Every hand went up.
‘Very well. Asilah, could you organise the tent, please? Tomaz and Imagio, can you pick some helpers, and we’ll get fire and food on the go – another barbecue, I’m afraid. Sanchez, Miles and Millie, look into sanitation and drinking water, please.’
He paused, smiling.
‘Off we go, children.’
‘You know, Routon,’ said the headmaster, a little later, ‘I can’t help feeling rather glad we’ve been evicted.’
‘Every cloud, sir, a silver lining.’
‘I wouldn’t have said that a few hours ago. But I’m pondering this business of fate. Maybe the gods are with us at the moment.’
‘It’s going to be a good term, sir. Perhaps the best yet.’
The headmaster nodded. ‘Let’s just hope the police leave us alone.’
‘They won’t interfere. They won’t stop us. I was in Eastern Turkey years ago . . . little skirmish on one of those islands, dispute over the border, usual thing. We found ourselves cut off from the main force, just the five of us. We were outnumbered, outgunned. They had the air power, of course, so we were like rats in a trap.’
‘You were being bombarded, were you?’
‘Oh yes. They were dropping everything they had. We thought our number was up.’
‘But somehow . . .?’
‘We worked together, sir. We stayed in control.’
‘Reinforcements were sent, I suppose?’
‘Oh no. No. We were abandoned. We . . . we had a good commander, though. He knew when to give orders and he knew when to listen. He let us function as a team and, because of him, we found a way. We waited until nightfall and we scaled the cliff everyone knew was unscalable. We swam a sea everyone knew was unswimable. One rope between us, no moon in the sky, one man with a broken leg. But we took our time and we made it. He was a bit like you, sir.’
‘Who?’
‘Our commander.’
‘Routon . . . It’s kind of you, but I never know what to do in a crisis.’
‘Oh, you’re our guiding light, sir. Always have been.’
Chapter Fifteen
The children worked as they had never worked before.
The roofing project of term one, and even the circus training of term two, would seem inefficient and unambitious in comparison to the creation of the tribal village. Asilah and Imagio harnessed the camel and dragged the circus tent in on an old boat trailer. Willing hands unpacked it as others dug the fire pits. The orphans had pitched this tent so many times that they could do it in darkness – and this was lucky, for it was soon twilight.
The great canvas rose and they drove in the pegs and tightened the guys. Soon they were sitting wearily, ready for supper. This time their burgers were squeezed between hunks of home-baked bread, for Doctor Ellie’s bread oven was impressively efficient. It was her hope, she said, that the children would soon be grinding their own corn and doing all their own baking. Later, they would learn the arts of the smithy.
Candles were soon lit and the layout of the village was hotly debated. An exercise book was produced and soon diagrams covered the floor.
As the younger children dozed, Asilah said, ‘Can I ask you something, miss? Are we going to do everything the way they did it? Every single thing?’
‘I’m hoping so, yes.’
‘Isn’t that going to be a bit difficult?’ said Miles.
‘It will be a challenge, of course.’
‘I think it’s going to be hard cutting wood,’ continued Asilah. ‘If we don’t have tools, it could take quite a while. And I’m thinking we ought to have boots and gloves – just because if we don’t, we’ll probably get splinters. We don’t want to waste time in hospital.’
‘Yes,’ said Doctor Ellie. ‘They would have used natural medicines, from plants and so forth. But if we don’t have the immunity they had . . .’
‘Can’t we cheat a little bit?’ said Sam. ‘You know, just have a few things that are modern?’
‘I think we should have toilet paper,’ said Ruskin.
‘And soap,’ said Israel.
‘I think we need chainsaws,’ said Captain Routon. ‘I don’t think much can be done without them. And a block and tackle for lifting. Nails, of course.’
‘Rope,’ said Vijay.
‘Hammers,’ said Kenji. ‘Brace-and-bit.’
The list went on and Doctor Ellie thought hard. ‘I do understand,’ she said. ‘We mustn’t let the project founder because of some slavish desire to imitate every detail. I think we have a few modern things so as to get going and then we become more authentic later. The tribe would have bargained for things, after all, in the outside world.’
She pulled a blanket around her shoulders. ‘Now I’m going to suggest we have an early night and resume this in the morning. We need to be up with the sun, you know. We’ll be adjusting to totally new rhythms.’
The children slept well and rose before the birds.
They were lucky; one of the old chainsaws was found in Flavio’s storage shed and, once it had been cleaned and greased, it was ready for action. Breakfast was eaten quickly – coffee, wild goose eggs and toast – and the clearing was soon ringing to the sound of a throbbing motor.
They selected six trees for felling and worked as a single organism. The first came down fast and was cut up into trestles and a wood-working bench. The other five were lowered gently onto logs, so they could be rolled and split. Captain Routon showed them how to crack the trunks with wedges and the children found that they came apart easily if you worked with the grain. Oli and Israel lashed the chainsaw to the edge of a plank, the blade rearing upwards at forty-five degrees. Henry was in charge of feeding the lumber into it, though everyone had to help at first. Henry held the wood steady as it bucked in his hands and, by the time the sun was above the trees, there was a large pile of useable wood. It was soon rising into the treetops on pulleys and the foundations of houses were soon secure.
The younger orphans gathered brushwood and stripped branches. They soon learnt how to bend and weave and, before long, roofs were taking shape. They had selected three massive oaks, but nobody had realised just how much movement there was in a tree when you were twenty-five metres off the ground. The lashing of the platforms was a tricky business and, though they used creeper whenever they could, thick rope was essential for the main mooring points – especially around the stairways.
Just before lunch, Doonan returned from his shopping expedition.
He asked for six willing helpers and he led his volunteers to a flat-bed truck that had braved the mud and reversed as close as it could to the construction site. There were a dozen more bails of rope, plus a stack of boots. There were torches, tools and a variety of sealed boxes that had been ordered by Professor Worthington for her metallurgy classes. By the time it was all safely stowed in the camp, everyone was even more ravenous than last time.
‘You’re doing well,’ said Doonan. ‘So I’m going to suggest something controversial.’
‘What?’ said Sanchez.
‘Look what I found in town. I bought it in a charity shop.’
Doonan revealed an old, battered cricket ball. He tossed it from one hand to the other, smiling happily.
‘Cricket,’ said Miles.
‘I thought we might have a game this afternoon,’ said Doonan. ‘All work and no play, after all!’
The children stared at him. ‘It’s the most boring game in the world,’ said Miles. ‘I played it at The Priory and it stinks.’
‘We’re a football school,’ said Millie. ‘Or we were.’
‘And talking of which,’ said the headmaster, ‘we should be training for the High School match, Routon. I’ve got a feeling that’s next week.’
‘No time, sir,’ said Asilah. ‘We’ve got other priorities at the moment.’
‘Oh, come now,’ said Doonan. ‘We must make time for a bit of leisure. We could have a nice little wicket set up here, just by the . . .’ He looked
around the clearing. ‘Where’s the tent gone?’
‘We took it down,’ said Israel. ‘We’re going to cut it up for costumes.’
‘Oh. Well, that gives us even more space. I don’t mind whittling the stumps and we’ve enough for two teams—’
‘We’re busy,’ said Israel. ‘We don’t have time.’
Professor Worthington stood up. ‘Doonan, I don’t mind playing, if you’re desperate. But I don’t think we should get in the children’s way. They’ve got quite a schedule.’
‘I agree,’ said Captain Routon. ‘I think we should go back to the drive and find a bit of flat land there. I’d better call the High School and cancel that football match.’
So it was that the teachers spent the afternoon batting and bowling, while the children worked. The headmaster returned once to the site, for an ice-cream van passed along the drive in the mid-afternoon and he couldn’t resist the choc ices. The driver – a slightly curious-looking fellow with frizzy hair and sunglasses – offered them at a very reasonable price and even found a box of them to sell. The headmaster met Podma in the trees.
‘Didn’t you hear the chimes?’ he said. ‘We thought you’d all come running.’
Podma was gleaming with sweat. He was stripped to his shorts, and a black-and-gold tie held his hair back.
‘Sorry, sir. Would you mind not coming into camp until later?’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘We want it to be a surprise, sir. So they sent me to help you out.’
‘Oh. Of course. When do you want us?’
‘Late as possible, really, sir. Just before sundown?’
‘Eight or nine o’clock. Certainly. It’s all going well, is it?’
Podma nodded.
‘You will have time for the ices, won’t you? You must take a break at some point.’
‘I’m sure we will, sir. Thank you.’
Podma took the box and trotted away up the path. The headmaster turned, and headed back to the slap of bat and ball. The ice-cream van, he noticed, was now parked under Lady Vyner’s tower.
Oli, meanwhile, was labouring over the plans. It had become his job to approve and modify, and make sense of the enthusiastic sketches of the previous evening. Nikko – one of the youngest orphans – worked as his assistant and they were now on their fifth exercise book. Each one was smothered in red pen. The pages were carefully cross-referenced, so it wasn’t hard to find the section dealing with rope-bridge communication and exit strategy, which was the current phase of construction and had meant yet another meeting.
‘We have to link them,’ said Asilah. ‘We don’t want anyone isolated.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Kenji, ‘but we have to use intervening trees, and that means losing more branches.
‘We don’t want them visible from the ground,’ said Miles.
‘They won’t be.’
‘I think that if they lived in the trees,’ said Vijay, ‘then they would have been able to travel right through the forest, up in the branches. We can’t make bridges for the whole forest!’
‘We could,’ said Sam. ‘Like in one of those adventure centres.’
‘Sam,’ said Ruskin, ‘this is real. This isn’t an adventure centre. If we— ’
‘We’ll use swings for some parts,’ said Oli. ‘Look at this – 18B. But there are some stretches – I would say here and here – where we definitely need tightropes.’
‘More wood, then? For anchor-points?’
‘Definitely. And more rope.’
‘We’re going to get attacked at some point,’ said Millie. ‘We have to assume that. Lady Vyner’s going to want us right out of the grounds, so we want to be able to protect ourselves.’
‘That means man-traps,’ said Miles. ‘Serious ones.’
‘What about weapons?’ said Israel. ‘I think we should split into two teams—’
There was a buzz of anger and excitement.
‘No!’
‘We said we wouldn’t!’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Sanchez. ‘We do weapons and mantraps tomorrow. We’ve got to be sensible and finish the houses.’
‘Bows and arrows,’ said Caspar. ‘They’re easy. I could make them now.’
‘Come on, they’re toys,’ said Anjoli, scornfully. ‘If we’re protecting ourselves, we’re going to need proper stuff. We’ll need to go hunting, too.’
‘We’re not going hunting,’ said Asilah. ‘What are we going to hunt?’
‘We are! Doctor Ellie said!’
Asilah grabbed Anjoli’s arm. ‘You are not going hunting until the houses are finished. I saw you, Anjoli, mucking about with . . . what is that supposed to be? War paint?’
Anjoli blushed. There were stripes of charcoal round his eyes, and he’d found a reddish clay for his chest. Caspar was similarly decorated and had a grass frill round each wrist.
‘You look like a silly kid,’ said Asilah.
‘It’s just an experiment,’ said Anjoli, quietly. ‘I’ve done as much as anyone else – I don’t see why we can’t experiment a bit.’
Asilah said something in his own language and Anjoli blushed deeper.
‘Are we going to get on?’ said Millie, in the silence that followed. ‘I want to sleep off the ground tonight and we’ve got loads to do.’
Sanchez stood up. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said. ‘Boots on, everyone. And gloves.’
Chapter Sixteen
The sky had turned pink when the teachers returned.
Doctor Ellie was with them. She’d had to drive into town in the afternoon, as she wanted to leave the precious white stone at the museum. Anjoli and Millie met them outside the camp, with four strips of tent-canvas in their hands.
‘We’re going to blindfold you,’ said Millie. ‘You can’t come in without blindfolds.’
‘Oh,’ said the headmaster. ‘Is that going to be entirely safe?’
‘Don’t you trust us?’
‘Of course, Millie. But if we’re climbing ladders . . .’
‘You’re not a prisoner or anything,’ said Anjoli. ‘And you’ll each have a guide.’
Doctor Ellie nodded grimly. ‘It’s entirely sensible. I’m sure the tribe would have been cautious about those who strayed in from outside. The instincts are kicking in, you see.’
‘We’re going quite high,’ said Millie. ‘So don’t make any sudden moves.’
‘Lead on, my dear,’ said Captain Routon. ‘We’ll be careful.’
Minutes later, the adults moved cautiously into the camp, aware that there was a hush all around them. Not a foot stirred. An occasional bird chirped, but there wasn’t a hammer or saw to be heard, and nobody was talking. They could smell the resin of wood and smoke from bonfires. Seconds later, the headmaster found his hands on the uprights of a crudely made ladder.
‘You all right, sir?’ said a voice in his ear.
‘Yes, thank you, Israel. Perfectly.’
‘Okay, miss?’
‘Right as rain. Is that Nikko?’
‘Yes. Just feel with your feet. And don’t be scared.’
‘It’s sixty-eight steps,’ said someone. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘We’re all fine,’ said Professor Worthington. ‘I just hope these knots have been checked. If I do have an accident, I’m going to be looking for the culprit. Assuming I survive, that is. How high are we going?’
Vijay climbed first, and soon the ladder up to Tree House One was thick with children, gently guiding the adults. The ladders twisted and turned and bent back on themselves in complicated elbows. A breeze was soon rustling the leaves and swaying the branches. Gentle hands steered, and when the orphans spoke, it was softly, in their own language.
At last they felt a solid floor under their feet and they were aware that it was moving.
‘All right, Doctor Ellie?’
‘Splendid, thank you. Are we there, at last?’
‘Yes,’ said Sanjay. ‘First platform.’
The blindfolds were rem
oved, but the adults kept their eyes tight shut. The headmaster had his hands over his face.
‘Can we look?’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling this is going to be wonderful.’
‘Oh my goodness,’ whispered Doctor Ellie.
‘What?’
She had opened her eyes.
She stepped back into the guiding arms of Asilah and Imagio. The headmaster blinked and he too nearly fell forward – there were hands to steady him. Captain Routon uttered a groan and Professor Worthington gasped. The headmaster was immediately dizzy and grabbed at a supporting beam, sure that he was falling. They were way too high – it was like being up in a balloon at the top of the world. There were walls to the tree house, but they were woven like a bird’s nest and had wide windows. Through the windows he could see the tops of the trees, undulating on all sides in golden sunlight. Above the trees he could see a sky that was turning to rich purple, with the first peppering of stars.
There was a staircase up to an even higher platform. It had handrails and the children led the teachers up again. It was like a veranda, floating on two massive branches, rearing high over the forest. In the distance they could see the school, a blush of pink beside the lake.
The tree houses were huge. Other platforms floated in the trees nearby and there were bridges so carefully made they looked like extensions of the trees themselves.
Everything was shifting slightly and whispering, as timbers rubbed against timbers. There was an allowance for movement – nothing was straining, for the wood moved with the trees.
‘We thought the lower room could be the main teaching area,’ said Imagio. He was perched on a branch, the other side of the handrail. ‘If you wanted to . . . you know, do a lesson or something.’
‘This is a boys’ dormitory too,’ said Sam. ‘Millie’s got her own platform a bit lower.’