Confessions of a Physical Wrac (Rosie Dixon, Book 6) by Rosie Dixon

Author:Rosie Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007544554
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘It’s sort of spooky, isn’t it?’ says Penny.

‘Yes,’ I say.

It is half an hour later and Penny and I, clad in drawers, cellular, green – and suitable overgarments – are feeling our way through a dripping, tropical rain forest. The humidity is so great that it is difficult to breathe and the dense vegetation brushes against our clothing like one of those horrible men I always seem to sit next to in the cinema. It does not seem possible that we are in the middle of Penge. I look through the trailing tentacles of a flowering creeper to my right and catch a glimpse of the Major’s worried face peering through a section of the steamed-up glass panel that divides us from the outside world.

‘Do you think they have snakes here?’ I say.

‘I should think it’s totally authentic,’ says Penny. ‘Snakes, spiders, leaches, Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn – you name it.’

‘I wonder where the others are?’ I say.

‘That’s what’s worrying me too,’ says Penny. ‘I’d rather curl up with a tarantula than our Scots friend with the aereated smile – oh for God’s sake! Stop sniffing!’

‘I just want to know when something happens,’ I say. ‘The suspense is the worst part. I wouldn’t mind so much if I knew when they were going to let it off.’

‘You’re never going to be able to tell,’ says Penny. ‘Nothing can top the pong of this rotting vegetation. The whole place is falling apart.’ She stabs her toe at a tree stump which crumbles like a sodden sandcastle.

I don’t reply because something happens that makes my blood freeze – even in this torrid atmosphere. Something is crawling up the back of my leg! Something large and slimy. Something with sharp pincers that suddenly dig into my flesh. I have prepared the scream long before I have to use it but the leap into the air and the wild backwards slap are totally impromptu.

‘Dinna take it amiss, lassie. I wa’ jus’ havin’ a wee feel, the noo. We might as well get acquainted afore we ha’ ter ba prised apart an’ aw tha’.’ Private MacMillan is revealed rubbing his cheek where, luckily, I have caught him a stinging blow.

‘Parting is such sweet sorrow. That’s what the poet says, isn’t it?’ says Moon Face agreeably.

‘Shutyerface unless yer wan’ me ter pit the heed in!’ says MacMillan savagely. ‘When I want any o’ your blather I’ll ask fo’ it!’

It is at this moment that I have a horrible suspicion that the gas has been introduced into the chamber. Normally, the spectacle of the pint-sized Jock bristling like an angry polecat would be repulsive in the extreme but I suddenly find an aspect of his mindless aggression rather attractive. It must be some form of return to the past when we were all ruled by primitive instincts and the strongest won his mate by brute force. Damn clever, these Chinese.

‘I wanna get in ya’ knicks, gal!’ The man is clearly no more averse to bringing his

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