In the Trees

by Pauline Fisk

  Determinedly, he refused to complain however bad he felt. Some people were demanding rests every hundred yards or so, and a couple turned nasty when Jez refused to let them be carried by the ponies. But Kid wasn’t one of those, and neither, he noticed, was that sulky boy, Hal. He kept his feelings to himself and never grumbled however hard things became.

  Kid was impressed. ‘How far now?’ people kept asking. But a few of them, like Hal, just pressed on.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Jez kept saying. ‘Another hour or so, and we should be down the other side.’ Then, ‘An hour and we’ll be bathing in the Rio Blanco,’ then, ‘At the next break we’ll be in the Rio Blanco,’ then, ‘I can nearly see it. Come on.’

  Jez’s words were meant to encourage, but those last few minutes scrambling down the hill were as difficult as anything they’d done all day. People plunged down through the trees, telling themselves that the worst was over. But that didn’t stop them stumbling and falling, and getting down to the Rio Blanco seemed to take for ever.

  Finally, tired as they’d never been tired in their lives, the entire group stumbled into the river where they bathed, refilled their bottles and drank long and deep. This was it at last. They had arrived. Now, they demanded to know, where was their camp?

  Jez looked at Candy. Candy looked at Hubert. Hubert laughed and pointed up the next hill, which rose directly from the river. Everybody groaned. He had to be joking, they said.

  He was, too. The camp turned out to be a mere five minutes’ walk away, not heading uphill but following the river. In Kid’s eyes, though, those were the longest five minutes of all. Once he failed to stoop low enough and a branch almost knocked him out. Then he missed his footing and was all-but catapulted into the water. Then he was so tired that he almost fell asleep on his feet and simply walked off among the trees.

  Finally, though, the soldiers cut a path to an area of forest set above a shingly beach, where Candy threw down her rucksack and Jez said, ‘Here we are.’

  Everybody looked around. ‘Here we are where?’ said Fritz, speaking for the whole group.

  ‘At our camp,’ said Jez.

  ‘What camp?’ said Fritz.

  ‘The one we trained you for that week at Gallon Jug,’ said Jez. ‘The one you’re going to build.’

  PART FOUR

  CHIQUIBUL FOREST

  13

  SETTING UP CAMP

  The first thing Kid did was fling himself into the clear waters of the Rio Blanco to cool off. Then, aware that darkness would fall soon, he strung up his hammock. All round him, everybody else was doing the same, going through what might look like their usual end-of-the-day routine, but this was different. You could see how shocked and, in some cases, angry they were. There was nobody except for Fritz who could actually see the funny side of things. And there was only the smallest handful, including Hal and the big lad, Wallace, who looked as if they just might rise to the challenge. Everybody else, even Snow, looked utterly defeated.

  While they were putting up their hammocks, Hubert flung together a bed of his own made out of palm fronds and saplings hacked down with his machete, then built a fire for supper and cooked a meal for everyone including the pony train men. It was a basic meal, nothing fancy, just rice and beans, but he threw in great dollops of a Belizean sauce called Marie Sharpe’s, proving himself to be a regular Rambo in the kitchen too.

  After supper, Jez made a speech. He knew how tired everybody was, but there were things he needed to say before they went to bed. Firstly they’d done brilliantly to get here without casualties and hold-ups, especially carrying all that weight. And secondly he wanted them to understand why it was good for them to build their camp from scratch.

  Kid’s mind drifted off. It wasn’t his camp Jez was talking about. Tomorrow he’d be out of here. That’s what Jez had said. Now that all the equipment had been ferried in, one of the leaders would lead him back to civilisation.

  Candy was speaking now about the worthiness of the project ahead of them and the need to make decisions about which teams they wanted to join. Kid was glad he wouldn’t have to make those sorts of decisions. He could see the lines of friendship forming already. Wallace, Jim and Joanne seemed to have bonded together, as had Snow and Fritz, Laydee and Tilda, Jack-the-Goth, Star Wars Al, Benji and a whole crowd of people whose names he didn’t know.

  Kid left them talking among themselves, and went to bed, easing himself into his hammock and waiting to fall asleep. Finally the others came too, the bobbing of their head-torches casting them in a jerky, almost silent movie light as they snuggled down their sleeping bags and tucked their mosquito nets around them. One by one, lights went out and the camp fell quiet save for Fritz, who was always singing to himself and even did it now as he fell asleep.

  In the end, though, even he fell silent and only the soldiers remained awake, sitting over their fire talking to each other. Kid’s hammock wasn’t far from them, and he could hear what they were saying. As far as they were concerned, these British kids were crazy. Their projects were going to be impossible to complete in the time allocated, they weren’t going to be able to cope with the heat and they didn’t know what they were in for in a forest like this, full of jaguars, snakes and even the occasional evil spirit.

  None of the soldiers, except for Hubert, ever wanted to be called up for jungle duty. The word was that there were brujos out here. But, worse still, some forest spirit called the Duende was meant to be found in these remote parts and some soldiers even reckoned that they’d seen another one called the xtabay.

  ‘Wha’ dese kids doin’?’ one of them asked. ‘We heah bikaaz we in da army, an we gat no choice. But dey gat choice, for Krise sake. An’ still dey heah. Wha’ de matter wi dem?’

  Next morning, Kid found out that Hubert would be the one trekking out with him, depriving everybody else of his cooking skills, not to say anything of his sense of humour and his vigour with a machete. Feeling decidedly guilty, Kid packed up his hammock ready to leave. Everybody was getting ready for a busy day ahead and he found himself almost wishing that he could stay and help. It felt the least he could do after all they’d already been through together as a group. For a few short days, these people had become like Kid’s family. They’d given him something, and he wanted to give something back.

  When Kid volunteered to stay for a couple of days until the camp was built, though, he surprised himself as much as anybody else. For a moment, Jez and Candy stared at him as if they didn’t know what to say. Then Jez said, ‘We could do with spare hands. You have to admit that,’ and Candy agreed.

  Suddenly Kid was in, wondering what he’d let himself in for. He was equipped with a machete and sent off to clear undergrowth, minding what he touched and keeping an eye out for snakes.

  It was a long, hard day and Kid had plenty of opportunities to regret his decision. By the end of it, however, he was pleased that he’d stayed, and everybody else seemed pleased as well. They’d worked flat out, clearing ground, cutting down branches to make the main frame of the kitchen, digging loos and constructing a food store.

  Before supper, they went down to the river to wash, lark about and unwind from their labours. Then, after supper, they sat round on upturned logs and bedrolls and discussed which projects they might sign up for when it came time to choose.

  Kid thought that if he’d been staying no way would he have signed up to work in the same team as Hal. All day long, Hal had been putting him down as if the only person who could do a thing properly was him. Kid glanced across at Hal now, and Hal gave him a look as if to say Who d’you think you’re staring at? He was sitting next to Snow, who’d moved on from talking about teams to sharing what had brought her to Belize.

  ‘My father used to work in Amsterdam,’ she said. ‘Our family lived by a canal. From our roof garden we could see spires and roof tops right across the city, and outside our front door was a market where people bought clothes, antiques and jewellery from across the world. That’s when I fir
st got a taste for travelling. I remember a stall selling Indonesian puppets in brightly embroidered costumes. I thought they were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen and I dreamt of going there one day. But then the next stallholder along brought in a scarlet macaw, and it was even more beautiful. I asked where it came from and the stallholder said Belize. I asked where that was. He told me to go and look it up.’

  And so Snow had. And, after that, it had been Belize she’d dreamt of, though never thinking she’d end up here. Not long afterwards her parents had separated, which had meant the end of the house on the canal and definitely the end of the scarlet macaw. There had been arguments about who Snow should live with, and she’d ended up with her grandmother in England. Not that it stopped the arguments, because then her parents had started on about what she should be studying and what career she’d choose. Each had their own ideas, but neither asked her.

  ‘So I decided to choose nothing and go on a gap-year trip instead,’ said Snow, ‘and the only trip I could sign up for at this late stage was this one. I was terrified of whether I was doing the right thing. At the airport, do you remember? You too, Kid, you were there as well.’

  Kid stared at Snow as if she had to be talking about someone else. ‘Who? Me? What?’ he said.

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ Snow said.

  Kid said he didn’t have a clue what she was on about. Snow laughed and said she was on about the automatic check-in machine at Heathrow Airport. ‘You kept sticking your passport in upside-down,’ she said. ‘Remember? I thought I was nervous, but you were a real mess.’

  Kid remembered what a fool he’d felt. He also just about remembered the blonde girl who had helped him, whom he’d seen later buying chocolates and again on the plane.

  ‘That was you?’ he said.

  Snow laughed and said yes. It was a small world, she said. It had been niggling away at her for ages that she’d seen Kid before and suddenly today she’d remembered when.

  ‘Life’s full of coincidences,’ she said. ‘If that’s what they are. We even travelled out together on the same plane.’

  14

  KID’S CHOICE

  Next day, Hal made his presence felt as well. Whether Kid was helping dig steps down to the river, clear an emergency area at the top of the hill for a helicopter landing pad, construct the kitchen area, or help thatch its roof, Hal always knew a better way of doing it.

  Just because Kid was a city boy, he seemed to think he was incapable. Kid almost wished he hadn’t volunteered to stay. Hal might know how to repair barns and drive tractors, but that didn’t give him the right to push people around.

  ‘Hal’s doing my head in,’ Kid complained over lunch.

  ‘You mustn’t take it personally. He’s just trying to be helpful. He’s like that with everyone,’ Snow said.

  Kid told himself that she was right and just because he was a city boy and Hal a pig-headed country bumpkin, there was no reason why they couldn’t get on. They had things in common, after all. They were both hard workers. Both liked getting stuck into things. Both wanted to do things well.

  But both of them were impatient too, and when Hal made mistakes – as sometimes even he did – Kid never missed the chance to have a dig. And when Kid needed help, Hal would always make some passing jibe.

  It took three days to build the camp and by the time it was finished Kid was ready to leave. The whole group went on a tour to admire what they’d achieved, but the greatest achievement for him wasn’t the kitchen, or the flashy toilets – complete, in the boys’ case, with a nifty target-practice device involving string and a tipping tin can – or the food store, sitting-room area or private chill-out place. It was surviving Hal.

  That night – Kid’s last – he was on supper duty, drawing on skills honed in Jet’s Burger Joint to cook spam-burgers that went down a treat. All day long, he’d been counting the hours until he made his exit. But now, looking round at everybody, Kid wondered how he was going to say goodbye. Usually people came and went in his life and had little effect on him. But something special had happened here. These boring, rich-kid, do-gooders, as he’d once thought of them, had really proved themselves. For a few short days, they’d become Kid’s friends.

  After supper, people chose their projects. A list of teams went up and a strange atmosphere settled over the camp. Tomorrow it wasn’t just Kid who’d be going his separate way, but half the group, heading off into the forest to start their boundary-marking work.

  Their time together as one big group was nearly over, and everybody felt it. Kid looked round at them all. Wallace, Joanne, Snow, Hal, Fritz, Jack-the-Goth and Star Wars Al were among those who’d chosen the bunkhouse building team, and Laydee, Tilda, Jim and Benji among those who’d chosen to be boundary cutters. But they were all together for one last time, playing cards, laughing at each other’s jokes, singing along with Fritz’s silly songs and even sharing cigarettes – some of them using the excuse that they were only smoking to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

  All around them stood the forest, alive with sound. Howler monkeys roared in the distance on their nightly journey across the forest canopy, cicadas whistled in the trees overhead and tree frogs croaked and whirred. Kid heard soldiers talking to each other in Kriol, and people trying to learn off them, repeating phrases and laughing at each other when they didn’t get them right. The soldiers weren’t just soldiers any more. They were Pablo, Renaldo, Myron, Gonzalo, Philip, Pedro and, of course, Hubert. Only a few days ago they’d been strangers – grim-looking men in camouflage, shouldering sub-machine guns. But now they were well on their way to becoming everybody’s friends.

  Leaving here was going to be really weird, Kid thought. In just a few short days he’d got used to living in the trees. In the trees. He liked that phrase. More than bak-a-bush, or jungle or even forest, it seemed to really mean something. To speak for a way of life that Kid would always remember with affection.

  Like everybody else, he hung back that night instead of heading off to bed, unwilling for their precious time together to end. People started telling stories, and the soldiers joined in. The xtabay came up again – an evil witch-woman who Hubert swore blind he’d once come across hiding in the buttressed trunk of a ceiba tree, singing her song of seduction and he’d had to flee for his life.

  ‘Dat’s nothing,’ said one of the other soldiers, Myron. ‘If de brujo get you, you as good as dead. If de xtabay get you, you is dead. But if de Duende get you, you end up pleadin’ fi death.’

  Everybody wanted to know more. Who was the Duende, they all asked. Myron explained that the Duende had the appearance of a wizened little old man, but really he was the guardian of the forest. To his friends, Myron said, he had it in him to be a friend too. But to anybody who harmed his beloved forest, be they the scariest xatero or the humblest gap-year volunteer, his wrath was terrible. In fact, being caught by him was worse than death.

  ‘Blood an’ death,’ said Myron, rolling his eyes. ‘Blood an’ death, deep down an’ dark. An’ not jus’ any death. Ai is talkin’ soul-death.’

  Everybody shivered when Myron said that. Kid remembered the little man he’d encountered when he’d been leaving Night Falls Lodge – the one whose every word of good advice he’d totally ignored. He hoped he hadn’t been the Duende – not that he really believed in that sort of thing, of course.

  People started talking about ways in which the forest was already being harmed. The gold mine had a mention, and so did the sorts of logging companies that were banned in Chiquibul. Hubert reckoned you could always tell a forest once it had been logged. Even after it had grown up again, there was a difference in the quality of light. A difference in the smell. A difference even in the sounds it made.

  ‘Forests are like lungs,’ Hubert said. ‘Dey breathe life into us and mek us one. Heah we are from worlds apart and, thanks to de forest, we’re sharing one life. Where we come from doesn’t matter any more, or what we once were in de past. It’s what we are n
ow dat matters, here in de trees. It’s what we do and what we mek of ourselves.’

  Kid went to bed that night, Hubert’s words ringing in his head, feeling as if leaving tomorrow would be a betrayal.

  But these aren’t my trees, he reminded himself. This isn’t what I signed up to – it’s not my cause. It’s their cause – Snow’s and Fritz’s and everybody else’s. And the cause of their organisation, Wide-World Treks. And the soldiers’ cause, because this is their country. It’s the Belizean people’s cause, and their brand-new government. It’s even the Duende’s cause. But it’s not mine.

  Kid slept badly that night. Next morning he awoke to find half the group’s hammocks packed away and the boundary cutters ready to depart. It was only first light, but already the camp was buzzing. Down in the kitchen area, breakfasts were being served and in the sitting-room area Candy and Doc Rose were going through their equipment list making sure they had everything they needed for a long trek.

  Kid started making garbled farewells in a panic, afraid of people leaving before he had the chance to work his way round them all. Before he’d gone very far, however, Jez drew him to one side.

  ‘I want a word with you,’ he said.

  Kid wondered what he’d done. Jez said he had an offer to make. His expression was grave.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re going to think about this,’ Jez said, ‘and it’s certainly not usual, believe me. But then your turning up out of the blue hasn’t been usual either, and we’ve been talking about it and we’d like you to stay. The choice is yours, of course. Hubert’s all lined up to trek you out. But we could do with another worker, truth to tell, and you’re not just any worker – you work damn hard. And, apart from that, you’ve become a mate. I’m not just speaking for us leaders here. I’m speaking for everyone. So what do you think?’