In the Trees

by Pauline Fisk

  ‘The Maya were a great people in their day,’ Jez said. ‘The wise ones of the ancient world. But now their glory days are over and only ruins remain.’

  Everybody shivered. Joanne wondered if a similar fate would one day befall modern cities like London and New York. ‘In a thousand years’ time,’ she said, ‘will people discover our ruins and wonder what we were like?’

  Next morning people awoke with a sense of anticipation, expecting Caracol to be within their grasp despite what Jez had said. But they walked for hours without sight of a single stone. The only excitement came from a troop of howler monkeys, who hurled twigs at their heads for coming too close.

  That night, they camped close to another river. People went down to bathe, but returned with their legs covered with sand fly bites. No one wanted to go near to it after that but, just before turning in, Kid slipped down to fill his water bottles, and Snow joined him.

  Night was falling, the last light leaching out between the trees and the river shining like a piece of polished ebony. Everything was still, as if the forest held its breath. Snow said something about hallowed ground. Kid said he didn’t know what hallowed meant. Snow said it meant the sort of things that Fritz had sung about. The holiness of life. The garden of God.

  The two of them stood in silence, looking at the river which was shining darkly now. Suddenly Kid became aware that something was slicing through those waters, long silvery lines running from what surely had to be a creature’s head.

  By Kid’s side, Snow drew in her breath. She took Kid’s hand and he too drew in his breath. The something rose up from the river, dripping with water, and padded ashore. Unheralded, terrifying but utterly beautiful – it was a jaguar.

  A jaguar.

  Kid moved his lips, but no sound came out. Even so, as if aware of having an audience, the jaguar turned its enormous head. Its twin eyes burned like black-hearted fires and, in a teasing parody of a yawn, the jaguar opened its cavern of a mouth revealing white fangs and a huge tongue.

  Snow huddled against Kid’s side, clutching his arm, her nails digging into his skin. But Kid didn’t feel her. Her presence was forgotten. Everything about this jaguar’s body was on a grand scale, starting with its coat, dappled with a pattern of dark rosettes. Its shoulders were huge and rippling with muscles. Its legs were as solid as tree trunks. Even its paws were huge.

  Kid wondered why he wasn’t quaking in his shoes. He should have been, he knew, but everything inside him felt icy calm. For the single, most electric moment of his life the jaguar stood watching him with its gold-black eyes.

  Then, as if it had seen enough, it turned and stalked away.

  18

  CARACOL

  The jaguar changed things – not just for Kid and Snow, but for the whole trek. It changed its outcome in unexpected ways. From that point onwards nothing was quite the same. The whole team was changed, and Hal more than the rest of them. He never quite got over the fact that Kid, not him, had seen that jaguar.

  Kid was the hero of the hour. ‘He was so calm,’ Snow said. ‘He was amazing. He made me feel so safe. He made me feel protected.’

  Hal walked away. He didn’t want to know. Everybody was envious, but not like him. Kid tried to make Snow stop, but the damage was already done.

  From then on, Hal’s nickname for Kid was Jaguar-Boy. He said it a couple of times over supper, then started up with it again as soon as they set off next day.

  ‘Come on, Jaguar-Boy,’ he said. ‘Hurry up. Watch your step. Who’s the hero now? You’re holding everybody up.’

  Kid told Hal to leave it off. But Hal carried on all day in similar vein. It was a hot day too, perfect for short tempers. Even by the jungle’s standards the heat was remorseless. The jungle felt like an oven. Yesterday there’d been a bit of sky between the trees, but today they were impenetrable. The foliage created a dense wall on either side of them as they fought their way through. The canopy was heavy overhead, and the little bits of light that seeped through had a strange hardness about them.

  And the jungle seemed more humid, too. Kid poured with sweat all day long. His legs, feet, shoulders, head, arms, eyes – everything – were soaked in sweat, and aching too. He started laughing but didn’t know why. Jez said they hadn’t far to go, but Kid didn’t believe him. After all, this was the same Jez who’d billed this trek as a holiday – and look how right he’d been about that!

  Other people started laughing too, as if they’d passed some sort of pain threshold and nothing mattered any more. When word came back from somewhere towards the front of the group that Jez was right, nobody at the back where Kid was believed it.

  ‘What are you laughing at, Jaguar-Boy?’ Hal said.

  Kid laughed at him as well. How come he’d never noticed how funny Hal was before? He struggled on, dragging his feet, head down, not noticing the growing light until suddenly it burst in upon him and he found himself standing in a clearing carpeted by coarse grass.

  Three tall trees grew right in the middle of the clearing, their roots protruding from a white stone wall. For some reason, Kid found that funny too. He laughed until he thought he’d burst. All around him people were whooping, cheering and throwing down their rucksacks, but he couldn’t take in the fact that they’d actually arrived at their destination. Only when a couple of girls appeared on the far side of the clearing, and started whooping too, did Kid grasp that this was it. This was Caracol. The city centre. They were there.

  One of the girls was Tilda. She came running across the clearing, crying, ‘Joanne … Jake … Al … Wallace … Snow … Kid … Hal … You’ve arrived! But where’s Fritz?’

  Kid stopped laughing at that. People were explaining about Fritz, and suddenly he felt to blame again. Fritz would have loved this place. The other girl was running too, and there were others behind her, drawn by the din. Even Candy was there, and Doc Rose, and Laydee, Jim and Benji. The boundary cutters had beaten them by an hour but they weren’t crowing about it. They had something else on their minds, and it wasn’t winning.

  It was food.

  ‘We need noodles,’ they said as soon as they’d finished greeting each other. ‘We’ve had spiders in ours, making cobwebs and laying eggs. And our powdered milk is low, and so are coffee granules, proper tea and sugar. God, we’re missing sugar. And as for baked beans – we’ve been dreaming of baked beans. We could kill for baked beans.’

  Hal said they could forget the baked beans and, if they wanted to know why, they should ask Jaguar-Boy here. Kid felt himself flush. Everybody turned to him and he felt to blame yet again. Kid and Candy exchanged looks.

  ‘Never mind the baked beans. At least for now. Come and see where we’re staying,’ Candy said. ‘Come on, all of you. It’s our camp for the next two nights. And it’s got proper beds.’

  The camp was on loan to Wide-World Treks from a team of archaeologists who used it for digs. It had a kitchen with a proper stove, properly dug toilets, tables and chairs and a bunkhouse full of beds.

  ‘There’s even a road,’ Candy said. ‘Not a tarmac road, or anything like that. But at least a track for getting vehicles in. It almost feels like we’re back in civilisation.’

  The road was the hardest to believe. But the sight of a camp built out of shacks with doors and shutters was almost as surreal. Kid stood staring at them. Only moments ago, he’d been in deepest jungle, miles from anywhere, now he felt like a tourist arriving at some resort.

  But Caracol had attractions that the ordinary resort could only dream of. Maybe they didn’t include things like swimming pools and en-suite bathrooms, but they did include an entire kingdom of hidden temples and palaces, gradually unfolding as the group moved round the site.

  Kid wandered across a series of grassy plazas surrounded by white stone structures. Jez pointed out the site of an ancient observatory where the Maya would have studied the stars. He showed them sculpted reliefs, and explained what they meant. He took them on a tour of palaces, each one larger than
the last. Finally he led them to a grassy ball-court, which he couldn’t wait to tell them about.

  ‘What sorts of games would have been played here?’ Star Wars Al asked.

  ‘Ones to celebrate great victories in battle,’ Jez replied. ‘But unlike our games they’d have gone on for days. And also, unlike our games, they’d have been played using the Mayans’ conquered enemies’ heads.’

  Everybody looked disgusted, but Jez had only just started. ‘Don’t you want to know what the winner’s prize would be?’ he said.

  People weren’t sure that they did, but Jez told them anyway. ‘The winner would have been sacrificed to the gods,’ he said. ‘It was the highest honour, apparently, because the gods only wanted the best.’

  It was hard to believe that this sunny plaza once had been a place of blood and death. Kid walked away. Caracol was full of ghosts. He shivered. Perhaps he didn’t like it so much after all.

  Snow came up to him. ‘You know who’d have loved all this? Poor old Fritz. It isn’t fair,’ she said.

  ‘Tell that to the ancient Mayan ball-court winners whose prize was to be sacrificed,’ Kid said.

  ‘I’m being serious,’ she said.

  ‘Well, don’t be,’ he said.

  As they walked along together, Snow linked her arm through his. It didn’t feel awkward, not as if she was coming on to him or anything like that. It was simply what it was – a casual act of friendliness. Together they strolled through the rest of the plazas exploring temples, and Kid knew that things between them had been restored. The bad feelings over what he’d said to Fritz were finally laid to rest between them.

  Snow went on about life in Mayan times, wanting to know more. This was a subject she returned to later over supper. What had happened to the inhabitants of Caracol? she wanted to know. Where were their descendants now?

  Most of them had died, Jez said, but some still lived in Belize to this day. ‘Those of you who’ll be taking up placements in Toledo District will be living in their villages,’ he said.

  A general conversation sprang up about placements, where people were going and what they’d be doing afterwards. Some weren’t taking up placements at all, but heading off to Spanish language school in Guatemala. Then others were going backpacking round South America. Then others were heading out to the cayes to learn to dive. And the rest of them were aiming to fly straight home.

  Kid wondered what he’d do when his time in Chiquibul was over. It was the first time in ages that he’d thought that far ahead. But whatever happened next, he decided, it could never better this.

  The stars shone down upon Caracol and the moon made its temples and palaces glow like silver. Perhaps it wasn’t just a place of blood, Kid thought. Perhaps it was a place of peace as well. A place where people had made their homes, and lived in families, and cared for each other and the world around them, enjoying all the good things in life.

  The sense of peace Kid felt, just thinking about things like that, overwhelmed him. It came to him that nothing in his life would ever better this place. But then Hal had to go and spoil it.

  ‘So, Jaguar-Boy, how about you?’

  Kid felt himself stiffen. ‘How about me what?’ he said, turning to face Hal.

  ‘When your free ride’s finally over, who’ll you latch on to next?’ Hal said.

  Kid felt himself flinch. Hal’s choice of words had scored a hole-in-one. He smirked as if he could sense the damage he had done, even if he didn’t know its details. Kid’s fists tightened, but Jez stepped in.

  ‘There’s been no free ride,’ he said. ‘Hal, what are you on about? Kid’s worked his passage. He’s worked harder than anyone.’

  Everyone agreed, but nothing could be the way it was before. Hal mouthed the words Jaguar-Boy again and everybody looked embarrassed.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ they said, after Jez had dragged him off. ‘Don’t listen to him, Kid. Pay him no attention.’

  But Hal’s words had been an insult, and Kid couldn’t forget them. They hung in the air, like a challenge to a fight.

  19

  THE FIGHT

  Kid hated Hal after that. He didn’t just hate him for spoiling his special moment. He hated him for everything – his piggy eyes, his sweaty face, his naggy, whining voice. Everything about him kept Kid awake, lying in his first proper bed for weeks, but totally unable to sleep.

  Something had been building up for weeks and now, here in this place of blood not peace, where even winners ended up being sacrificed to the gods, it had finally come spilling out.

  Early next morning, Kid slipped out of bed, leaving all the other fresh-faced sleepers with their mumbles and snores. With nothing better to do, he decided to climb Caracol’s highest building, the pyramid-shaped temple known as El Caana. It was obviously going to be a tricky undertaking, but Kid didn’t care.

  He started climbing, geckos scuttling ahead of him and scorpions hurrying out of his way. To begin with, his ascent was no more difficult than climbing a flight of stairs without a hand-rail. But slowly the steps became taller and the ground became smaller and further away, and Kid started feeling as if he was tackling a mountain.

  Half way up El Caana, much to his relief, he found a grassy plaza where he could stop. By now morning was breaking across the sky, but the forest still lay in darkness, and so did Caracol, the tops of its temples protruding through the forest canopy like a dark fleet floating on an even darker sea.

  Kid could see the canopy flowing away from him, all the way to the horizon. Slowly colour was creeping into it in little eddies, creating swirling shapes which seemed to breathe with life. Kid swore he could see faces out there in the growing light – pale faces, like the ghosts of all the people who had lived here once and, like him, lost out in the game of life.

  Kid started climbing again. If anyone had asked what he was doing, he couldn’t have said. But when he reached the top and found Hal waiting for him, he knew exactly why he’d come.

  Just as Hal did too. ‘Come up for the view, did you?’ he smirked, as if he’d been waiting for this moment all night long.

  No, I came to beat the hell out of you, Kid thought. But he didn’t say it. Instead he said, ‘What’ve I ever done to you?’

  Hal snorted. ‘That’s just typical,’ he said. ‘You, you, you – everything’s always about you. But, seeing as you’ve asked, I had a nice view until you came along. But then I also had friends until you came along. And now they’re your friends and have no time for me.’

  Kid said Hal was talking rubbish – everybody was his friend. Hal said but not Snow, at least not anymore and Kid asked him what he meant by that.

  ‘You don’t fancy her, do you?’ he said.

  Hal flushed. ‘I saw you yesterday, moving in on her,’ he said.

  Kid said he hadn’t been moving in on her, but what if he had? Hal said Snow could do better than someone like him, with nothing in the world but some old cardboard box and a pathetic sob story about his mother being dead.

  Kid felt himself go cold all over. ‘It isn’t a sob story,’ he said. ‘Every word of it is true. But how d’you know it anyway? You listened in, didn’t you? When I was telling Jez, you were eavesdropping.’

  Hal said so what? Not that he’d believed a word of it, anyway. It might have fooled Jez, and won Kid a place on the team, but it hadn’t fooled him. From that moment onwards, Hal said, he’d been watching Kid, waiting to expose his lies.

  ‘What makes you so sure that they’re lies?’ Kid demanded to know.

  ‘My parents warned me about people like you,’ Hal replied. ‘Wide boys. Con men. Sharp talkers. City slickers. They said you can’t trust them like honest country folk.’

  Kid laughed at that and shook his head. ‘Honest country folk,’ he said. ‘Is that what you are?’

  Hal took a step towards him. Kid warned him to back off and, to show him he meant business, gave him a shove. Undeterred, Hal took another step. This time his fists were clenched.

&nb
sp; ‘I said back off !’ Kid said.

  ‘I’ll do what I want …’

  ‘Not to me you won’t!’

  ‘Just you try and stop me, Jaguar-Boy …’

  The two boys stood pressed nose to nose, shouting at each other. Somewhere beneath them, tiny figures appeared from the camp, disturbed by the din and wanting to know what was going on. But the boys didn’t see them any more than they saw birds rising from the trees, squawking as if they knew that trouble was on the way.

  They were too caught up with each other to notice anybody else. Kid shouted that if Hal called him Jaguar-Boy one more time, he’d break his every last bone, and Hal shouted the words back, only louder this time. Then, true to his threat, Kid punched Hal in the chest amid a roaring sound inside his head, which cried out, ‘Yes … yes … yes!’

  It was a blow for victory. A blow for Kid’s pride. A blow for city slickers everywhere, against stupid, bumpkin country boys. Hal reeled back, obviously in pain, but the voice inside Kid still cried yes and, when he struck Hal again, causing him to lose his balance, the voice was almost singing.

  Hal missed his footing. He started falling down a long flight of steps. Kid should have tried to save him, but he scrambled after him instead, continuing the attack. All the way down the steps he kept it up, aiming blows at Hal and Hal trying to aim a few back whilst fending Kid off. This was the fight they’d both been waiting for. Neither of them was able to stop.

  Only when Hal hit the plaza halfway down the pyramid – hit it hard and didn’t get up – did the fight finally stop. Hal lay where he’d fallen, and Kid wanted to punch him again and call him a coward for pretending. But blood started coming out of Hal’s nose, and his eyes were closed and slowly it began to dawn on Kid how much damage he’d inflicted.

  He stepped back in horror. Was Hal dead? Suddenly he found Hubert pulling him away, and Cassie and Doc Rose surrounding Hal. Jez was there too, and Candy, all of them leaning over Hal.