White Cave Escape (10 page)
The drone of the plane's engine grew louder.
“Where is it? Do you see it?” cried Tony, craning his neck to see through the branches and the roiling smoke.
“There it is!” cried Petra.
“Where?
Where
?”
“There!” She pointed. High above the branches, the yellow belly of an aircraft could just be glimpsed, scudding in and out between the heavy clouds of smoke.
Tony started doing jumping jacks, waving his arms crazily. “We're here! We're down here! Hey! Search-and-rescue guys! We're over here!” he hollered at the top of his voice. Shawn grabbed Tony's arm, pulling his bouncing friend back to earth.
“They can't hear you, Tony. They can't even see us under all this brush.”
“Uh, guys?” said Craig, peering hard at the plane.
“Quick!” Tony said frantically. “We have to signal them and let them know where we are!”
“Guysâ” said Craig, a little louder.
“I know!” said Tony, feverishly snatching up some branches from the side of the trail. “We can build a torch!”
The others stared at him.
Tony looked from the little sticks clutched in his hand to the towering trunks of flaming trees. He dropped the sticks. “Okay. Maybe a torch isn't the best way to get their attention right now.”
“GUYS!” yelled Craig.
The others spun around in surprise.
“That is NOT a search-and-rescue plane,” said Craig.
“How do
you
know?” retorted Tony.
“Trust me, he knows,” said Shawn. “Craig's a walking encyclopedia of airplane facts ever since we went up in that helicopter last winter.”
“Who cares what kind of plane it is as long as it rescues us?” said Tony. He turned and waved his arms at the sky. “Yoo-hoo, whatever-kind-of-plane-you-are! Come and get us!”
“Tony!” said Craig again, clutching at his arm. “We have to get out of here!”
“Well,
duh
,” said Tony crossly. “Why do you think I'm trying to flag down a plane?”
Craig threw another wide-eyed look at the oncoming aircraft. “No, Tony, you don't understand. That's a Canadair CL-215!”
Tony looked at Shawn. “What'd he say?”
Shawn shook his head. “No idea.”
“A Scooper!” spluttered Craig. “It's a Scooper!”
“Is he speaking English?” Tony wanted to know, as Craig hopped up and down with impatience, trying to pull them off the trail.
“Craig,” Petra said, putting a hand on his arm. “Calm down. What's a Scooper?”
“A water bomber,” gasped Craig. “That's a water bomber coming towards us!”
“Well, that's the best news I've heard all day!” said Tony, a relieved grin spreading across his face. “We get saved from a fiery death
and
get a cool, refreshing shower all at once. Excellent!”
Craig groaned. “Tony! Do you know how much water the Canadair CL-215 carries?”
“I'm sure you're going to tell me,” said Tony.
“It can scoop up over five thousand litres of water from a lake in a single pass in just ten seconds.
That's
why they call it the Scooper.”
“Cool!” said Tony. “This is going to be just like Splash Mountain!” He opened his arms wide, lifted his face skyward, and closed his eyes. “I'm ready!” he called. “Drench me!”
“TONY!” said Craig.
“
What
?” said Tony.
“Do you even know how much five thousand litres of water weighs?”
“Um⦔ said Tony.
“Ten thousand pounds,” said Craig.
“That's, um, about five tons,” said Petra, calculating. Her eyes widened. “Uh-oh.”
The drone of the approaching plane became a roar.
“Did you say five tons?” Tony gulped.
The hulking yellow body of the Scooper burst out of the swirling clouds and smoke.
“Run!” yelled Shawn.
They whirled and bolted through the trees.
“Go away!” yelled Tony, flapping his hands at the oncoming plane as if it were an angry hornet. “Shoo! Get back! There are kids down here, you know!”
But the plane continued barrelling along its flight path, oblivious to their presence. It zoomed towards them, dropping lower and lower. The noise of its engines rose to a deafening thunder.
“This way!” shouted Colin, scrambling up a lumpy hill full of moss-covered boulders.
There was a roar.
But it wasn't from the plane's engines.
This was a different sort of roar.
A Niagara Falls sort of roar.
An avalanche of white waterânearly five tons of itâcrashed down into the gully, just to the side of them.
Tree trunks snapped like toothpicks and were swept down into the ravine in a landslide of mud, boulders, and water. A cloud of white vapour hissed angrily into the air.
“Whoaaaa!!” yelled the kids, gaping at the huge, muddy trench that the water had gouged out of the hillside.
“Holy cranky catfish, that was close!” gasped Tony.
“Look outâhere comes another one!” yelled Craig. Sure enough, the whine of another Scooper could be heard above the treetops.
“Oh, man!” moaned Tony.
“Follow me!” yelled Colin. He scrambled the rest of the way up the rocky hillâ¦and disappeared from sight.
“Where'd he go?” Shawn yelled. He glanced around wildly. The fire was advancing on all sides now. A few metres away, a fir tree burst into flame. “Come on!” Motioning the others to follow, Shawn clambered up to the peak where Colin had vanished. And stopped short.
A sinkhole, bigger than any other they'd seen, gaped at their feet. At the bottom of the pit, white boulders reared up like teeth from some giant, prehistoric beastâ¦and behind them yawned the black mouth of a cave.
“Oh man,” breathed Tony.
Just then, with a noise like a hundred hungry chainsaws, the Scooper punched through the smoke like a great, yellow bird of prey. It rumbled towards them, dropping lowerâ¦lower. There was a mechanical whine as the cargo doors in its huge belly started to openâ¦
“
Jump
!” yelled Shawn.
Shawn launched himself into the air above the sinkhole. The white jaws of the cave gaped wide as its black throat rushed up to swallow him. At the same instant, there was a horrific roar. The world flashed from white to black, and the air suddenly became liquid. Freezing water enveloped him. Shawn felt himself tumbling over and over. It was like being inside a washing machine. Hard objects pummelled his body, sending him crashing against even harder objects. He had no idea which way was up and which way was down. He was drowning in a deafening darkness.
Then rock was pressing against him, squeezing him on all sides.
And still the water sucked at him, pulling his body along an impossibly tight channel. It was heart-stoppingly cold. Shawn tried to lift his face above the water, but his head smacked against solid stone.
I'm going to drown
, he thought in disbelief.
I lived
through a forest fire only to drown underground!
And suddenly he was angry. Furious.
No way!
Shawn thought.
Not like this. Not after
coming this farâ¦
He thrashed his legs wildly, clawing at the rock with his fingers, propelling himself forward. His lungs were bursting. A red haze swam in front of his eyes.
He had to breathe. He
had
to.
His fingernails scraped desperately against the rock. His kicks became weaker.
In another second it would be over. Shawn knew what would happen.
He would open his mouth and his aching lungs would expand one last time, sucking in the freezing water. And its liquid blackness would fill him, turning him into nothingness from the inside out.
Suddenly the rock walls fell away from his scrabbling fingers. The tunnel abruptly released its vice-like grip on his body, ejecting him into a dark, subterranean void in a primal gush of water.
And then the water was gone.
It dropped him like a broken toy and retreated, muttering and hissing, into invisible cracks and crevices. Shawn was left sprawling on a slab of wet rock. Coughing and choking, he retched up a bellyful of water. For a long time he lay there, gulping air into his waterlogged body and trying to remember how to move. Finally he was able to roll over and push himself into a sitting position.
It was absolutely black.
Shawn raised his hand in front of his face. He couldn't see it. He moved his hand closer. It was freakyâhe knew his hand was there, but it was utterly invisible. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
They didn't.
Shawn moved his hand closer until he felt his palm brush the tip of his nose. He still couldn't make out even the faintest outline of his hand. The darkness was absolute.
“Craig?” he choked out.
His voice had a hollow, echoing sound.
“Petra? Tony?
Anyone
?”
“Ohhhhh,” groaned Tony. “That wasn't
nearly
as fun as Splash Mountain!”
He picked himself up from the wet floor of the cave, rubbing his backside.
“No kidding,” moaned Petra. She moved out of the shadows into the dim, watery light that seemed to be leaking from behind a mess of rubble somewhere above her head. “I feel like a goldfish that just got flushed down the toilet. Are you okay, Craig?”
There was a rattle of loose rock and then a splash as Craig slid down from on top of a boulder and dropped into the puddle beside them.
“I'm okay,” he said. “Soggy, and a little banged up, but still in one piece. How about you, Shawn?”
No answer.
“Shawn?”
They peered into the recesses of the cave, waiting for one of the shadows to shift and morph into a slim, sandy-haired boy. But no figure emerged from the darkness.
“Oh, no⦔ whispered Petra.
“Shawn!” Craig called again, in alarm. His voice echoed weirdly off of the stone walls.
A tall, slim figure staggered out from behind a column of rock.
“
There
you are!” Petra exclaimed in relief, sloshing through the water towards him. “Are you all right, Shawn?”
The tall boy shook his head and limped towards them.
“What's wrong? Are you hurt?” Petra asked, concern sharpening her voice.
The boy shook his head again. “There's nothing wrong with meâ¦except that I'm not Shawn,” the figure answered in a wry voice. He moved into the feeble light.
It was Colin.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said.
“Oh!” Petra started in surprise. “Colin! I'm not disâI mean, I thought you wereâI'm glad you're safe,” she said awkwardly. “You're limping,” she added.
Colin grimaced. “Twisted my ankle when I jumped. No biggie. We're missing somebody?”
“Shawn,” Craig told him, worried. “We can't find him.”
“Did he make it into the cave?” Colin asked.
“IâI'm not sure⦔ said Petra uneasily. “We all jumped and, well, everything's kind of a blur after that.”
But Colin was already climbing up a scree-littered slope towards the source of the light.
“Heyâwhere are you going?” Petra demanded.
“The cave entrance is up here,” said Colin shortly. “Maybe Shawn is, too.”
Colin's head and shoulders disappeared behind a great, lopsided boulder perched at the top of the rocky incline. They heard him scrabbling among the rocks. Some loose stones and a few twigs and branches slithered down past his feet and fell to the cave floor in front of them. They heard Colin swearing softly under his breath.
“What's up?” Tony called. There was no answer. Up in the shadows, Colin was grunting and huffing like he was struggling to lift something very heavy.
“Hey! Pyro Boy! What's the deal?” Tony called in a louder voice.
With an angry grunt, Colin scuttled backwards and dropped back down beside them.
“The
deal
is that the cave entrance is blocked with trees and rocks and mud washed down by the water bomber. We're sealed in. And don't call me Pyro Boy!”
“Any sign of Shawn?” Craig asked. Colin shook his head. Craig swallowed hard. Colin patted the younger boy's shoulder awkwardly. “Don't worry, kid. Your brother's probably on the other side of that mess trying to dig us out right now.”
“Yeah, you're probably right,” said Craig, brightening. But Colin's dark eyes met Petra's worried ones and the thought passed unspoken between them:
Or maybe he's under that mess, buried
in mangled trees and mud
.
“So, Pyro Boy, what's your plan for getting out of here, seeing as the White Caves were
your
brilliant idea and all?” said Tony.
“You're alive, aren't you?” growled Colin. “And I said, DON'T call me Pyro Boy!”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Tony with exaggerated politeness. “Would you rather be known as the Human Torch instead?”
With a cry, Colin launched himself at Tony in a flying tackle. Both boys went down in a pile of flailing fists and kicking feet.
“Oh, for Pete's sake,” groaned Petra.
“Guys, guysâbreak it up!” pleaded Craig, hovering over the scuffling pair.
Petra bent down over the puddle of water on the cave floor. Using her hands as a scoop, she sloshed the icy-cold water over the two fighting boys: “KNOCK. IT.
OFF
!” she ordered.
Spluttering, the two boys rolled apart, glaring at each other.
“I did
not
start that fire!” Colin insisted in a ragged voice. “And just so you know, I've been watching that fawn ever since it was born in the spring. I never,
ever
meant for those guys to chase it. I never meant for any of thisâ” he broke off, his voice thick with misery. Stumbling to his feet, Colin limped away into the shadows at the back of the cave.