No Rules (14 page)

‘I can't believe we couldn't get out of this,' said Melanie.

‘I know,' said Friday. ‘If you combine my intelligence with your lethargy, we should have been able to find a way.'

‘Have you got a race strategy?' asked Melanie.

‘Run as far as the tree line,' said Friday. ‘Then, as soon as we lose sight of the crowd, collapse in a heap and restrategise.'

‘We could just take a shortcut through the trees and wait behind a bush until the other runners catch up, then rejoin the race?' suggested Melanie.

‘No,' said Friday, ‘that would be cheating. It wouldn't be fair on the people who are actually good at running. We'll just have to do the whole course. It should only take us an hour or two, at most. If we manage to not sprain our ankles.'

‘Or get lost,' said Melanie.

‘There are signposts throughout the course telling the runners where to go, so there's no danger of that,' said Friday.

‘Runners, take your positions,' announced the Headmaster into a microphone.

‘What does that mean?' asked Melanie.

‘In our case, it means stand safely at the back so no one runs over the top of us,' said Friday.

‘We are about to begin the Highcrest Academy's 69th annual cross country carnival,' said the Headmaster.

‘I thought the school was seventy years old?' said Friday.

‘They didn't run it in 1984,' said Melanie. ‘The entire student body hid in the swamp and refused to come out until the event was cancelled.'

‘I wish we'd thought of that,' said Friday.

The Headmaster raised his starter's pistol in the air.

‘On your marks, get set …' yelled the Headmaster before he fired the pistol with a deafening CRACK.

Melanie instantly collapsed to the ground. Because they were at the back, none of the other runners noticed, they just took off running into the forest.

‘She's been shot!' exclaimed Friday, falling to her knees beside her friend and taking her hand.

The Headmaster hurried over. ‘What happened?' he demanded.

‘She collapsed as soon as you fired the pistol,' said Friday. ‘You didn't have real ammunition in there, did you?'

‘Of course not,' said the Headmaster. ‘It doesn't even take real ammunition. It's not that type of gun. There are no bullets, just a cap under the hammer.'

‘She doesn't appear to have a gunshot wound,' said Friday, closely inspecting her friend before picking up her wrist. ‘And her pulse is strong.'

Melanie snored softly.

‘She's asleep!' exclaimed Friday.

‘Typical,' said the Headmaster.

‘Excuse me,' said a parent, pushing her way to the front of the crowd. ‘I'm a doctor, well … a psychiatrist. Can I help?'

‘If you want to have this child sectioned, I won't stand in your way,' said the Headmaster.

‘She's just fallen asleep,' said Friday.

‘I've seen this before,' said the psychiatrist. ‘It's stress-induced narcolepsy.'

‘What?' demanded the Headmaster.

‘Narcolepsy,' said Friday. ‘It's a psychological disorder where the sufferer copes with stress by shutting down and going to sleep.'

‘How very convenient,' said the Headmaster.

‘It's a tremendously difficult disorder to deal with,' said the psychiatrist.

‘Don't worry, Melanie copes with it very well,' said Friday.

‘We'd better get her to sick bay,' said the Headmaster.

‘I'll come,' said Friday.

‘No, you will not!' said the Headmaster. ‘You've got a cross country to run.'

‘But my best friend –' protested Friday.

‘Will be perfectly fine without you,' said the Headmaster. ‘Now run!'

Friday saw that the Headmaster meant business. He was clearly a man at the end of his tether. And spontaneous napping had never caused Melanie any harm before. So Friday turned to face the forest. She took a deep breath and started running.

Running is a deeply unpleasant sport at the best of times, but it is particularly awful when you're bad at it. There is so much unpleasantness at once. First, there is the shortness of breath, then the ache in the legs, then the sharp pain of the stitch, the soreness of the feet, the discomfort of the joints, and the lactic acid burn in the thighs. Eventually, some of this subsides with the increase of dizziness, delirium and sweating.

Then there are the added difficulties of cross-country running – scraping through prickly bushes, standing on sharp rocks, getting jabbed by sticks and wading through icy cold streams. Altogether, it was Friday's idea of hell. She had been running for a total of eleven minutes (an unprecedentedly long time for her) when the path she was running along came to a junction.

There was a bright orange arrow pointing left. Friday might have been brain-addled with exertion,
but even she could follow this clear instruction. She lurched to her left and started running again before her legs seized up. And in this manner Friday continued along the course.

If she had been walking, she might have appreciated the impressive specimens of deciduous trees or local birdlife in the forest. But she needed all her concentration to desperately suck every breath into her lungs and stumble in the direction the arrows were pointing. Up ahead she could hear the footfalls of other runners, so she knew she was going the right way.

Friday had been running for nearly half an hour when she came up to another signpost. VP Pete was standing next to it, clapping for the passing runners.

‘Well done, Barnes. Keep running,' said VP Pete.

Friday wasn't capable of speech so she grunted a response and veered off to the right, following the direction of the arrow. She knew she must be coming to the end of the course soon. Friday actually surged forward in an effort to run faster, just to get the whole ordeal over with sooner. Her legs were really burning now. She even had a shooting pain in her shoulder, which didn't make any sense because you don't use
your shoulders to run. Friday closed her eyes and pushed on.

Suddenly she realised she had run into a bush. She must have stumbled off the path. Friday was well into the scrubby bush, so she kept moving forward to force her way out again. But as her foot plunged out the far side of the bush, the ground never seemed to come. Instead she was tumbling forward. Friday desperately tried to grab the bush and pull herself back, but as her weight dropped her grip wasn't tight enough and the branches slipped through her hands.

Friday fell.

When Friday woke up she was aware of two things. One, she was cold. Two, everything hurt. Even her eyelids seemed to hurt, which was why she was reluctant to try opening them right away.

Friday's brain sluggishly tried to figure out what was going on. She had been running. It was awful. But why was she so cold? Why was it so windy? She would have to open her eyes to find out.

Friday gradually opened her eyes. She didn't
learn much straight away. All she could see was grey. Slowly, she realised it was clouds. She must be looking at the sky. Friday turned her head to see where she was. There was a big valley alongside her. Friday looked down.

‘Aaaagggghhhh!'

Friday was not much of a screamer. She hadn't screamed when she was confronted by a swamp yeti, or when she was kidnapped by an escaped convict, or even when she thought she was going to have to attend a state high school. But she did scream now because she realised she was lying on a narrow ledge on the side of a cliff. There was a forty-metre drop below her, and a five-metre climb above her to the top. Friday moved so her back was hard against the cliff wall.

‘Think, Friday, think,' she urged, talking to her own brain, trying to get it working.

Friday looked about. It was late in the afternoon. Probably about 4 o'clock. It was winter, so the sun would start to set in an hour. It was beginning to get cold already. It was only about eight or nine degrees, but it felt colder with the wind. And Friday was only wearing running shorts and a t-shirt. She
pulled up her legs and hugged them to herself, trying to conserve warmth.

Friday looked over the side. She wasn't hallucinating. It was definitely a long drop. There was no way she could get down there. She twisted around and looked up. The top of the cliff seemed dauntingly far above her. And the cliff was sheer. There were no obvious toe or finger holds. Friday decided to stand up to get a closer look. As soon as she put her weight on her left leg, it buckled under her and she was overwhelmed by shooting pain. She nearly fell of the cliff again.

Friday closed her eyes tight and willed herself not to throw up. It was bad enough being stuck on a cliff in the cold when you're wet with sweat, without being covered in sick as well. Eventually the pain subsided to the level of a mere terrible throb. Friday opened her eyes and looked down at her leg. It was very swollen. There was an ugly purple discolouration of her skin emerging from her sock. As a scientist, Friday was curious to know what colour the rest of her foot was, but as a scared twelve-year-old girl she decided she would leave her shoe on. She was frightened enough already. Friday tried moving her foot.
There was the shooting pain again, so she sucked in her breath and counted backwards from one hundred while she waited for the pain to ease.

There was no way down and no way up, and if she stayed where she was it would be dark soon and she would very likely succumb to hypothermia. Friday looked about to see what resources she had. There was nothing except the rock face, which was warm now but which would soon drop to be colder than she was, sucking even more body heat from her.

But Friday was, if nothing else, logical. There was one remaining course of action open to her – yelling.

‘HELP!' Friday cried. She paused and listened. She couldn't hear anything except the wind. ‘HEEELLP!' she yelled again. She listened. Still nothing. Friday drew a deep breath. She had to keep trying. Being found in the next hour was her only hope. ‘HEEEELLLLL …'

‘Friday?' a voice called back. It was a long way away. But Friday could have sworn she heard her name.

‘Gosh, I hope I'm not hallucinating from all the pain,' Friday said to herself. She sucked in a deep breath. ‘HEEEEEEEELLLLLLP!!!'

‘Friday!' the voice was closer now.

‘Over here,' called Friday. ‘I need help. I've hurt my ankle.'

Friday could hear someone running through the scrub above her. Her pain-addled brain processed this information much slower than it normally would.

‘Don't worry, I'm coming!' cried Ian.

‘Ian?' said Friday. His voice was too close. ‘Ian, watch out for the cliff …'

‘Waaahhh!' cried Ian.

Dirt and gravel fell on Friday's head. She looked up. Ian had fallen over the side and was dangling from the branch she had been dangling from half an hour earlier. His wrist strength must be better than hers.

‘Can you climb back up?' asked Friday.

‘I think so,' said Ian straining. His feet scrambled for traction as he pulled himself up, hand over hand.

‘You're going to make it!' said Friday enthusiastically.

Suddenly the whole bush gave way. Ian's weight pulled it out of the ground by the roots, and he slid straight down the cliff face. Friday made an effort to catch him, but Ian weighed twice as much as she did,
so he crashed down on her, squashing her into the ledge.

‘Eurgh,' said Friday, gasping for breath. She felt like she had taken most of Ian's weight on her solar plexus.

‘That didn't hurt as much as I expected falling off a cliff would,' said Ian. He scooted forward so his legs dangled over the ledge and he wasn't sitting on Friday anymore. ‘Are you all right?'

‘No,' Friday managed to weakly gasp between struggling for breath.

Ian looked at Friday. She was clearly in a lot of pain. And even in the last of the late afternoon light he could see that her lips were turning blue from cold.

‘We need to warm you up,' said Ian. He pulled Friday up into a sitting position.

‘Ow!' wailed Friday. Now her ribs hurt almost as much as her ankle. Suddenly something was being jammed over her head. Friday opened her eyes to find herself inside Ian's jumper. Her face was pressed against his neck as her head stuck out the head hole. ‘Let me out, you're being ridiculous,' said Friday.

‘
You're
being ridiculous,' said Ian. ‘You're seriously injured. You're very cold and there is a good chance
we are going to be stuck here all night. You need to warm up. You need to survive this so you can tell everyone how I heroically saved you.'

Friday wanted to argue but it was just too cosy and warm inside Ian's jumper. ‘Mmm,' was all she managed. Ian wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer.

‘This is where you are lucky to be such a midget,' said Ian. ‘If you were normal-sized you wouldn't fit in here, and there is no way I would take my jumper off for someone as annoying as you.'

‘I don't understand how I managed to fall off a cliff,' mumbled Friday. ‘I know I'm clumsy, but I followed the signs.'

‘That was the problem,' said Ian. ‘Someone rearranged the signs so that they pointed in all different directions. Most of the school got lost. They muddled their way back eventually, but you were the only one who didn't turn up at all.'

‘So you came looking for me?' said Friday.

‘Of course,' said Ian. ‘I'd hired you to find out who framed me. I couldn't let you off finishing the job.'

‘Mmmm,' said Friday. She looked up at Ian. His eye was red and swollen.

‘Has something happened to your eye?' asked Friday.

Ian laughed. ‘It's just a bump.'

As the warmth from Ian seeped back into her body, she started to feel safe again, the adrenalin was easing away, and she began to drift to sleep.

‘That's a good idea,' said Ian. ‘You rest. I'm going to need you to give me a leg up so I can climb out of here in the morning, so you'll need your strength.'

Friday weakly snorted a laugh just as she drifted off.

Friday was lying in a field full of wildflowers. The sun was shining so brightly she had to keep her eyes closed. Someone was with her. Someone she liked. It was Ian. But she felt cold, very cold, and there was a loud noise that was getting louder. It was making a WHOP WHOP WHOP sound as the cold wind gusted stronger.

‘Friday! Wake up!'

Friday wrenched her eyes open. She wasn't in a field. She was on a cliff ledge. It was night, but there
was a bright light shining in her face. The noise and the gusty wind suddenly made sense. It was a rescue helicopter hovering above them.

Friday shielded her eyes to see what they were doing. A shape blocked out the spotlight for a moment. It was getting closer. Friday realised it was a paramedic being lowered down to the ledge they were on. The large man in a bright red jumpsuit and oversized helmet slowly descended towards them. The helicopter was buffeted by a gust of wind, and the paramedic slammed into the cliff face and fell the last metre onto the ledge, landing on Friday's sore leg.

‘Oooww!' yelled Friday before losing consciousness again.