The challenge of the Coast to Coast was for the whole Outdoor Education class to get itself from one side of the island to the other in under six days. The way Mr Camden introduced it to us the trip was entirely ours. We would plan the route, assess the risks, do the organisation; he was just there to observe. The way it turned out was slightly different. Mr Camden isn’t exactly the observing type and he couldn’t resist dropping hints, guiding discussions, leading or prodding whenever he thought he could get away with it. We let him have his fun and by the end of term we had miraculously settled on the same basic itinerary classes had been using for the last fifteen years. We were to bus out to Riversdale and from there bike to the foothills of the Tararuas. We then gave ourselves three days to tramp across the ranges and planned to finish by rafting down the Otaki River with a full day to spare. Simple.
We met up early on the Friday morning, to load our bikes onto the support vehicle and distribute the food most groups had bought in a mad rush the night before. By then we were as prepared as we could be, in a last minute slack-arsed sort of way. We’d covered all the theory in class but, looking around the gym steps, it was easy to see our practical skills were still minimal. Packs that wouldn’t quite close, equipment hanging off the sides, tempting the elements. People repacking for the third time, the gear expanding with each attempt. Heavy clothes that would get waterlogged and coats that would never with-stand mountain rain.
It was the same with the bikes. I helped load up the trailer because I was nervous and it gave me something to do. There were perished tyres and rusting chains, brake cables only a couple of strands short of disaster. Maybe somebody watching would have thought we’d been poorly prepared but that wasn’t true. They might have thought we just didn’t care but that was wrong too: you could tell by listening in to the conversations that were starting, winding our nerves up, stretching them tighter.
‘Piss off, you carry it.’
‘I’ve already got the tent.’
‘Well, you find a place in here for it then. Go on. See, there’s no room, is there? Hey, what are you doing?’
‘You don’t need this.’
‘Fuck off. I don’t go through your stuff.’
‘You won’t find shit like this in it if you do.’
‘No, that’s mine.’
‘And this is our tent. I think it’s sort of a priority don’t you?’
‘Okay, but if I end up needing that I’m…’
All of us feeling the same, wondering what it would be like to fail, and who we might blame if we did. Not that any of us had imaginations wild enough to pick what was waiting for us up in the hills.
The bus arrived. I saw Jeremy, who’d been in charge of booking it, breathe out with relief. It was bigger than we needed, eighteen students divided into four expedition groups, and Mr Camden. The other three adults were taking a car, but not him. He couldn’t bear to be that far from the action. He bounded up the stairs, last on, and stood there beaming down on us. He pretended to be doing a head count but that wasn’t his job. I knew he was taking the chance to soak it all in: his latest recruits. He thought about giving one of his little speeches, his lips moving in preparation, but the bus shuddered into life just in time. We were off. It had started.
The journey took a little over three hours. At first we tried to make like it was any other bus ride, sitting with our mates, hanging our conversations over the backs of seats, arguing about music. But then, within half an hour of leaving and without anyone having to suggest it, we’d moved into our expedition groups and the talk had turned to distances and menus. Anxious conversations, with people carefully laying lines of blame, in case it all went wrong.
My group was definitely the worst. In theory the class had been split according to ability but there had been a lot of chopping and changing since then. I’m the sort who prefers to keep his opinions to himself, which is how I found myself dragged along by the social currents, washed up with the group of leftovers.
Officially we were the ‘middle slow group’ and we sat near the front on the driver’s side, all of us thinking the same thing: how the other three weren’t the first people we’d choose to spend six days of our lives with. Jonathon’s the easiest of the other three to describe so I’ll start with him. He had a special skill which was well known to everybody, the skill of pissing other people off. It doesn’t sound much, said like that, but Jonathon had it down to an art form. He was like one of those natural athletes you see who never seems to train but still excels at everything. Jonathon could get right in under your skin without appearing to try. The first time I saw him in action Mr Camden was his victim. It was at the beginning of the year, only two weeks into the course.
We were doing our orienteering practical, the first assessment. There was a course we had to negotiate through the pine plantation behind the school. I’d completed mine earlier in the week and I was at the end with Mr Camden, helping him to record finishing times. Jonathon was the first person into view, with only one checkpoint left and plenty of time in hand. He’s fit enough and too devious to be stupid. As soon as he saw us he stopped jogging and ambled over, like we were friends he’d bumped into during a weekend bush walk. He knew the stopwatch was still on.
‘Hi guys. There you go.’ He handed Mr Camden his clipboard, where all the checkpoint numbers got marked off.
‘You’ve still got one to get there, Jonathon,’ Mr Camden pointed out, just like he was meant to.
‘That’s all right. Think I’ll stop here.’ Jonathon gave a shrug and smiled.
‘What do you mean? There’s one marker left. You’re on course for a level six. Away you go.’
‘But what grade do I get if I stop now?’ Jonathon asked, all innocent. Mr Camden stared at him as if he couldn’t even begin to understand the question.
‘One more in under three minutes and you get the top grade. Hurry up. The watch is still on.’
‘Grade three isn’t it, if I fail to complete by one marker?’ Jonathon kept pushing.
‘You can see the marker from here for God’s sake. Do it or there’s no grade at all.’ Just like that. Mr Camden had snapped. With Jonathon you don’t even see it coming.
‘You can’t do that. I’d appeal. Here, I’m quite happy with a three. Three’s a pass, the way I see it.’ He tapped the clipboard and sauntered off and I watched the red rise in Mr Camden’s face. He never forgave Jonathon for that. He singled him out whenever he could and even tried to get him moved out of the class. Of course that just made Jonathon happier, because that’s the way he is. Not exactly the type I’d choose to help me slog my way across the country. I spent a lot of that bus trip watching him, wondering how long it would take him to find a way in through my soft defences.
Then there was Rebecca, who should never have been in a group like ours. A week before, she had been a major player in the élite group, who were planning to complete the whole journey in only four days. She was fit and she was popular. Her dad tutored some outdoor pursuits course at a local university. But even people like Rebecca can slip up. She was meant to be going out with a guy called Shannon Robertson, who wasn’t in our class but was best mates with the other people in her group. So when it got out that she’d been seen going off with some other guy at a party on the weekend the group became outraged on Shannon’s behalf. She was no longer welcome amongst them and was banished. We were her punishment. There’s probably more to it but that sort of gossip has a way of avoiding me. What I do know is that Christina Meade, whom I’d half-considered making a move on during the trip, was promoted, and Rebecca, who sort of scared me, moved in. On the trip over the hill I could see she was caught between two moods, half-wanting to take over and show us all the things we were doing wrong, half-trapped inside her sulk, determined to remain quiet and miserable.
Lisa is harder to describe. I knew least about her. I don’t think anyone in the class knew her much. She was new that year. She’d transferred over from some private girls’ school, and she didn’t seem to have made many friends. It was hard to know whether she was quiet because she was new, or whether she’d always been that way. Even after ten weeks together people would often pause before saying her name, like they were using it for the first time and frightened of getting it wrong.
And of course there was me. I wonder what the others would have said about Marko Turner, if you asked them. Quiet too, probably, and a little bit soft. They’ll think differently, when the Doctor is dead.