The Outcasts (18 page)
Authors: John Flanagan
Tags: #Fantasy, #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic, #Action & Adventure, #General
“We’ll build A-frames for the roof,” he said, “and stretch canvas over them. Then we can cover the canvas with pine branches. That should keep it pretty waterproof.”
“What about the walls?” Jesper asked. “There doesn’t seem to be enough timber for them.”
“More canvas. We’ve got plenty of that. In effect, we’re building a big, timber-framed tent.”
Stig glanced toward the east, where a mass of cloud had gathered and was roiling toward them, its shape changing constantly as it was driven by the winds.
“We’d better get a move on with the roof,” he said. “It’ll be raining in an hour.”
Hal followed his line of sight and saw that he was correct, saw too that there would be no time to build the sort of structure he had in mind.
“We’ll have to rig something temporary,” he said. He thought for a moment, then the image of the
Heron
sprang to mind, with the tarpaulin rigged along its hull to keep rain out. “We’ll set up a ridge pole and stretch canvas over it. The rain will pool in it, but most of it should run off. Just don’t anybody touch it where the canvas sags.”
Heron
sprang to mind, with the tarpaulin rigged along its hull to keep rain out. “We’ll set up a ridge pole and stretch canvas over it. The rain will pool in it, but most of it should run off. Just don’t anybody touch it where the canvas sags.”
If that happened, he knew, the water would immediately run through the canvas, flooding the interior.
“Stig, Ingvar, Edvin and I will take care of the roof,” he said. “Ulf and Wulf, dig a drainage trench around the outside to keep the groundwater running away.” He glanced around, wondering if he’d left anything out, and suddenly realized the purpose of the planks Stig had asked about earlier. He pointed to them now.
“They’re floorboards,” he said. “Jesper and Stefan: start nailing them to a couple of beams so they’re off the ground.”
“You said they won’t cover the entire area,” Stefan pointed out.
Hal nodded. “I know. But they’ll make a raised sleeping platform big enough to keep us off the ground.”
Stefan nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. “That must be why we made you the boss.”
“I thought it was my good looks and sparkling personality,” Hal said.
Ingvar, who had been listening, shook his head very deliberately. “No. That was definitely not the reason,” he said.
Stefan and Stig grinned. Hal bowed slightly in Ingvar’s direction.
“Thanks for pointing that out, Ingvar.” He noticed that Ulf and Wulf had selected two shovels. The tools were identical but that didn’t stop them quarreling over the selection. Ulf wanted the one Wulf had, and vice versa. Hal walked over to them and said, very quietly, “Why don’t you just swap?”
That stopped the argument in its tracks. The two twins looked at him, startled, then at each other. Then, with very bad grace, Ulf snatched the shovel from Wulf’s hand and thrust the other shovel at him. Wulf took it, glared at it suspiciously, then nodded with very bad grace.
“Start at the back,” Hal ordered them. “Dig the trench about a meter from the tent. And work in opposite directions so you meet up again at the front.” He glanced at Stig and said in a lower voice, “That should keep them apart for at least an hour.”
Stig grinned. “And that’s the real reason we elected you leader. Nobody else can handle those two.”
In fact, it was just over forty minutes when the work was finished. Jesper and Stefan had completed the sleeping platform and joined the others in stretching the canvas over the ridgepole and around the sides. There was only enough to cover three sides of the structure, so they left the front open. They could fill it in later with logs or pine branches, Hal thought.
The rain was starting to fall as they finished their work. A few minutes later, Ulf and Wulf met at the front of the building and the bickering began once more. Sighing, Hal went to see what was the trouble this time. The others grinned and followed him.
“What’s the problem?” he said. Ulf, or perhaps it was Wulf, pointed contemptuously at his brother’s trench.
“Ulf’s trench is too shallow. Mine is much deeper. It’ll hold more water,” he said.
Hal made a mental note that it was Wulf speaking, not Ulf. Or perhaps not. The two twins had been known to swap identities in the past, just to confuse people. They seemed to enjoy that almost as much as arguing with each other.
“But mine is wider than his,” Ulf replied.
“Yours should be deeper,” said the other. Hal gave up trying to differentiate them. He’d taken his eyes off them as he studied the two trenches and he suspected they might have changed places.
“Yours should be wider,” one brother insisted vehemently.
“Deeper is better.”
“Only if you’re a numbskull.”
“Numbskull yourself! Want me to numb your skull with this shovel?”
“Want to try it?”
“You dare me to?”
“You want me to?”
“Go ahead.”
“No. You go ahead!”
“No. You go—”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, will you SHUT UP!” Hal could stand it no longer. The two brothers stopped in surprise. He shoved his way between them, pointed at one and said, “You! Which is your trench?”
“The good one,” the twin replied. Then, seeing a very dangerous light in Hal’s eye, he added, “The deep one.”
“And why is a deep trench better?” Hal asked.
The twin shrugged and smiled at such an easy question. “ ’Cause it’ll hold more water.”
His tone implied that Hal should have known that. It was obvious, after all. His brother sniffed in contempt. Hal rounded on him.
“What’s so good about a wider trench?” he demanded.
The second twin mirrored his brother’s shrug. They even move the same way, Hal thought.
“Because if it’s wider, it’ll hold more water,” the twin said.
“So,” said Hal, forcing himself to be calm, “a deeper one holds more water …” He looked to Twin Number One for confirmation. Twin Number One nodded.
“And a wider one will hold more water?” This time, he sought agreement from Number Two. Another nod. Finally, Hal abandoned the enforced calm.
“You blasted, blithering idiots, one’s wider, one’s deeper—so they’ll both hold THE SAME AMOUNT!”
The two brothers stood, quite taken aback. They frowned, their lips moving in silence as they considered what Hal had said.
“That’s right,” said one. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Neither did I,” said the other. Then he added quickly, “Although I’m sure I would have.”
“I would have too!” his brother insisted immediately.
“Oh, you say so now—”
“STOP!” Hal yelled at them. “STOP! STOP! STOP!” Once more, they fell silent. He pointed at the nearest twin.
“You! What’s your name?”
“Why it’s Wulf, of course. Everyone knows that.”
Hal glared at him balefully. He kept his eyes fixed on Wulf, in case he and his brother decided to switch places once more, and called to Stig.
“Stig, fetch me a short piece of rope, would you?”
“You going to tie him up?” Stig asked, grinning.
“Why not hang him?” Ulf said.
Hal, his eyes still fixed on Wulf, snapped his fingers at Stig. “Get me the rope. Light cord. Half a meter or less.”
When Stig obliged, Hal stepped forward and knotted the rope around Wulf’s wrist, cutting off the excess with his knife.
“There. Now we all know who’s who,” he said. “Wulf has a
wope
on his
wist
.”
wope
on his
wist
.”
“That’s a little childish, isn’t it?” Edvin asked.
Hal glared at him. “Can you think of a better way of remembering?”
Stig’s grin was wider than ever now. “Don’t you mean ‘wemem-bering’?”
“No. I don’t,” Hal said very deliberately, then he asked Edvin again. “Well, can you?”
“Um … as a matter of fact, I can’t,” Edvin admitted.
“Good. Then until you can, keep your criticism to yourself.”
Edvin made a conciliatory gesture.
“So now,” Hal continued, “I’m going to get out of the rain.” He shook his head at the twins once more. “It’s probably going to be a long night. At least it’ll be a dry one.”
He went into the tent. The others followed until only the twins were left outside in the rain, which was still light, but was getting heavier with each passing minute. Slowly, trickles of water began to flow down the two trenches, meeting at the front where the twins had dug a release trench.
Wulf looked after Hal and grinned at his brother.
“He’s quite smart, isn’t he?” he said.
Ulf nodded. “He is indeed. A real thinker. Not as smart as us, though.”
“No,” said Wulf. He unknotted the cord around his wrist and tied it on his brother’s wrist instead.
chapter
sixteen
sixteen
T
he following morning, the Herons were roused from their blankets by Gort, who was banging a hardwood stick on an old barrel hoop, just inside the entrance of the tent. The clanging note of the iron hoop rang in their ears as they rolled out of their blankets, alarmed by the sudden cacophony.
he following morning, the Herons were roused from their blankets by Gort, who was banging a hardwood stick on an old barrel hoop, just inside the entrance of the tent. The clanging note of the iron hoop rang in their ears as they rolled out of their blankets, alarmed by the sudden cacophony.
“Out of bed! Come on! On your feet! Ten minutes to wash and dress! Then get yourselves to the training ground!”
The boys, still befuddled with sleep, searched blearily for shoes and breeches, reluctant to leave the warmth of their bedding. Gort glanced around the interior of their tent, impressed.
“This is pretty good,” he said. “You slept a lot drier than the other teams.”
“It leaked a bit,” Hal told him, pointing to a few places where the rain had forced its way through the canvas. “But we’ll sort that out this morning.”
Gort was shaking his head. “No, you won’t. You’ve got other things to do this morning. Now get a move on if you don’t want to miss breakfast.”
Edvin was frowning at the instructor as he balanced on one leg, pulling on his breeches.
“But you said we had yesterday and today to build our quarters,” he protested.
Gort smiled at him. “Did I? I must have been lying.” Then the smile disappeared. “NOW GET MOVING!”
Startled, Edvin and the others hurried to the creek to wash, then finish dressing. Then, still under Gort’s command, they double-timed to the training ground where they had assembled for team selection the previous day. There was now a large open-sided tent set up as a dining area, with three trestle tables and benches—one for each of the three brotherbands. The Herons were the first to arrive and helped themselves to the fresh bread, hot bacon and fried eggs, tea and coffee.
The hot food and drink revived their spirits considerably and they watched cheerfully as the other bands straggled in, damp and stiff from sleeping on the wet ground. The new arrivals glared balefully at the Herons, who smiled back at them and raised coffee mugs in a mock salute.
Tursgud was one of the last to arrive. He looked to be in a bad temper, and was rubbing at a stiff spot in his back.
“Hey there, Tursgud!” Stefan greeted him. “Look who’s here before you? Hal Who and Hal Who’s Herons, that’s who!”
The other Herons laughed, and even one or two of the Wolf brotherband chuckled at Stefan’s play on words. Tursgud pointed a threatening finger at Stefan.
“Keep it up, joker!” he said. “I’ll settle your bacon one of these days!”
Which was an unfortunate expression to choose, because, as Tursgud reached the serving table, he found that the bacon was finished, the early arrivals having taken it all. He scowled around the tent, then ordered two of his team to share their bacon with him. Reluctantly, they complied.
Watching this byplay, Hal frowned thoughtfully. That sort of bullying wouldn’t do a lot for the Sharks’ team spirit, he thought. Tursgud might have been better to wait. Surely one of his team would have offered to share with him. He was unpopular with the members of the Heron brotherband, because he’d spent years bullying them and making fun of them. But his own followers seemed to like him well enough.
Or did they, Hal wondered.
Stefan, meanwhile, was patting his stomach contentedly.
“Mmmm, my bacon has settled quite nicely, I think,” he said to nobody in particular. The others laughed and Tursgud shot him a malevolent glance from the next table.
Hal leaned forward, seeing Stefan was casting around for another witticism at Tursgud’s expense.
“Let it go, Stefan,” he said quietly.
Stefan looked at him in surprise. Of all of them, Hal had the most reason to dislike Tursgud. In fact, Stefan was throwing these verbal barbs at the bigger boy on Hal’s behalf. He admired the half-Araluen boy. He had been impressed by the leadership and decisiveness Hal had shown the previous day—not to mention the way he had dealt with Ulf and Wulf. He felt the Herons had done well to have him for a leader.
“We’ve got a long three months ahead of us,” Hal explained. “No sense in poking the shark unnecessarily.”
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