Piers Torday - The Last Wild

He suddenly goes quiet. I know what he’s thinking about. The same thing as me. Dads.

Then as if she was too, as if there was something in the water, as if she’d been holding it in for ages, Polly suddenly blurts out, ‘I hope this is all worth it, Kidnapper, and that you can help these animals! Your dad had better not be just another horrible Facto man like Captain Skuldiss, or Selwyn Stone. Because if you really wanted to help animals, why would you work for a company that sends a man on crutches to kill them all?’

Never mind the cold, or not being able to speak — I’m too angry to think. All my dad’s ever done is help animals get better. It’s true that I don’t know if he has found a cure yet. I don’t even know if he still lives in our home any more.

A fear ripples down through me, colder than any water. Perhaps Polly was right to look strange when she learnt he worked for Facto. So much has changed that I don’t know about — perhaps he has –

She pulls at my hands, harder this time. The cat is coiled limply round her neck, like a heavy scarf.

‘Come on! You have to answer! You have to tell me why your dad will help. Why is he so different to the rest of them?’

Because he is. He’s always helped save animals. That’s what he does.

Suddenly I’m properly angry.

I didn’t ask Polly to come. She forced her way along. Everything was going fine till we met her and her stupid cat. We wouldn’t be here about to drown in this icy water if it wasn’t for her! I’m rescuing her cat and all she can do is ask me these stupid questions. Without thinking, I jerk my hands away from hers, to say SHUT UP AND GO AWAY!

And she does.

With a little cry that sounds more like one of Sidney’s mews, she falls back, her clothes balloon around her, the cat screeches and the current drags them away.

*Stag!* I yell, but it’s too late.

Before he can even twist round, Polly and Sidney have been sucked further and further on by the pull of the fish-road.

*I’ll go after them! I’ll save them!* shouts the wolf-cub, but the harder he tries, the more the current sends him spinning in circles too.

*Sidney!* I cry out –

But they’ve gone.

The stag can barely hide his frustration –

*The she-child wasn’t holding on tightly enough. We should never have brought her.*

This isn’t her fault. I’m the one who broke into her house. And then I hear — only just — a cry from Polly in the watery blackness up ahead.

*We have to help them, we have to get ashore now, we have to —*

And then the steep bank is close ahead, bobbing silhouettes of tall rushes, boulders scattered everywhere –

*Now!* gasps the stag between short breaths. *Jump ashore! Go! I can’t climb out over these rocks —*

I stick out a hand and grab the nearest rocky crag, the other firmly round the cub’s neck. With a sickening lurch I’m jerked free of the stag, my legs trailing in the water. I yank the sopping wolf-cub out after me — he’s heavy and warm, his jaws snapping and legs wriggling — while the General scuttles along my arm and on to the rock.

*There — now that wasn’t so difficult after all, was it?* he says.

The stag sweeps on past us into the shadows. But I can’t look.

Biting my lip in concentration, I feel my way towards the shore, pulling the wolf-cub after me. His fur seems to have absorbed half the fish-road and it’s like trying to drag a sack of bricks. As I haul us on to the safety of the grass, he shakes himself dry, showering me with wolf-smelling water.

*Never help me again!* he snaps. *I don’t need your help.*

*Come on. Help me then. We have to save them!*

We run along the bank. Up ahead I can see the stag stumbling in the tall rushes, his horns silhouetted against the evening light.

Polly’s cries are getting further and further away. And in the distance, the faint roar grows louder.

*Quick! Follow the fish-road!* I yell.

The stag and wolf-cub bound along the bank, with me following as fast as I can. After several minutes of jumping over small ditches and streams, I stop, heaving for breath, as they skid to a halt ahead of me. The cub is staring out into the pitch black.

*Look,* he says.

*I can’t see anything!*

*You might not be able to hear them either. I can. I have the sharpest hearing in the world.*

The stag’s voice comes out of the darkness. *They are there — but they are moving fast. I can’t see them, but I can smell them. You must hurry.*

The roaring noise sounds very close now, a bubbling commotion, filling our heads, making it hard to hear, hard to even think clearly. We race after them until we run out of bank.

Because we are no longer just on the edge of a fishroad, but something much bigger. The black water has turned white, churning and foaming, like it’s boiling up, before dropping far, far away below, into nothing. The fish-road seems to stop mid-air like an unfinished liquid bridge, before tumbling down and down in a glowing curtain of mist.

*A whiterforce,* says Wolf-Cub, in awe. *They’re heading straight for a whiterforce.*

I strain my eyes, scanning upstream, until I can just make out a tiny tip of white coasting along the water, on top of a black bob. We are moments ahead of them — but only moments.

‘Kester, help me!’ Polly calls out across the water. I wish I could shout out to her to hold on. I wish . She just has to believe that I am saying it deep down inside, because I am.

I wade out into the fish-road, the stag and wolf-cub splashing in behind me, until the water comes up to my waist. But I can feel the bottom beginning to fall away sharply beneath us.

Polly calls out as they start to spin faster and faster towards the edge. ‘Help me. You have to help us!’

I rest one hand on the stag’s broad chest, and feel the steady thump of his heart as the wind blows right through us.

*Ask the fish-road!* he yells over the roar of the whiterforce. *Ask the fish-road to help you.*

*I don’t understand!* I shout back.

*Do not give up, Kester. You have a voice. Call to the fish-road for help.*

The wolf-cub takes my hand between his jaws and yanks it under the water.

*What are you doing?!*

He glowers at me. *Ask them! You must ask them! We cannot ask for help to save a human. But you can. You have the voice, the voice that can command all creatures. You have to believe in it.*

The voice that can command all creatures. A gift. If there were any left to call — if I knew how to call –

*Help!* I cry out. I can’t do anything more to stop this on my own. *Please! If there is anyone there who can save a girl and a cat from the whiterforce — show yourself now!*

The water drags Polly right to the edge, spinning her round and round as if she was only a piece of rubbish. She lunges out, grabbing one of the branches wedged between the rocks, trying to stop her and the cat going over the edge –

I close my eyes.

And I hear something — not water roaring, not the wind — but a rushing, slithering sound, speeding through the water. A rushing sound followed by a voice, and then voices. Not voices like the animals with me on land, or the birds in the sky. This is more like chanting, an underwater chant.

*Ommmmmm!*

The wolf-cub tugs my hand. *Look!* he says.

Something is tunnelling through the water, towards the whiterforce and Polly, clinging for her life to the stuck branch. The chanting grows louder in my head –

*Ommmmmm! Ommmmmm!*