‘Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily . . .’
My face is pressed against the rock where the trail used to be. I’m the only one left alive and there’s nothing I can do but scream.
‘Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily . . .’
My throat gives up. Gasp-hiccup-burp. It sounds disgusting, but it doesn’t matter, no one can hear.
I can’t move; I’m emptied out and hollow inside, glued to my sister’s grave.
‘Raven! Raven, can you hear me?’
The voice is whispery and muffled. I spin around, but there’s no one there.
Lily’s dead and now her ghost is haunting me!
‘Raven, would you stop screaming and listen!’
That sounds more like my sister. Not like a ghost.
‘Where are you?’
‘In here – behind the rocks.’
‘You’re not dead?’
‘Of course I’m not dead! I wouldn’t be talking to you if I was dead!’
Behind the rocks, not under the rocks! Alive, not dead; behind, not under! It runs through my head like a poem; I’m so happy that it takes me a minute to realise that behind the rocks is still not great.
When I ran through it on the way up, the trail was like a cave with the front side open. Now it’s a tunnel because the two biggest chunks of the nose have only slid far enough to completely cover the front. Except tunnels have exits.
Lily’s voice is coming from a crack between the door rock and the cliff. I put my face to the gap, but it’s too small, I can’t see her.
‘Why don’t you go out the other end?’
The world’s stupidest question; luckily she’s talking at the same time.
‘It’s so dark I can’t see – and I can’t get through to the other end. Can you see how we can get out?’
The nose rocks are huge. This one is as big as a door; the other two aren’t even rocks, they’re slabs of mountain. There’s no way I could move them; even Scott . . .
‘Where’s Scott?’
‘He shoved me under the hollow when the first stone hit – it sounded like a gunshot! But the next rock got him before he was all the way in. He’s breathing, but I can’t wake him up.’
Her voice is trembly and that’s the scariest thing of all. My big sister and stepfather are trapped; he’s unconscious and she’s scared. I’m the only one on the outside.
If I scrunch my eyes up tight, I can pretty well see the puzzle pieces of where these three nose rocks fitted together. I’m hoping that means there wasn’t much left over to fall anywhere else.
‘Lily, I’m going to go check the other side.’
I’ll have to go straight across those huge pieces of nose, below where the trail used to be. The two boulders are so big and lumpy that if I slip, I’ll only slide down to the next bump. Easy for someone who’s already fallen off a cliff.
It would be even easier if I had a rope. I could lasso one end around that pointy bit at the top of the door rock where it juts up over the roof of their cave, and the other end around me.
But the rope’s in Scott’s backpack.
I probably couldn’t lasso it anyway. I might as well get started and stop wishing for things I can’t have.
I wish I could see better, I wish I had gloves, and I wish my hands weren’t already bleeding! I wish I could have a hot chocolate with marshmallows, and I wish Mum was here and I wish Lily and Scott weren’t behind the rock!
Luckily the smarter part of my brain is studying the rocks while the other part’s whining. I need to slide down to the first bump . . . which doesn’t seem quite so easy now I’m doing it. I hug the rock as I wiggle across: right foot slide, right hand grab; left foot slide. Slip down between the two rocks where they’ve split, catch my breath and study the second one. If I jump and reach high as I can . . .
‘OW!’
I suck my finger till it stops bleeding: the left pointer fingernail is ripped down to the quick. It must be called quick because it makes you jump so fast.
What’s scary is that if I hadn’t been wedged between the two rocks, I’d have fallen off, because as soon as it got hurt my hand forgot all about holding on.
So when you’re climbing, it’s just tough luck if you hurt yourself. The only thing that matters is not falling off.
I don’t know if I can remember that.
Anyway, now I’ve slowed down I can see there’s another way up to the second rock, that doesn’t need me to rip off any more fingernails. I wiggle on my stomach, across and up . . . and I’m at the other end of Lily’s cave.
It wasn’t just the nose that fell off the mountain.
This end of the ledge, right to the bend, is covered with a pyramid of rocks higher than my head.
But each one is a rock, not a boulder. I could move them.
If I take them down, one by one . . .
. . . it’ll take days.
But what else can I do?
The pile is too wobbly to climb. I lean into it and push off the highest rock I can reach.
‘OW!’
I shove the rock off my toe and over the ledge. My finger’s bleeding again too. Maybe I should start lower down.
Sitting with my back against the mountain, I kick off all the loose rocks around the edges. ‘Ten down, a thousand to go!’
It feels good. I’m getting somewhere.
The easy ones are gone, my legs are getting quivery from shoving, and the pile doesn’t look any smaller than when I started.
There’s still one big rock at the bottom that I might be able to move. I brace my back and shove with both feet . . .
I’ve done it! The big rock disappears over the side.
Another big one crashes towards me. I fling myself back, my knees tucked against my chest, my head thumping against the cliff wall.
The rock brushes past my toes, smashes onto the ledge, and bounces over the cliff.
The whole pile shivers behind it; rocks roll and settle. But only two go over the cliff – the rest must have rolled into Lily and Scott’s cave.