Survival

TWELVE

Hex was a natural loner.

Normally, he liked nothing better than being on his own. Three hours earlier, when the other four had left him on the beach, he had been glad to see them go. Now, he was uneasy. For the past thirty minutes, he had been unable to shake off the growing feeling that something was watching him.

Stalking him.

Hex shrugged and made himself turn away from the rainforest to scan the sea for any sign of rescuers. Immediately, the skin between his shoulder blades prickled and the muscles of his back tightened in protest. With a curse, he swung round again, checking the beach. There was nothing there. A branch cracked in the dark forest beyond the beach and he jumped. 'Hello?' he called. 'Alex? Li?'

The only reply was from a startled bird. Hex stared into the bushes, wondering whether he ought to go and investigate. The skin prickled on the back of his neck and he decided he did not want to go any closer.

Earlier in the morning he had been happy to work steadily along the fringe of the rainforest for over an hour, collecting more wood for the signal fire and building a second pile nearby for their campfire. Then, after a short break and a few sips of water from his lemonade can, he had picked up the broken paddle end of the oar and gone hunting for sand crabs.

He knew where to find them. He had spotted them earlier, at dawn, scurrying out of the water and up the sloping sand to their burrows at the top of the beach. Back then there had been other priorities, such as salvaging what could be dragged from the surf, but he had memorized the position of their burrows for later.

Now, Hex looked over at the locker doors in the stern section of the boat and smiled. There were four big sand crabs skittering about inside those lockers, the result of twenty minutes of hard digging with the paddle. His smile broadened as he imagined the faces of the others when he showed them his catch, then faded again as he looked at his watch.

The three hours were up.

Where were they?

Suddenly, Alex and Paulo burst from the undergrowth to his right and ran full-pelt along the beach towards him. Hex hurried to meet them.

'I think there's something in there!' he shouted, pointing to the rainforest.

'We know,' panted Alex, coming to a halt and easing the heavy rucksack from his shoulder. 'We nearly met it.'

'Where are the girls?' asked Paulo.

'They're not back yet,' said Hex.

Paulo's face tightened with worry. 'I knew I should have gone with them,' he said.

Just then, a faint yell came from the western end of the beach. The boys turned to see Li and Amber running across the soft sand towards them. Their fear was obvious, even though they were still some distance away. They kept looking over their shoulders as though they were being chased, but there was nothing behind them.

'Thank God,' said Paulo. 'They are safe.'

They met at the signal fire. Amber's face was grey with fear and exhaustion. She collapsed onto the sand, too out of breath to speak. Li bent and rested her hands on her knees. 'There's… something…' she began.

'In the rainforest,' finished Paulo. 'We know.'

Half an hour later, they were all a lot calmer. The campfire was lit, the boiled water was cooling and the sand crabs were nearly ready.

'So,' said Li, settling back with her second lemonade can full of water, 'we know there are at least three of them.'

'Yeah, but three what?' asked Amber.

'Monkeys?' guessed Paulo.

'Monkeys wouldn't kill a deer, would they?' said Alex, leaning forward to poke a stray stick back into the fire.

'The creatures we heard, they sounded big. Like – like tigers, or something,' said Amber, looking over her shoulder towards the headland.

'Yeah, right. Tigers,' mocked Hex, forgetting how spooked he had been on his own, now that everyone was back at the beach. 'Or maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex?'

'Well, excuse me!' flared Amber. 'Brave words from a guy who was scared of a few bushes!'

Hex glowered at Amber, but she ignored him. She was too busy watching Paulo as he prepared the cooked crabs, breaking open the shells with a stone and scraping the meat out.

'Aren't you done yet?' she demanded. 'I need to eat now.'

Paulo frowned and looked up at Amber. He was about to invite her to take over, but relented when he saw her grey, sweaty face. She did not look at all good. 'Nearly there,' he said instead as he mixed the crab meat with the remains of the cooked rice to make it go further. 'Just waiting for the yams to finish cooking.'

Li was still deep in thought. 'It can't be tigers,' she said, taking Amber's suggestion seriously. 'Not on an island this small. I don't think it could sustain them. It could be wild pigs, though. They can be pretty fearsome.'

'Well, whatever they are,' said Alex, shifting the storage tin away from the fire and flipping the lid open, 'they could do us some serious damage. So we need to take some safety precautions.'

He used his knife to hook the peeled yams from the boiling water and laid them out on a large stone. 'One. Nobody goes into the forest alone. Two, we dig a proper latrine a good way from the camp. And three, we set watches through the night.'

Alex looked over at Amber to see whether she would argue with that, but she was too busy rummaging through her belt pouch. He looked at the other three and they all nodded in agreement. Satisfied, Alex mashed the yams with a smaller stone, then began serving them out onto the five banana-leaf plates, next to Paulo's crab and rice mixture.

'It looks good!' said Li.

'Don't sound so surprised,' grinned Alex. 'Let's eat.'

'It looks like Amber's already started,' grated Hex, with a voice as hard as stone.

'What?' mumbled Amber, giving Hex a startled glance.

'She just took something out of her belt pouch and stuffed it in her mouth.'

'I did not!' protested Amber.

Hex did not bother to reply. Instead, he grabbed Amber's wrist and squeezed until she whimpered with pain and let her hand fall open. Half a tube of glucose energy sweets fell from her fingers onto the sand. There was a silence as they all stared at the sweets then looked up at Amber.

'How could you?' asked Li, quietly. 'How could you keep those to yourself?'

'You don't get it,' whispered Amber, her eyes big with tears.

'What else is in there?' said Hex, pointing to Amber's belt pouch.

'Nothing. No more food. Just girl stuff,' said Amber, putting a protective hand over the pouch.

Hex lunged for the pouch and yanked hard, trying to pull it away from the belt.

'Wait! Wait!' shrieked Amber. 'You might break them!'

'Show us, then,' said Hex. He stood over Amber, his fists clenched and his face full of anger. She hesitated, looking to the others for help.

'We're waiting,' said Alex, icily.

Slowly, Amber pulled out the remaining contents of the pouch. There was a little metal box with a digital display on the front, a handful of foil-wrapped antiseptic wipes, a clear plastic tube containing a bunch of thin plastic strips and three brightly coloured, chunky plastic pens. Li, Paulo and Hex stared down at the little collection of items with puzzled looks on their faces.

'See?' said Amber. 'No more food.'

She began to shovel everything back into her pouch but Alex gently laid his hand over hers and she stopped. 'Why didn't you tell us?' he asked.

'Tell us what?' demanded Li. 'That she has a thing about chunky pens?'

Alex waited for Amber to say something but she stayed silent with her head down. 'They aren't pens,' he sighed, after a few seconds. 'At least, not the sort you mean. Those two are insulin pens, and the third one is part of a blood sugar testing kit, along with that little box and the plastic strips.'

'Insulin pens?' said Li.

'For injecting insulin,' explained Alex. 'Amber is a diabetic'

There was a shocked silence as they took in this new information. Amber finished repacking her belt pouch, then looked at the others defiantly, blinking the tears from her eyes.

'But that is nothing to be ashamed of,' said Paulo.

'I'm not ashamed!' said Amber. 'I was hiding it because I didn't want anyone treating me differently, like I was an invalid or something. I'm not. I was doing fine on the Phoenix , but since we've been on the island I've been struggling a bit.'

'Are you running short of insulin?' asked Li.

'Oh no, it's not the insulin. These two pens hold enough insulin to last me another month. The problem is, if I miss meals, or use more energy than usual, I can end up having a hypo. Because of low blood sugar, see? I get all sweaty and tired and irritable to start with. Then, if my blood sugar keeps going down, I pass out and – well – worst case scenario? I don't live to tell the tale.'

The other four looked at one another, feeling vaguely ashamed of themselves.

'Sorry,' said Paulo.

'What for?' asked Amber.

'All that snappy behaviour – and demanding to be fed,' said Li. 'We thought you were just-'

'Spoilt? Selfish?' Amber grinned. 'I am! I'm a spoilt, selfish diabetic! Now gimme some food!'

Alex, Li and Paulo burst out laughing. Hex did not join in. Instead, he got to his feet and handed one of the banana-leaf plates to Amber. Then he picked up his own food and scraped half of it onto Amber's plate. Startled, she looked up into his face. Hex met her eyes, nodded once, then sat back down, scowling fiercely. Amber swallowed, but the lump in her throat would not go away.

'Don't worry, Amber,' said Li. 'We'll be rescued within a month, you'll see.'

'Yeah, course we will,' said Amber, through a mouthful of crab.

And there's plenty of food here,' said Alex. 'You'll be fine. We'll make sure of it.'

'I know,' nodded Amber, but her gaze was turned towards the empty sea.

'Good,' said Alex, into the awkward silence. 'As long as you know. Eat up, everyone – and don't hang about. This afternoon we're going to build ourselves a camp.'