Raven's Mountain (8 page)

I do a happy dance, except not with my feet. Or my arms or anything else. Anyway, I'm happy.

And here's the berry field. Buffalo berries, Scott called them, which is funny when it's bears that eat them.

‘Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic!'

Then it happens all over again: Mama Bear is at the bottom of the field. Without my glasses I can't see her face, but her head is swinging in a berry-munching way. The cubs are a blur of black and white, so I guess that they're wrestling though I can't tell who's winning.

But I can see them all stop and stare at me.

Mama Bear tears off another branch. The black and white blur separates into two cubs.

Will they mind if I eat their berries, as long as I stay
right up here?

I sneak a handful.

And spit them out again. They're disgusting. They taste like the word sour sounds.

But they're the only breakfast I'm likely to get.

Sure hope Scott was right they're not poisonous!

Pick another handful, and this time I manage to swallow. I don't chew more than I have to.

The bears are disappearing into the woods. ‘Goodbye, bears!' I call after them. ‘Thanks for sharing!'

Maybe they don't mind sharing because the berries taste so bad. Maybe they only eat them when people are watching, then sit around laughing when we try.

Four handfuls are enough
 
–
for a berry good breakfast
, Scott would say:
‘A berry good breakfast to get you back
on the road.'

And here's the road. The ridge is flattening out and turning into a trail. It's quite wide; the grass is flat; it's got to be the one that'll lead me to the lake; to water, the truck, the phone, and help. The words sing in my head as I hike through the forest; I'm sore and achy, hungry and thirsty, but I'm getting steadily closer:
water, truck, phone and help; water, truck, phone and
. . .

Help!

I'm back in the berry field.

13
9:09 SATURDAY MORNING

It's got to be another berry field.

It's the same one: I've walked for nearly an hour in a big circle. Red stars explode in my brain. All that time and all that hurting and I'm not any closer to the lake!

‘It's not fair! How could I be so stupid?'

I go on screaming until my throat feels like it's bleeding, then I cry, and finally I tell myself not to be such a baby. There's not much point being a baby if there's no one to look after you.

The right trail has to be here somewhere.

We were on it when we came out of the woods into the berry field. The bears were below us, but it's a big field and bigger forest, and I can't figure out exactly where the trail goes in.

I draw a map in the dirt with a stick.

The top of the mountain is south from the lake, but we zigged east for the waterfall, then back west till we got back here to the berry field.

So if I skip the waterfall and head straight downhill, I
 
should end up where we started from.

The problem is I'll have to find my own trail to get there.

If I had my glasses, I could stand in the middle of the field and just look around for the trails. Now I have to walk right around the edge.

There's another trail at the north end of the field.

I hope it's not the way the bears went.

Though they might want to go to the lake too
 
– they'd have to be thirsty after all those berries. I
 
thought the berries would stop me from being thirsty, but they've made it worse. I don't know how the bears can eat so many without a drink. When I get to the truck I'm drinking a whole bottle of water before I do anything else. Then a juice. I'm so thirsty I can feel my throat dry all the way down
 
– and the morning's getting hotter.

I wonder if it's warming up inside Lily and Scott's
cave. I wonder if the icy feeling in my heart means that
they're not okay, like my heart knows something I don't?

I wonder how long it takes to die of thirst?

All the way along the trail, bushes are bent and branches are broken.

As if Mama Bear has trampled them and Hansel and
Gretel have been nibbling.

But even if the bears have been along here, they're an hour ahead of me. I'm tracking them; I know what I'm doing.

If you're not hunting you don't want to be the hunted.

I try to whistle, which doesn't quite work, and then hum, which doesn't work much either. My throat's too dry to even think of singing.

Doesn't matter anyway: my tummy's rumbling louder than I can sing. If Mama Bear and the cubs are around they'll think the biggest Papa Bear ever is growling at them.

I like this trail: it's definitely going somewhere. In some places it's worn right down to bare dirt.

There are prints in the bare dirt. Bear paw prints.

Sometimes Mum used to bring a Bear Claw home from the Cottonwood Cafe. When I was little I was afraid to eat them in case they were real bears' claws, but now they're my favourite pastry. When we shared them, Mum ate the big toe and Lily and I got two toes each.

Bear poo, too.

Fresh poo is a little more real, and even scarier than the prints. I'm not very far behind the bears
 
– but I
 
don't know where else to go.

My stomach cramps so hard and so suddenly it feels like something's twisting my guts, folding me in half. All I can do is stagger along, crouched over and hugging my belly.

Another pile of poo. The bears must have eaten too many berries.

So have I.

I really wish that this tree was a bathroom.

I really,
really
, hope the bears don't turn around right now.

I feel better again.

Not for long.

This is disgusting! And it's not fair! I didn't eat that
many!

Maybe this time I'll stay feeling better.

There's a strange buzzing, humming noise. It sounds like . . .

‘OW!'

A bee stings me right on the tip of my nose. There are more coming . . . it's a cloud of bees: hundreds and thousands of angry bees.

I run for my life.

It's hard to run, I'm crouched over, trying to protect my face, waving the bees away; I can hardly breathe
 
– what if I breathe in a bee?

One stings the back of my hand and makes me yelp again. A third hits beside it. They're buzzing and swarming, darting and diving, coming from everywhere to attack me.

I zigzag through the swarm; it doesn't matter where I
 
go, as long as I'm running.

A tree root grabs my toe. I crash to the ground.

The bees buzz louder and dart in again. I'll never get away now. I pull my hood over my head and huddle my knees under my chest, wrap my arms around my face, tuck my hands into my armpits. The bees bump angrily against my jeans and covered-up head.

‘Ow!' One found a gap between my jacket and my jeans. You wouldn't think every single sting could hurt so much.

Amelia's afraid of bees. She says she's allergic and that she'll die if a bee stings her. I don't know if that's true. Sometimes Amelia exaggerates.

What if I'm allergic and don't know it?

Jess said anyone could die if they got lots of bee stings even if they weren't allergic. Jess doesn't exaggerate except when she's telling a story.

‘Ow!' That was the back of my wrist. I suck it and spit the stinger out. And the two other stingers beside it. My hand still hurts, and it's red and puffy. I jam it back into my armpit to keep it safe.

The noise is starting to calm down; I desperately want to peek out, but I even more desperately don't want more stings on my face.

Hardly any buzzing.

I'm not dead yet . . . maybe I'm not allergic. I never was before. Maybe six isn't lots.

But I need to pull the stingers out.

My nose feels like a fat red button. I can hardly even find the stinger.

You look like Rudolph
, Amelia teases, but it doesn't help. Nothing's funny.

Squeezing it is like Lily squeezing a pimple. She hates if I watch her. At least she doesn't cry; a pimple mustn't hurt this much.

There's one on my ankle too.

I'm sick of crying, I'm sick of being afraid, I'm sick of hurting, I'm sick of huddling here. I'm sick of finding more things that I didn't even know I had to be afraid of.

But I still don't want to die.

I peek out through my fingers.

Bushes are smashed; bark and branches are thrown everywhere . . . it looks like I've been following a tornado!

One big old pine tree has huge claw marks ripped down it.

A bear-tornado.

I can't stop shaking. I don't know what made the bears so angry: I just know I need to get out of here.

I scramble up, stamping my pins-and-needly feet, and nearly step on something. It's sticky, dirty, with bits of dead bees and larvae . . . and dripping with honey.

Honeycomb!

Maybe the bears weren't angry, but no wonder the bees were: Mama Bear has ripped their hive right out of that tree and stolen the honey.

But she left this bit behind, and I don't care about the dirt and grubs: I grab the empty apricot baggie from my pocket and shove the honeycomb in there, extra goodies and all, sucking my sweet honey fingers as I
 
run.

At the Cottonwood Farmer's Market, Mum bought a little tray of honeycomb with three plastic spoons and a knife. The honeycomb was like tiny apartments in a building; it was clean and white in the yellow honey and didn't look like something you should eat. But the lady at the stall said she ate some every day because it was good for you, so we tried it. It tasted like honey except chewy; I ended up with a big glob of wax like dead chewing gum. When Mum and the honey lady weren't looking I
 
spat it into my napkin.

14
12:05 SATURDAY AFTERNOON

The honey lady would throw this honeycomb straight in the garbage. It's not clean and white; it's all muddled up with bits of stuff that I don't even want to know what it is. I spit out the dirt and twigs, but eat everything else.
Nom, nom, bee larvae and wax!

Honey trickles down my wrists and I pull my jacket off to lick my arms clean: honey, dirt, dried blood and all. Most of all I just go on licking honey till my baggie's so clean not even a search beagle would know I'd ever had anything in it.

It's magical Spirit Bear honey, and my stomach's feeling better already. No more disgusting diarrhoea stops. With this honey in my body I know I'll get back to the truck soon.

I'm weaving my way through the trees, through patches of shady cool and warm sun. Somehow I lost the trail when I
 
was running from the bees. Maybe it was just a bears' bee hunting trail, not a regular down-from-the-mountain-to-the-lake trail.

You think a forest is quiet, but it's not really, not after you've been out in it for a while
 
– especially a while like thirty-six hours, and twenty-two of them on your own. You learn to hear noises that you didn't notice at first, and you figure out that some of the scary noises aren't scary at all, and you go on listening for ones that truly might be. People say that if you're blind you learn to hear better to make up for it. Maybe losing my glasses isn't all bad. There are rustling leaves and crackling branches, birds chirping and cawing . . . and an engine kind of noise.

It's definitely not a waterfall.

It's coming from overhead, and getting louder: a hammering
thwunk thwunk thwunk
.

It's a miracle! Mum got my wish-message and sent a rescue helicopter!

For a second all I can do is stand and stare, hardly breathing, waiting to see the thing that will save us all. Then the tiredness drops off me like a too-loose jacket, and I'm jumping, waving my arms and shouting.

But I still can't see it: the forest is too thick and the trees are too tall
 
– and that means it can't see me either. I've got to get out into the open.

Running, waving, screaming, stumbling over rocks and roots, skidding on the steep slope . . . nothing matters except making them find me.

The noise is so loud it's hard to tell exactly where it's coming from; I'm looking up as I run; I've got to see it soon.

I don't see the hole right in front of me.

‘HUHH-HUHH-HUHH!'

I land on my stomach, with the world's most vicious Chinese burn jolting through my right leg from my ankle to my hip. For a minute I think I'm going to throw up. Luckily there's not enough inside me to try.

Don't you dare be broken!
I tell my ankle.

It must know I mean it, because it hardly whines at all once I get up.

The noise is definitely coming closer.

Racing again, hobbling on the sore ankle, veering around a huge rounded boulder; turning back to scramble up it, getting a bit higher.
Please, please, please
let me see it from there. Please, please, please let them see
me.

It doesn't make any difference. I still can't see any
–
text_ thing but trees, and the patch of sky straight above me . . .

. . . and a flash of silver through the treetops.

I skid down the boulder so fast my jeans are smoking. I can't give up now; there's more light ahead, as if the forest's coming to an end; soon the rescuers will be able to look down and see me.

The noise is very close.

I can see sky.

I'm safe; I'm safe!

My breath is gasping, my heart is pounding.

Doesn't matter, nothing matters except making them see
me!