Gideon the Cutpurse (5 page)

* * *

Hidden in a tangle of hawthorn bushes and young birches, the young stranger woke up from a deep sleep at the sound of the children's yodeling. He peered through the foliage. A crescent moon had appeared in the evening sky. Two blue eyes focused on the children, and the stranger's face broke into a smile.
By now the children had moved on to doing animal impressions: Kate was imitating a cow in need of milking, and Peter was roaring like a lion. Then he howled like a wolf: "Aa-ooooh!"
The sound of another wolf rang out and echoed around the valley. "Aa-ooooh!" Its cry was strong and wild.
"Was that you?" asked Peter.
"No," said Kate. "Are you trying to scare me?"
"No, really, I'm not kidding. Stop playing about. It was you, wasn't it?"
"No, it wasn't!" insisted Kate.
"Aa-ooooh!" Another howl from the stranger's lips reverberated across the peaceful landscape.
A moment later Peter and Kate were charging blindly down the grassy slope, arms outstretched for balance. They bounded, panting and spluttering, down the steep incline, scattering groups of grazing rabbits, and eventually came to a shuddering halt at the edge of a small wood at the bottom of the valley. They flung themselves on the ground, incapable of doing anything save taking in huge gulps of air.
Inside the wood it was pitch black. The pale bark of the birch trees that grew at the wood's edge seemed to glow in the twilight. If there were wolves up above, thought Kate, what creatures would they find down here? There were sure to be deadly spiders and poisonous snakes. She would
not
go into the wood unless she absolutely had to. But then she looked back up at the dark slope behind her. The muscles across her chest tightened as she pictured having to leap onto a wolf's back to get away from its strong white teeth, imagined pulling at its shaggy, rank coat and kicking at it with all her might--anything to stop those fangs sinking into her, tearing at soft flesh...At the bottom of the valley, in the dark, everything pressed down on her. She covered her eyes with her hands in an attempt to shut it all out, and silent tears flowed through her fingers.
Where are you, Daddy, where are you?

* * *

Meanwhile Peter, too, was straining to hear anything that could suggest a wolf was hunting them down. He listened so hard it almost hurt. At first Kate's panting was all he could hear. Gradually, though, he tuned into the sound of the leaves rustling in the gentle breeze and began to distinguish a different noise.... He was sure he could make out the trickling sound of a small stream.
"Water!" he shouted, and grabbing hold of Kate's sleeve, he pulled her into the darkness.
Water had never tasted so refreshing. They lay on their bellies and dipped their faces into the freezing water. Peter gulped down so much water he could hear it slooshing around inside his stomach.
"Come on," said Kate. "It doesn't look like we can count on anyone finding us tonight. We're going to have to find help fast if we don't want to spend the night out here."
They tried to press on through the black wood, stumbling over logs and walking into invisible branches that lashed at their faces. Whenever Kate felt the tickle of a leaf or a blade of grass against her skin, she became convinced it was a spider and came to a halt, rubbing herself down frantically and slapping the legs of her jeans just in case.
"Oh, this is hopeless!" exclaimed Peter after a while. "I can't see a thing--we could be walking around in circles for all we know!"
"Okay," sighed Kate. "Let's stay here until morning. But I'm not going to sleep, though."
"Well, I am."
Peter flopped down. His head was pounding and he felt weak with hunger. He looked up through the branches at the night sky. A carpet of milky stars hung over the valley. Could they really be in Australia? He began to convince himself that the night sky looked upside down.
Kate hesitated before speaking. "Earlier on, when I said that I knew you were trouble as soon as I looked at you..."
"Yes..."
"Well, that was a bit unfair--probably."
"Oh. Okay."
Kate lay on the bare ground next to him. "Roll over," she said. "I think we should lie back to back for safety and to keep warm."
"No way!" said Peter. "I'm not sleeping next to a girl."
Kate was too tired to argue and lay with her back against a young beech tree. She could just make out Peter in the dappled moonlight.
"My dad will find us, you know. He's really smart and he'd never let anything happen to me. He'll do whatever it takes to get us back, I know he will."
Kate, too, was in worse shape than she cared to admit to herself. She felt that she couldn't have got up again now even if she'd wanted to.
Peter wondered if anyone had yet dared disturb an important business meeting to tell his father that his son had got mislaid.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm sure you're right."
Kate did not reply. She was already asleep.

FIVE
A Breakfast of Grilled Trout
In which Peter goes fishing and Kate gives her companion a fright

As the sun rose, its rays started their slow descent down the valley's grassy slopes. Far below, a ghostly white mist hung above the stream, revealing the water's path as it passed through the middle of the wood where, under the green canopy, Peter and Kate slept on.
Kate was dead to the world, wrapped around the trunk of the beech tree, her white face streaked with mud and tears. Peter, though, was beginning to stir. He looked about him. Everything was covered in beads of dew that glistened in the half-light. How stiff and damp he felt after a night sleeping on bare ground. His T-shirt was sticking to his back, and a vague whiff of cowpat lingered around his anorak, reminding him of the events of the previous day. He looked over at Kate, whose back rose and fell in a slow, regular rhythm.
He decided not to wake her but to explore for a while on his own. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never woken up without a grown-up telling him what to do. What freedom! He followed the path of the little stream. Kicking his way through the bracken, Peter felt almost in a holiday mood. Somehow, this morning, he could not feel scared or miserable. He bet that the "wolf" they had heard the previous night was just a big dog locked out for the night. And even though it was still a puzzle how they'd got here, all they had to do was find a telephone, call home, and someone would pick them up straightaway.
He crouched down to scoop up some water with his hands--if there was nothing to eat, at least he could drink.
Plop!
Out of the corner of his eye Peter saw a fish break through the surface of the water to catch a fly. Slowly and quietly Peter stood up to see if he could catch sight of any more. His heart leaped as he counted five, six, seven beautiful brown trout swimming upstream among the bright green weed that splayed itself out like hair in the gentle current. The trouts' backs were an undistinguished greeny brown, but there was no mistaking their shimmering sides, speckled with dots of red, green, and gray. For a boy who had caught his first trout with his bare hands on the River Frome even before he had learned to read, breakfast suddenly seemed a distinct possibility.
Trout-tickling as his grandfather had taught him was difficult and required endless patience, yet even as a small child he used to love to try--once set on something Peter was not one to give up easily. So now he lay on his stomach and slipped first his hand and then his whole arm into the freezing water. He made himself so still and quiet that he became one with the flow of the stream, the stony bed, and the rippling water. Eventually a plump, speckled trout drew near to his hand. Slowly and with the deftest of touches, Peter started to stroke its belly. After a few minutes he soothed the trout into a trancelike state. When Peter judged the moment was right, he flung the fish onto the grassy bank. He picked it up and killed it in one clean blow, as his grandfather had taught him, by knocking its head smartly on a rock. As he prepared to try his luck again, the crack of a twig breaking made him wheel around. All his senses went on full alert. Was there someone else with him in the sun-dappled wood? Eventually he decided that it must have been an animal, and his attention returned to the job at hand.

* * *

Half an hour later Peter set off to find Kate, very pleased with himself and with the three slippery brown trout that he had wrapped in dock leaves and stuffed into his anorak pockets. He was tempted to wake her by howling like a wolf, and grinned mischievously at the thought. Then he remembered how petrified she had seemed the previous night and thought the better of it.
When he reached Kate, she was still curled up in the same position, her hood pulled over her head and her knees tucked around the slim trunk of the young beech tree. Tendrils of red hair had escaped from her hood and were blowing gently in the breeze. Peter crouched down, trying not to make a sound, and tipped his head to one side so that he could see her face. She looked pale through her freckles and was frowning. It made him sad to see her look so anxious even while she was still asleep. He was on the point of touching her shoulder to wake her when something happened that he could not begin to understand. She appeared to be fading or dissolving into thin air. Peter stared at her, unable to believe what he was witnessing. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. There was no doubt about it, Kate was distinctly hazy. He made himself look all around him, at the ground strewn with yellowing leaves, at the ant marching toward his shoe, at the huge cobweb with a great fat spider waiting at its center. Everything else was in sharp focus, yet Kate was like an image on a poorly tuned television, flickering and fuzzy. In fact, you could see the tree trunk she was huddled up against right through her body. Peter felt a dreadful sense of panic come over him. Was she going to disappear altogether? "Kate!" Peter shouted. "Wake up!"
At the sound of his voice she snapped instantly back into focus, and it was a solid Kate who was on her feet in a second. "What's wrong?" she gasped. "Have the wolves come?"
"No...no. It's just that you looked...funny."
"You shouted at me like that because I looked funny! You're worse than Sam! You really scared me. I thought we were about to be torn to pieces or something...." Kate paused for breath; her fists were still clenched and her eyes burned into him. "What do you mean I looked
funny
?"
There was nothing remotely flickery or fuzzy about her now, and Peter began to doubt what he had seen. Could hunger make you imagine things? He decided to play the incident down.
"I thought you were looking a bit blurred around the edges, that's all," he said, failing to sound offhand. "It must have been a trick of the light."
Kate stared at him in disbelief. "A bit blurred round the edges!" she exclaimed. "Are you trying to wind me up? Because if you are, it's not working."
Peter was so preoccupied that he didn't notice how near to crying Kate was.
I must find out if she's still solid,
he told himself, and decided that the simplest course of action was to bump into her accidentally on purpose. Kate eyed him suspiciously as he circled around her before tripping himself up deliberately on a tree root and flooring Kate in the manner of a professional wrestler. Kate hit out at him and pushed him roughly off her. She shouted, "What do you think you're doing, you idiot?"
Large tears started to roll down Kate's cheeks and dropped onto the backs of her hands as she tugged at her cotton handkerchief. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed silently. Peter put his hand awkwardly on her arm.
"I shouldn't have pushed you over. I'm really sorry. I didn't think it would upset you that much."
Kate took in a deep breath to calm herself down.
"It's not just you," she said. "When you woke me up I thought I was standing in the kitchen at home. I saw Milly on the floor by the cooker, writing notes on pieces of newspaper and stuffing them into everyone's shoes. She does that a lot. Well, she can't write--she's only two--but she pretends. Then Molly trotted in. She stood there, sort of looking at me, but she didn't jump up or lick my face. She just whined.... It was as though she knew I was there but couldn't see me. And Milly didn't notice me at all. It was horrible.... It wasn't a dream. I swear it wasn't a dream. I was there."

* * *

Peter did not know what to say so he said nothing. Kate mopped her face with her handkerchief. Insects buzzed around them, and the birch trees rustled in the breeze. Then Peter remembered the trout.
"Look what I've got," he said, pulling out the fish from his pockets. "Brown trout. Delicious!"
"Wow! Did you catch those?"
Peter nodded.
"Do you know how to gut them?" asked Kate. "Have you got a knife?"
"Well, no," replied Peter.
"Have you got anything to light a fire with?" She was sounding a little less impressed.
"No, but I'm sure we'll think of something."
"I see--we can't cook them and we can't gut them. So how
are
we going to eat them? Suck them like lollipops?"
Peter managed to stop himself from snapping, "Find your own breakfast, then!" At least she had stopped crying.
If Peter had vague notions about making a stone knife out of flint, he soon dropped the idea when an extensive search yielded only a collection of smooth rounded pebbles. Meanwhile Kate gave herself friction burns rubbing two sticks together.
"Come on, I've had enough of this. Let's go and find a telephone," she said.
They left the trout for the crows and decided to retrace the course of the stream back up the hill. Once they were clear of the wood, the sun beat on their backs and they took off their anoraks and tied them around their waists. It was hard going, and when they were near the top, Kate flung herself down, panting. Peter followed suit and pushed his hair back from his damp forehead. His gaze settled absentmindedly on the wood where they had spent the night. It was his nose rather than his eyes that first alerted him to the plume of hazy gray smoke that rose up into the clear air.
"Look!" he cried. "Someone's lit a fire."
For the second time since their arrival, Peter and Kate hurtled down to the bottom of the valley. As they drew nearer to the source of the smoke they heard a man singing.
"My love she did a-wooing go. Fol-de-la-la-de-dah. My love she said she loved me so. Fol-de-la-la-de-dah."
They did not stop until they reached a small clearing where a mouthwatering smell of grilled trout greeted them. A man with a blond pigtail down his back was tending a wood fire. At the sound of their steps the man turned around to look at them. He had calm, deep blue eyes and a broad, handsome face, and he did not seem to be the least surprised to see them. For a second Peter thought he recognized him but then changed his mind.
The stranger advanced toward the children and gave a graceful bow.
"My name is Gideon Seymour. I hope I may be of some service to you in your trouble. I have, in any case, taken the liberty of cooking your trout."