The Island by M A Bennett

Author:M A Bennett [Bennett, M A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471407543
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2018-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

29

23b

The night of the white willow I slept properly for the first time in days. In fact, I overslept – my body was most likely catching up on all the sleep I’d lost.

When I woke up, the fierce sun was already climbing, my tooth was a dull ache and I felt a bit groggy. The light made it difficult to see, so when I set off down the dunes for a pee in the ocean I didn’t see the pile of kindling that had been left just below the fire hill, and I tripped right over it.

‘Wha …?’

I picked myself up and regarded the woodpile. There was tons of it, all good hardwood. We could have about three fires tonight.

I looked around. Jun and Miranda were paddling in the surf. Flora was sitting on the headland. Ralph was stooped over on the beach, no doubt picking up some interesting seaweed. So who had collected the wood?

The answer walked out of the forest, another pile of kindling in his arms. It was Seb. You could barely see his face for logs. Gil followed him, carrying a few sticks. They both came over to the wood, over to me, and dumped their burdens in the pile. As if drawn, the others gathered too, cautiously greeting the home-comers.

Miranda did no more than nod coolly to Seb. Seb, meantime, seemed to have eyes for no one but me. He looked at me sheepishly, indicating the pile of wood with the staff he still carried. ‘Can we have something to eat now?’

What with the night’s sleep, and the nearest thing I was going to get to an apology from Sebastian Loam, I felt the warmth of triumph spread through me. It was all I could do not to let it show on my face. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘We wrapped up some fish from last night. I’ll get it.’

I started to walk to the shelter where we’d made our primitive refrigerator, stopped, turned back. ‘I just need one more piece of wood.’ I knew I was being a dick, knew I was pushing it, but I didn’t want there to be any doubt about my authority. ‘The staff.’

I held out my hand. Seb put the staff into it, and I felt right again.

‘Thank you. Welcome back, both of you. Now, just to be clear, everyone hunts, everyone builds, everyone gathers firewood. All right?’

Silence. Gil and Seb stood like sulky schoolboys.

‘Seb? Gil? What do we say?’

They got it. ‘OK,’ they chorused grudgingly.

After that everything was cool. Ralph made me more aspirin powder to manage the pain in my tooth and was now turning his attention seriously to finding something that would fight the infection. I don’t think he was doing it just for me, even though we were much friendlier than before. I think he was doing it for some intellectual satisfaction of his own. He was doing it for science. He would go off for hours. He made a shoulder sling from one of the plane

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