Trying to get outside for the adventure game was madness. Children from different schools swarming through a door, throwing slippers and pumps into baskets and struggling into brand new wellies or blister-making new outdoor boots. Wasim put his full kit on, and only just made it to the meeting area in time to hear about the game.
Dom was there waiting. He wore his CBC T-shirt with its arms cut off to look like a vest, shorts made out of jeans and climbing socks and boots. He had his sunglasses on his head and a whistle hanging from his neck. Along the line, boys started rolling up their sleeves into vests just to look the same, but Wasim – all ready for the mountain weather to close in – was boiling and his hat was itching again. At least the gnats swirling in clouds over every excited head wouldn’t get him.
“OK, you guys, this is the game. . .”
“When are we going on the quad bikes?”
Trust Dionne.
“Maybe never, mate, if you can’t shut up and do this activity.” Dom was furious and Charles, just about to ask when they were going on the ‘commando cord’, snapped his hand down quickly.
The teachers, who had been last out, came and joined the group and Dom put his nice face back on. Mr Abbot and Mrs Scott had to go to a meeting, but Mr Bird would be staying, and they hoped that the children wouldn’t let the school down and would do as Mr . . . Dom and Mr Bird told them.
“I’ve told them the rules, they’ll be great,” said Dom. “Right, guys, we split into teams. One team hides in the woods, and the idea is for the defenders to tag them before they can get back to this circle and pick up one of these tokens . . .” Dom pulled a coloured disk out of his rucksack, “without being tagged. Simple?”
“Yeah!”
“Not simple, guys. The defenders can only tag by touching the attacker on the arm with one of these.” Dom suddenly flicked his wrist and a bright purple frisbee curved its way through the air towards Mr Bird.
Mr Bird, who couldn’t have looked more different from Dom – with his shirt tucked into purple jogging bottoms – wasn’t expecting it. He had his hands in his pockets and couldn’t get them out in time. The frisbee hit him on the chest, and his hands jerked out of his pockets and knocked it up into his glasses, which fell onto the floor next to his sandals.
“Oh, sorry Sir. Thought you were up for it,” smiled Dom.
“Quite alright,” gulped a breathless Mr Bird, scrambling for his glasses on the gravel. And he threw the frisbee back with a wobbling flick that only made it halfway back to the instructor.
A few whispers of “Bird the Nerd” went down the line, and Wasim was sure that Mr Bird must have heard.
“OK. . . Teams! Half with me, half with Sir. Let’s go!” Dom blew his whistle, jumped off the wall and a stampede raced to be in his team. Every single person, except Dionne, who never wanted to look like he was in a hurry. And Wasim, whose hat over his ears had meant that he didn’t hear the instruction at first, and then because he sort of felt he should be in Mr Bird’s team after the coach ride.
It would be hard being an elite commando in that team, but Wasim went and stood with him anyway. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care if he won a game or not. He was really not feeling well.
“Aching, man.” That was Charles’s latest way to say how good something was. But aching was the word for Wasim – stomach-aching.
He was on the attacking team, and hiding in the woods and creeping back to base dressed in his commando clothes should have been exactly what he’d been looking forward to since Year Four. But he didn’t feel like it tonight, he definitely didn’t feel like it.
Dom evened the teams up (groans from everybody now on Bird the Nerd’s side) and they all charged for hiding places in the woods. Wasim joined in with everyone, crashing through the bushes and trees and then, when the showing off stopped, he felt part of the strange quiet that suddenly fell over the woods as the city children entered a new world. A world of gloomy greenness, of crackling twigs and of a dark smoky stink, as rotting leaves were woken up by new boots.
But the woods could only take their shouts away for a split second. The silent moment past and then there were squeals of pleasure when a doe rabbit and her litter of white-tailed babies bolted for cover in front of them. And screams of real fright when an evening owl hooted its command over the tree tops.
The owl slowed the attacking team in its tracks, and heartbeats of fear, as well as excitement made them want to stick together as the trees got thicker and the light faded.
The first mention of a bogeyman brought more shrieks, and most of the team just made a half-hearted effort at getting behind a tree before starting the run back to the light and friends.
But Wasim saw a gap under the roots of a massive tree that was lying on its side with scorch marks burned down its bark. He managed to ignore the buzzings that could have been anything on the other side of his hat and only made a feeble effort at batting away the whine of a gnat which had found his hiding place. Then he curled up and waited. And when he found that it was helping his tummy, he curled up even tighter. He wasn’t going to make a run for it. This was just right.
Wasim didn’t know how long he had been there, but it wasn’t long enough. Crashing and shouting sounds made him start thinking again. He thought he heard his name, but he had found a comfortable position and he didn’t want to move.
But he couldn’t stay there forever. He didn’t fancy being in the woods all night, and he didn’t like the buzzing. Charles had said they had killer bees in Wales. He opened an eye.
“Just Waz and Dionne left.”
“Come on out. We know you’re in there. . .”
The crashing was Dionne. He was making a run for it. And Dionne could shift!
“Come on, Waz. We’re last.” Dionne had found him and was stretching a hand down to pull him up.
Wasim took it slowly, weakly. The shouts were getting nearer and Dionne was off again, so Wasim started to move. He didn’t want to get left on his own. Nobody could keep up with Dionne, but Wasim followed as fast as his wobbly legs and knotted stomach would let him. He swallowed something, but he had no spit to get rid of it, and so he had to trudge on.
“There they are. It’s Dionne . . . and Wasim. Charge!”
They’d been seen. Wasim tried to go quicker but his legs didn’t want to know.
The trees were thinner and it was a bit lighter when Wasim felt something hit his arm. “Got you, Waz! You’re caught, no getting out of it!”
The frisbee bounced on the hard mud and did a twirl before settling down. Wasim lumbered on.
“Oy, Waz! You’re out! Got you. You’ve got to take it . . . Waz! Sir?”
But Wasim wasn’t interested. In the gloom he saw Dionne streaking out from the last of the trees and heading like a bullet for the base. Then he saw a larger figure, Dom, and a purple flash in the gloom. The frisbee soared even faster than Dionne, and then it swerved upwards and slammed into his ear. He slowed for a second – it must have really hurt – but Dionne didn’t show it. He streaked into the circle on the ground and picked up a disk and held it up like it was the World Cup.
“Doesn’t count, Dom got you. The frisbee got you. You’re a cheat, Dionne, so are you, Waz. . .”
“Err, no. Actually, well done, Dionne.” It was Mr Bird. His voice quiet but firmer than when they mucked him about in class. He was talking to Dom. “I thought it had to hit his arm. Not his head!”
There was silence while the children waited for it to be sorted out. Then Dom spoke through a fixed grin.
“Did it miss his arm? Oh, then well done, mate. Your team gets a home run.”
Cheers and boos, and Dionne finally rubbed his ear, but Wasim wasn’t listening. He was still moving, he just had to curl up again. That was all he was bothered about.
Curl up, and it stopped hurting.
He lurched through the confusion of the attack and defence teams swapping over and carried on up to the main building.
Afterwards he remembered taking off his outside shoes and thinking that climbing up onto his bunk would be the last thing that he would ever do. And then he was in his curled-up position again, looking at the window and listening to the distant shouts and screams of people having fun.
