Piers Torday - The Last Wild

I’m not sure that sounds much better than my charcoal tea, but I’ll take her word for it.

‘Even so, Dad always said that we must never let Sidney outside, in case she came into contact with any infected animals.’ She looks over at the coughing cat. ‘We just couldn’t keep an eye on her all the time, so she got it eventually.’ Polly rests her hand on Sidney’s belly and her eyes have a faraway look. ‘But I haven’t.’

She must read my face.

‘My parents haven’t either — at least, not as far as I know. She’s been feverish for ages, and they were fine when they left, which was just before her eyes went red. We ran out of nice things to make from weeds and bark, you see, so last week Mum and Dad decided to go to Mons to try and get some formula. They said they would only be a day. I thought you might be them, you see, and when you weren’t …’

Polly looks exhausted, her fingers propping up her cheek as she tries not to let her head drop on to the table, her dark hair coming down untidily all over her face. I realize we’ve been ‘talking’ for hours.

‘I’m starving,’ she says, and goes over to a large sack stuffed under the sink. Digging her hand in, she scoops out a pile of dusty looking biscuits and holds them out in her palm.

I look amazed. They still have real food left.

She sees my expression and laughs. ‘Don’t be silly — they’re not normal food. They’re Sidney’s cat biscuits. They’re very old, and have the worst taste in the world, but they’re all we’ve got. I’ve been living off them since Mum and Dad left.’

And with that, she chucks a handful in her mouth.

Just seeing her eat makes my stomach start to rumble again.

‘Want some?’ she says, with her mouth half full, offering me a pile.

Anything. Anything to eat.

It turns out cat biscuits do have the worst taste in the world, but as I crunch through them, I slowly start to feel like I might be able to move again. We’ve been up all night long, and now rays of light are beginning to slide in through the tops of the windows. Finishing my biscuit breakfast, I walk over to open the stiff shutters. Rubbing the moisture off the glass, I can make out the paved yard down below, the posh field and the crumbling pillars. I want to see a shadowy outline of a high back and horns, maybe some blurry dots flapping around in the sky above — but there’s nothing — just the empty wood of spiky trees beyond.

I wonder where they are.

‘Why did you leave them?’

I turn around. Polly’s rubbing her eyes and stretching out a yawn.

‘I don’t understand. If there really are animals who are still alive, and who are your friends, why did you leave them? I would never leave Sidney.’

I don’t know now. I look at the floor.

‘Do you think you could rescue Sidney too? I think she would quite like that.’

I stand breathing on the glass, tracing an outline with my finger and thinking. I made a promise. I look at my watch again, hoping it will give me an answer. I flick idly through the pictures, trying to work out what to do.

And then the watch flickers again. Just like it did at the Ring of Trees.

The pictures of the animals I took judder up and down on the screen, and it’s like there’s another picture trying to get through — black and white, an outline of someone or something — but it’s no good. I shake the watch, hold it close to the window … and the interference clears. A single word appears. Just that. One word, black and white on my screen.

HELP

I stare at it. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the word has vanished. No matter what buttons I press, or how many times I shake the watch, it doesn’t return. I don’t know what it means. But it’s helped me make my decision.

I turn around.

Polly stands up to face me, tired and unsteady. ‘What are you doing? Are you going to rescue us?’

I look at her exhausted face. She helped me. I look at Sidney, racked with coughs. I made a promise .

I grab the board, and begin to spell out Y-E-, but before I can even find the last letter, Polly has clapped her hands with excitement and is scooping all the tiles back into a bag.

‘An adventure! I love adventures. Now, we’ll take the game so you can talk to people as well, and I’ll get a torch. We won’t be long, will we? As long as we’re back by dinner, I’m sure they won’t mind —’

And she’s gone, out of the kitchen, clattering up some stairs, still talking as she goes.

Woken, Sidney stands up on the table, her shadow curling out behind her.

*I don’t think I want to die, my dear — there are so many prizes still left to win.*

I stroke her back and she flinches.

*You’ll have to ride on a stag,* I say.

*Is he terribly rough and uncouth and brutish?*

I nod.

*Well, that’s some consolation, I suppose,* she says, whisking her tail.

Scooping her up in my arms, I walk out of the kitchen, straight into Polly, who now has a bulging rucksack slung over her shoulder. She’s wide awake, her cheeks flushed, opening the bag for me to inspect it.

‘I think I’ve got everything. Your letter tiles, some extra cat biscuits to eat in an emergency, binoculars, and the magnifying glass in case we need to examine anything more closely.’ I feel the General prickle in my pocket. ‘And my notebook of course. We might even discover some new plants to eat! I’ve left a note for Mum and Dad in their bedroom — do you think we’ll be very long?’

But the words die in her mouth as we both hear the noise.

A noise I haven’t heard for such a long time — the noise of a car engine, pulling to a halt across the stone circle outside.

Polly and I freeze in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at each other. Barely daring to breathe, we listen to the steady hum of the engine from down below.

Then she is off again, flying down the passage, yelling — ‘They’re back!’

With Sidney over my shoulder and the General in my pocket, I run after her as fast as I can, through the maze of corridors and stairs. I find Polly at the end of a stone hallway, clutching a bunch of keys and straining to open about fifteen different locks on a very heavy door.

‘I should have got blankets or something; they’re bound to be cold after their journey. But they’ll have brought formula so we can probably have a feast tonight!’

A feast of pink Chicken’n’Chips slop. I wonder what her parents will make of the silent boy covered in mud who broke into their house with a cockroach.

Polly loosens a padlocked chain, draws a wooden beam back and struggles to pull the door open.

‘Don’t just stand there, Kidnapper! Help me!’

Together we force the heavy door open across the stone.

Polly rushes out, full of words. The sky is filling up with grey clouds, but there is no rain yet.

She stops dead in her tracks on the first step, looking at the machine in the courtyard, its engine quietly humming. It doesn’t look like much close up, all dented with scratches down the side, smoke pumping noisily out of the rusty exhaust. But there is no mistaking it. The six large wheels, ridged with mud, the purple panels, all painted with a yellow F in a circle — the machine the stag first saw in the Great Open.

‘Maybe they gave Mum and Dad a lift?’ says Polly quietly.

Somehow I don’t think so. I step down and stand in front of her, feeling responsible, like I’m her older brother. She snatches Sidney off my shoulders and hides the cat down on the steps behind her.