Cliffhanger (2 page)

‘Hello! You must be Tim. I'm Sally. I'm in charge of the Adventure Centre,' she said.

She smiled at me. Dad prodded me
in
the back to make me say hello.

The slowpoke girl was dashing about showing off.

‘Now you behave yourself, Kelly,' said her mum, but she didn't sound a bit fierce. She sounded friendly.

Kelly just laughed at her and gave her a hug.

‘You can clear off now, Mum,' she said. ‘Bye.'

‘I think we should make ourselves scarce too,' said Dad. ‘Cheerio, Tim.' He bent down and whispered in my ear. ‘Now you're really going to try to be a big boy, not a silly baby, eh?'

I didn't say anything. Dad chucked me under the chin.

‘You'll have a great time,' said Dad.

‘But if you really don't like it then phone and we'll come and get you straight away,' said Mum. ‘And write me lots of postcards too. One every day?'

She gave me a hug and a very wet kiss. I wriggled. I was sure Kelly was watching and laughing at me.

‘Mum! I'll be OK. Honestly,' I said.

Though I didn't
feel
OK. It was awful seeing them get back in the car without me. I waved like crazy. There was someone on the back seat waving back. Walter Bear! I'd left him in the car!

‘Come on then, Tim,' said Sally, putting her arm round my shoulders. ‘Hey, Kelly, wait for us.'

Kelly had gone charging through the doors and down the hall of the Adventure Centre.

‘Where's all the other children then?' she shouted. ‘When are we going to start the adventures, eh? Can I go canoeing first? No, wait a minute, what's that thing called when you dangle down a cliff?'

‘Abseiling,' said Sally.

I muttered the words ‘dangle' and ‘cliff' and felt sick.

‘I'm going to love abseiling,' said Kelly, and she threw down her bag and started miming it, rushing backwards.

She rushed backwards into me, nearly knocking me over.

‘Simmer down, Kelly,' said Sally.

‘I'm not very good at simmering,' said Kelly, laughing. ‘I generally bubble over.'

‘So I see!' said Sally, shaking her head. ‘OK, you'd both better get unpacked. Your bedrooms are up the stairs at the end. Girls on the right, boys on the left. You'll see a Tiger poster on the doors.'

Kelly and I went up the stairs together. I didn't know what to say to her. I felt silly and shy. She pulled another funny face.

‘What did Sally say? Girls to the left? So you go thataway,' said Kelly, giving me a little push to the door on the right.

I was sure she'd got it wrong but Kelly isn't the sort of girl you argue with. So I knocked on the right-hand door and then peeped round.

Two girls stared at me, outraged. They were trying on each other's clothes.

‘No boys allowed in here!' said the pretty one, tossing her long hair. ‘Clear off.'

‘Yes, clear off, you,' said her friend.

I cleared off rapidly.

Kelly was being shouted at too. She didn't seem to care.

‘Oh oh! Swopsies,' she said, shrugging cheerfully.

I tried the left-hand door this time. Inside, there were two boys messing about with their bags.

‘Hello, I'm Giles,' said the taller one. His voice was very posh and he acted very pushy. ‘You're going to be
in
our team. The Tigers. What are you good at then?'

I thought hard.

‘Um. Well, I'm OK at Maths and ...'

‘
Games
, you berk!' said Giles, sneering. ‘What school teams are you in?'

‘I'm not,' I said.

You're not in
anything
? Oh great!' said Giles sarcastically. ‘We've got three girls, old Fatso here, and
you
.'

The fat boy was sprawling on his bed, eating a biscuit.

‘Less of the Fatso,
Piles
,' he said, munching.

I giggled. I know what piles are. My dad had them once.

The fat boy giggled too. ‘Hi, I'm Biscuits,' he said. ‘What's your name, then?'

‘Tim,' I said, putting my bag down on the bed next to Biscuits.

‘Not
that
one! That's my bed,' said Giles, knocking my bag on to the floor.

‘Your bed's that one over there,' said Biscuits. ‘We're supposed to get
unpacked
. They're going to ring a bell when it's teatime. I can't wait, I'm starving.'

He unwrapped another biscuit and started serious munching again. Giles unzipped a tennis racquet and started swinging it wildly in the air, practising his serve.

I started unpacking all my stuff. My T-shirts and pyjamas smelt all clean and flowery of home. I had to bend over my bag so that Giles and Biscuits wouldn't see my watery eyes.

Then I felt a sudden bang on the head.

‘Watch out!' I squeaked.

‘Sorry. Just practising,' said Giles. ‘Oh goodness, you're not blubbing, are you? I hardly touched you.'

I sniffed hard.

‘Have you brought your tennis racquet then?' Giles asked.

I started to worry some more.

‘I thought they were meant to provide all the racquets and that,' I said.

‘That's right,' said Biscuits. He quietly passed me a tissue. It was a bit chocolatey but it was still fine for mopping operations.

‘It'll be just ropey old stuff,' said Giles scornfully. ‘I've brought my own equipment.'

He started rifling through his bags, showing us. It all looked brand new and very expensive.

‘I've brought my own equipment too,' said Biscuits, grinning. He nudged me and pulled open a big picnic bag. I saw bags and bags of biscuits, crisps, apples, sweets and cans of cola.

‘Yummy,' I said.

Biscuits rubbed his tummy.

Giles sighed in a superior manner.

‘I've brought one bit of equipment,'
I
said, showing him my safety helmet.

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I'd got it out. Especially as Mum had painted TIM in bright pink letters on the front.

Giles did a deliberate double-take.

‘What's that, then?' he said. Though of course he knew.

‘Well. It's a safety helmet,' I said.

‘I see,' said Giles. ‘When are you going to wear it then?'

‘When I'm . . . when . . .' my voice tailed away.

Giles was serving madly and I had to dodge sharpish.

‘When little baby diddums is playing tennis?' Giles jeered. ‘In case he gets banged on the bonce, is that it?'

I pretended to ignore him. I wanted to keep well out of Giles's way so I went over to the wardrobe and put all my stuff away. Then I hunched up on my bed and wrote my first postcard.

Biscuits offered me a bite of his biscuit while I was writing it. The
biscuit
was a bit slurpy and soggy, but it was still nice of him.

I added a P.S. to my first postcard.

Chapter Two

THAT FIRST EVENING
at the Adventure Centre was awful. Awful awful awful.

Well. Tea was OK. We had beef-burgers and chips and peas. There was tomato sauce on the table. Biscuits and I messed about, pretending the tomato sauce was blood. The pretend started to get a bit real and I stared at the scarlet pool all over my plate and decided I wasn't really hungry any more.

It didn't matter though. Biscuits ate my tea as well as his own.

We sat with Giles. Kelly came and squashed in beside us too. She said hi to me. Giles thought she was my girlfriend!!!