by James Erith
He looked down and found himself wearing a pair of shorts and he was running. It was a lovely feeling, the air filling his lungs. And he had hair! How wonderful. He dragged his hands through it and it was silky. He felt young, like a child, the same age as the twins. His skin was smooth and his mind was ... alert.
On his feet he wore a pair of football boots, just like Archie’s. He looked up. A football was flying towards him and his immediate reaction was to run out of the way. But out of the corner of his eye he spotted Daisy yelling at him. What was she saying? Pass it? He went towards the ball but it was too fast and bounced off his boot straight to an opponent. This wasn’t as easy as it looked.
Daisy swore and chivvied him to chase the player.
He took off and was moving at speed. Much to his delight, Old Man Wood found himself gaining. He lunged for the ball but tripped the player.
The whistle blew. ‘Do that once more and you’ll be in the book,’ the referee said.
Old Man Wood caught his breath and brushed the mud off his knees.
Daisy was there in an instant. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ she said. ‘There’s hardly any time to go. Don’t make stupid fouls like that. We’ve got to win or we’re never playing again.’
The other team lined up a shot and the ball was cruising towards the goal. But Archie danced into the path of the ball and caught it smartly. In a flash he punted the ball wide.
One of his players passed it to him. This time he managed to control it and he slipped a neat pass through to Daisy. Daisy, now on the halfway line, jinked past one, and then sped past another, her blonde hair bobbing up and down as she went. Boy, she was quick. He found himself sprinting just to keep up with her.
A defender forced her wide and she played the ball inside to him. Looking up, he passed it to Isabella on the other flank. He couldn’t remember Isabella ever liking football but she neatly passed it back to him just as she was clattered by an opposition player. He couldn’t help laughing at the horrified expression on her face.
Now Daisy was screaming for the ball.
But Old Man Wood found himself running with it and it felt brilliant. He did a jink – just as Daisy had – beating the man in front of him. He knocked the ball forward, finding Daisy, who held off a challenge and stood with the ball under her feet.
In a flash she turned on a sixpence, the ball rolling under her other foot, totally foxing the defender, and headed towards the goal. Old Man Wood felt himself sprinting into the area as Daisy smashed a shot at the goal. Old Man Wood held his breath as the ball sped toward the goal. It whacked against the post and rebounded directly into his path. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a defender running towards the ball. He had to get there first, so he sprinted harder; he knew what he had to do. He cocked his leg back and kicked the ball as hard as he could a fraction before the other defender got there.
The ball screamed into the roof of the net, tearing a hole in the netting, and was still rising just as the defender crunched into his foot.
A heartbeat later and a lightning bolt smashed out of the sky directly into him. A surge of energy fizzed through his entire body, through every sinew and fibre of his being.
It took his breath away and when at last the sensation wore off, he peered down to find a bottle of gold liquid on his lap.
And then he woke up, with a start.
OLD MAN WOOD opened his eyes and thumped the air.
‘What a goal!’ he shouted, and then, ‘Ouch!’ He stared up at the ceiling, a big smile on his face, his head sizzling as though a rocket had gone off in it and his body was tingling like mad. ‘What a marvel-tastic dream,’ he said out loud to the empty room.
His foot throbbed. He looked down and found he’d walloped the end of his bed. Must have been when he scored that amazing goal. He looked a little more closely and found a hole in the wooden sheet that covered the bed-end. He studied it, pulling a few of the fragments away and chuckling at the absurdity of it all – he’d certainly struck the ball with awesome power.
Old Man Wood wiggled his toes, grateful that he’d lain on his bed with his shoes on. As far as he could tell, nothing was broken or too badly bruised. Then he heard the rain pounding outside and his heart sank. His earlier worries flew back at him. He kicked the broken piece of wood as though recreating the goal might lift his spirits. But it wasn’t the same.
He climbed off his bed and peered out of the window, but the rain was so heavy he could barely see out. Were the children safely tucked away in the school? What if they were outside trying to get home? Would they survive?
His heart filled with heaviness. If something happened to them, he was responsible, but what could he do? There was no way of knowing where they might be. With no answers, Old Man Wood walked slowly back to his bed and lay down.
He looked at the hole in the wooden panel. A tiny flicker of light, like a dim torch whose batteries were running low, seemed to leech out from behind it. Now wasn’t that strange, he thought. Maybe it was a trick of the light. But none of the house lights were working – he’d already tried them.
Maybe he should crank up the generator – at least it would give him something to do. He swung his feet off the bed and as he did the light from behind the wooden panel intensified.
He inspected the hole a little closer and found that there was indeed a faint glow emanating from behind it. He prised it open with his fingers and, feeling more than a little intrigued, began to wrestle with the wooden surround that covered the large bed-end. But it was stubbornly attached. He found a torch, switched it on and rushed out of his room past the wide staircase to the tool cupboard, where he selected a crowbar before returning to his room.
Moments later, Old Man Wood wedged the crowbar in behind the panel and was attempting to lever the wood away by leaning on it as gently – but firmly – as he thought necessary. But whatever angle he tried, the panel would not budge. Furthermore, he was conscious that if he was too heavy handed he might damage his beautiful bed carvings.
He scratched his head and slipped out of the room, returning moments later with a flat head screwdriver and a hammer. Old Man Wood thrust the flat head into the tiniest of gaps and gave the end a smart whack with the hammer. The nails securing the panel lifted, just a fraction.
Placing the crowbar in the new gap, he levered it once more and after a few more whacks, the panel popped off.
He rubbed his chin. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ he said as he ran his fingers over the three panels that now stared back at him. ‘What in the apples do we have here?’
In front of him were three beautifully inlaid panels that seemed to glow like three small monitors – rather like the children’s computers. The difference was that these ones were inlaid into the bed itself and surrounded by carvings that matched those on the bed.
He stared at them for a while, his face a picture of confusion, the wrinkles on his forehead deeply pronounced. Every now and then the images in the panels moved and, when they did, Old Man Wood could feel his heart racing. And it kept on happening with all three panels, randomly. Was he was seeing things, he wondered?
He noticed that the overlying image was hazy – like looking through heavy rain. Maybe it was mirroring the weather right now, he thought, as if it were in some way, however ludicrous, a weather forecasting unit. As he became more accustomed to the panels, the images on them became a little clearer. On each panel was a figure. Three panels, three figures, one on each “screen”. And why did each one look so familiar?
He studied the carvings to the sides of the screens. The first was an ornate pointer in the shape of an arrow. He touched one that faced away from the first panel. To his astonishment, the panel seemed to move the image out, exactly like a zoom on a camera. He did the same with the next panel, this time pressing on the arrow that turned in. Once again the picture moved, but this time closer. He studied it with increased fascination.
The person he was looking at appeared to be dre
nched and walking up something – tripping every now and then – as though trying to negotiate a pathway, but the image was still so hazy. He rubbed his hand over another carved icon adjacent to the arrow, which he thought looked rather like a cloud. He pressed it and magically the picture transformed, removing the rain.
Old Man Wood gasped as he stared at the new image. That balance and gait could only belong to one person, and that person was Daisy. He pressed the inward arrow a couple of times and he could now see her in quite extraordinary detail.
A thrill passed through him. He was looking at the children, right now, in real-time, and he realised that, if he could determine which buttons to press, he’d be able to see exactly where they were. He did the same to the panel on the right, this time pressing the cloud and zooming out with the away arrow.
He clapped his hands. It was Archie, definitely Archie, with a kind of spiky hat on his head – and he was standing right next to Daisy. And, just like her, he was trying to walk through something and that something, he concluded, was not in the slightest bit helpful. It was like a river of goo sliding towards them. So where were they? He pulled out and saw an image of a gully with low branches bending down.
The track! It must be the track. He clenched his fists. My goodness me! But where were they on the track? He pulled out even further. Apples alive! At the bottom! His heart sank. At least the twins were together, but what about Isabella?
He scoured the left panel and sighed with relief as he saw her outline. He honed in and pressed the cloud icon. It cleared the screen. He pressed the outward arrow to try and work out her position.
She was heading towards a large object with a sheer face, pushing past bushes and through trees. He zoomed out. Behind her, he could see something creeping up on her. Was it water? It had to be. My goodness it was flooding fast. He thought quickly. The only sheer rock he could think of was ... was underneath the ruin. So how come she was separated from the others?
It didn’t matter. She was where she was.
Old Man Wood breathed a sigh of relief. They were alive. He looked at his clock. How long was it since he’d been out for a walk? Two hours? He trembled.
Had the children been out in this for that long? Goodness gracious. Not much would survive in that.
His heart thumped. He needed to find them before they were battered and drowned in all that rain.
TWENTY-NINE
LIGHTNING BOLTS
Daisy dozed, her head resting on Archie’s chest. Her mind swam. She dreamt fleetingly of the cottage, of Old Man Wood and their parents. She dreamt of scoring a goal with a sensational bicycle-kick and Archie making a flying, fingertip save. The storm seemed a million miles away.
Suddenly she woke. A noise had clicked in her brain. She studied it, her eyes shut tight. Then she realised what it was.
‘MOVE!’ she screamed at Archie.
Archie opened his eyes. ‘Eh? What?’
‘Incoming. I can hear it. MOVE!’
‘Where?’ Archie replied.
The noise was building somewhere miles above them.
‘Down the branch. NOW!’
Archie did what he was told and shuffled his bottom as fast as he could down the branch, the rain smashing down on them once more.
‘Further,’ she screamed. ‘As far as you can.’ She was skimming along, almost bouncing when she stopped, wrapped her hands and legs around the thick branch, and hugged her body into the wood. She hoped for the best.
Archie continued on, oblivious to Daisy’s action. From out of nowhere, a terrific surge of power smashed into the tree. The branch was severed like a head being cut off by an axe and it crashed down, bridging the track just above the flowing mud. Archie flew into the air and came down into the torrent. He sank underneath the waterline.
DAISY CONVULSED with electricity and was filled with pain, particularly her ears. She uncurled her body from around the branch as the rain crashed onto her back and head.
Regaining her composure, she turned round. Where was Archie?
She tried to call out his name but not a single sound came from her mouth. She knew it was hopeless. Even if she could scream for help, he’d never hear her. She scanned the area. Suddenly she saw a hand struggling to grip the end of the branch. And then it fell away, caught in the torrent.
She shrieked and desperately fished her hand down into the water but felt nothing but twigs and leaves and the occasional bush flashing beneath her.
Daisy thumped the branch, tears streaming from her eyes, blending with the rain. How much more she could take? Her eyes dipped.
And now she was all on her own.
ARCHIE WAS CATAPULTED into the air. He landed in the middle of the torrent and plunged into the water. He felt his body being whipped away. He battled with all his might and when he surfaced, directly in front of him was the huge branch which straddled the track.
His lungs burned.
He reached up, but however hard he tried, he couldn’t get a hold on the bark and after several attempts he felt a pain as though the nails on his fingers were starting to detach. The force of the water was so great that he had simply no option but to give in. He let go.
He was swept away. He desperately needed to breathe. He struggled to keep his head up and every time he did, it was battered down again by the rain. And all the while he searched for buoyancy – a branch or a tree he could grab that might keep him afloat.
He thrashed out with his feet like a madman, kicking the water beneath him in a last massive effort to survive. Something caught around his left leg, possibly a root. He succumbed, shattered and beaten. He smiled ironically as he let himself go, Cain’s words coming to him as he floated away: if it wasn’t the thunderbolts and it wasn’t the rain, it was the landslides.
But, much to his surprise, he remained bound by this thing that had snared around his leg. The current pushed him towards the bank and he made a grab for a protruding root, twisting his body round and keeping his head up. He sucked in air, coughing water out of his lungs. He gave his foot a yank and found it unyielding.
He tried again, this time holding the root on the bank with his other hand. It moved! He did it again and again. Now there was just enough slack to allow him to climb up. He bent forward to see what was around his ankle and felt into the water, pulling his left leg towards him.
He touched something coarse and thick. Archie’s mind was working overtime. Then it struck him. It was the swinging rope attached to the big branch.
He pulled harder, knowing that if Daisy was still attached to the tree trunk she couldn’t possibly know it was him. The rope came away a little more. Now there was enough slack for him to try and untie it. He reached down and figured that the end had knotted around his ankle. It wasn’t the trickiest knot he’d ever seen, but the rope was thick and the current was pulling him and the rain beating down and every time he thought he had it, the slack was withdrawn and he was back to where he started. He gave the rope an even bigger tug. The whole branch moved. This time the rope gave and slipped off his foot. He grabbed it, and tied it around his waist.
And then he heard a scream. Even above the roar of the rain and the torrent, it couldn’t be mistaken.
It was Daisy, screaming;
‘IN-COMING!’
ARCHIE KNEW EXACTLY what he had to do.
Daisy was still on the branch – he was sure of it. He tugged with all his might and felt the branch yield. He pulled again and again. Slowly the branch twisted off the bank and slid towards the torrent below. There couldn’t be much more time. One more pull was all it needed.
He harnessed the rope around his shoulders and yelled out, pulling like crazy. Suddenly the branch broke free and shot forward, just as a thunderbolt crashed into exactly the place it had been resting. Archie wondered if he’d done enough – if Daisy had managed to get out of the way. But he had no time to think, for the big branch began slipping down the slope, joining the torrent that was flushing down the lane.
&n
bsp; Archie was whipped away behind it, trying desperately to keep himself above water, holding on for dear life as the branch joined the main body of the river. As it did, he pulled himself closer and put his left leg out, using it as a rudder. It seemed to work and the great branch pitched towards what he hoped was the bank on the left hand side.
ARCHIE PULLED himself up onto the log, shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. The rain slammed down on his back and head as if it was beating him to death, slowly and surely, with blunt nails, like Chinese torture.
Maybe he should slip back into the water to take the pressure off his body. But what if he did that and was swept away? It wasn’t worth it. He didn’t know if either Daisy or Isabella were still alive. If they were, it was a miracle. How much longer could he last? He felt his eyes closing and he thought he heard a voice. Was it Old Man Wood? No, similar but different. Cain? Archie lifted his head and swore he could see something sitting near him on the branch. ‘Daisy – Daisy,’ he groaned.
‘Come with me,’ a voice said. ‘You can be saved, Archie.’
‘Saved,’ Archie repeated. It was the best offer he’d had for a while.
‘I can lose this other boy. Say yes, and it will be done.’
Was it Cain? With Kemp? Everything Cain had said was true. What did he have to lose?
His brain swam. All he could think of was his sisters and nothing else. The branch jolted and snapped him out of his trance.
No. Archie knew he had to get Daisy off the log and find Isabella. There was no other way. They’d die together. But better to die together trying to save the world than not to try at all.
‘I’d rather be with my sisters than join with you,’ he spoke into the rain.
The voice laughed back at him, ‘I will return, Archie. You may need me yet.’
THIRTY
