School Camp #1
I'm not so happy with this one, but oh well... tell me what you think! :) (This one's a two-parter!)
Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider
Seriously? Alex thought grumpily as he trudged through the trees behind his exhausted classmates, what is it with teachers and strange, extreme excursions? First we went shooting, then to the most boring museum on the planet, and now we've been dumped who knows where for a 'survival course'. Ok, so I know what I'm doing and it really isn't that bad, if a bit irritating, but the rest of them… He surveyed the rest of this 'red teammates' – the year level had been split into groups of seven, colour-coded, of course – who looked about ready to drop and were complaining loudly. At the front, Jake and Alice were fighting fiercely over the map, and Gene was trying (valiantly but futilely) to mediate. Finally, after another hour or so of trying and failing to drop subtle directive hints, Alex lost his patience.
"Enough," he said, leaving his place at the back of the group and marching crossly to the front where his irritation was further fuelled by the fact that Gene, who was now in possession of the map, was holding said sheet upside-down. "Firstly, Gene, wrong way up. Secondly, if you'd remembered to bring the instructions" he pulled said offending document from his pocket, "you'd remember that we actually don't need to be hiking to China; our first objective was to light a fire. Then we have to make containers and find a water supply to fill them up. So," he looked around at his gobsmacked teammates and sighed, knowing there was no way to back out of being the leader now that he'd taken the position, "how about we start looking for some sticks and stuff to make a fire?"
Glad for a concrete plan, the rest of the group split up almost immediately gathering up everything they could (which, admittedly, wasn't much) and dropping it unceremoniously in a pile close to where Alex was knelt. He deftly arranged the sticks into a pyramid and lit the small fire with the matches he always carried in his pocket, smiling slightly as he remembered pinching some off the fierce Sargent during his 'training' at Brecon Beacons SAS camp.
"Where on earth did you get matches from Alex?" Gene asked amazedly. Alex sighed (yet again) and turned to look up at her. She was the only one who hadn't gone to collect wood (actually she had, but had been quickly sent back by her teammates due to her excessive clumsiness), instead lingering around Alex in the perpetual state of hero-worship to which he was, unfortunately, quickly becoming accustomed.
"I brought them with me, Gene." He tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice, but was only partially successful.
"Oh." He turned back to the fire to ensure that it stayed alight, thinking she would leave him alone, but was quickly disappointed. "But how are they supposed to know that we've made a fire? I mean, it's not like they're here to show, is it? Or are they here, watching us?" On this last she began to look into the trees suspiciously, and Alex bit back a laugh.
"No Gene, they're not watching us. We take a photo with all of us in it, to show them when we get back."
"Oh, ok." Once the photo was taken, courtesy of Jane and her ever-present phone, the group put out the now dwindling fire and made their way to the near-by stream which could be head gurgling through the forest. When they reached it, however, they were disappointed to find that it had carved its way deep into a small, very narrow ravine for quite a way both up and downstream, meaning that, unless they cared to trudge a further few hours, the water was impossible to collect.
"Well, that's it then" Brent said, slumping to the ground in defeat, "even if we could miraculously find something to make a container out of, there's no way in hell we can actually get the water."
"Don't be such a pessimist" Jake admonished lightly cuffing him around the head, "There's plenty of things to make containers out of… right Alex?" Alex turned from his scrutiny of the small ravine and nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah, see those leaves over there?" he pointed to a small tree that had very wide leaves adorning its small frame, "Well if you fold it like a triangular origami box, making sure not to break it, it will hold water pretty well. There's oil in the leaves that will effectively seal the container if it's tight enough."
"Ooh, I know what you mean!" Alice said, catching on, "I'm in the origami club, so is James; we can make the containers!" Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed a slightly bewildered James' arm and hauled him over to the tree. Jake leaned in to ask Alex,
"We have an origami club?"
"Apparently" he replied absently, turning back to the ravine.
"But we still can't get to the water!" whined Brent, who was really starting to fray already taught nerves.
"Yes, actually, we can" snapped Alex, finally starting to lose his temper.
"How?"
"Like this." Alex walked over to a small sapling, broke off a sturdy-looking branch and placed it carefully across the small space where the stream ran between two large boulders. He then sat on the edge, leaned down and, grabbing the stick, swung down so that he was hanging vertically down into the ravine from the wedged branch. From there it was only a small drop to the muddy ground where he landed in a careful crouch.
"Pass me down a container!" he called up to his gobsmacked group who were by this time all peering down at him amazedly, though he failed to see exactly what was so incredible about his actions (honestly forgetting that most teenagers were not so able to pull off such highly-skilled parkour moves as effortlessly as he just had). Once he had collected two containers' worth and passed them carefully back up to be photographed, he pressed his back to one boulder and his feet to the other, shimmying his way back up to where Jake's arms were waiting to pull him the rest of the way.
Studiously ignoring the adoring stares of Gene, he pulled out their instructions to see, surprisingly, only one more on the list: return to camp by sundown. He sighed, glancing up at the sun and seeing that they had roughly two hours to back-track their winding path and find the school's 'base-camp'.
"C'mon, we've got to get back by sundown" he said, showing them the list, and started off through the trees, having thankfully marked their path with crosses carved into trees (partially out of boredom, he had to admit), thinking that at least Gene's pestering questions – 'where did you learn that?', 'That was amazing!', – and the rest of the team's quiet chatter was better than the constant bickering that had marked their previous journey.
Thank you to all my lovely reviewers, comments are very much appreciated! :)