Chapter Fifteen THE WHISTLERS

After a busy couple of hours helping Jack and eating a delicious lunch of pumpkin soup and home-made bread that Jack’s mum gave them, the Whistlers spent the rest of the afternoon in their newly refurbished den. Bella had brought along an old portable speaker so they could play music from their phones. They hadn’t been able to agree on what to play, so had eventually decided on a rota, starting with Bella, seeing as it was her speaker. The boys weren’t too happy with the cheesy boy band that was currently playing and had already started plotting their musical revenge.

Ava and Rav were perched on the edge of the camping table, looking through one of Rav’s wildlife books. He had been showing her all the animals that lived in the woodland around the den so she could find out more about them in the books.

‘What about tawny owls? Is there anything about them in the books?’ asked Ava.

‘Ah,’ said Rav, carefully replacing the wildlife book and taking out the RSPB Book of British Birds. He flicked through the pages before stopping and holding the open book out to Ava.

Ava began to scan the information about tawny owls. She was sure Rav and Tom probably knew most of it already, and learning about birds was something she really wanted to do. She smiled to herself as she realized she’d already learned a lot of these facts about tawny owls from Cassie and Ruby. Ava’s smile faltered as she thought again that it would soon be time to release Ruby back into the wild; the owl was so much stronger now.

‘How’s the photography going?’ asked Rav casually. A little too casually.

‘Great,’ replied Ava, avoiding his eye, not wanting to give anything away. She was getting much better, and it was starting to show in the photos she was taking.

Ava pretended to read the pages on tawny owls. She was willing to bet Rav had already chosen his photo for the competition. She’d looked through all hers with Uncle John a few days earlier, and while there were a few that were good, nothing really stood out as a prize-winning entry.

‘Hot chocolate’s ready,’ shouted Bella.

Everyone made a dash for the new set of comfortable camping chairs arranged in a circle in the middle of the den. Bella handed each of them a steaming mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, marshmallows, chocolate sprinkles and a gingerbread man sticking out of the side.

‘Whoa!’ said Jack, staring at his mug.

‘I can’t take credit for the ginger biscuit – they’re from Tom’s mum,’ said Bella, handing out the last of the hot chocolates.

‘But this is better than what you get in that posh coffee shop in town!’ said Tom. ‘And we’re in the middle of the woods!’

Bella smiled. ‘You can do whatever you put your mind to, Tom. And I take my hot chocolate very seriously.’

‘Forget calling ourselves the Whistlers,’ said Rav, a thin moustache of cream on his top lip. ‘We should just be the Hot-Chocolate Club, if this is anything to go by!’

The six friends sat in silence as they drank Bella’s deliciously warm creations. The only sounds were the occasional murmur of appreciation and the odd slurp as they hit marshmallows in their mouthfuls of sweet hot chocolate.

‘On the subject of the Whistlers,’ said Jack, draining the last drops of his drink, ‘I think we should work out our secret whistles. It’s the only reason I agreed to give ourselves the ridiculous name in the first place.’

‘I’ve been thinking about this,’ began Rav. ‘A lot of cultures around the world use whistles to communicate, sometimes completely replacing words and—’

‘Rav!’ said Jas with a laugh. ‘No offence, but you’re talking to us lot. We’re never going to remember anything complicated.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tom. ‘We should just keep it simple. Like the commands I use with Jet when we’re bringing the sheep in. He knows five basic commands with either words or a whistle.’

Rav looked around at his friends. Ava could see he was a little disappointed.

‘Okay, fine. We’ll keep it simple,’ he said, folding his arms.

‘What whistles do we need then?’ asked Ava.

Jas stood up from her camping chair.

‘If we’re keeping it basic, I reckon we need one to let everyone know if someone’s coming. After all, we are in the den, and it would be useful to know when someone’s heading our way,’ said Jas.

‘Or that something’s coming to get us!’ said Jack in a spooky voice.

Jas rolled her eyes at him. ‘Then,’ she continued, ‘I think we should have a whistle for everyone to come to the person who’s whistling. Like if we twisted our ankle in the woods and needed help, we could whistle for someone to come.’

‘Good idea, Jas,’ said Ava. ‘Maybe that whistle could just be lots of short little whistles?’

‘That would work,’ agreed Jas. ‘You could just keep going until someone found you. And the signal to let everyone know someone is coming could be longer, starting low and finishing high.’

They all tried the whistles and were satisfied they could all do it.

‘What about one for danger!’ said Jack hopefully. ‘We could whistle like the sound of a police car!’

‘If it makes you happy, we can have that one too,’ said Jas.

Everyone else laughed at how happy Jack looked.

‘I think the only other one we should have for now is a whistle to let each other know it’s one of us,’ said Tom.

Jack grinned. ‘You mean like when the zombie apocalypse hits and we’re the only survivors in the village, barricaded in our den with dwindling supplies and there’s a knock on the door and we need to make sure it’s one of us and not a zombie?’ said Jack, wide-eyed and breathless.

Tom laughed. ‘Yeah. Something like that.’

‘Maybe we could just whistle a tune?’ suggested Bella.

‘Like what?’ asked Rav. ‘I’m not whistling one of your cheesy pop songs!’

‘It can be something easy. After all, I know it’s harder for some of us to hold a tune than others…’ She directed a knowing smile at Jack.

‘Hey!’ he replied as the others burst into a fit of the giggles.

‘Well, I do have one idea,’ said Rav. ‘Seeing as we called ourselves the Whistlers, partly because the den is in Whistledown Woods on Whistledown farm, maybe we could whistle something related to the woodland?’

‘What do you have in mind?’ asked Ava.

‘Well, we could link it to Ruby. What if we whistled the calls of tawny owls?’

Ava grinned. ‘I’d be happy with that! I’d think of Ruby every time we whistled it!’

‘Tawny owls have two calls that often sound like one,’ said Rav. ‘One makes a kewick sound, and the other replies with hoohoo. One of us could whistle the first owl call, and then whoever’s listening whistles the answering call back. That way we know it’s definitely one of us who’s replying!’

‘I have absolutely no idea what you two are on about,’ said Jack, shaking his head.

‘Listen, we’ll demonstrate,’ said Rav.

He fixed his eyes on Ava and whistled the kewick sound of a tawny owl.

Ava smiled and then whistled a hoohoo back to Rav.

‘See!’ said Rav. ‘Simple!’

The den was buzzing with excitement now. They may not have all been enthusiastic about giving themselves a name and secret whistles, but the thought of having a way of communicating with each other that no one else knew about had fired up their imaginations. Ava suddenly felt a wave of happiness. Being in the den with all her new friends was magical – whistles and all.