Chapter11
After a few minutes, Sam spotted a flattish area of ground, sheltered by a few rocks and thicker trees. The stream also ran near and my owl eyes saw that the water was pretty clear - so we'd be able to have something clean to drink. We soared through the trees, landed under the rock, and demorphed.
"Well that was rather pointless," said Philip, picking up branches and stones and clearing a spot for us. "We could have just walked."
"Yeah, well, it would have taken longer on foot and with human eyesight," I pointed out.
"Where are we, anyway?" asked Maggie.
"Considering our direction and the length of time taken to get here, probably somewhere in Wales. Still a while from civilisation though, and a long way from Cardiff."
"I think one of us should stand guard at all times whilst the others sleep. Morph deer or wolf to keep a look out," said Sam, here eyes peering through the trees.
"A 'stag' rota," nodded Philip. "Take it in turns - two hours at a time"
"That should give us a good eight hours sleep in all," said Sam. "Six hours each. We'll set off again in the morning, when it's lighter."
"Morph to stag - to be on stag!" I laughed.
"That was an awful joke, Flawless," said Philip, raising an eyebrow.
"That was a brilliant joke!"
"That was an awful joke, Flawless," he insisted. He looked at Sam. "Maybe it would actually be a better idea to carry on now, rather than sleeping," said Philip. "We've got a while to go yet, and it would be safer to travel at night, under the cover of darkness."
Sam shook her head. "We're all too tired. We need to rest. We've been on the go since early this morning - and we didn't get much sleep last night. Not to mention yesterday and the day before, when we were still on board the spaceship!"
She looked round at our sad little group. "Who wants to be on stag first?"
"I'll go," I said.
Sam peered at me. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I thought you wanted some sleep."
"You guys look worse," I laughed. "Besides, I've woken up a bit now. I was only tired because of the repeated morphing and demorphing. You guys snuggle down."
"Ok, sure. Philip - you next, then Maggie, and I'll do the last shift and wake everyone up." She paused, as if something had occurred to her.
"How are we going to tell the time?" she wondered. "We can't stay in morph over two hours, as we'll get stuck."
"You can tell them time using the stars," said Philip, switching to Survivor mode. "Like using a sundial. If you move out of the trees a bit so you can see the stars, you can use the Plough and the Northern star to help tell you the time."
"I've heard about that!" said Maggie. "My parents would sometimes use it on their travels. Thank goodness it's not cloudy!"
"How accurate is it?" asked Sam
"You can tell the time to the hour, but with practise, you can be more precise."
"How do you do it?"
"Well, first you have to find the North Star. You can do this by looking for the Plough. It's that set of seven stars just to the north of us. Those two stars on the right hand sight form a line, and if you carry on that imaginary line, it takes you to the North star."
"Oh, I see it!" said Sam. She was having better luck than I was.
"Philip," I said, "there's about twenty stars making a line. How can you tell which one it is!"
"It's the first one you come to if you stretch the imaginary line about five times out into the sky."
Eventually I spotted it. God knows how I would find it again.
"That line acts as the hand of a kind of twenty-four hour clock. The North Star stays fairly constant, but the plough moves round it. You just determine what angle the imaginary line is in relation to the North Star. Think of the circle like a normal, twelve hour clock. Work out what time it shows - and then double that number. That will give you the time in twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, because of seasons, that also changes things. At the beginning of March, the clock faces upwards - like normal. But for every month, the clock rotates in the sky - the equivalent of two hours on a 24 hour clock. As it is now nearly September, the clock will be twelve hours later than a normal clock."
"So, it would be upside down? How very confusing!" asked Sam. She was obviously picking this up better than I was.
"Precisely. The last time we knew the time it was about eight o clock. We've done two full-time flights since then, and had a break, so it's probably about half past midnight or coming up to one o clock. And if you look at the stars, the line is pointing downwards and slightly to the left, which shows that I'm about right."
Sheesh. The arrogance of that boy.