Lost Girls (27 page)

The juniors have stuck feathers in their hair and painted their faces with lipstick and ash. They look tanned and
skinny and fierce. After the feast they chase Jas and me around the beach, whooping and yelling and brandishing weapons. It’s good to see them cheerful. I think about Hope and how she gave them towel rides on the sand. I think about what has changed—no Sandy, no Natalie, and no Hope.

But I’m glad we have a plan.

Mrs. Campbell writes out a list of campfire watchers, and the rest of us go to bed with optimistic thoughts for once.

Hope is calling out, screaming, her face half eaten, one arm and leg gone, the water dark with blood. She swims toward me, brain matter spilling out of her half-eaten head. I turn away. I’m sinking.

My own strangled groan wakes me. Sweat runs down my forehead into my eyes. I struggle out of my sleeping bag. I can’t smell the fire, but it’s all right. Mrs. Campbell is sitting close to it, her eyes fixed on the glowing ashes. I go into the forest and wash using a tiny dribble of detergent. It’s wonderful the difference soap makes; I feel almost
human again. I clean my teeth with a twig, and swill out my mouth with water. Clambering over a fallen tree, I rip off a dead branch and carry it back to the fire.

“Did you sleep?” Mrs. Campbell asks.

“Yes, thanks, fairly well.” I sit with her in silence. I wonder how it will feel to be an adult. Is everything as easy as I think it is, black and white, right or wrong? How would I feel if I had lost a husband? I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine what it would be like if my parents were dead. I would be lost. I suppose that alcohol and drugs might seem like the best escape from that sort of pain.

“You don’t really think there’s been an air strike on the base, do you?”

“I hope not, Bonnie. But, you know, I heard rumors before we left. More than rumors. The North Vietnamese army is pushing south at a great rate. Cambodia is involved, too.” She points at the nearest coast. “The South Vietnamese can’t hold out forever, and America is no longer prepared to support them—they’re moving troops out. It’s going to end badly.”

“You mean they’ve lost the war against the communists?”

“America is getting out.”

“Abandoning them?”

She shrugs. I try to digest what she’s saying. We sit silently, watching the glow of the embers.

“I don’t believe they’d just abandon them,” I say
eventually. “My dad says that they’re fighting for freedom, fighting against the communists and their repression.”

“I’m sure… I’m sure that’s what he believes,” she says quietly.

I don’t want to take offense, but I don’t understand what she means.

“Beware of loving a warrior, Bonnie.”

“A warrior? What do you mean?” It sounds like a quote from a history book, or from Shakespeare or someone. “Like a soldier?”

“Yes. They become brutalized by the casual violence of war.”

Was that another quote? “My dad’s an instructor….” I say, and she nods.

There is a long silence.

“Is that what happened with your husband?” I ask. She nods slowly, her face hidden from me.

“But I thought you loved him?”

“I did… at first.”

“Did you love Jas’s father?” I can’t help myself.

She stares at me, shocked. “How did you—?” She breaks off and sobs, her face in her hands. She shakes her head and doesn’t answer right away. “It’s over, anyway,” she says eventually. “I was mad. Stupid. It should never have happened. If we get out of here I’m
going home to Aberdeen.” She takes a deep breath and says, “God, I need a cigarette. Does Jas know about…?”

I shake my head. We sit for a while in silence.

“Mrs. Campbell, Layla…”

“Yes, Bonnie?”

“The raft… Hope built it…. She wanted me to wait until the wind dropped, but I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to be heroic, to save everyone. I made her come with me, and I couldn’t steer through the reef, and we wrecked. She had no chance, you see, once she was in the water. She couldn’t see… couldn’t see where she was swimming. Her eyes… She had no chance. And it’s all my fault, my fault.” Emotion overwhelms me.

She gathers me in her arms and I smell her hair and sour sweat. Tears and snot flood my throat. I’m choking. I want my mother and father. In my mind I see little Sandy with her teddy and Natalie with her comfort blanket, and poor brave Hope who overcame her stutter and built a raft. I sob for all of our dead and for myself, for my guilt and my arrogance, for Jas and her mother, for what feels like the end of my childhood.

When my sobbing subsides, I pull away from Layla. She looks exhausted and old and sad.

“You must be tired. Better get some rest. We’ll be setting off today, won’t we?” I say to her.

“Thanks, Bonnie, I will.” She touches me on the shoulder as she rises.

The fire has a solid base and I check that there’s enough wood and coconut husks to last as fuel for several days. I gather figs and freshwater for breakfast, and the others wake and join me. Layla sleeps on.

“Let her sleep,” I say. “She’ll need all her energy for the climb.”

Jas raises an eyebrow at me.

We are traveling light. Just the weapons, the knives, water, of course, and sleeping bags. I carry my backpack, which holds my journal, my pencil, and what’s left of my Robert M. Pirsig. I can’t travel without them. We’ll gather food when we need to; no point in loading ourselves unnecessarily. We have the broken mirror wrapped in a banana leaf, and the sparking stone, and some twine.

Arlene and May, Carly and Jody wave good-bye to us. The juniors’ war paint is smudged over their faces. I think Jody is about to cry. She hugs Jas, and then me.

“This time, stay here,” I say sternly.

“It was Mikey’s fault, not mine—he made me go.”

“You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” I say.

“Bonnie!” Jas says, smiling at me. Then to Jody she says, “Okay, okay, just be good and help with the fire and do what you are told, all right?”

“Yes, Jas.”

“You must be sure to keep the fire going, girls; don’t let the juniors go into the sea; and pray it doesn’t rain,” Mrs. Campbell says to them.

“Yes, Layla.”

“And if anything bad happens to Jody or Carly while we’re away, I’ll kill you,” I add.

“Oh, piss off, Bonnie MacDonald,” May snaps.

“They’ll be okay, don’t worry,” says Arlene. “We’ll look after them.”

We have two flashlights, and the beach group has two. They have their own spears and bow and arrow, but we have both knives and the other weapons.

“See you later, alligator,” I call as they wave good-bye.

“In a while, crocodile.”

Hours later, we are making good time, as we more or less know the direction we have to take. Most of the ribbons are still where I tied them, and the forest hasn’t had time to grow back over the paths we took, although across some paths tendrils and shoots are surreptitiously reclaiming the jungle.

Tiger Cave is as I remember. No tiger this time, though, and no hornets, thank goodness. I tell Layla I’ve named
it the Cave of Hands. It’s difficult not to mention the tiger, especially as there is a tiger drawing on the cave wall. The others are very impressed by the paintings, especially the giant hand.

“Why didn’t we see the pictures that first time?” Jas wonders, and I mutter about the hornets and wanting to press on.

“There’s a cave in the north of Thailand that has paintings—Spirit Cave,” Jas says. It was only discovered recently, in the sixties, by an archeologist named Chester Gorman.”

“How do you know all these things, Jas?” Layla asks.

“She’s a genius, didn’t you know?” I say proudly, doing a high five with Jas.

“If only we had a camera!” says Layla.

“I’ve drawn them in my journal.” I show the others my crude representation of the tiger, the hunters, the hands. Jas puts a hand on top of one of the smaller hand paintings on the wall.

“They were very small people,” she says. It’s true; her hand is bigger than the cave hands.

“Who did that one?” asks Layla, pointing to the large hand—none of us can reach it.

“I bet no one else knows about this place,” Jas says.

“Who made the large handprint, though?” says Layla.

I say nothing. We stay in Tiger Cave for the night, as
it’s starting to rain again and it’s the only shelter I know of in the area.

The old birds’ nests on the cave floor make excellent tinder. I get a spark quite quickly this time and light a small fire in the entrance. As the fruit bats settle in the trees around us and white egrets sweep in to roost, we hunker down in our sleeping bags and listen to the sounds of nightfall: the loud rattling hiss of cicadas, the monkeys screeching and the gibbons’ communal singing, the unidentified snorts and yelps and whoops. Jas points out the sound of the frogs chirping. Jas and I are old jungle hands now. We talk a lot and laugh loudly at our own jokes. It helps keep the ghosts away.

Shadows dance high on the cave wall; the small hands flicker as if they are waving to me, and the big hand flashes. I’m glad I’m not alone.

Hope is swimming toward me but she has no legs and no eyes. She screams, “Help me! Bonnie, help me!”

I wake in a sweat and find Jas feeding the fire. The deep shadows under her eyes are exaggerated by the glow, and her mouth looks sad. “Shall I take over? It’s nearly time for my watch,” I say.