Lost Girls (22 page)

“Oh, come on, Jas,” I say. “We are hardly likely to have more bad luck than we have had already.”

“But in the Jataka tales, in the story of Satyavan and Savitri, Satyavan lost his life beneath the branches of a banyan. All sorts of spirits and ghosts live in the branches of the banyan. Kinnaras: half-human, half-animal. That’s why Thais don’t like to sleep under them.”

“Ghosts?” Jody asks.

“Take no notice of her, Jody. It’s only a story, like Santa Claus,” I tell her.

“Santa? What do you mean?” she whines. “He’s not just a story.”

Oh God!

Having transferred practically the entire island plantation of bamboo canes to the top of the beach, Hope and I cut the tops off at an acute angle, to make sharp points. Pushing the canes into the sand is harder than it sounds.
We can’t hammer them in, as there is no flat top to the canes anymore. Instead we dig deep holes for each pole and then pile the sand around the upright cane and stamp it down, like planting a sapling tree. Most of them collapse as soon as we let go and we have to start again, digging deeper with whatever we have on hand—the shovel, coconut shells, driftwood, brute strength. It’s exhausting work, but we are getting there. Slowly the enclosure grows around the main tree trunk, although the dozens of secondary trunks make our task difficult. After a whole day of cutting, carrying, and digging we have the semblance of a safe encampment, a corral.

Between each vertical we pack in bundles of branches and palm leaves to fill the gaps. No boar will break through that.

There’s plenty of wood damaged by the storm for the fire. But there hasn’t been a chance of using Hope’s glasses to start a fire, as the weather is awful. Even when it isn’t actually raining it looks as if it will at any moment. Clouds rumble threateningly and the sky is dark, purple-green and black like a bad bruise. The wind whines and moans in the remaining palms. We’re getting used to the way the fine sand crusts our lips and eyes.

One good thing comes from our search for bamboo: We come across several papaya trees that were obviously brought down in the storm. The fallen fruit smells like
perfumed melon. Papaya will make a nice change from coconut, anyway. We still have a few mangosteen. The delicious eggs have been eaten.

Inside the barricade we do feel safer. It’s rather mazelike, with the supporting root branches forming tunnels. We drape the sail over the branches to make the shelter a bit more rainproof, but then realize that we would probably do better to keep the sail for the raft. So we make a thatched roof, weaving palm leaves together and knitting ferns and large leaves into it. It takes a long time, and our hands are torn and sore. We have removed the corrugated bamboo-pole roofing from the cave extension and used it here instead. Our narrow gate is a well-camouflaged brush-and-palm leaf section between two sharpened bamboos. We are inside a cage, and the wild boars are on the outside.

NIGHT—BY THE CAMPFIRE

It occurs to me that what the boatman said about the island being taboo to locals (and he said something about a
Yaksha
) might have all come from someone seeing the seven-foot monk with the strange-shaped head and face and thinking he was a temple giant or a forest spirit. And I think
of something Dad said about Buddhist monks being murdered in Cambodia.

Maybe he’s escaped from there. He probably has a boat, though I didn’t see one on the lake. We could use it to get home. I could go back and find him. But I promised I would keep silent. No one must know about him. No one.

We haven’t seen anything of Loopy Layla or her cohorts, her goons—the Glossies. What is she thinking? If we ever get out of here she’ll be in so much trouble. I just feel so angry. I want to hurt her.

Jas and I walk up the beach to the cave to see if Mrs. Campbell and the Glossies are there. They aren’t, though there are signs that they still sleep there—stinking sleeping bags and half-full water bottles.

“What are those things on the sand?” Jas asks.

May’s hair curlers litter the sand like strange sea creatures.

We call, but they’re nowhere to be found.

“It would have been good to sort things out with her and the Glossies before we try out the raft,” says Jas. “She should be with the juniors.”

“Yeah, right!” I retort and kick at the undergrowth. I
can’t believe I used to think so much of Layla Campbell. I’m almost as angry with myself as I am with her.

We have to make a decision about the raft.

“How many will it carry, do you think?” I ask.

“Let’s try, shall we? I’ve been dying to try it out,” Hope says.

First we heave two fallen palm-tree trunks to where the raft sits on the sand. Using them as wheels, we lift the raft onto them and Jas, Hope, and I, with Carly and Jody helping, drag and push the raft into the water of the fishing pool. Hope and I clamber onto it. It feels stable, and there’s plenty of room for more people.

“How do we steer it, or propel it?” I ask.

“Haven’t gotten around to that yet,” says Hope. “We’ve been too busy with the camp fencing.”

“Yeah, well, it’s important, keeping us safe from wild boars.”

“Yeah, okay, Bonnie—keep your hair on. Got any suggestions?”

I think. My grandpa uses an oar at the stern of their rowing boat to scull the craft along. It acts as both rudder and paddle.

“Give me time,” I say.

“It’s great, Hope, just amazing,” Jas calls from the
beach. We drift around, pushed and pulled by the wind, and gaze into the shallows of the pool. Orange-and-white-striped clown fish dart into and out of the tendrils of sea anemones, and slender blue fish quiver in the fronds of fanlike pink coral. A large shell-dwelling creature propels itself along with a strange muscular foot. Sea cucumbers are like giant slugs. Transparent shrimp jump backward. I could stay forever gazing into this strange, quiet world.

I wonder if the creatures have a language, if they make sounds that are inaudible to us. Do they gossip and chatter and tell one another of danger? I bet they do. All creatures seem to have their own conversations, even silent highland cattle in a field, nodding and shaking their shaggy heads at one another. I wish suddenly for Scotland, for its cool, clean air; for the scent of heather, gorse, and peat; and for the clean, cold sea smell of the Atlantic.

“I’m coming. I want to get on,” shouts Jody.

“Come on then,” Hope calls back.

The others splash out to us and clamber on. With all of us aboard the raft sinks a little, the deck submerged just under the surface, but it still floats.

“Help, it’s sinking.” Jody jumps off and wades ashore, throwing these words over her shoulder:“You could use the shovel as an oar.”

“Yes, of course! Brilliant, Jody,” Jas says, and Jody glows at the admiring words.

Hope looks happier than I’ve ever seen her. Who would have thought she could be so enterprising? I’m sorry I pooh-poohed her idea before. She has hidden depths, Hope. I must remember to tell her.

Whispering about it later with Jas, when we settle down for the night, she says Hope has probably lost her stutter because she has gained confidence in herself. She feels at last that she has some control over her life. Okay, I can understand that. I just hope that when she returns to her family her father doesn’t belittle her and make her life miserable again.

My description of the cave drawings intrigues Jas. She wants to see them, too.

Lying in the dark, I am kept awake by the familiar sounds of crashing waves and buffeting wind. Not wanting to wake Jas by turning on a flashlight to write in my journal, I make a mental list of things to do:

1. Make a rudder. How? Possibly with the shovel, though I’m not sure how to fix it.
   
2. We need to load our raft with plenty of freshwater.
   
3. Rig a sail.
   
4. Find very long poles to punt ourselves along in shallow water.
   
5. Food: We need to collect coconuts and whatever fresh fruit we can find. Water bottles.
   
6. Fishing line.
   
7. Salt, hats, clothes to protect us from the sun—if we ever see it again.
   
8. Decide who is going, who is staying.
   

KOH TABU, GULF OF THAILAND, MAY OR JUNE 1974

Today I, Bonnie MacDonald, am going to save us all—I hope. I feel optimistic. I think we can do this—sail to an inhabited island to get help. Or find someone on a fishing boat who can help. Maybe this will be the last of my journal entries?

In the morning we gather on the beach, all of us except for the Glossies and Loopy Layla, who are still missing, presumed drunk and/or stoned. First we tend to the naming of the raft: The juniors have written hope on the sail using May’s lipstick.

“Where did you get the lipstick?” Jas asks Jody.

“Er… can’t remember. Found it.”

“To a safe voyage and deliverance from this island,” I say. We solemnly clink coconut shells together and drink a toast.

“I name this ship
Hope
,” Jas announces. “Godspeed to her and all who sail in her.”

Hope can’t stop smiling. Then there’s silence as we all think about what has happened and what the future holds. The juniors look frightened.

“Mrs. Campbell should be here,” says Jas, quietly.

“Yeah, well…” I say.

“Having a divided party isn’t good. It’s like two enemy tribes. We should all be pulling together.” Jas looks sad.

“Never mind about them. Let’s decide about the crew,” I say.

“I’m not going on that thing,” says Jody. She looks as though she might cry.

“We can’t all go,” I say.

“I hear what you’re saying,” says Hope.

“No, not you, Hope. You have to go—it’s your raft,” says Jas.

“I don’t mind staying.”

“No, I’ll stay.” Jas is her usual self-sacrificing self. It doesn’t occur to me for a moment to offer to stay behind.

“You sure?” says Hope.

She shrugs. “Of course. Can’t leave the juniors to look
after themselves. Anyway, it’ll go faster if there are only two of you. And you’re the strongest.”

There’s a strong onshore wind blowing, but the clouds haven’t been blown away. Instead, more are building up, low and dark. Thunder rumbles all around us and on the dark gray-green horizon there are flashes of sheet lightning.

“Shouldn’t we wait until the weather improves before we set off?” Hope is looking less upbeat about our voyage.

“No, it might never improve.” I am eager to get started.

“But the boat hasn’t been tested; we don’t know if it’s seaworthy.”

“Hope, it’s wonderful. It floats. We’ll be fine. We can’t put it off. We need to get help
now
. ‘Who dares wins!’ ”

“Whadyamean?”

“It’s the SAS motto.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“My dad’s SAS. It means you have to be brave to achieve anything.”

“Okay, okay.” She capitulates.

I’m beginning to have my doubts about her commitment.

“The Amelia Earhart Cadet motto—‘Try Your Best’—
is sort of puny compared to the SAS one,” I say, clapping her on the back.

We make sure the raft is pulled up above the tide line while we go off to collect provisions for the voyage, Jas holding on to my arm.