“This is stupid,” Olly muttered.
He lay on top of his sleeping bag and stared at the canvas ceiling of the tent.
He was finally doing what he wanted. But when he tried to focus on his book, the words just seemed to swim around in front of his eyes. He couldn’t make himself care about the story. And the music on his iPod sounded dull and flat.
He felt guilty, and even more bored than before.
Olly sighed. Okay, this had been a bad idea. If he had to be bored then he might as well do it with the others. Even Omar.
He got up, and headed back to the woods.
It took Olly a while to find Jack and Omar amongst all the other kids racing around still gathering den material. Eventually he saw Jack in the distance through the trees, carrying a heap of fern leaves. It looked like he could do with a hand. Olly set off after him.
Omar and Jack were building their den at the edge of the meeting place. As Olly made his way through the trees he got quite close to them without their realising. Hearing their voices made him smile. He had sort of missed them. Jack was his friend and Omar was … okay, Omar wasn’t his friend. Not exactly. But he wasn’t nasty. Just a bit impatient.
Then he heard what the boys were saying. “I don’t know why you bother with that loser Olly,” Omar said to Jack.
“Hey, Olly’s not –”
Jack began.
“Well, he’s not here, is he?” Omar snapped. “We can do it without him. Here, help me tie this.”
Olly stood where he was, stunned.
So, he thought, now I know what Omar thinks of me.
And what was he supposed to do now? Pretend he hadn’t heard? He turned around and went back to the tent.
Olly lay on his sleeping bag. Again. This time he was both bored and upset. And now he came to think about it he was also hungry. It was time for the barbecue, so everyone would be noshing on lovely burgers and sausages.
But Olly didn’t want to face Omar.
So he just lay there alone for what felt like forever.
* * *
Eventually it started to get dark, and Olly heard voices getting nearer. The barbecue was over and it was time for bed. Jack and Omar pushed their way through the tent flap. Omar’s lip curled slightly when he saw Olly, like he thought Olly smelled. Jack just looked sad.
“We built a really good den,” Jack said after a moment. “You’d have liked it.”
“Did you win the prize?” Olly asked.
“No,” Omar told him abruptly. “Because there were only two of us. We needed three to get everything done in time.”
After that, no one said anything much. The boys got ready for bed and slid into their sleeping bags. Outside, the Camp was going quiet. Soon, Olly could tell from the sound of Jack and Omar’s breathing that they were asleep. He could still hear voices outside, from other tents, but one by one they went silent. He lay in his sleeping bag, feeling wide awake.
He could still hear Omar’s words in his head. Somehow Olly had to get through the rest of the Camp knowing what Omar really thought about him. And Jack was obviously disappointed with him too.
At least if he could sleep, Olly thought, it would be over quicker. He often fell asleep listening to music, so he felt in the dark for his iPod. The screen lit up, just in time for him to see the words connect to power source. Then it went blank.
Olly groaned and let his hand flop back with the dead iPod. Something hard and plastic knocked against his knuckles. What was that? He held it up in front of his face so that he could see it in the dim light. Oh yeah. The compass.
Suddenly the compass dial lit up, as if a light had come on behind it. That was weird, because there was nowhere for a battery to go. He could make out the needle, and the four illuminated markings for North, South, East and West. They were just bright enough for him to see without being able to read. He turned it idly in his hands, watching the needle stay on North.
But then the needle seemed to be turning on its own. Olly watched as it slowly spun through North, East, South, West and stopped on a fifth marking.
“Huh?!” Olly said out loud. He couldn’t hide his surprise. How were there suddenly five directions?
Jack and Omar stirred, but didn’t wake up.
Olly looked around suspiciously. Thinking. Looking for an explanation. Then he looked back at the compass. He couldn’t see in the dim light what the fifth direction was called. But he could see the needle was pointing out of the tent. Just as he looked over at the flap, a gust of cold wind blew through and he gasped. It was so cold, it was like someone had slid a knife made of ice under his skin. Absolutely freezing.
Olly clambered over to zip the flap properly closed. Suddenly bright sunlight shone into the tent. Olly blinked hard, paused, then slowly crawled out and stood up. He stared in astonishment at what he saw.
He should have been in the middle of the campsite, surrounded by tents. And it should have been night-time.
In fact, it was daylight and he was standing on rocky ground covered with bright white snow, surrounded by giant mountains.
‘What …?’
It was freezing, even though the sun was shining so brightly in the blue sky that Olly had to screw his eyes to slits. He wrapped his arms tight around himself. He could feel the cold eating into his bones.
“Hey!” A man’s voice shouted in his ear. “Quick, or you’ll freeze to death!”
