And that’s exactly what Max said. He said in all the years he’d worked at Highwoods never before had a team got across on their first try. Wow! Double wow, in fact.
We watched the other teams try and try again with their useless rafts. Callum had given up. His lot had a go at copying our design but it still didn’t work. They didn’t even manage to get on it, let alone float. I think his team had a row after that. Jonno said we should offer to help but we all sat on him, so that was the end of that idea.
Eventually, the We Hate Spiders team actually got all six of them on the water, attached to the raft. Four of them were lying on the barrels with their legs dangling in the water (it was the only way they could stay stable), but Max decided that as long as their feet didn’t touch the bottom it was allowed. They basically swam across, but they got a massive clap anyway.
In the time left before lunch we messed about on two-man kayaks. It was an all-round top morning.
‘Does anyone want to help build the bonfire this afternoon?’ asked Max.
‘Yes. Absolutely. Me.’ Fifty wanted to make sure he got on fire-making duty.
‘Yes, please,’ said Jonno.
‘All right,’ said Copper Pie.
I think Team Tribe must have been the only team that heard as no one else volunteered. All four teams were walking back to the field, having dismantled our rafts so that the afternoon lot could have a go, but we were at the front. (Obeying Camp Rule No. 5 – to be the advance party.)
‘I thought we were all collecting wood for the bonfire?’ said Bee.
‘That’s right,’ said Max, ‘but I’ll need some of you to help me get the structure right. You can’t just bung a pile of wood into a heap. There’s an art to a decent bonfire.’
‘Is the wood coming from over there?’ asked Lily. She pointed at the dark forest behind us.
‘It is. So it won’t just be a case of collecting it. Transporting it will be a challenge in itself.’
Jonno looked over at the wood. ‘Actually, I’d like to go to the woods . . . if that’s OK?’
‘I’ll be a campfire builder,’ said Bee.
‘Same,’ said Fifty. ‘I’m good at fires.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his firesteel and made a couple of sparks.
‘We can use that to start the fire if you like, Fifty,’ said Max.
Fifty was in heaven. Fires. He loves fires (and Probably Rose and sugar).
‘What about you, Keener?’ Max asked me. He was good at names. He knew all of us already.
‘I’m for the woods,’ I said.
‘And you, Lily?’
‘Woods too,’ she said.
‘So Bee, Copper Pie and Fifty, are you my helpers?’
‘We are,’ said Fifty, with a massive smile on his face.
‘Good.’
We went off for lunch. I was hungry as a hippo, to quote my dad. As I ate my ham roll I realised I hadn’t told the others about the Tribers’ Camp Rules, so they didn’t know we were about to break one. The one that said we should ‘stick together’.
The
Woods
Fifty didn’t need a lesson in how to build a fire. He gave Max a lesson. On my first trip back from the woods, dragging a heap of wood tied in a bundle behind me, the fire team were all sitting cross-legged listening to Fifty’s lecture.
FIFTY’S CAMPFIRE
IN 10 EASY STEPS
You need a spank to start the fine, from matches on a finesteel.
Collect small dry sticks, bits of bank, and dry leaves (called tinden).
Collect kindling – slightly bigger sticks and twigs.
Collect fuel – that means big bits of wood that will make the fine last longen because they take ages to burn. It has to be dead wood from the ground. Live stuff still attached to the tree is too wet.
Use rocks to make a ring to keep the fire from spreading.
Make a pile of the tinder.
Make a teepee around the pile using the kindling.
Build four square walls around the teepee using longer pieces with gaps between them. This makes a chimney.
Carry on adding wood in a teepee shape, but leave a way in so you can still reach the tinder to light the fire.
Light it!
‘You forgot something, Fifty,’ said Max. Fifty looked a bit puzzled. ‘Putting out a fire. Making the area safe so no one gets burnt and it doesn’t relight.’
Copper Pie, Lily, Bee and me all laughed – Fifty isn’t interested in putting them out. The laughing stopped pretty quickly though as Max had something else to say in a deadly serious voice. ‘Never start a fire without an adult present. Never think of fire as a toy.’ He wasn’t just staring at Fifty, he was drilling a direct channel into the centre of Fifty’s brain.
Fifty nodded.
Max sent me off to find tinder. Jonno was put in charge of kindling. The other two teams (Missiles and We Hate Spiders) were on fuel – we needed lots of fuel. The other lucky team (Team GB) got to go down on the beach and collect driftwood.
The nurse who wasn’t a nurse stayed up in the woods. She was ‘supervising’ us to make sure there was no tree climbing, no wandering away from the group, no lots-of-other-stuff-I-didn’t-listen-to. I was more interested in the problem of transportation. I needed a bucket to collect the tinder. It was too small to hold. And there was a limit to how much I could get in my pockets.
‘Jonno, what can I use to collect the small stuff for the fire?’
He looked around. Was he expecting to see a basket, or a great big plastic bag hanging from a tree?
‘How about a huge piece of bark?’ he said.
Good idea, I thought. He helped me peel off a long curved bit, like a piece of guttering. I filled it with dry leaves, twigs and more bark and held it with one end against my tummy and the other end in the air, so none of it fell out. We had to tell the nurse person every time we went back down to camp, so that’s what I did.
Jonno came down a few minutes later. He’d used the same idea to carry the kindling.
‘Good lads,’ said Max. There was quite a pile of wood that the others had collected, neatly stacked in size order. Lily and Bee seemed to be in charge of that. A few of the kids were having a rest – they’d obviously lugged too much heavy wood. Fifty was busy with Max, chatting, and Copper Pie was laying a stone circle. Made me feel a bit spooked, as though evil sprits might dance in it while we were asleep. I left them to it and went back up to the wood.
Get Me Out
of the Woods
‘Hi, Keener.’ It was the friendly girl from the bus. She was looking straight at me so I had to say something back.
‘Hi.’
‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
I tried to walk off, but she came with me. I could see the other We-Hate-Spiders girls were with the nurse person a bit further into the wood. The Missiles were nowhere to be seen. That meant we were alone, me and her. Yelp! I bent down to gather up some more leaves for the tinder. One more bark full would be enough, I thought. Then I could escape.
‘I could help you, if you like.’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’ I scooped up some general leaf and stick mess. I had a horrible idea that wouldn’t go away. I thought maybe she liked me, if you know what I mean.
I picked up my bit of gutter, in a hurry to get away, and a load of the tinder slid towards the other end. She grabbed it, and stopped the whole lot from ending up back on the ground where it started.
‘It’ll be easier if we carry an end each,’ she said. She was right, but that didn’t mean I wanted to go along with it. I wanted her to leave me alone. I wanted to run back down the hill and find a Triber. I wanted Jonno to come back up to get more kindling and frighten her off.
But I said, ‘OK.’
Possibly the worst five minutes of my life began. Me and no-name friendly girl carried the bark between us, adding more stuff until it was full. She kept trying to talk to me, and I kept trying not
to answer so she’d go away. My face was the raspberry pink that it goes in times of dire embarrassment. I was sweating, on the inside and outside, if that’s possible. I knew that any second I was going to be spotted, with a girl (Bee and Lily don’t count), and there would be teasing . . . for ever. I had to get away.
‘Thanks for helping. I’ll take it down,’ I said. I tried to yank it out of her hands as I said it, but she held on.
‘I’ll come too,’ she said.
NO! NO! NO!
An idea catapulted through the state of emergency in my brain.
‘You can’t leave your team,’ I said. I gave the guttershaped bark a really determined yank. She stumbled a bit, but still didn’t let it go. What she did was a whole lot worse. She shouted, loudly, over towards the rest of her group and the nurse lady.
‘Can I help Keener take the tinder down to the campfire?’
The nurse looked over at us.’ Yes, Zoe, go ahead.’
Oh dear! An even worse five minutes of my life seemed unavoidable.
Zoe started walking, still chatting to me. I was dragged along behind her, holding on to the end of the gutter like a puppy on a lead. I watched her biscuit-coloured ponytail swing from side to side. Come on brain! I couldn’t arrive at the camp with Zoe in full view of everyone.
We came out into the bright sunshine. I had about four minutes until my life changed. Four minutes until the whole of the fire team, and all the kids lying about down by the mess tent, saw me and Zoe TOGETHER. In my head I could already hear them singing that rubbish rhyme:
Zoe and Keener sitting in the tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriage
Then comes Zoe with a baby carriage.
I trudged behind her wondering why she’d picked me, and wishing she hadn’t.
‘Hey, Keener,’ said Jonno. He was coming up the hill, his emptied-out bark slung over his shoulder.
‘Jonno!’ I said, really pleased to see him. I stared over the top of his glasses into his eyes, trying to send a message: Save me, save me.
‘Hi,’ said Zoe.
I knew what you were meant to do. Mum says you must always introduce people if you know them both but they don’t know each other. No way was I doing that.
‘Hi, Zoe,’ said Jonno. No need anyway.
Jonno looked as though he was going to carry on walking. Didn’t he realise I needed saving?
‘Why don’t you come down with me, Jonno?’ I said. ‘I was going to ask if we’re allowed to go and get some wood from the beach.’
‘OK,’ he said. Excellent! Surely that would get rid of Zoe.
I turned to face her.’ Jonno can help me now.’
She smiled again. ‘But I want to come to the beach with you.’
I’m not proud of what I did next. But you have to understand, I couldn’t spend the rest of my time at camp with everyone giggling about me, and trying to get me and Zoe to sit together and all the other rubbish that goes on when there’s a boy-girl thing.
‘Grab this.’ I thrust my end of the bark at Jonno.’ I forgot something. You go down, I’ll catch you up,’ and disappeared back into the wood. Fast. I didn’t look behind me. I went back to the clearing where I’d collected the tinder, saw the other We Hate Spiders coming towards me dragging bundled fuel and decided I needed some time out. I saw a climbable-looking tree and in a second, I was up it.
Tent
Talk
I stayed in the tree until there was no one left in the wood, which was quite a long time. The Spider group went away but Jonno and Zoe came back up – I guess they weren’t allowed to join the beach crew – and got some big wood. Then Callum’s group came up too. I stayed where I was, perched like a bird, but not chirping. I wondered whether Jonno was going to be cross. Probably not, I decided, because he and Zoe were chatting away. Maybe he liked her, if you get me.
When the last wood-collectors had left and no one else seemed to be coming I got down, grabbed an armful of twigs, more kindling than tinder, and strolled down to the campfire.
It looked great, all ready for tomorrow night. A giant teepee shape, with what looked like a doorway on one side to get in. I knew what that was – a tunnel to reach the middle and light the tinder.
I joined the other Tribers (and Lily). Zoe had gone off to her team. Phew! We chatted, and amazingly no one asked me where I’d been so that was cool . . . until tucked-up-in-tent time, when Jonno spilled the beans.
‘I saw you in the tree, Keener.’
The raspberry pink came again but it was dark so it didn’t matter.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But I had a shadow.’
‘And you gave her to me,’ said Jonno.’ Thanks!’
‘Keen-er's got a girl-friend’, sang Fifty.
I kicked him, with my sleeping-bag legs. ‘That’s exactly why I offloaded her on Jonno,’ I said.
‘Bit lame,’ said Fifty. ‘Dumping on a mate.’
There was no answer to that. Except . . . You’re right, I’m lame.
‘Shut up about girls,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Let’s work out how to win.’
‘How to win what?’ I said, glad to change the subject.
‘Everything,’ said Copper Pie.
‘He means the best team at camp. We’re in the lead with two days to go, shouldn’t be too hard,’ said Fifty. ‘What’s left to do?’ I said. ‘The campfire,’ said Fifty.
‘That’s tomorrow night,’ I said. ‘And you can’t win the campfire.’
‘There’s the assault course,’ said Jonno.
‘No worries,’ said Copper Pie.
There was a silence. I don’t know what the others were thinking but I know what I was – Fifty was never going to get over the wall, and even if he did, he wasn’t going to do the monkey bars over the river crossing.
‘We’ll help you, Fifty,’ said Jonno.’ That’s the whole point of being a team.’
‘Thanks,’ said Fifty.
‘I could kick you over the wall,’ said our redheaded football fiend.
‘That’s sorted then,’ said Jonno. We all laughed. But we weren’t laughing the next day.
A Great Way
to Start the fay
Breakfast was delicious. A bacon sandwich sitting outside with your mates is the best. And as a treat there was a huge urn full of hot chocolate. Even Copper Pie’s suction method of food consumption didn’t ruin it.
Max gave us a rundown of the day, as usual. We were bodyboarding in the morning – yes, yes, yes! And it was the assault course in the afternoon. We were in two halves again: us, the Spiders, Callum’s lot and Team GB. Bring it on!
The water was heaven. I’d already caught three waves before anyone else was up to their knees. It helped that I’d brought my own wetsuit – there were a lot of kids fiddling with zips and moaning that the suits were too tight around the neck. The waves weren’t cooking (like the day Dad took all the Tribers to Woolacombe) but they were plenty big enough to take you on a ride all the way to the shore. Bee and Jonno came out to join me. And so did Max, the instructor.
‘Keener, I hear you’re a wicked longboarder – well, I’m afraid you have to stay in your depth while you’re here with me.’
‘You’ll have to tell Marco the same thing,’ I said, paddling back to where I could just about stand. ‘He’s Off the Richter.’ (It means awesome.)
Even though Copper Pie and Fifty didn’t go out that far, Tribe was way better than everyone else. In fact we took pity on the Spiders (well, Jonno did and I was standing next to him) and gave them some coaching. I didn’t mind. It’s easy to teach someone how to catch a wave. They all had their weight too far back on the board. The tip needs to be down, whether it’s a surfboard or a bodyboard. I did all the demonstrating and Jonno did the talking. Suited me.
The friendly girl, Zoe, stood next to Jonno while he explained all the stuff he’d learnt when we went together. Me and Fifty winked at each other. Copper Pie saw too, and next th
ing he’d mown into them on his board. (It didn’t hurt, they’re soft boards.) I think he was rescuing Jonno. Whether Jonno wanted rescuing – who knows?
The morning went too quickly. The sea was warm (for England) and the sun was hot and I loved catching the waves with the others. We came in all in a row a few times – a wall of Tribers landing on the beach together.
‘You’ve all done this before,’ said Max.
We nodded.
‘The Spiders are getting the hang of it too,’ said Jonno.
‘Yes,’ said Max. ‘I saw you helping them.’
We were so going to win. Best at bodyboarding. Best at helping. Go Tribe!
Lunch was hot dogs. I ate and ate and ate. I didn’t eat as much as Copper Pie, but that would have put me at the Guinness Book of Records level. Afterwards, Max said it was free time until two o’clock. I wanted to go back down to the beach but Max reckoned otherwise.
‘Have a rest. Play cards or something.’
We’re not playing-cards people – we dragged our sleeping bags out on to the grass and laid in the sun, telling ghost stories to try and scare each other.
THE HAUNTED POCKET
BY FIFTY
The boy sat down on the swing. The park was empty. No one came there in the evenings. He put his head in his hands. The swing gave a little squeak and he jumped. ‘Leave me alone,’ he said out loud.
‘Nooooo,’ said the voice. The boy jumped again. He would never escape. He knew that. He was being haunted, and he hated it and he was scared of it and no one believed him.
It was chilly, as the sun had gone down. The boy blew on his hands and then put his left hand in his pocket.’ Weeeeee,’ shouted the ghost. He pulled his hand out as fast as he could. There was a burn mark on his palm.
Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks Page 9
