‘Are you all right, Joe? Aesha?’ Binti’s anxious voice broke through the silence.
Joe struggled to his feet from the floor of the truck. ‘I think so,’ he said. He felt something wet and warm trickle down his face and touched it with his hand. ‘I’ve cut my forehead,’ he added, ‘but it’s nothing much.’
‘I banged my knee.’ Aesha groaned. ‘What happened?’
‘We’ve skidded into a ditch.’ Peter’s head appeared over the back of his seat. ‘No broken bones?’
‘Matunde isn’t moving.’ Binti leant over the driver’s seat, from where Matunde had been thrown forward – he was now prostrate over the steering wheel. The glass of the windscreen had shattered and there was a gaping hole in it.
Peter climbed over the back of the passenger seat into the cab and checked Matunde’s pulse.
‘His pulse is fine,’ he reported. ‘It looks as if he knocked himself unconscious on the steering wheel – there’s a big bump on his forehead.’
Peter wound down a window and looked out. ‘The ditch isn’t deep, but I’m not sure how we’re going to get the truck out. It’s wedged nose-down at an angle of forty-five degrees and the back wheels are in the air.’
Binti opened a bottle of water, tipped some on to a small bandanna she had brought with her and handed the bandanna to Peter. He tried to lift Matunde away from the steering wheel in order to apply it to his forehead, but it was difficult because of the angle of the truck. Instead, he tried to revive him by holding the bandanna against the guide’s neck, reapplying fresh water when it became too warm. Meanwhile, Binti saw to the cut on Joe’s forehead with a plaster she found in a first-aid tin that was stowed in the pocket of the truck door.
‘Will Matunde be all right?’ Joe asked.
‘I’m sure he will,’ Binti replied. ‘He must have taken quite a bump, though.’
‘How are we going to get out of here?’ Aesha asked the other question that was playing on Joe’s mind.
‘That’s a bit of a conundrum,’ said Peter.
He turned to smile at them, but Joe could tell he was troubled. The light was fading fast and, as far as they knew, they were a long way from anywhere.
‘We can’t even phone anyone because of those stupid baboons,’ Aesha grumbled.
Joe stared at her. Nobody knows where we are!
In the driver’s seat, Matunde stirred and muttered something incomprehensible, before falling silent again.
‘When he comes to, we’ll have a go at seeing if we can shift the truck,’ said Peter, though he sounded extremely doubtful. ‘If we all get out and push –’
‘Looking at the angle of the truck,’ said Binti, ‘I don’t think there’s even the remotest chance we’ll be able to shift it.’
‘And I don’t want to get out,’ Aesha added. ‘What if an animal spots us?’
Joe shivered. He was glad his parents were with them. He had wanted an African adventure, but this was turning out to be more than a little scary.
How long will we have to stay here? he wondered. We can’t even sit properly without sliding off the seats.
The only way he could stay in his seat was to put both feet against the seat in front, so that he was half-sitting, half-standing. Aesha had done the same, though she complained that it hurt her knee. Binti and Peter were half-standing up and half-leaning against the driver and front passenger seats, both of them deep in thought.
They don’t know what to do! realised Joe. They always know what to do, but they don’t know what to do now!
Joe was shocked to grasp that for once his parents were powerless to make things happen.
Matunde stirred again. Peter applied the damp compress to his neck and reached forward to wipe his face.
‘I hope he’s all right,’ said Binti.
‘It’s his fault we’re in this mess,’ Aesha complained. ‘We should never have let him take us away from the tracks.’
‘We can’t blame him for doing his best for us,’ Peter replied. ‘He knew how much we wanted –’
‘Dad! Look behind you, Dad!’
The urgency in Joe’s voice and the fear in his eyes made Peter stop what he was saying and spin round.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘Just behind that boulder.’
Joe pointed through the windscreen. Just visible above a large boulder was the head of a rhino, its eyes focused on the truck with its stranded passengers.