Fight for freedom

Chapter three

To El Diablo

So there we were, seven teenagers, four boys and three girls, stuck with each other in a Land Rover for two hours. For some peculiar reason, everyone seemed to be terribly afraid when I said I was driving, but Kellyn and I had worries of our own. Like putting Ben and Keith in the back, just behind Kate.

The Land Rover was, in a word, cramped. Solana was driving and had nearly driven them off the road at least four times in the last ten minutes. Kellyn was in the passenger seat, looking out the window seeming a mixture of irritated and just plain bored. In the middle were Summer and Lunick on either end and Kate, with her arms folded and spiky pigtails jiggling, in the middle. In the very back were Keith and Ben, a big mistake allowing them to go together. Keith was drinking nosily out of a plastic cup with a straw, leaning over Kate's shoulder and bugging her.

"You okay?" Keith asked. Kate nodded, although everyone could tell Solana's driving was making her sick.

"You're looking a bit pale" Keith commented. The Land Rover went over a particularly rocky bit of the road "Whoa!"

"Keith will you quit it with the drinking noises already!" Solana complained "Trying to concentrate here!"

"Yeah Keith!" Summer agreed, turning to face the irritating male ginger "It's really off-putting!"

"And we'd like it if Solana didn't manage to crash the car, if that's okay with you" Lunick folded his arms. Keith though ignored them and began sucking the lemonade out of the cup as noisily as possible. Kate covered her mouth.

"You know Katherine," Keith smiled mischievously "You look like your gonna-" Here he started making vomiting noises. Kate tried to ignore him "It's stuck in the back of your throat isn't it? Trying to swallow it all down."

"Knock it off Keith!" Kellyn protested. Keith ignored him and continued making vomiting noises. Finally Kate couldn't take it anymore. She leant over Lunick out the window and was sick. Ben and Keith hi-fived each other.

"Nice one Keith!" Ben cheered from the back. Lunick looked majorly crept out and Summer gave a shake of her head that plainly said: 'It's normal'. Solana rolled her eyes. Okay, it was kinda funny, but she needed all her powers of concentration right now. She was about to turn back in her seat and yell at Keith to pack it in when Summer cried:

"Tree!" Solana quickly swerved to the left to avoid the leafy perpetrator.

"Are we almost there yet?" Kellyn asked, also rolling his green eyes.

"Nearly, about five more minutes" Solana answered. Kellyn snorted.

"Well won't we be glad when that time comes."


True to her word, Solana parked the car in the empty dirt car park on top of the headland at the point. It provided a great view of the bush in all directions and Keith immediately went to the edge of the cliff to inspect the scenery. Ben, Lunick and Kellyn immediately set about unloading everyone's bags. Summer and Solana were far too occupied to help out, they were busy going through Kate's things.

"How much stuff do you need?" Summer asked, taking something out of the blonde's enormous rucksack "What's this?"

"Well it's pink" Solana commented, opening what she could only presume was a pencil case "Wait a minute." She looked at Kate and showed her it "Makeup?"

"What, all of it?" Summer raised an eyebrow. Kate snatched the huge makeup bag from Solana.

"You never know who you could meet!" she snorted.

"Yeah, I'm sure you can charm all the spiders and snakes away with it" Solana teased. Summer then burst out laughing, holding up a pair of white fluffy slippers. Kate snatched those off them too.

"Hey guys! Look!" Keith was standing on a big rock on the edge of the point "You can see Cobbler's Bay from here!" To the North West was a V-shaped valley of nothing but green except from the river cutting through it. Beyond that was an enormous a beautiful blue bay stretching out to see in a clear semi-circle shape. A little way up the river was a big metal bridge: the Heron Bridge which connected the bay to the rest of Australia, including their home "You can even see the Heron Bridge! And the port!"

"How far do you recon we've come?" Ben asked.

"Oh, that was the easy part short-stuff" Summer smiled, looping an arm over his shoulder "From now on, we walk!"


They'd been walking for over two hours when they reached the small cliff. A five metre drop straight down. It the side was a narrow slit with a ledge where you could climb down. Solana and Summer were already down and helping Kate to slide down the smooth rock. Keith was down at the base too, catching the bags that Kellyn impaled down towards him.

"Hey! Don't throw them so hard!" Keith protested as he caught Ben's bag that almost dragged him down to the ground and pulled his arms out of their sockets.

"Oh stop moaning!" Kellyn snorted "Ready?"

"Okay, on three" Keith nodded "One, t..." Kellyn chucked Lunick's bag down and Keith just managed to catch it.

"I said on three!" Keith complained.

"Mind yourself Sunshine!" Kellyn teased, almost insensitively.

"Give it a decent throw Sweetheart!" Keith shot back, though secretly he didn't want Kellyn to throw any harder. That guy was downright dangerous when he was smiling like that!

"Oh yeah?" Kellyn picked up Kate's bag "Well try this on for size!" He chucked it down as hard as possible, and this time Keith really did end up grovelling in the dirt. Summer and Solana burst out laughing.

"Watch your mouth Keith!" Solana laughed.

"Yeah, you may need it later kiddo!" Summer laughed.

Just as Kate moved out of the way of the 'path' though, Lunick came down. Quite bored, he felt like doing some minor showing off and leapt down onto the ledge hands-free. He then planted his hands on either side of the rock and swung down, landing on the ground comfortably and walking out of the way. Solana couldn't help but be impressed. Ben, who had been passing the bags at the top to Kellyn for him to throw down to Keith, then attempted to do the same thing, but Ben can't do minor showing off. He reached the ground, but as he did his right foot slipped on a wet root and he was sent flying into the bushes.

"Er...come on, let's go" said Solana hastily just before Ben called:

"I meant to do that!"


The young explorers walked on through the bush wilderness. Keith was in front, using two enormous sticks that could qualify as either bamboo or entire braches of trees as walking sticks.

"Do you have any idea where we're going Keith?" Ben called from the back unhelpfully. Summer elbowed him.

"Sure I do!" Keith called back, stamping one of his walking sticks into the mud so hard he couldn't remove it again so was forced to abandon it "There's a clearing up ahead." He was surprisingly right. A waterfall-fed pool more than a clearing with a sandy, cave-like arena underneath. A small outcrop of rock at the top of the cliff made a path into it. There were smooth rocks around and in the pool that the girls immediately sat on.

"Ah! Water!" Keith dumped his stuff and ran into the water. Sweaty but still fully dressed, he removed his cap and stood under part of the waterfall, allowing the water to cool him down. Kellyn walked down to the water and splashed his face. Lunick, Solana and Kate removed their socks and shoes and sat with their feet cooling off in the water.

"This is very pretty for 'The Devil'" Kate commented.

"I wonder how long it's been since anyone's been down here" Solana wondered, splashing her face with water also.

"I wonder if anyone's been down here before" Lunick sighed, standing up and walking over to his bag.

"Why would anyone else have bothered?" Summer asked, watching Keith make a fool of himself in the waterfall.

"Maybe we're the first ones to see it" Ben suggested, whipping out his phone from his pocket and preparing to take a picture. Summer turned around and smiled for him as took it.

"Ah" she said, looking at the phone "No reception."

"Whoooo! Paradise!" Keith called in glee from under the waterfall. He was letting the water fall into his open mouth now.

"Well, what did you expect, broadband?" Solana teased.

"Couldn't have hurt" Ben shrugged, slipping the phone into his bag's side pocket.

"Oh, hey!" Keith started to walk out of the pool, looking at Lunick "You. Whatcha-name. Go get some firewood would ya?"

"His name is Lunick" Solana shot back, suddenly feeling defensive. He splashed some more water on her face to try and calm herself down. All he achieved was getting her hair wet. Lunick sighed and headed off into the trees.

"I'll come with you" Summer offered, going with him.

"Umm...Solana?" Kate asked.

"Yeah?" Solana looked at her.

"What's for dinner?" she asked.

"Ah, speaking of dinner" Solana smiled, getting up and walking over to her bag. She held up dinner "Two Minute Noodles."

"Cool" Kate mindlessly nodded "What are they?"

"You've never heard of Two Minute Noodles?" Solana asked, handing her a second packet to look at.

"No" Kate shook her head "Mum's more into the healthier stuff." She started looking at the ingredients on the back.

"There's that awesome feeling that you're going to change someone's life forever" Keith smiled, drying his hair with a towel.

"I think all our lives have been changed" Ben explained, hiding something behind his back "Which is why we need a celebration." He threw the packet she had been hiding at Solana. The teal-haired girl smiled. Marshmallows.


The seven sat in a circle around the campfire, roasting their marshmallows on sticks. Neither Kate or Kellyn had ever had marshmallows before but now everyone, even Kellyn and Lunick, was starting to have fun. Ben and Summer were sitting close together, Summer leaning on her boyfriend. Kellyn was sitting alone, but now and again talking to Lunick. Kate and Summer were having a conversation whilst Keith seemed to be making a deal about something with Ben.

"You haven't got 2000 dollars!" Keith complained about something. Solana had just finished talking to Lunick about the previous dinner when she looked over at Summer. She raised both her eyebrows at her and then looked quickly at Lunick. Solana shook her head in annoyance and plucked her marshmallow off her stick.

'If this is The Devil,' she thought 'I'd love to see The Angel.'