Working Wonders (33 page)

From behind them came the unmistakable smell of bacon frying.

‘Oh, they’re such bastards,’ said Arthur.

Marcus raised an eyebrow.

‘Okay, that wasn’t being a bastard, that was just us being stupid,’ he conceded. ‘But still, I thought these outward bound things were organized by companies. I didn’t think you’d have to bring
everything
. I was amazed we managed to round up the sleeping bags.’

Suddenly Cathy crept out of the building and wandered over to them shyly. ‘Um, if you want it,’ she said.

‘What?’

She opened the bag in her hand to reveal two bars of Toblerone, a Snickers and a large packet of chocolate buttons.

‘Cathy! You’re a genius!’ said Arthur. ‘Where did you get these?’

‘You don’t think I wear the “I’m A Chocoholic” badge for nothing, do you?’ said Cathy, smiling.

‘I thought you were doing it to be twee,’ said Marcus. ‘I mean, I hadn’t noticed.’

‘And how do you think I got this lovely figure?’

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ said Arthur. ‘Er, I mean, you look great!’

They gratefully took the chocolate and split a bar between them.

‘Better hold on to it,’ said Arthur. ‘This might be all we have to last us. And please, somebody, tell me Rafe and Gwyneth arrived in the night … the earlier night.’

Marcus and Cathy looked at each other and shook their heads.

‘Well,’ said Arthur stoutly. ‘More chocolate to go around, I guess.’

They stared at their small triangles of breakfast, as rich and unpalatable at this time of the morning as a glass of red wine.

‘ATTENTION!’ screamed the sergeant from the door of the hut, so loudly that several neighbouring sheep wandered over to take a peek. Sandwiches eyed them warily.

‘If that poxy dog chases the sheep, they’ll get instantly disqualified, won’t they?’ said Naimh.

‘He’s not a member of the team, it doesn’t count,’ said Arthur.

‘He’ll get shot,’ said Ross.

‘He is a member of the team and he’s not getting shot,’ said Sven. ‘Don’t try to teach my dog about sheep.’

And they watched as Sven picked up Sandwiches and carried him over to the nearest inquisitive sheep. As they grew closer, the dog wagged his stubby tail more and more excitedly and, bizarrely, the sheep started to do the same thing with his hindquarters. It was an extremely odd sight. Then, as they came nose to nose, Sandwiches started licking the sheep’s face with his long rough tongue, and the sheep did the same to him in return.

‘Well, that’s that,’ said the sergeant, as the others stood around in awe. ‘Your dog is gay.’

‘He’s not gay!’ said Sven.

‘He’s a friend of Dolly’s. Everyone shut up and gather round.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Marcus, ‘but one of our team isn’t here.’

‘Well, let’s hope he’s an Indian trail follower,’ said the sergeant, ‘because that’s the only way he’s gonna track you down.’

There was a silence.

‘He’s not, no.’

Gwyneth woke up against Rafe’s neck. The sweet, hay-like smell of his young body was delicious and she sighed pleasurably, before realizing she was in a parked car on a B road in Wales feeling horribly icky and in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

‘Wake up!’ she yelped. ‘There might be a maniac on the roof banging your severed head … or something.’

Rafe blinked awake like a newly born puppy. ‘What …? Oh, hello.’ He smiled at her. ‘Where are we?’

‘That’s what we’re going to find out this morning. You know, we’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.’

They had searched the B roads and byways until half past three in the freezing rain – bloody mobile reception – until finally Rafe had called it quits, rubbing his red eyes. They’d bedded down in a lay-by off an ancient grey road the width of one vehicle, and made themselves as comfortable as they could. Now the road was beginning to brighten up a little, and a car had swished noisily through the gravel next to them, waking them.

‘Crap – we
so
need to find them!’ said Gwyneth suddenly. ‘What if it started last night and they’ve gone without us?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Rafe. ‘And hand me that map – we ought to be able to see properly now.’ He studied it closely. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, those hills – just over there, slightly to the east – and a double stile … one small stream …’ He scratched his head, then climbed out of the car and walked ten feet across the road.

‘Yuh,’ he said, peering over the old stone wall to the partially hidden bothy, the last remains of the smoke drifting into the early morning air.

‘I’ll leave him a note telling him where we’re going,’ Arthur had said half an hour before.

‘You will not,’ said the sergeant, overhearing. ‘I don’t know who you’ll have turning up with additional supplies and a GPS, but they’re not playing in my game, sunshine.’

‘That is so unfair,’ said Cathy, who instantly shrank back as the sergeant fixed his beady eyes on her.

‘Unfair! Unfair! He gets a good night’s sleep on a soft feather bed at his mummy’s house, no doubt! There’s no room for that in my ar – outward bound team! Now, get on it! Now! Go!’

Thank God they had Marcus, who at least knew the right way up to hold a map. Apparently the sergeant and the dragon were going to shadow each team and make sure one didn’t stray too far into the other’s territory. And, Arthur assumed, rubbing his knuckles together in the paralysing early-morning cold, rescue them from hypothermia. Although he wouldn’t put money on the last bit.

‘If we don’t go exactly the right way we get penalized, apparently,’ said Marcus, peering closely at the paper. ‘And it looks like we have to ford a big river.’

‘What!’ said Arthur.

‘Bloody hell!’ said Sven. ‘I hate getting wet. And cold. And being outside.’

‘But … I mean, there must be another way across,’ said Cathy, looking pale. ‘Do you think they’d notice if we looked for another route? We don’t want to wade into the middle of a river.’

‘Yeah, I mean, how do they know what we do?’ said Sven.

They had come to a halt, and all that could be heard was the whipping of the steely breeze through the copse.

‘I mean, it’s not like anyone is behind us,’ he went on.

‘Mnrgh! Mnrgh! Mnrgh!’ said Sandwiches suddenly.

‘What is it?’ Sven crouched down and looked at his dog.

‘Mnrgh! Mnrgh! Mnrgh!’ repeated Sandwiches.

‘Oh, look at that!’ said Cathy, pointing over the crest of a distant hill. A magnificent hot air balloon, painted entirely black, had gently risen over the top of it. ‘Isn’t it lovely!’

‘Who goes ballooning in February?’ said Arthur.

‘MNRGH!’ said Sandwiches.

‘Are they looking for us?’ said Marcus, his nose still deep in the map.

‘No, don’t be daft,’ said Arthur. The balloon changed direction and started heading straight for them.

‘Unless this is a very very slow version of
North by Northwest
.’

‘A black balloon,’ said Marcus, glancing up. ‘That’s rare. Next thing you know it’ll have mounted machine guns.’

The beautiful, menacing thing floated even closer.

‘What are those big metal things attached to the side of the basket?’ said Cathy.

Arthur giggled nervously. ‘Um, don’t be ridiculous.’

There was an uncertain silence.

‘Er – there’s the river over there,’ said Marcus. ‘Shall we – you know – just ford it anyway?’

‘Yeah!’ said everyone, and started making swift headway in that direction. The balloon drifted to the east and soon disappeared.

‘There you go – just a coincidence,’ said Arthur.

‘We’re going to be cold, wet, cold and outside,’ said Sven sadly, unbuttoning his shirt.

In fact, fording the river was clearly considered to be far too easy. As they came out on the banks, the first things they saw were a large yellow envelope attached to a fence post and several long pieces of wood.

The river itself was much wider than Arthur had been expecting – he’d been hoping he’d get something he could actually jump across – and looked deep, clear and icy as it flowed over the brown pebbles.

‘Do you think these things are for us?’ asked Cathy mildly.

‘We’re in exactly the right spot,’ said Marcus proudly.

‘Just take it as read that we know you’re a terrific map reader, Marcus,’ said Arthur. ‘Well done.’ He stepped forward and picked up the envelope.

‘Well, this should be interesting,’ said Gwyneth, looking at the remains of the camp. ‘Did anyone leave a handy sheet of paper saying “we’re all heading in this direction”?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Rafe. He was outside, padding around. ‘I can’t believe Arthur didn’t leave us
something
.’

‘Maybe he thought we weren’t coming.’ Gwyneth swung by her arms on the doorframe.

Rafe looked up. Instantly she could see the hurt in his eyes.

‘But we told him we were coming.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. Maybe he just thought …’

‘He thought I’d let him down,’ said Rafe. ‘I would never let him down.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

‘Maybe I did. Maybe I have already.’

Gwyneth went up and took his arm. ‘Of course you haven’t. You’ve done everything. We depend on you. And the trams are going to be … they’re going to be the absolute best thing.’

Rafe’s face didn’t soften. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Look at that!’ Gwyneth said suddenly, not letting go of his arm, but pointing with her other hand. ‘Look at that balloon in the distance.’

Rafe squinted. ‘It’s entirely black.’

‘That must be where they are.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because I know Wales and there is FUCK all else out here except other outward bound teams. At the very worst we’ll get rescued by a scout brigade. Come on.’

‘If there’s any point,’ said Rafe.

‘I slept in a car and missed
Frasier
for this,’ said Gwyneth. ‘We’re going.’

Build a way of crossing the river using ONLY the materials provided. If you do not complete the task
within forty-five minutes you will not reach the camp ground before nightfall and thus will fail the challenge. It is not recommended that you try to cross the river by other means. At this time of year the temperature will bring early onset hypothermia and death is likely
.

Arthur read the note aloud.

‘It’s amazing, isn’t it,’ said Cathy, after a while when nobody spoke, ‘the way they make things seem realistically dangerous.’

‘Yes,’ said Arthur, slowly. Marcus, meanwhile, was carefully unstrapping his watch.

There were four planks of wood and four stumps. Obviously they were not wide enough to form a bridge over the river on their own.

‘I wish this was the problem about the farmer and the fox that eats the chicken and the corn,’ said Marcus. ‘I’m brilliant with things like that.’

‘You’re the engineer,’ said Arthur to Sven. ‘You must be able to sort it out, surely.’

Sven made the kind of face usually seen at garages when you don’t know what’s wrong with your car. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, you know, if it was ice, I could probably help you.’

‘Yes, we could walk across it,’ said Arthur, a tad sharply.

‘Forty-two minutes,’ said Marcus.

‘You’re not going to start doing that,’ said Arthur.

They stared at the river and again at the pieces of wood.

‘Maybe you’re supposed to build an enormous catapult and propel yourself over,’ said Sven.

‘And you wonder why we didn’t make the finals of Scrapheap Challenge,’ hissed Marcus.

‘Shut up,’ said Sven. ‘I would have done if it hadn’t been for your inferior robotic ability.’

Arthur decided not to enquire into this any further. ‘Could we build a bridge as we go?’ he said. ‘Plant the logs and pick the planks up behind us as we go?’

They considered this.

‘You’d need to be very bendy,’ said Sven, contemplating his toes, which he could only just see underneath his belly.

‘And steady on your feet,’ said Cathy in a slightly trembling voice.

‘Thirty-nine minutes,’ said Marcus.

‘Well, come on, then,’ said Arthur, and stalked towards the water’s edge.

Four of them – plus Sandwiches, who had adopted his playing dead position around Sven’s neck, thus giving Sven the aura of a man wearing a Megadeath t-shirt and a very expensive stole – were perched on a plank a quarter of the way out into the river, having rather belatedly realized the obvious.

‘Maybe if I threw the next log … it might land the right way up and we could balance the next plank,’ suggested Arthur.

‘We don’t know how deep it’s going to be,’ said Marcus. ‘My guess is it’s too deep.’

‘Yeah,’ said Arthur, shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t suppose Sandwiches can swim, can he, Sven? He could take the logs and …’ His voice tailed off as Sandwiches lay stock-still, not even twitching when his name was mentioned.