“You silly, silly girl.”
Donna just wailed.
“OK, OK. . .” Mrs Scott softened, but shook her head in disbelief. Donna was lying on top of Mr Bird’s anorak and covered by Mrs Scott’s. Sticking out at the bottom was a very swollen ankle and a pair of pretend-diamond shoes. Donna’s feet were ready for the CBC disco.
“I forgot I had them on, Miss.”
Mrs Scott shook her head again and the two grown ups moved off into the mist.
“Don’t move!” Mrs Scott said. But nobody was moving. Nobody was even talking. It was cold. It was wet. And it was scary.
They came back with the plan.
Mr Bird would take the group down and Mrs Scott would stay with Donna until help came to carry her down.
“OK, gang, I’ll do the map stuff now, it’s sort of an emerg—sort of a difficult time.”
They zipped up coats and jammed hats onto heads as hard as they could. The rule was that they had to keep one hand for balance and one hand for the shoulder of the person in front. Wasim was last to line up.
The fog and rain had misted his glasses, but he couldn’t see anyway and he didn’t care. The sweat from his walk up in the sun had made his T-shirt wet, and now it was freezing cold. His stomach was doing somersaults and the path looked like a tightrope that he had to balance on. And his legs weren’t his!
“Bye Donna, bye Miss,” the children called.
Wasim leaned against the rock, staring at the wet greyness, at the red paint that meant the yobbos must have even been up here, and the green lichen that Mr Abbot had told them meant that the air was free from pollution.
“Come on, legs – work,” he thought he said, but it wasn’t English, it wasn’t Urdu . . . it was just a gurgle. Wasim’s body had run out of fuel and he finally gave in. He let himself fall and lie down.
“Just for a minute,” he told himself, “just for a minute.” But even for his minute, Wasim remembered not to let the cold drizzling rain into his mouth.
“Wasim is ready,” he murmured and he curled up against the wind and cold at the bottom of his rock.
Mr Bird lifted him up to where Donna was lying. Wasim heard the grown ups say something about the worry of being away from home and in trouble, and too many sweets. And then there was a new plan. Wasim would stay with Mrs Scott and Donna while Mr Bird led the others down.
There was no talking, hands were thrust onto the next person’s shoulders. And the rescue group set off.
“Bye Miss, bye Donna, bye Wasim.”
“Don’t worry about the Mars bars, Wasim.”
But Wasim wasn’t. In fact he wished he could be sent home now. And as he shivered under the rock, he thought of Dad’s warm car and Mum’s cuddle and the cosiness of his own bed. Well, Wasim decided, as soon as Mr Bird came back, Mr Abbot could have his talk and then he could be sent home.
Wasim stayed curled up, shivering and imagining he was in his own bed, until a really bad blast of wind hit him and he woke up. Then he heard Donna in Mrs Scott’s coat chattering away about her dog and her sister and her mum. Mrs Scott gave him a kind smile and stroked his head just like Mum did. She was kind, Mrs Scott. And she was cold.
“You can have my coat, Miss,” said Wasim, when another really cold gust of wind and rain burst in from the fog and sent the chill through to their bones.
Wasim tried to move his arms, but the teacher wouldn’t let him.
“They won’t be long now.”
But they were.
“How long have they been?”
“Oh, not long!” sparkled Mrs Scott, looking at her watch on her shivering arm. But she mumbled something else and, as he tried to sit up Wasim could see that her face wasn’t sparkling.
“Come on, come on,” her lips seemed to be saying.
Wasim huddled up again and said his own “come on,” as he tried to curl tighter and tighter. What if they weren’t coming back? What if there really were yetis or wolves. He didn’t think he could run very fast, and he’d have to rescue Mrs Scott and Donna, anyway.
He pulled his hat more firmly over his ears and heard something – clumping and shouts.
“Hello! Hello!”
“Oh, thank goodness. Here they are, at last!” Mrs Scott’s voice was shaking.
“Hello, hello. We’re over here! Thank goodness you’ve. . .”
Charles was in front, then Dionne, Ben, Wing Ho, Tia, Daniel and then Mr Bird. And that was it.
“But. . .?” was all Mrs Scott could say.
Mr Bird was out of breath and his voice was shaky now, too. “We couldn’t see anything and there was a big drop just down the last path we took. I couldn’t risk it with the kids.”
Nobody said anything. The children were absolutely silent – the first ever time for Junior S.
Mrs Scott took charge and pretended to be bright and cheerful.
“My, my, what an adventure, boys and girls. Plenty for our diaries when we get back.”
“If we get back,” mumbled Daniel, but Miss ignored him and the two grown ups stepped into the mist and murmured urgently.
“OK, OK, boys and girls. We’re a bit lost, and with the weather like this we think the best thing to do is to wait here for the people at the centre to come and get us. They won’t be long now, the other groups will have been back long ago.”
“Why don’t you ring ’em up?” asked Dionne.
“Good idea, but no signal. But. . .” Then Mr Bird got his whistle and gave it to Dionne.
“You’ve got lots of puff. Take it in turns – three short blasts, three long ones and then another three short ones. SOS.”
So they all took it in turns blasting the whistle into the drizzly clouds.
“It won’t be long now. We’re in a cloud here. It will soon clear and someone will be up to get us.”
They were in a circle on the path, sitting on their bags and sheltered from the rain by Wasim’s rock.
“What if it gets dark? Then we’ll be here all night. We’ll freeze and our toes and fingers will drop off and. . .”
Mrs Scott glared at Charles and he stopped but she couldn’t stop the sobbing noise coming from Donna.
“Mr Bird, what time does it get dark, just in case we . . . umm . . . have to have our adventure for a bit longer?”
“8.55,” blurted Wasim and everybody looked at him.
“We really have got to get down from here,” Mrs Scott mumbled, as much to herself as to Mr Bird.
They huddled more closely together. Donna got put in the middle of the circle while Tia took her turn to do the SOS blasts.
“I know, I’ve got some wine gums we could all share,” said Mr Bird, “we’ll need some energy to keep warm. Anybody else got anything we could share?”
“I have,” mumbled Wasim and sat up and tugged at his rucksack.
“Ooh nice one, Waz, I love Mars bars.”
“It’s not Mars.” Wasim pulled his rucksack away from the blue bit of his rock and got hugs from everyone as Mrs Scott shared out the sandwiches, crisps, muffin and gave everyone one sip of drink.
“But you haven’t eaten anything, Wasim.”
But Wasim wasn’t listening, and he wasn’t finding ways of avoiding eating. He was back at his rock, staring. Staring, and thinking back into the warm of the CBC Centre.
“Mmmiss, Mr Bird, Mmmiss. . .”
Words wouldn’t come quickly enough.
“Miss,” Wasim tugged at Mr Bird’s arms and pointed at the rock. “Miss, Sir . . . red…”
“Yes, I know, Wasim, you showed me before.” But Wasim wasn’t waiting. His excitement had given him a supply of strength from somewhere and he was shuffling down the path as quickly as the mist would let him.
He got to the boulder just as a panting Mr Bird caught up with him.
“Wasim, be careful – there are huge drops and. . .”
“Red . . . red paint. . . Dom said it . . . ‘My lot, blue team, St Marie’s tomorrow green and St Thomas’s red. . .’ It’s a walk. . . It’s a. . .”
Mr Bird suddenly let out a huge “Aha” sound. “Mr Ahmed, you are the man!”
And then they were back at the circle and Wasim’s hands stung as everybody, including Mrs Scott, gave him high fives.
“Somebody quick—”
“Dionne,” they all said.
“And how about you, Wasim? Are you OK for this?”
Wasim was up for anything. Mr Ahmed, he’d been called, the man.
Yeah, he was OK for this. He was ready! They were off! Wasim, Dionne and Bird the—Mr Bird in front. They were hunting red rocks, the red paint on rocks which marked the way down the mountain. They were rescuing Junior S.
“Red!!!” hollered Dionne.
“Dionne, you are the man,” shouted Wasim, and he overtook, ready to find the next one.
