John Marsden - Circle of fight

Of course I would have to remember that now, when I was inside another haystack, and this time really trapped. No way could I get out of here unless the driver or someone else decided to let me out. It might be possible to use the poly pipe like a didgeridoo and make enough noise to be heard, but I didn’t have a lot of faith in it as a life-saving device. Suppose some sparks flew onto the haystack and it caught fire? No-one would be able to get close enough to hear my didgeridoo. I’d cook. Not just slow roast either. Flambe, that’d be me. Still, better to flambe than to roast. I read somewhere how a Canadian guy proved that lobsters boiled to death don’t feel any pain. Well, hey, who am I to contradict some scientific genius, but I have trouble believing that anything boiled alive isn’t going to suffer.

What if the man forgot I was there or died or something and they left the truck parked in a barn or a garage for a few months before they bothered to unload it? I did an experimental push upwards, using one shoulder then both, and got the result I expected. Nothing. Not a quiver of movement. That pig who built the house out of straw wasn’t so stupid. I would break my shoulders before I could move these bales.

I was getting quite panicky myself, but at the same time I knew I was talking myself into this. It wasn’t serious hysteria like Corrie, just a quiver or two, but it was enough. I decided I’d better get some control of my mind or I could go seriously crazy. I started singing, mumbling really, forcing myself to remember the lyrics of the school musical that Fi had been in two years before.

‘Once again you find me,

The place you always find me,

The very very coolest place in town.

You see the blah blah blah blah blah…’

And then a bit later there was something like:

‘You see the bright lights burning,

A thousand heads are turning…’

But the rest was mostly blahs. I didn’t do very well on that one and I definitely wasn’t in the coolest place in town. Still, it worked as far as distracting me went. I started in on ‘Time of Your Life’, which I knew a lot better, and had the right kind of mood for where I was and what I was doing.

I had to do something. The darkness was so total that I didn’t bother holding my hand up in front of my face. I knew I could stick a finger in my eye socket and I wouldn’t see it. All I had was my mind and I had to keep that busy. I tried naming all the countries in the world. That got too complicated, so I did them in alphabetical order, and got to forty-three, then decided I had to reach fifty. Portugal. Forty-four. Oh, of course, those Pacific islands. Tonga, Fiji, Samoa. Forty-seven. Was New Caledonia a separate country or part of France? I wasn’t sure, so it got disqualified. Malaysia, of course, stoopid me. Forty-eight. Iceland, forty-nine. It took another, I don’t know, six or eight minutes to get to fifty. Time loses meaning when you’re in total darkness with your senses getting almost no input except the vibration of the truck and the sweet smell and prickly feeling of hay. Aaaggghhh Switzerland! I hugged myself with a feeling of triumph. How could I forget Switzerland? Maybe it was because they’d never been in a war. If the history of the world is one long series of wars interrupted by little moments of peace, then that could explain why I’d overlooked Switzerland. Still, a long moment of peace would suit me pretty well right now.

I started working out long complicated maths problems in my head. 316? 8. It’s not so hard. The way I do it is just eight 300s, 2400; eight 10s 80, add them, 2480; eight 6s, 48, add that as well: 2528.

Then I fell asleep.

When I woke the truck had stopped. I didn’t know how long it had been stopped for. Nor why it had stopped. I kept thinking of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the actual book, about as ancient as the Bible. They’d smuggled people out of Paris in carts during the French Revolution, and the soldiers would stop the carts and search them… Was that happening right now?

I was hot and very thirsty, and could smell my own sweat. I longed to stretch out my legs before they cramped. The poly pipe wasn’t much use as a periscope because I couldn’t twist it to get a view. All I saw was the sky. It was still dark outside though. I rubbed the backs of my legs, trying to get some circulation happening. The more I thought about it the worse it got, like with everything. Then I felt the truck shake, as though someone had just got on it.

I could feel the bales being thrown off. It was scary. I didn’t know what I’d see, or who would be there. It was a bit like being born, I guess. I’d been in this little womb a long time and I’d had enough, I wanted to get out, but I had no idea who would be waiting and what the world would be like. Would they hold me upside down and spank me on the bum? Or worse? Anyway, this was a caesarean, not a natural birth. I didn’t have to do anything, just lie there curled up and wait till the doctor opened up a gap.

Cold crept in when the bale above me lifted off, but more like a sweet coolness, a refreshing wave of beautiful air touching me everywhere. It wafted around me, tickling and comforting. God I needed it. I looked up. Just the night sky and a couple of stars. Another bale went. The man was taking them off one by one, completely ignoring me. I climbed out and off the truck but didn’t try to help him this time. Sometimes doing nothing can be exhausting. I’d done nothing for a long time and I was totally stuffed.

We were in some sort of barn and the man was stacking the bales, starting a new pile beside the ones he already had. Probably a thousand bales in the barn altogether and nice stuff too, first-cut lucerne maybe, but you could see plenty of clover in it. He continued to ignore me and I continued to ignore him. I walked around trying to get my legs working, and more importantly trying to get my brain working. It was strange being in a place and having no idea where I was — literally no idea. Farm or city, mountain or desert, coast or inland, heaven or hell, take your pick. We were probably on a farm, obviously, and I don’t think we’d gone up or down a lot of hills, but we might just be in a grain storage place or a feed merchant’s. I drifted towards the door, thinking I’d have a peep outside, but also curious to know whether the man would acknowledge that I existed if I did something a bit more extreme. Sure enough, as soon as I got close to the door he hissed at me like a goose, and gestured for me to get back. I veered away, smiling to myself. It was reassuring to know that I existed, that I had substance, that I could be seen by others. If someone else acknowledges me then I must be real. I am seen, therefore I am.

Someone else existed too apparently — we were not alone in the world — because at that moment I heard a motorbike whirring towards us. It sounded, I don’t know, like a cicada having an orgasm. OK, yes, I’ve never heard a cicada having… but anyway, it was a motorbike that badly needed tuning. I looked at the man, expecting to see him waving wildly at me to take cover, but he carried on throwing bales off the truck. Now that his stack had grown he was trying to land them directly on top of the pile from the tray of the Acco. Obviously the motorbike didn’t represent danger.

It made me nervous though and I stood out of sight behind what looked like a very old threshing machine. The motorbike engine stopped and there was a pause before the door was suddenly thrown open. I could see the grey of first daylight behind the man who came in. He was a big guy, young, and as he took off his helmet I saw a huge row of perfect white teeth and heard a loud laugh. He spoke in another language to the man, but I was willing to bet he said, ‘Where is she?’