Wildfire Read online

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Loser

  Chapter Two

  Meerkats

  Chapter Three

  Training

  Chapter Four

  One Group

  Chapter Five

  On the March

  Chapter Six

  Split

  Chapter Seven

  The Fall

  Chapter Eight

  Fire

  Chapter Nine

  Plan

  Chapter Ten

  Blaze

  Chapter Eleven

  Choice

  Bonus Bits!

  Wildfires

  Who said what?

  What next?

  Answers to “Who said what?”

  Chapter One

  Loser

  Sol’s running feet pounded to the strong beat. The thumping music in his headphones blocked out the hum of his running machine. He smiled. He was running better than last time and he was breathing easily.

  Maybe after a few more workouts he would be as fit as the tall boy in the cool tracksuit on the machine next to him.

  The gold logo on the boy’s expensive trainers flashed in the light. Sol tried to get a better look, but it was hard to see through the drops of sweat dripping from his untidy hair. He tapped the screen to stop his machine and reached for the towel that hung at the side. His wet hand slipped on the handle and grabbed at empty air. His feet kicked out and Sol tumbled to the floor.

  “You twit,” he laughed to himself. He could hear his voice over the music. He must have said it pretty loudly. Sol lifted the headphones from his ears and the busy sounds of the gym filled his head. Had he just shouted across the gym?

  Bang. The boy on the next machine thumped the ‘stop’ button on his machine. Thud. His feet hit the floor and he leaned over Sol.

  “What did you call me?” he snarled, his face inches away from Sol’s.

  “N… N… Nothing. I was talking to myself.” Sol could just make out the boy’s face through the sweat dripping into his eyes. “Sorry, Kyle.”

  He reached for his towel again but he slipped and his hand hit the wooden floor.

  “No-one calls me names,” said Kyle, stamping his foot on the towel. Keeping his eyes on Sol, he slowly wiped his trainers across it. “Especially losers like you.” Kyle kicked the towel away and strode towards the heavy weights on the other side of the gym.

  Sol tucked the dirty towel under his arm and pushed open the changing room door. The air was full of clothes – his clothes. Kyle’s mates stopped throwing them around when the door creaked shut and Sol came in.

  They sniggered as they pushed past him. “Tidy up, loser. You’ve made a mess,” said Jaz as he shut the door. Sol could hear them laughing as they walked off down the corridor.

  Sol dragged his tired feet past the benches and pegs to pick up his clothes. There was a sock missing. Kyle’s gang always managed to lose something when they kicked his clothes around. He hoped that when he got through the survival trip, they would decide he wasn’t a loser and would leave him alone.

  Sol’s face burned in the blast of hot air as he left the gym. He squeezed his eyes shut against the bright sun, pushed the headphones over his ears and blasted up the music. Thump. Thump.

  It felt like the beat was his only friend.

  Chapter Two

  Meerkats

  “Don’t crunch those crisps so loud, I can’t hear the telly,” snapped Sol as his little brother sat down next to him on the bed.

  “Sorry, Sol,” said Fin.

  “No, I’m sorry for shouting,” said Sol, patting his brother’s chubby knees and turning up the TV volume.

  “These meerkats live underground in the cool earth, away from the scorching heat,” said the TV guy.

  “Will you sleep under the ground on your trip?” asked Fin.

  “No, we’ll be in a tent.”

  “You can have a midnight party like we did last summer,” said his brother.

  Sol wanted to say: “If I am in Kyle’s group, his mates will have a party chucking my clothes in a ditch,” but instead he said: “Maybe”.

  Fin laughed, as he did at almost everything Sol said.

  On the TV show, the meerkats snarled and scratched at each other. “The leader tries to show he is the boss,” said the commentary. Sol thought of Kyle. “But the challenger wins and now the pack has a new leader. The rest of the group works hard to please him,” said the voice on the TV.

  Sol thought of Kyle’s mates. “Just like a gang of meerkats,” he said.

  “What?” said Fin, reaching for another bag of snacks.

  “You shouldn’t eat so many crisps,” said Sol.

  “Why not? You do,” said Fin.

  Now the meerkats were running. “The wind carries sparks so the fire travels really fast,” said the TV voice. “These animals don’t stand a chance.”

  “Have you got any more training to do?” asked Fin as he slurped on a fizzy drink.

  “Shush, Fin,” said Sol, his eyes on the screen as the meerkats ran away from the flames. “I have first aid training tomorrow.”

  Sol looked at the screen. The man was holding a box of matches and talking about how people can survive a fire that kills the animals.

  “What is first aid?”

  “How to keep people alive if they have an accident,” said Sol, “Will you stop asking questions? I can’t hear what he is saying.”

  “And that is how to fight fire with fire!” said the man, pointing to the flames zooming away up the hill behind him. “So remember, when faced with a problem, use STOP. The letters stand for Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. See you next time!”

  “Why didn’t he get burned?” asked Fin.

  “I don’t know,” said Sol.

  “But you know everything,” said his little brother.

  “You kept talking. I didn’t see what he did,” said Sol.

  “What will the trip be like?” Fin asked.

  Sol wanted to say: “It will be fine so long as I’m not in Kyle’s group.” But he didn’t.

  Instead, he said: “We get put into groups. We have to survive for two days in the wild, without any help. We feed ourselves and spend the night in our tents. No phone calls, and no hot drinks from Mum.”

  “Sounds scary,” said Fin, sliding off the bed and heading for the door. “Mum, can I have a drink?” he yelled as he rushed down the stairs.

  Sol stared at the TV screen. How had the TV guy survived the fire? It was as if the flames had gone right through him.

  Chapter Three

  Training

  Sol felt like his chest was about to burst. Who would have thought that thumping a plastic dummy would be so tiring? He sank to the floor and enjoyed the cool feel of its wood on his skin.

  “OK, that’s enough,” said the PE teacher, Miss Belper as she picked up her folder. “I think we’ve all got the idea of how to get the heart working again. At least, those of us who came to the training.” She glanced at her list of names. Some had ticks next to them.

  “They can’t take the heat,” said Kyle.

  “None of us can take this heat for long,” said Miss Belper. “Some boys came to the lessons about cooking and putting a tent up properly,” she looked at her sheet. “But if they miss this first aid training they can’t go on the trip.”

  Sol felt like he needed someone to thump his chest into life. There were only seven of them in the room, when there should have been ten to make two groups of five. If another one dropped out there might be only one group instead of two to do the trip. He’d be stuck with Kyle and his mates.

  Miss Belper told them to have a drink. “You need water more than food. How long can you last without food? A day? A week?”

  So
l remembered the TV programme he’d seen. “Ages, but without water you could die in three days.”

  “Very good, Sol. In this heat, you’re going to need lots of water on your trip,” said Miss Belper. “Right. So we’ve done the training on cooking and putting tents up and some basic first aid. Just to finish: what if someone breaks a leg or arm? Come here, Mikey.” She picked up two big sticks and a bandage and showed everyone how to tie them round a broken limb to keep it straight.

  “Mikey, work with Jaz. Kyle, come over here and work with Sol. We don’t have to work with our best friends all the time, do we?” said Miss Belper.

  “Why do I have to work with him?” moaned Kyle.

  “Sol hasn’t been at our school long,” said Miss Belper. She fixed her eyes on Kyle. “So we need to be kind to him.”

  Kyle grunted in protest. He left his friends and walked slowly towards Sol. He silently jammed the sticks on either side of Sol’s arm and tied a bandage round to keep them in place.

  Sol tried not to show it hurt as Kyle pulled the knot tight. Kyle turned away and walked back towards his friends.

  “Go back please, Kyle,” said Miss Belper.

  “What for?” said Kyle.

  “He needs to practise on you. He might save your life one day!” said Miss Belper, smiling.

  “I’d rather die,” said Kyle, holding out his arm to Sol and staring at the door.

  Chapter Four

  One Group

  “Look at the state of you!” laughed Sol.

  Fin looked into the bedroom mirror and grinned. “I look like an alien!”

  “A really hot, sweaty alien who has eaten a lot of chocolate,” said Sol.

  Fin pushed out his tongue to lick the dark, sticky mess. “It was all melted. There was no point putting it in your rucksack. I was just tidying up.”

  “Yeah, chocolate and heat don’t mix,” said Sol. He dropped the heavy rucksack on the floor. He had packed pasta, dried fruit and energy bars inside it along with his clothes and water bottles.

  “Aren’t you allowed any treats?” asked Fin, holding up a bag of crisps.

  “If it stays as hot as this, even a drink of water will be a treat,” said Sol.

  “But you like these. Or you could trade them with your friends,” said Fin, forcing the crisps into the side pocket of the rucksack.

  Sol wished he did have friends to swap with. A couple of the quieter kids were OK, especially when they weren’t with Kyle. Mikey smiled at him sometimes. He flicked on the TV.

  “It is the hottest summer for thirty years,” said a woman in the middle of a brown field. “Crops are dying. People are getting ill. And there is a high risk of wildfires.”

  “Why are the crops dying? Am I going to get ill? What’s a wildfire?” asked Fin.

  “Shush! I want to watch this!” snapped Sol.

  “Why do you need these matches?” Fin said, waving the box in the air. “Oops,” he said, as the contents spilled out. “Sorry. I only lost a few,” he said, throwing the box into Sol’s rucksack.

  When Mum dropped him off at school next morning, Sol counted the rucksacks stacked against the minibus. Seven. Great. That was just enough to have two groups. He wouldn’t have to go with Kyle and his mates.

  “All aboard,” called Miss Belper. “Are you alright, Mikey?” she called to a boy crouched in the middle of the car park.

  “I feel dizzy,” Mikey groaned.

  “I think it must be the heat,” said Mikey’s dad, helping his son back into the car. “Sorry. I think he should stay at home after all.”

  Miss Belper knelt on the driver’s seat, looking back into the minibus at the boys. “We need to look on the bright side. Maybe one big group is better than two smaller ones. There are more people to look after each other,” she said, staring at Kyle. “And to take care of one another.”

  Two hours later, the group stood by a pile of rucksacks in the middle of a field.

  “Does everyone have a phone for emergencies?” said Miss Belper. “You all came to the training on map-reading and staying safe. Good luck! I’ll see you at the campsite this evening.”

  The minibus drove away. Sol could hear the buzz of insects. The six boys looked at each other. Kyle clapped his hands.

  “Right, let’s get out of this sun. Last one to that tree is a loser,” said Kyle.

  “First one there is the new leader,” laughed Jaz. He kicked the others’ rucksacks out of the way and ran off.

  When Sol picked up his rucksack, there was a dark mark on the side.

  He looked inside. Jaz’s kick had broken one of his water bottles and split the plastic bag which had his phone inside. The phone lay in a puddle of water. He tried to unlock the wet phone. Nothing. His phone was dead.

  Chapter Five

  On the March

  Sol walked to the steady beat of the music pounding through his headphones. He was glad that he did not use his phone to play music. And he was glad that the boys were too hot for much messing around. They walked in a line, following Kyle.

  Sol was happy at the back and he was glad that the hours of training he had done gave him the strength to keep going. He reckoned he was doing better than some of the others.

  The group flopped down in the shade of a tree and reached for their water bottles. Sol’s was empty. Did he dare ask one of the others for a drink?

  Jaz spat out a green lump of grass he had been chewing. Kyle flicked the map at a buzzing fly.

  Flies. Sol remembered something from one of the TV programmes he had watched.

  “Flies are never far from water,” the TV guy had said. Stop, Think, Observe, Plan. Where would the water be? He looked downhill and spotted some bushes that seemed greener than the tired, brown plants nearby.

  “Where are you going?” called Jaz, as Sol set off.

  “I think there might be water over here,” Sol called over his shoulder.

  A minute later, Sol was pouring cool water over his head. He filled his spare bottle and returned to the group.

  Jaz said, “I bet it has got loads of bugs in it.”

  Sol remembered something else from the programme. “Actually, most bugs have got fewer germs in them than that grass you chewed.”

  “Hey lads, we have an expert here!” said Jaz. “We should call you Survivor Boy. Come on, show Kyle where we are on the map. I reckon we’re lost already.”

  “No we are not,” said Kyle. “But I need to know which way is east.”

  “See for yourself,” said Jaz, “Look out, everybody!” he called and he threw a compass towards Kyle. It hit Sol’s head and bounced into the long grass.

  “Ow!” exclaimed Sol.

  “Don’t lose it!” called Jaz. Sol jumped up to look for the compass.

  Crunch.

  Sol lifted his boot. The broken pieces of Jaz’s compass glinted in the sun.

  “You broke my compass!” cried Jaz. “How are we supposed to know which way is east now?”

  Sol wanted to say that moss grows on the south side of trees, and they could work it out from that. But he didn’t want to be called ‘Survivor Boy’ again.

  “What a loser,” said Kyle. “Anyhow, I think I know which way we need to go.” Kyle set off, with the other boys behind him. Sol checked the green moss on the tree trunks as they walked on. Sure enough, there was way more on one side. That must be south. He looked at the direction Kyle was taking. They were going north, not east.

  The row of boys in front of him made him think of the meerkats in the TV programme, following their leader. Sol knew Kyle was leading them the wrong way. He also knew that if he said anything, the others would just have another go at him. “At least I have learned something,” he said to himself, “and that is that my feet hurt twice as much when they are going in the wrong direction.”

  Chapter Six

  Split

  Sol joined the other boys as they rested on the ground, drinking from their water bottles and panting for air. Kyle sat away from the others.
He was staring at Jaz, who now held the map.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” said Jaz. “What do you want first?”

  “Bad.” They all chorused.

  “The bad news is, we’re going the wrong way. Survivor Boy over there broke the compass and that made us take the wrong path.”

  Five red faces glared at Sol.

  “The good news is, I know how to get us out of this,” said Jaz. He pointed to a high metal fence a few yards away. “I think we need to be on the other side of that fence. Our campsite is down in the valley. This path leads up a hill through the forest. If we climb that fence, we can go straight down towards the campsite.”

  “Are you sure?” said Kyle.

  “Yep. Who is coming with me?” asked Jaz. The other boys stood next to him. Sol thought of the meerkats fighting to be leader.

  Kyle pointed along the path they were on. “If we keep going along here we are sure to find a way down into the valley.”

  “Maybe,” said Jaz, throwing his rucksack over the fence. “But it will take much longer. Come on lads!” He grabbed the mesh and pulled himself upwards. The fence shook and rattled until his feet thudded down on the other side.

  Three of the boys looked at each other and, without a word, threw their rucksacks over the fence and then scrambled over themselves.

  Sol remembered how easily the meerkats had accepted a new leader on the TV show. He looked up at the fence. He had got a lot fitter working out at the gym, but he knew his arms were weak and that fence was like a slippery cliff. Was he strong enough to climb it?

  Kyle threw his bag over the fence, nearly hitting one of the other boys who was climbing over.

  “Hey, watch out!” called the boy, falling down on the other side and swearing. “Look what you made me do!” he said, pointing at a huge rip in his trousers.