Escape from Camp Boring by Tom Mitchell

Author:Tom Mitchell [Mitchell, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-06-09T17:00:00+00:00

I pulled myself, dripping and cold, from the river.

‘We’ve lost the raft, then,’ said Ellie.

Alexa picked up the torch from where it had landed, thankfully still alight, and shone it around.

I checked what my backside would land on before committing, then sat down. My left buttock hurt a bit, like there was a thorn or a small sharp stone in my pants but I didn’t let either of the girls see my pain. You don’t want to show weakness.

I pulled my Nike Airs off. They were so wet they’d doubled in weight. After these came my socks, dripping like fish. And in a kind of reverse sleeping-bag motion, I wriggled my way out of my trousers like a snake shedding its skin, making sure, of course, that my boxer shorts, black and loose and dry, covered what they were designed to. I wrung as much water as I could from the clothes.

Ellie said, ‘Gross,’ and turned her back and made vomit noises, which was unnecessary. Alexa stood there, swinging the torch’s beam from me to the trees and making like they were suddenly the most interesting thing ever. After she was done pretending to be sick, Ellie said that she wouldn’t be able to manage with me walking about in my pants all night because it was obscene and illegal.

‘Wait. Have you got your brother’s thing? Is it okay?’ asked Alexa, forgetting my pants and looking genuinely concerned.

For the briefest of moments I forgot I was in a dark forest, effectively shipwrecked, half of me naked and wet. (And I mean really wet, like the way you get more wet in a shower than a bath – a what-kind-of-physics-is-that soaking.)

My right hand, a thawing iceberg, checked my jacket’s left side pocket. I pulled out the hard drive, safe in the sandwich bag that had somehow stayed dry. It looked like a precious rock. A perfectly rectangular precious rock, but you get the idea.

‘Is that it?’ asked Ellie. Standing not with arms crossed but wrapped round herself in a one-person cuddle, she forgot her sassy self for a second. Staring at the hard drive, she asked, ‘So what’s your brother like?’

I tightened my grip on the hard drive. ‘Everyone loves him,’ I said, more to the sandwich bag than anyone in particular.

Ellie relaxed her grip round herself and turned her eyes about the space. I should have stopped talking. Maybe it was tiredness that made me continue.

‘He got his A levels the same day as my birthday. Straight A stars. Mum cried, despite it being good news. We all went for noodles, his favourite. Even Dad came.’

There was a moment in which nobody said anything, and I wished I hadn’t spoken. But then:

‘I so get what you’re saying,’ said Ellie, still not looking at me. ‘My sister’s like a model. Everyone says. It’s like they can’t see her nose.’

Alexa had this weird smile and stood there with the torch pointing at nothing. ‘I’m not great at –’ she cleared her throat – ‘expressing myself.

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