The Island (13 page)

Surely that was Dog, coming from inside the mountain?

I drop the bottle-net and wade through the water to the rocks. All the fish we've caught are making me stronger. I don't pant now when I run for my morning swim or when I drag branches over to the camp to keep the fire going.

My foot slips even before I've begun to climb.

I gasp and ignore a throb of panic.

Imagine breaking a leg here. Imagine.

I begin to climb the rocks at the base of the cliffs. It's the only way to get to the other side of the island. They may be sharp, they may be slimy, but I'll do it.

‘Dog,' I shout. ‘Dog!'

It's hard to grasp the rocks because they're all green with some sort of lethal seaweed, worse than any ice rink. It takes about ten years just to edge a metre or so into the sea.

I keep going.

And my fingers and toes are gripping white-tight now; the sea's swirling below me. I crawl to the very furthest tip of the outcrop, right to where it juts out to the infinite ocean. If I fall now, I'll be dashed to pieces of meat by the waves. The current's strongest here.

I crane my head, desperately trying to glimpse the other side of the mountain, to hear Dog again. But there's nothing. It's impossible to hear over the ledges 'cause they're filled with jostling birds.

‘Dog? Where are you?'

Again and again I shout, at the wind, the screaming gulls.

The cliff is straight and high and impossible. There is no way past these bastard stinking mountains.

 

Pebbles

My hands are cut from the rocks, but it doesn't stop me from making a spear.

I spend ages choosing the exact right sapling from the trees that fringe the forest. It must be the straightest, the supplest. And in my head I'm hearing Dog's bark, high and shrill.

Was he hurt? Was he calling me?

It was the shark that made me lose him.

All day I saw at my chosen sapling.

All day I think about the shark.

I think of its mean, flat eyes and its downward smile.

I saw harder, till there are hard blisters at the top of my palms, and three times I break my knife and have to mend it. There are plenty of tins on the could-be pile.

I use a piece of smashed rock as a tip. It looks like flint and it's sharp enough to spike a could-be nut with a single blow from my rock-mallet. I wrap string round and round so that it's nice and tight. Then I hurl it across the beach in one great arc.

It's a good, strong spear.

I pile up pebbles and practise knocking the stacks down, over and over again.

‘What do you think, Dog? Is my aim getting better?'

‘!'

‘Well, thanks for that. I'm not
that
bad.'

To make up for it, he gives me a little lick on my leg. I hand him a pebble and he takes it solemnly in his mouth; trots off to place it on the sand. Then he rolls on it, scratching the top of his back.

‘Weirdo,' I say.

Dog rolls and I throw.

The rock pile topples.

Then and now, the sun dies. Melts like marshmallow in the burning skies.

 

Shark

This time I'm ready.

I have my spear and some rope and I'm full of fury.

Let me at it.

It takes ages to die.

It's lemony-grey, smooth as a pebble, and it's thrashing, thrashing as I stick it.

I'm mad. A wild thing.

I stab it again and again with my home-made spear. The monster grins and thrashes its broken-glass teeth as the waters stain pink around us.

Hot-metal blood in the hot sun.

Once, its teeth rake my leg and its jaw clings on even in death.

This man-eating monster is only small after all, as long as my leg.

I pant as I swivel my spear down into its brain.

There.

I've come prepared. Wrapped around my waist I have the anchor rope left over from the life raft. Quickly I tie up the fish and drag it on to the sand.

I try to move it back to camp. It won't budge.

Already the ants are interested. I stare into the eye of the shark and it stares back at me. Its eye is flat and evil, like a child has drawn it with a felt-tip pen.

Wayne's eyes.

I'm going to have to carve it up right here.

The sun is at its fullest, sick and white. My neck is burning even through my T-shirt. I can feel the prickly heat on my chest, my legs, my feet. But I can't leave the shark for the rats to find.

I take my tin-lid knife from my bikini bottoms. My fingers tighten around the handle. It could break in two and the string could snap. If it slips, I might be eating Fran's Finger Fajitas instead.

Ha!

I turn away from the shark's staring eye and start sawing into its flesh.

 

I Spy

It's as I'm lying on my back, arms paddling, that I see the smoke.

It's thick and white and it's rising in a spiral, wavering a bit to the right in the breeze.

Now that it's safe to go into the sea, I've started doing lengths up and down the beach, but not too many, in case I use up valuable water. The pool's getting low.

We made a good signal, Dog and me; you can see it for miles. Maybe someone will see it from another island. Or a ship or a plane.

But something's definitely wrong.

When I realise what it is, I lurch, swallow water.

I cough and retch and take breaths till I calm down. The water sloshes over my chin as I strain my eyes to see.

There's the mountain, looming up behind the cliff. Impossible to reach; impossible to get to.

And there it is again; a thin column of smoke, wavering only slightly.

But it's not coming from our beach.

It's not our fire.

 

All at Sea

There's someone else on the island.

My heart trips. Smoke means people. Smoke means survivors.

I need to get to the other side of the island.

The smoke is quivering, torturing me. I lift heavy arms and try to crawl across the swell, moving like a snail towards the rocks. If I could swim round them, I could reach the other side of the island, find Dog and find people, and be sitting round that fire.

People.

I don't care if they're savages; don't care if they're going to kill me and eat me; don't care if they're bird hunters with big feathered headdresses. I imagine them whooping and dancing around their fire, turning the spit; a skewered pig, maybe, or –

drift-meat
–

something worse.

Maybe they eat people. Children.

Maybe they eat little white dogs.

But then the smoke is gone. And now I'm not even sure if I imagined it.

‘Nooooooo!' I moan.

Don't let it be gone.

I tread water, staring. I'm no further to the rocks or the other side of the island. In fact, when I turn back towards One Tree Beach, I realise that I'm miles out.

Fang Rock is the size of a nail-clipping and I've drifted far out to sea.

 

Drift-meat

I swim towards the white curl that is the shore but it's not long before I realise I'm not getting anywhere. I'm swimming as strong as I can but I may as well be swimming through treacle for all the progress I'm making.

That's when I start to panic.

I'm going to die
, I think.
I'm going to die.

And in that moment I know, with absolute clarity, that there's no way I want to die.

Not like this. Not ever.

Not when the sun's screaming-bright and the cliff's sharp-edged and blue-shadowed and the seabirds are whirling above me and every colour seems to be brighter and stronger than it's possible to be.

Not like this.

So I tread water and take deep breaths; try to think.

The water's calm. It's not like a roller's going to submerge me. I'm warm, sort of. Won't die of hypothermia just yet.

So relax.

I fix my eyes on the distant shoreline. If I focus on one point, I'll know if I'm drifting further out.

I focus on One Tree.

Whatever I do, I'm going to get there again. I just need to rest a while longer.

I am a dot rising and falling on the waves. I am nothing.

I have never been more alone.

I swim, trying to keep my head over the bigger waves, trying to rise up so that I can see. Each time the wave swells, I think I see it, a thin column of smoke trembling. Each time the sea falls, I lose sight of it and panic.

I reach with my arms, drag the water and it's like a dream where you move in slow motion. Time slows. I can't get there, can't reach those rocks that guard the cliff like jagged teeth. Each time I push, the sea muscles in, keeping me in my place.

I'm going to die out here, and now I would give anything – anything – for there to be somebody else here, for me not to be alone.

Anyone from TeamSkill would do – even Trish, even Joker.

Kieran. That was his real name. Not Joker.

I kick with my legs. I'm tired; I can't keep this up much longer.

Or let it be Coral or Tiny, who was called Paul.

But then I remember that they all died, didn't they?

Coral's hair swirling like smoke, blind fingers tapping at my legs.

Joker was first. Then Trish. Both broken on the floor, they couldn't have made it out of the plane.

My voice is thin as wire. And the wind picks it up and tears it to shreds.

A wave hits me full in the face, drowning my voice, making me choke.

Don't let me die like this, not all alone.

I might as well be a piece of flotsam. Driftwood.

Drift-meat.

I might as well be dead.

 

!

Something nudges my attention.

Something is barking, quick short barks.

Dog!

I can just see him, a tiny white dot on the shore.

I won't leave you.

The sky's turning violet, which means the sun's about to set. With a lurch I realise that if I ever get back again our fire may have gone out; this is the time we'd be dragging more wood, stoking it.

I shiver and focus on One Tree again. I've drifted further to the left, and the waves are getting bigger, like they always do in the evening.

If I ride with the waves, I think, I can let them take me as far forward as they can; then I'll swim for it. I'll swim for that shoreline like it's a magnet.

I check behind me; wait.

The next wave's a big one; it swells like a breathing monster and I keep my head up out of the water as I rise too, let myself bob like a cork on top, fix my eyes on the lone tree on the beach.

The wave carries me forward and the tree gets a little nearer; and then:

Take a breath.

Swim.

Fix.

Pull.

Breathe.

Fix…

…Till I can't swim any more, but I've refused to let the wave drag me back and now I'm being carried forward again in an almighty
whoosh
.

And it's the same thing again:

swim, breathe, fix on tree –

and One Tree's getting closer, it really is –

and I've forgotten all about the plume of smoke –

because there's

Dog.

He's there –

he's there on the beach, waiting for me

and barking, barking.

I can hear his sharp little yaps as I swim.

‘Coming, Monkey,' I gasp

as I pull,

dragging the water

with throbbing arms,

and I can do this,

I'm nearly there.

So close now.

Oh, Dog.

Oh, Monkey.

The hard sand rises up to greet me as I collapse.

I'm going to be licked to death at this rate.

It's only then that I realise what's different about him.

 

Someone

Dog is wearing a collar.

He sits grinning as I reach out to it; touch it like it's hot.

Neatly tied. Plaited. A perfectly-made collar placed around his damp neck.

I stroke it in wonder; trail my finger over its nubs and bumps. A beautiful thing, made with precision out of some sort of stem or reed. I glance at my half-finished palm roof, messy and a little bit crap.

Then Dog wriggles away and goes to his favourite spot in the shade, half buries himself into my hoodie blanket.

It could be a tribesperson, I think. It's like those beaded things in the display at the Horniman. Me and Johnny used to look at them; I'd make him choose his favourite.

‘How about that blue one, Monkey? The one with all those feathers and bones. It's a sort of necklace.'

‘Nah.' He shakes his head. ‘I like that one.' He points to a red beaded headdress with a million beads sewn on.

‘Amazing,' I agree. ‘We so need to get you one of those.'

‘Will you make me one?'

After I've made dinner and cleared a space to eat and done my coursework and tomorrow it's rubbish day and Johnny's got to do his spellings and we need more washing powder and while I'm at it I might as well sweep the sky.

‘'Course I will, Monkey.'

I snap back to the present. Hug my knees.

It could be a survivor like me.

Derek-the-co-pilot or
Hi I'm Rufus!
or Tiny-whose-real-name-is-Paul or the pilot. Would any of them have taken the time to make a perfectly-woven dog collar? If it's bird hunters, they'd know things. Like how to make boats and how to kill pigs and –

how to eat little dogs.

Would they make a collar?

But what's the point of there being anyone else if you can't frickin reach them?

I look over at Dog and he's exhausted. Gives a little stretch and a sigh and then he's sound asleep, the sort of sleep that lasts till morning.