Wilderness (9 page)

 

 

Their mother wasn't there. The boys saw that quickly.
She wasn't in the big room.

They could smell hot chocolate.

They looked behind them. She wasn't coming in. In
fact – they both now thought of it – they hadn't seen
her out there. Johnny went back to the door. He went
out to the veranda. Tom followed him. They looked
across the yard, and down the tree-lined path. There
was no one out there, only the dogs.

They went back in. She might have been in a
smaller room. She might have been behind all the
other people.

But she wasn't there.

“She's hiding outside,” said Johnny. “Having a
smoke.”

But everyone there was looking at them, and some
of them were smiling, the way you smile at sick
people.

“Where's our mam?” said Tom.

Aki stepped forward. He was putting on his crash
helmet. Kalle was behind him, zipping up his jacket.

“Your mother—” said Aki.

“Where is she?” said Tom.

“She fell, I guess,” said Aki.

“Where is she?” said Tom, again.

Aki pointed at the window.

“Back,” he said. “Not far.”

“Where?”

Tom felt a fist, growing bigger inside him. Quickly
bigger, in his stomach. It hurt.

Johnny saw the other people whispering, passing on
the information.
She's missing. She's missing.
He saw
huge flakes of snow begin to hit the window, and slide
down, on to more snow.

“It is cool,” said Aki. “She will be found. You want
hot chocolate?”

Tom couldn't answer. The big fist was charging up
his throat. He was going to be sick; he thought he
was.

But Aki and Kalle were in charge. They were at the
door. And they didn't look worried and panicky.

“We will be back very soon,” said Aki. “With your
mother.”

He rubbed his bum.

“I hope she did not fall so hard,” he said.

Tom smiled. Johnny did too. They didn't want to be more worried than Aki. It was the wilderness, but the
boys had been through it, yesterday and today, and
they'd gone over the same lake twice. It wasn't all that
big. Aki and Kalle would find her.

Aki smiled, and followed Kalle. They were gone.

Johnny went to the door. Tom followed him. They
watched Kalle hitch his dogs to the sled. They
watched Aki walk to the far side of the yard, to the
snowmobile. He climbed on, and turned it on. They
watched him push it back a bit with his feet. Then he
turned and slowly drove down the tree-lined path.
Kalle followed him. They watched the two men turn a
bend, first Aki, then Kalle. They watched Aki's
headlights in the distant trees, until they couldn't see
them any more, and they couldn't hear his engine.

“You want hot chocolate?”

They turned.

There was a woman at the door. They hadn't seen
her before. She wore an apron with a reindeer on it,
and yellow trousers.

“Yes,” said Johnny.

He nudged Tom.

“He does too,” he said.

Tom didn't feel too sick now. He knew that Aki and
Kalle would be back soon. They were experts.

“Come,” said the woman.

She stood away from the door, and the boys
followed her into the hut. The other people were standing there, looking at the boys and smiling like
mad. They'd all taken off their red suits, and their
boots were in a line along the wall nearest the door.

The new woman walked to the big table. The
people stood back to make room for her, and they
stood back even further when Johnny and Tom
followed her.

“You will take off your suits, perhaps,” said the man
from Belgium.

The boys didn't answer. They weren't going to take
their suits off. They weren't going to sit down. Not
until they saw their mother.

The new woman turned to face the boys, and she
was holding two mugs nearly as big as flowerpots.

“Come.”

She was smiling. She was nice. She must have
worked there, in the hut. She looked like she was in
charge. She waited till Tom and Johnny had taken off
their gloves, and then she gave them each a mug.

“Very hot, I think,” said the man from Belgium.

“Very good,” said someone else.

The boys stood beside the table and drank their hot
chocolate.

“Good?” said the woman.

“Yes,” said Johnny.

And Tom nodded.

“Your mother will be very cold, I think,” said the
man from Belgium.

The boys looked up at him. He was smiling, and
everybody else was smiling.

“I will, for sure, make hot chocolate for the mother,”
said the new woman.

“Very good,” said the man from Belgium.

The boys stood there. The other people spoke very
quietly. Some of them sat. Johnny listened for Aki's
engine. He looked at the window. He saw the snow
land and slide on the glass. The glass was slowly being
covered.

The boys felt hot now. They were standing near the
fire. Tom was looking at it for a while before he
noticed the fish. It was on a metal rack. The top of
the rack was leaning on the wall inside the fireplace.
The bottom part was resting on the floor. The fish
was big. It was lying across the fire, just above the
flames. It must have been a salmon, or something
like a salmon. It was cooking very slowly. Tom began
to smell it.

He hated fish.

Johnny moved. He jumped, like he'd been pinched
or something.

“What?” said Tom.

He listened, but he couldn't hear anything outside.

“If she fell off the sleigh,” said Johnny.

“What d'you mean?” said Tom.

“If she fell off,” said Johnny.

“If?”

“That's what Aki said,” said Johnny. “She fell off,
yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Tom.

“Well, if she did,” said Johnny. “Why didn't the dogs
come here, alone?”

“What?” said Tom.

“The dogs,” said Johnny. “Like, when Mam fell off
yesterday. Remember?”

“Yeah,” said Tom.

They both spoke quietly.

“The dogs kept going,” said Johnny. “Till they
caught up with Kalle.”

“And Rock,” said Tom.

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other.

“They didn't catch up this time,” said Tom.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Then they heard the engine. They heard it before
anyone else. And Tom said the name they'd both been
thinking.

“Hastro.”

Hastro was the rogue dog, the tricky one their
mother hadn't been able to hitch to her sled. Johnny
knew what Tom meant – Hastro might have done
something bad.

They moved to the door. Johnny got there first.
Now the engine was quite loud. The other people saw the headlights brighten the snow in the
window.

Johnny and Tom stopped on the veranda. They saw
nothing except the headlights. They couldn't see
behind the lights. They were pointed straight at them.
Then Aki moved off the centre of the path, and they
could see more. They saw Kalle's dogs, and the sled
behind them. They could see Kalle now, standing big
behind the sled.

And that was all.

The engine stopped. The sled went past the
snowmobile. The dogs were panting. Johnny and Tom
could see the sled. It was empty. Their mother wasn't
there.

They saw Aki. They heard his boots on the snow.
They saw Kalle behind him, unhitching the dogs.

They looked at Aki's face. He was coming up the
steps.

He smiled.

“She fell off not so near, I guess,” he said.

He was right in front of the boys. He held up a
mobile phone.

“We will find her,” he said.

“She doesn't have her mobile phone with her,” said
Johnny.

“The rescue people,” said Aki. “I will call them.”

The snow was thick. The flakes were huge and
falling straight, like stones.

“Come,” said Aki.

He put his hands on their shoulders and gently
pushed them to the door, into the hut.

Tom felt numb. His face was cold; the rest of him
was hot. He felt the shivers coming. He was going to
be sick. The floor was swaying.

Johnny nudged him. Tom looked. He saw Johnny's
face, and he knew – Johnny had a plan.

Kalle was behind them, coming in the door. He
looked at the boys.

“Not – worry,” he said.

They didn't answer. They were afraid to hear their
voices.

Aki was talking quietly on his mobile. He spoke in
Finnish, and he was looking at a map on the wall as he
spoke. He stopped speaking and put the phone on the
table. Kalle was beside him now. They both looked at
the map.

The boys had seen a map exactly like it, back at the
hotel. But they hadn't really been able to read it. It
was all just brown, no towns or big names. It was what
a map of the wilderness should look like. Tiny
numbers, and a few tiny names.

The new woman came at the boys with more hot
chocolate in big cups.

“There is more for your mother,” she said, and she
smiled.

Johnny took his cup.

“Thank you.”

Tom took his; he copied Johnny.

“Thanks very much.”

They didn't drink. They held the cups. They
watched Kalle and Aki looking at the map and talking.
All the other people stood around, behind them. The
man from Belgium leaned forward and pointed at
something on the map. They watched Kalle check his
belt, the things on it, the compass, the knife. Aki went
to the table and opened a white box. They saw a red
cross on the lid. The men and women stood around
and looked into the box as Aki checked that
everything was there.

Johnny and Tom looked at the window and watched
the snow cover the last bit of window glass. Their
mother was out there, under the snow, and the snow
was getting deeper and deeper.

“Come on,” said Johnny; he only whispered.

They stepped backwards, very quietly, to the door;
it hadn't been closed. They stepped out on to the
veranda. Johnny bent down and put his cup on the
boards. And Tom did the same.

“Come on,” said Johnny.

They went down the steps. They ran across the
snow. They didn't slide or skid.

They took Kalle's dogs. They were quick. They
untied four of them and brought them over to the
sleds. They kept looking over at the hut. The adults were still in there, being like adults – busy and nice,
but kind of stupid.

They tied the dogs to two sleds, two dogs for each
sled. They didn't have time to get the other four. Johnny thought the dogs would be strong enough to
pull them.

The dogs were tied. They were ready to go.

It had been easy.

“I'll go on this one,” said Johnny.

Rock, the leader, was at the front.

“OK,” said Tom.

He didn't mind. It was Johnny's idea. He stood on
the brake, at the back of the second sled.

“But how will you get Rock to go?” he said. “You're
not Kalle.”

“Easy,” said Johnny.

He held up something. Tom couldn't see what it
was. Then it was nearer, and Tom could see that it was
Kalle's hat and that Johnny was holding it on the end
of a long stick.

“Brilliant,” said Tom.

“Ready?” said Johnny.

“Yeah,” said Tom. “But hurry.”

He could see people coming out on to the veranda.
He felt bad, and a bit disloyal. He liked Kalle and Aki;
he thought they were great. But everything in Tom –
his brain, his blood, everything that made him Tom –
everything told him that what he was doing was right. He'd find his mother – him and Johnny – quicker than
anyone else.

He saw Johnny hold out the stick with the hat
stuck to it, over the dogs' backs and heads. He held
the stick, so the hat was just in front of Rock's nose.

Rock sniffed. And he started to move. He pulled, to
get at the hat. Johnny rested the stick against the
handle of the sled. He was able to hold the sled and
the stick with one hand.

Rock pulled. Bruno, beside him, pulled too. Tom
watched Johnny's sled move slowly away, down the
tree-lined path. He looked behind him, and felt his
own sled move. Hupö and Pomp were pulling him.

People were running across the snow. Aki and
Kalle. He heard shouts, but they boomed and made
no sense.

Tom was moving.

Fast.

He turned forward, and saw Johnny turn a bend.
Tom was right behind him, holding on to his sled. His
feet were wide apart. His balance was good. It felt
good, natural. They flew into the cold, and the cold
stopped him from crying.

He was going to find his mother. They were going
to find her. Him and Johnny. They were going to find
her.

He looked behind. There was no sign of the hut, or
lights. They were back in the wilderness.

He went over a bump. The sled was off the ground,
and back. His feet stayed on the foot plates. He could
feel his hands sweat in the gloves. He kept his eyes on
Johnny.

Johnny's hand was already sore, the one holding the
stick. But he didn't mind; he didn't let it matter. He
had to concentrate on what was ahead. There was no
light, and the trees were close. The snow was huge
and heavy. He had to watch the dogs. He could tell
what was coming by looking at their backs and ears.
Their eyes were his. He'd learned this over the past
two days, watching them as they pulled him across
the land and ice.

They were going to find her. He knew it. The cold
didn't matter. And the dark didn't matter. They were
going to find her. He had to keep thinking that.

He looked behind him, quickly. Tom was there. He
even waved.