spear on the sand by my side, then I shake off Dad’s backpack and rummage for something … something … helpful. For once I’m glad Dad’s too disorganised to ever clear out his bag, because, down beneath all the unhelpful somethings – the battered book, the empty water bottle, the pencils and receipts and chocolate wrappers and other rubbish – right down at the very bottom, all squished and crumpled, is one of his old checked shirts. That’ll keep the boy warm. I pull it out, give it a shake and, just for a second, I cuddle it close; it’s soft and warm and it smells like Dad.

  The boy mutters but doesn’t wake as I tuck Dad’s shirt over him like a blanket. He shifts a little in his sleep and does a deep rattly sigh, like Dad’s shirt makes him feel safer too.

  I shoo away the flies buzzing around the boy’s face and take a closer look at the sticky cut on his forehead. It’s deep and speckled with sand and mud. If it’s not infected yet it soon will be. I remember when our old cat King Tut walked on something sharp once and his paw got infected. He got really sick; it was horrible. Yes, I need to clean up that cut. I look around for something to do it with.

  In his other hand the boy is holding something blue; it’s the pocket he ripped off my T-shirt. Gently, never taking my eyes off his face, I peel open his fingers. I soak the pocket in the river and squeeze it out.

  ‘This might sting a bit,’ I say softly. I wince as the water dribbles into the wound. I’m as gentle as I can be but the boy moans and twists his head from side to side. Luckily I don’t think he’s got enough strength to do anything more. Feeling braver, I slosh more water on to his head until the cut is nice and clean.

  ‘All done!’

  Already his head looks so much better. And I’m sure the colour is starting to come back to his cheeks now he’s warming up. I rinse out the bloody pocket and tear another strip of fabric from round the bottom of my T-shirt. I hold the pocket on the cut and wrap the blue strip around his head as tightly as I can.

  ‘There!’ I lean back on my heels and admire my handiwork. Not a bad bandage actually. Even if I have made him look a bit like a pirate. My laugh surprises me.

  The boy opens his eyes; well, he opens one of them. He can’t fully open his left eye because of the bandage and that makes him look even more wonky and pirate-ish. I giggle again.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, gently adjusting the bandage. Slowly his eyes swim into focus.

  I see the moment when he sees me properly; he does a little jolt and his black eyes fill with that dangerous, frightened gleam again. My heart starts to thud. I shuffle away from him fast, grabbing the spear.

  ‘Hello,’ I say, trying to keep my voice level. ‘Hello! I’m Charlie, I’m trying to help you, remember?’

  He narrows his eyes suspiciously.

  I try again. ‘It’s me … Cholliemurrum.’

  His gaze clears. He touches his head, where my wonky blue bandage is. ‘You make this, Cholliemurrum?’ I can’t tell if he’s happy or cross about my homemade bandage.

  ‘Um … Yes …’ I say hesitantly, hoping it’s the right answer and it won’t make him go all bananas again.

  ‘Good,’ he says, like he’s marking me for my skills or something.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, almost giggling, but he’s so serious I don’t dare.

  Lightning. A sudden flash; I only see it out of the corner of my eye, almost like it was never there at all. Nervously, I look up at the cloud-heavy sky and I listen. The wind is rising. I hear the low growl of thunder.

  The boy’s eyes widen as he too stares skywards. ‘Ssstorrmm voys,’ he whispers.

  ‘Storm voice,’ I whisper back, understanding.

  Another flash and the first fat drops of rain start to fall.

  TRUST ME

  A gust of wind whirls up, lifting my hair, blowing the river back upon itself, swaying the treetops. Three crows flap untidily past, flying away from the storm. Lightning.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Fi—

  Thunder. The storm is less than five kilometres away.

  ‘Sstorm close,’ says the boy, crouching now, watching the sky.

  The rain is getting heavier. We can’t be out here in the open when the storm hits us properly – we’ll get struck by lightning; we need to shelter. I look across the river at the black open mouth of Deadman’s Cave.

  I hesitate. Should we? My mum and Lamont’s mum have banned us from going into Deadman’s Cave. Beaky said it was because there was a hermit living in there who didn’t want to be disturbed by a bunch of kids. Lamont said it was more likely because Shim Carter and his mates all hung out in the cave drinking cider and breaking bottles and listening to music really loud.

  The sky darkens ominously. Deadman’s Cave will be perfect.

  ‘Look, listen, I know a place we can be safe. A cave.’

  ‘Kaaayfff?’ says the boy, shaking his head. ‘What kaaayff?’

  I point across the river. ‘That cave, over there.’

  The boy looks from me to where I’m pointing and back to me again.

  ‘No, Cholliemurrum,’ he says, getting himself to his feet, more carefully this time. Dad’s shirt falls on to the sand. ‘I find Mothga.’ He folds his arms stubbornly across his chest. ‘No kaaayff!’

  ‘Yes cave! This is a bad place to be in a storm. You can find Mothga later. Come with me. Trust me.’

  He screws up his eyes, concentrating; squinting at me, as if he’s trying to see through a dirty window. ‘Rust-me?’ He teeters, unsteady still on his feet.

  ‘Yes. Trust me.’ I hold out my hand towards him, beckoning for him to take it.

  The sky is so black now it feels like night is falling, and the rain’s properly splattering too. ‘Come on! Hurry up!’

  The boy takes another staggery step away from me, blinking suspiciously. Thunder booms. The storm’s coming in really fast, it’ll reach us soon.

  Then I have an idea. I know what’ll help him trust me. I roll the spear towards him along the ground. The boy snatches up his spear, and glares at me. Trickles of blood-tinged rain are running down the sides of his face and his hair is stuck to his cheek. The boy’s eyes narrow. Lightning lights us up, jittery and awful, and the spear in the boy’s hand flashes bone white. Thunder crashes and bangs almost overhead. Suddenly, I realise that I might have just made a huge mistake. What was I thinking? This boy’s not my friend; I’ve no idea who he is or what’s happened to him … or what he might do next.

  ‘I trust you,’ I say, but my voice has gone all squeaky and unconvincing.

  Lightning flashes in a huge zigzag across the black sky.

  Thunder crashes like the world is breaking. The boy stares at me, his eyelids flickering. He can’t pass out again; not here, not now.

  ‘Please!’ I say, and our eyes lock.

  He rams his spear into the sand and leans on it like a walking stick. ‘Peas,’ he says solemnly, and he starts to stumble towards me. ‘I come kayyfff!’

  I laugh. A mad, scared, electric laugh. ‘Hurry up then,’ I say in relief, ‘before we both get frazzled.’

  I go to the boy and hold out my hand to help him; he doesn’t take it, but he does hobble closer to my side, still leaning on his spear, so that when, in a new touch of dizziness, he starts to sway I can put my arm out to steady him.

  ‘Just hold on to me!’ I have to shout over another crash of thunder.

  He puts his heavy hand on my shoulder. He grips it so tight I alm
ost wince; his fingers feel like claws. And that’s how, together, we cross the river through the pelting rain: me, Charlie Merriam, and him, this wild, unpredictable boy.

  We step off the last stepping stone and our feet squelch down into the ooze of mud. The boy drops his hold of me and leans back on to a tree trunk. I lean next to him, and we stand still a moment, both of us breathing hard. The air tastes sharp and electric, full of storm shivers. I sense the boy looking at me. I peek at him out of the corner of my eye too and a little tingle zigzags through my bones. Thunder booms.

  The storm is deadly close now; looking up I see the treetops bend and wave in the wind.

  ‘Let’s go. Quick!’ I pat my shoulder for him to hold on to, but he tosses his head in refusal, with that proud, stubborn look on his face again.

  ‘Fine then, be like that,’ I mutter as I squelch hurriedly through the riverside mud just ahead of him, leading us towards the cave.

  We’ve gone about a dozen footsteps when the next lightning flash crackles so close it makes my hair prickle. Instinctively, I start to run. I look back over my shoulder at the boy and he’s trying to run too, lolloping awkwardly on his bad leg. Then I gasp in horror. Behind the boy, the lightning finds its target; it reaches out of the black sky like a jabbing finger and strikes that tree we were only just leaning on.

  I freeze, transfixed for a second by the beautiful horror of it as the tree is lit up from the inside out, branches turned white like bones in an X-ray. With a monstrous tearing sound the lightning-struck tree starts to lean towards us.

  ‘It’s falling!’ I scream, but the creak and wrench and crash drown out my voice.

  STORM VOICE

  The boy yells, he grabs my arm. And we’re running then, holding tight to each other, desperately slipping and sliding across the mud. Lightning jitters make everything juddery like a strobe light flickering and I can’t see properly. I feel the whoosh of wind at our heels and the dark gape of the cave mouth is suddenly just in front of us. I drag the boy in behind me and we dive together on to the floor of Deadman’s Cave. The tree hits the ground outside with an almighty splintering thud; I feel its reverberations in the whole of my body as I lie, belly-down, on the cool rock. The air I breathe smells singed, like woodsmoke and fireworks.