“That is about the most dangerous thing you could ever do, mate.”
Wasim’s glasses were on the floor next to the spilled toothbrushes, so he just stared.
“Leaving an activity without telling anybody. . . We didn’t know if you were stuck in the woods, dead or alive. . .”
The others all piled in now, sweaty and dirty from the woods. After the fun of the game outside they now sat on their bunks, ready for Wasim’s telling off.
“So, what did you think you were doing, fella?”
“Don’t know. . .” Wasim managed to mumble.
“Not listening to the rules under that hat of yours?”
The instructor took a step into the room. He saw the toothbrushes on the floor and Charles’s wet towel on the bunk.
“You’ll need to get this dorm a bit tidier, guys, keep towels on the—”
Dom stopped. And all the eyes in the room followed his down to the floor, and to crumbs, a banana peel and a crisp packet. Then they all went back to him as he took his sunglasses right off and lifted the banana peel up with his pencil as if he was on CSI from TV.
“Food!” he sighed. “What happens if there is food in a dorm, guys?”
Ben chimed in first, “The dorm misses the next—” And then, too late, he realised what he had done. “Activity.”
“Oh, well done Ben!” Charles exploded.
“Correct! I don’t know what you guys would have had first tomorrow morning, but you’ll be writing out our rules instead.”
“Nice one, Ben.”
Dom was on his way out. “And I wouldn’t blame Ben. There is obviously somebody in here who does not know our rules. See you tomorrow, guys.”
And he was gone, while the five puzzled and then angry faces on the bunks turned slowly towards Wasim.
“Sent to Coventry,” they called it. No-one was allowed to speak to you, not even the kids from the other rooms, once word got round.
Wasim had gone and ruined it for his whole dorm. Eating upstairs! He’d broken one of the big rules and now the whole dorm had to miss the next activity, the climbing wall.
Charles and Ellis, who were supposed to be his best mates, were first.
“You always ruin it, Waz. Just cos you don’t want to climb. You go and tell him it was you. . .”
Wasim tried. He had found Dom by the office but he was busy with the other instructors and a giant map.
“Excuse me. . .”
Dom wasn’t interested.
“Danny’s group, red walk, Sally’s team are green, my lot blue. . .”
And Dom just stuck coloured drawing pins into the map until Wasim gave up and made the long, slow walk back upstairs.
Wasim had sat on his bunk, staring again, until Dom’s footsteps and match-in-mouth whistle bounced around the corridor.
“Hand over the food, Waz!” Charles hissed.
And Wasim had fumbled for his bag, dragged it from under his pillow, climbed down the steps of his bunk and handed it to the silent Dom who was leaning against the door frame. Wasim couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but he could sense the coldness in them as he hung the carrier bag onto one outstretched finger.
“So can we do the activity now, Dom?”
Dom smiled beneath his sunglasses.
“What’s the rule, guys?”
And he turned and was gone, whistling down the corridor.
“Night, Dom,” came a shout from a girls’ dorm.
“Night, sweethearts,” came the reply, to shrieks and giggles.
But there were no laughs in Wasim’s dorm.
“Cheers, Waz. . .”
“Thanks for ruining it, Wasim.”
“Greedy Guts Waz. Now we don’t get to do anything.”
Wasim hadn’t said anything as they all decided not to talk to him.
He just sat on his bunk and was relieved when Mr Abbot popped his head in and said “Lights out.” Then he didn’t have to see anybody.
The silence had lasted all night. No laughs for Wasim, no jumping from bed to bed, no-one asking him for a ghost story. And the worst of it was that they were right.
He had eaten in the dorm and he had been stupid enough to leave the signs of it all over the floor.
