Elena grinned wickedly at her friend Sara, before closing her eyes, tipping her head back and dropping a squirming bug into her mouth. She grimaced, before swallowing and looking back at her friend.
"Yuck! No way! I am not eating that thing!" Sara shrieked watching as Elena ate another handful of bugs.
"More for me then," Elena laughed as she saw her friends face.
Eventually, hunger got the better of Sara and she grudgingly took a few bugs.
"This doesn't leave the camp, ok?" she said protectively.
"Don't fret; your secrets are safe with me. Anyway, all the black shirts have to do this; I imagine Lauren and Bethany are struggling too."
"What, Lauren Adams?"
"Yeah."
"Aw, she's tough; she'll eat anything."
Elena giggled and stood up, looking around.
"We should probably build camp."
Sara nodded and studied the surroundings to find a good spot.
It was Sara's fourth year at CHERUB, a secret organisation that trained children to go undercover where adults couldn't go. Over a range of missions, Sara and Elena had earned their black shirts; the ultimate award to pupils who had over achieved in a number of missions.
They were standing in the middle of a forest. They had no idea where they were, and had only been instructed to set camp and wait overnight before being dropped off in the middle of the sea of leaves. Although everyone on the training mission had passed basic training, Zara – the head of CHERUB – thought that some of the black shirts were getting cocky and slack so they were undergoing a series of challenges to bring them back up to shape. It started with a one on one interrogation from McEwen, the basic trainer organiser who put them through their paces as he spent the whole night pushing them through physical exercise, torment and pain. Then they were locked in an old army base in groups and told to get back to the CHERUB campus before the night was up. The last challenge was being left in the middle of nowhere and following instructions to get home. The cherubs were paired off and dropped at different points in the forest.
"Here would be good," Elena called over to Sara, pointing at a bunch of trees.
Sara walked over, cross examining the spot Elena had picked. There were two, sturdy trees, about a metre apart with no overhanging branches and no risk of falling foliage in the night. Sara nodded and, with years of experience they set to work on their shelter with not even a murmur of what they
needed to do. Together, they cleared the undergrowth from beneath, put a forked branch between the two trees, and leaned more branches, sticks, twigs and finally, leaves. An hour later, the girls stood back to admire their hard work. It was pretty secure and felt dry. But they weren't finished yet. They knotted vines, stalks and pieces of rope together to make a sort of mat, which they tied round the trees to make makeshift hammocks, which kept them off the ground. Next, they collect fire wood, and piled it next to a cleared space on the forest floor. They carefully arranged the kindling and lit a fire with a flint and steel, slowly feeding twigs, then sticks and finally logs onto the crackling flames.
Both girls squinted into the fringes of the forest, searching for food. They found a few branches of brightly coloured fruit, but didn't want to risk eating it , as they weren't a hundred percent sure what it was. Finally they had to settle on the bugs they had eaten for a quick snack earlier, so they collected together a few handfuls of the bugs they found scuttling on tree trunks and tried toasting them.
Overall, the bugs tasted better toasted, but it left a stinging aftertaste and although the bugs provided a good snack, they were not very substantial, and the girls' felt that something more was needed.
They had a small fight about finding food, with Elena saying that they were hungry and they would be better off with a full stomach, and Sara saying that they would just get lost or eat something that was poisonous. In the end, it was agreed that Elena would go out in a ten metre radius looking for food, while Sara stayed by the fire, shouting out for Elena every three minutes. Elena would reply or not reply if she was in trouble. If there was no reply, Sara would go out and help Elena.
Elena pushed her way into through the undergrowth. It was a classic forest, with tall dark pine trees, thick bushes and singing birds. The first source of food she found was a blackberry bush. They were unripe – it was early September - with just a tinge of red, but both the girls were hungry and anything would do. Elena also found a bush of rose hips, and remembering rose hip tea they had had on basic training she picked a few handfuls. When she got back to the camp, where Sara was sitting and waiting, she had blackberries, rosehips and a few sloe berries she had found.
Sara looked at her meagre food critically.
"What?" demanded Elena; "we would have nothing if it wasn't for me."
"Was that all you could find?"
"Yes" replied Elena, hurt that her best efforts were being put down.
Sara raised her eyebrows but did not pursue the problem. Instead she pushed a few more branches onto the fire and laid out the few berries Elena had collected. After splitting them into two piles, she slipped one pile of berries down her throat and waited for Elena do to the same. Then she stood up;
"Let's go find some real food."
The next half hour was a rush around the forest, Sara picking her way through berries, nuts and mushrooms.
"Are you sure these are edible?" Elena asked after Sara picked up a particularly deadly looking mushroom.
"Of course I'm sure. Look;"Sara tugged at her black CHERUB t-shirt and popped a mushroom into her mouth.
They also stumbled across a stream, so they washed off a layer of mud and collected some water to boil. Soon they had three pocketfuls of food and two bottles of relatively clean water. Elena turned to go back to camp, before pausing, choosing a different route, stepping back staring at the crossroads made through the trees looking up and down starting down one path before eventually ending back by Sara
"Where on earth is it?"
"Oh god. Is this a joke?"
"Let's try this way."
Elena led the way through the forest, looking confident. They had walked for about ten minutes when a quiet shout could be heard through the foliage. Elena turned to Sara who nodded, and then they both rushed off in the direction of the noise. When they finally stumbled out into a small clearing, they saw Lauran Adams and her best friend Bethany Parker sitting around a fire cawing with laughter. Their smiles were polished off their faces when they saw Elena and Sara standing there. A mixture of disbelief, guilt, jealousness and pleasure swept across their expressions in a fraction of a second. It was Bethany who spoke first.
"What on earth are you doing here?"
Elena and Sara looked at each other and burst out laughing. It took a good few minutes before it had died away and the girls' were in a condition to talk.
"We were looking for some food. Then we got lost."
"OK..." Lauran said slowly. "Maybe..."
"What?" demanded Bethany, used to Lauren's frequent crazy ideas.
"Well, if you found us...then there must be the others in this forest"
"The instructors told us to stay put until they came for us. We shouldn't leave," replied Elena.
Lauren glared at her. Lauren and Elena had always been in competition since the day Elena arrived at campus. Elena settled in quickly, making lots of friends and outshining everyone in her charms, brains and sports skills. She had a mission in her first two months, and earned her navy t-shirt – the second best prize anyone could receive at CHERUB after her first mission. Her black t-shirt – the best reward anyone could get – followed soon, and she was chosen over Lauren for a mission by Zara. Things were always going to be rough between them since Lauren had been the best agent of her age by a long time before Elena joined, but it wasn't helped that James was caught kissing Elena in Lauren's room.
The relationship between the two girls was universally known on campus as 'Beauty and the bitch'; Elena and her pretty looks earned her 'Beauty' and Lauren's well known bossiness earned her 'bitch.'
This only made Lauren angrier.
"Yeah, suck up to the instructors why don't you." Lauren muttered angrily under her breath staring at her feet.
"Why don't we wait a few hours before we try and find the others," Sara said quickly, sensing an argument brewing.
"Yes! What a good idea!" Bethany nodded over enthusiastically.
"Whatever," snarled Lauren.
It was dusk, before the girls really began to worry. The instructors had told them only to wait 'one day' and it was almost three days. Instead of going to see if they could find the others, they decided to wait till the morning. Finally, after a pitiful supper of some leftover fruit, the girls settled down for a long night.
Bethany was woken with a start. The tall pines loomed in intimidating patterns, and the moon shone little night into the clearing. Just as she closed her eyes to attempt to sleep again, the sound that woke her came again. Someone was retching. Bethany sat bold up right immediately. Following the sound, she found Sara curled up in a ball ten metres away from camp. She was trying to puke, but with no food came out. A disgusting smell filled the air, and Bethany recoiled as her foot sank into a warm, soft substance. Diarrhoea. She quickly ran to wake the others. Lauren looked dubious at the sudden outburst, but Elena jumped up and rushed over to Sara's side. All the girls had taken courses in first aid, but Elena had made sure she had a full first aid repertoire after both her parents died when diagnosed incorrectly for cancer. Elena knelt down.
"Sara?" she whispered softly. "Sara, you're all right, we're going to bring you over here, get you nice and warm and get you to sleep." Elena turned to the others; "help me lift her."
Together the three girls half dragged, half carried Sara to a place under the makeshift shelter and next to glowing embers. Lauren, now fully awake and aware of the situation, stoked up the fire until it began transforming into a crackling fire. Bethany boiled some water and stirred some mint leaves in to make a hot drink. All that time, Elena stayed by Sara's side, gently chatting to her.
Half an hour later, when Sara was finally asleep, the three girls had a hushed conversation over the fire.
"What do you think it is?" Bethany asked.
"I have no idea," shrugged Elena.
"You didn't eat anything when yesterday?" Lauren said.
"Only the usual stuff; nuts, berries...Oh my god! The mushroom!"
"What mushroom?" chorused Bethany and Lauren.
"We were walking, about an hour before we found you. Trying to find food. Sara picked up mushroom, and I asked her whether it was actually edible. She insisted it was, telling me she was a black shirt – she would know. I half believed her, but didn't eat it myself."
"What did the mushroom look like?"
"A normal milky white mushroom."
"Nothing else?"
"I wasn't really paying attention."
"Well then we should really get some sleep."
The sun was high in the sky before the girls' considered waking Sara. Lauren thought they should try and find the other black shirts, where as Elena thought they should stay and wait before Sara was fully better. Eventually, they agreed to wake her.
"Sara?" Whispered Elena, gently shaking her best friend. "Sara. Sara! SARA. SARA!"
Despite her best efforts, Elena could not wake Sara. Lauren and Bethany took turns trying. Elena took Sara's pulse. Her face turned from knitted concentration, to great sincerity.
"What?"Bethany whispered, almost scared to hear the answer.
"Coma." Elena stood up, turning away. "Coma."