The Binding (8 page)

Mum put her head on one side.

‘So what do you do in this secret den?'

It suddenly occurred to me that she might laugh if I told her, and I was starting to wish I hadn't said anything at all. Mum saw me frown, and smiled.

‘Sorry, Jack,' she said. ‘I shouldn't be asking you all these questions. After all, a secret is a secret. Do you fancy a game of cards?'

We didn't ask Tressa if she wanted to join in because she thinks cards are so boring it's an insult to her intelligence to even suggest she might want to play. Anyway, she was stuck so deep into her book, she probably wouldn't have noticed if Justin I'm-so-cool from across the road, who she adores, was to magically appear beside her and give her a big sloppy kiss.

On our third round of rummy, Mum went back to the subject of secrets. There were good secrets and bad secrets, she said. ‘If keeping a secret gives you a delicious feeling of excitement, it's a good secret. But if it makes you feel anxious and shifty, it's a bad one. This secret den. . .'

‘Is really great,' I said.

‘That's all right then,' said Mum.

It was weird, but just talking about the bothy—even though I called it a den and didn't say where it
was or tell her about the candles and the fire, which she would have freaked out about—kind of made it feel less special.

The Binding was a big secret made up of so many little secrets, like the rituals and ceremonies and celebrations, and the secret of why we weren't arguing at all any more at home. I was sorry I had said anything, and I decided I definitely for certain sure would not say a single word about it to anyone again.

Matt came through from the kitchen with his laptop under his arm.

‘Can I play?' he asked. ‘And what about you, Tressa?'

Oh my God—he touched her shoulder! He stopped her reading! He asked her if she wanted to play cards! He had wandered into a minefield and was dancing among the mines.

Tressa looked up and smiled. She closed her book and laid it down on the arm of her chair. ‘That sounds like fun.'

Mum blinked in disbelief. When she had pulled herself together enough to start dealing the cards, me and Tressa exchanged a secret smile. She was so good!

Following the rules of how to behave at home made everything feel like a game of pretend and, in a weird way, feeling fake at home made the Binding seem even more real.

Chapter 3

Swimming

Mum was cross with Milo when she found out he had spent the whole morning playing out in the wrecked van without his coat on.

‘It's not that cold, actually,' Matt said, dumping his camera on the shelf by the back door and kicking off his boots. ‘It's just a bit cloudy.'

‘A bit cloudy as in Einstein's a bit clever,' said Mum.

Not being that cold sounded like good news to anyone who was wearing their swimsuit under their clothes.

‘It's going to rain,' said Mum.

I knew she would ask how far it was to the den and I didn't want her to mention it in front of Tressa and Milo, so when they went to look at Matt's latest batch of pictures, I stayed to help with laying the table.

‘It won't matter if it rains this afternoon,' I told her. ‘Our den's really close by.'

‘Well, just make sure Milo wears his coat,' she said. ‘You should probably all take your hats and gloves as well.'

I was going to protest that we wouldn't need them and it would be a pain having to carry them around when I suddenly realised this could work our way.

‘Do you think Matt would lend us his day-sack to carry them in?'

‘Of course! Help yourself—it's beside the dresser.'

Tressa and me had thought of something we'd need to take to the pool with us that was too big to smuggle out in our pockets. The fact was, Milo couldn't swim. I wasn't sure he should come with us at all, but he would no way keep to the rules about how to behave at home if we told him he couldn't, and anyway Tressa reckoned he'd be all right so long as he had his armbands on. He had brought them on
holiday, but one of them wouldn't deflate properly, so we couldn't get it flat.

It was nearly as big as the ball I was planning to take. You have to have the right sort of ball for swimming-pool games—not a tennis ball which will get heavy and soggy, or a small hard bouncy ball that will hurt if it hits your bare skin. The perfect swimming-pool ball is a mini-football of the kind it just so happened I'd been playing with out in the yard.

I put the ball and armbands in Matt's day-sack under the hats and gloves and then had the idea of putting my trick dog poo in as well. Swimming was just too good an opportunity to miss. They were going to love it!

After lunch, we made our getaway before Mum had a chance to change her mind. It was spitting a bit by then, but like Matt said, it wasn't cold, probably because there wasn't any wind.

We saw a smudge of smoke in the sky above the bothy. They were all inside, but the door was open, so we went straight in. A driftwood fire was crackling in the hearth, with the fish-box chairs arranged in a semi-circle in front of it. On the makeshift table there
was a pile of white towels that looked orangey in the firelight, and a big silver flask.

‘Hot chocolate,' Duncan said, ‘for when we come out.'

He told us he always brought the towels when they were going swimming, because it was easy for him. There were gazillions of towels at the hotel and all he had to do was nick a few from the linen cupboard on the way out and dump them in the laundry baskets when he got home again.

‘My parents never notice anything,' he said. ‘They're always busy, specially on days like this when they've got guests coming in on the boat.'

I said we'd smuggled a few things out as well, such as for example, Milo's armbands.

‘If he can't swim he can't come in the pool,' said Duncan. ‘That's the rule.'

Milo's bottom lip, which had been remarkably firm for days, began to wobble. His thumb hovered, half-way to his mouth.

‘But this is a good thing because I need somebody to look after my stick while we're in the pool,' said Duncan.

Milo couldn't believe the honour that was being bestowed upon him. He took the stick in both his
hands with a massive grin. It was like a magic wand, magically making him happy.

‘You can use it to poke around for precious objects among the seaweed that we can add to the end wall,' suggested Duncan.

Milo couldn't wait, so he bounded off to start foraging while the rest of us stripped to our swimsuits and raced down the beach to the pool. I had the ball, and no-one noticed the fake dog poo in my other hand.

We stood shivering in a line along the concrete barrier at the seaward end. It was still spitting, and the raindrops made faint circles on the surface of the water. I put the ball down on the edge of the concrete, with the dog poo hidden behind it.

Duncan suddenly plunged in, making a massive splash. Hamish went next, then Tressa, gasping and spluttering at the sudden cold.

‘I told you,' Duncan said. ‘Are you all right?'

Tressa's jaw seemed to be frozen shut, so she just nodded and tried to look as if she wasn't struggling to breathe. Elspeth jumped in, which meant I was the only one left and there wasn't any getting out of it.

You know when you've been outside on a frosty day without your hat and scarf and your ears hurt and your chin's gone numb and your fingers feel like they're going to fall off? And then, if it goes on, the cold creeps into your bones so you can't even get warm again when you've been back indoors in front of the fire for hours?

Well, it was like that, only instant.

Duncan, Hamish and Elspeth were thrashing up and down the pool to warm up, and me and Tressa knew we had to do the same, but we just couldn't. As well as the fact it was too cold to breathe, my skeleton felt like someone had sprayed it with dry ice so it had gone all hard and brittle.

Duncan and Hamish were laughing.

‘C-c-c-come on,' Tressa said, pushing off from the side.

I grabbed the ball and threw it into the middle of the pool. Hamish dived for it but it bounced away from him on the wave of water he had made, giving me a chance to go for it myself. Chasing a ball is the best way I know to forget about bad stuff, such as the fact that you're colder than an ice cube in a slushie.

I knew they wouldn't notice the dog poo straight away. It's an old magician's trick—distract them with something interesting to look at, such as a mini-football flying through the air, and they won't see anything else.

So it was only after we'd been chasing the ball for a while that Elspeth, swimming to the edge for a rest, put her hand on the concrete and let out a scream.

‘Yuk! That's disgusting! I nearly put my hand in it!'

We all swam over to see what she had found.

‘But how did it get there?' said Hamish. ‘Who's got a dog that comes down to this beach?'

‘Nobody comes down to this beach at all,' said Duncan.

‘Somebody must,' said Elspeth. ‘And if their dog's doing its business near the pool then the tide could be washing it in.'

Tressa squealed. ‘There might be dog poo in the pool!'

She started clambering out, and everyone else did too. We stood on the concrete, bending down to examine the fake dog poo. It looked exactly like the real thing.

‘We're going to have to clear it up and bury it,' said Duncan.

‘I'll do that,' I said. ‘I don't mind!'

I picked it up in my hand and they all gave a yell of disgust.

‘Got you!' I said, holding it out to them so they could see it was fake. I tossed it into the pool, where it bobbed on the surface, nudging up to the ball. They all burst out laughing, even Tressa, and I plunged back in again before they had a chance to push me.

They didn't know how to play under-the-legs or f-i-s-h-y or water-ball-he, so I had a great time teaching them, and Duncan said it was the best fun they had ever had in the pool. I was everyone's favourite person, except Tressa's. You could see she was fed up that I was getting all the attention, and you couldn't really blame her. I mean, which would you rather be, the Joker or the Teacher?

The sky went suddenly dark. There was a downpour on the way, but no-one wanted to get out of the pool because we were having such a laugh. I thought we might have time for one more game.

‘Who wants to play dog-poo pig-in-the-middle?'

Before we could start, the skies opened and the rain came pouring down, huge drops hammering onto the rocks and bouncing off the surface of the pool. We saw Milo go haring across the beach towards the bothy. I realised that technically, since we were already soaked and suitably dressed, that didn't mean we necessarily had to go indoors.

We all looked at Duncan for a decision, but before he had a chance to say anything, Tressa announced, ‘I am the eyes and ears of the Lawmaker and I wish to make a report!'

We blinked at her through the rain. Then Hamish said, ‘You can't do that here. We'll have to go in.'

We climbed out of the pool and ran up the beach, with the rain beating down on us. Then we dived into the bothy and all grabbed a towel. Duncan said Tressa's report would have to wait because we had to get dry first, warm ourselves by the fire and have our hot chocolate.

Was he a bit annoyed with Tressa for forcing him to go all serious and put on the Judgement when we were all having fun? Or was it just me? Because I
was
annoyed—I was properly annoyed.

We towelled ourselves dry and got dressed in front of the fire. Duncan had brought a comb so we
wouldn't have tell-tale swimming-hair when we got home. Hamish lit the candles around the fireplace and along the ledge above.

Duncan took some plastic beakers out of his pack and shared out the hot chocolate. He'd also brought some soft bread rolls for us to dunk in it. He had thought of everything and it should have been perfect, but Tressa's report was hanging over us like the thirteenth fairy nobody had wanted to invite.

We tried to ignore it and get the mood back by talking about our swim. What was the best bit? What was the funniest bit? Was it like me and Tressa had expected it to be? The flickering firelight lit up our faces and made our skin tingle with warmth. We were all laughing, but we were also waiting, and eventually Duncan said we had better make the circle.

He moved the makeshift table to the middle of the room, and we dragged our fish-box seats into position around it. It felt cold, away from the fire, and darker too until Elspeth brought out the big candle and Hamish lit it.

‘Teacher, you have a report to make,' Duncan said to Tressa, in a tone that clearly said,
this had better be good.

Tressa stood up.

‘My brother, the Joker, has told our mother about the bothy.'

They all gave a gasp of surprise.

Elspeth passed Hamish the Judgement, Hamish passed it to Duncan and Duncan unfolded it and placed it on his head. He hadn't worn it since Milo had told on me for asking Mum about the berries.

Duncan stood up, and motioned to the rest of us to stand as well.

‘Is this true?' he asked.

I nodded. ‘But I didn't say it was a bothy—I said it was a den—and I never mentioned where it was. I said it was secret.'

‘That's all very well but now they know we have a den, they might come looking for it,' Duncan said.

I hadn't thought of that, but what was I supposed to have done?

‘If I hadn't told Mum we had a den, she would one hundred per cent not have let us come out “rain or shine”. Tressa knows that, but she didn't have any better ideas.'

The rain hammering on the roof slates seemed to back up my argument, but Duncan still took a step back. One by one, they all did the same, until I was left on my own in the middle.

‘You are guilty of breaking the most sacred law of the Binding,' said Duncan. ‘Your punishment is this. Tomorrow afternoon, we will meet at the hotel and walk out to the south light, but while the rest of us follow the coast you will go directly across the field.'