Chapter 5

That night, the same choreography of movements took place in the shared pod. Rupert went for a walk ‘to check something’. Mrs Craft quickly got all the usual activities of getting ready for bed done. She looked at herself and smiled “Okay, so I’m not actually sleeping WITH a young man, but I am sleeping with a young man – in the same room. Oh, hello Rupe, yes it’s fine, just getting in.” In getting into bed, she managed to be on all fours for a moment and Rupert couldn’t help but look at the tight knickers over her still well shaped bottom. His own mother was not so lucky with her figure, he had looked. He went in to the bathroom and again tried to piss as silently as possible.

The next day dawned, it was the ‘mountaineering’ day. They were to drive off to a place that had climbing walls and abseiling ropes and finally a walk over a mountain with a via ferrata.

They were to stay in their ‘boat teams’ so there was an adult with each small group. Staff hooked up people to climb the various walls. The easy ones phased into harder and harder walls. The final one had an overhang. Nobody managed that. One of the staff members demonstrated that it was, indeed, possible. She climbed up the vertical like she was a cat; showing amazing dexterity and flexibility. At one point one leg was higher than her shoulder and yet she managed to lever herself up onto the tiny ledge. The real amazement came when she climbed out onto the overhang, moved round it and continued to the top.

She dropped down again and asked: “So, now you can see how to do it. Anybody want another go?” Abigail whispered something to Susan and Jo, they smiled, moved behind Rupert and pushed him forward. “A volunteer? Okay, excellent.”

“Heh! I was set up!” he was laughing, so were several of the girls. He shrugged and let them put the safety harness back onto him. Then he climbed, he easily made the first part, then reached a part with widely spaced holds and started to struggle. Finally he reached the overhang. He knew he would fail, but was determined to make a good attempt. What he found was that his fingers had nowhere near the strength and his legs couldn’t maintain the tension; he fell off the wall to the combined cheers of all the onlookers. It’s always good to see someone fail.

“Well done, Rupert. If you’d succeeded they would have been impressed, but failing means you are the same as the rest of us.” Mrs Craft was smiling, this first activity had been fun. Then they all walked up to the top of a cliff.

A lecture on safety followed, a demonstration of how to abseil. Everybody knew in theory that the harnesses would stop you falling, from the wall climbing. Now they had to deliberately trust that it would hold them.

Girl after girl threw themselves off the cliff on three parallel abseiling ropes. When it came to Susan’s turn, she started down on the middle rope and then froze. On the far side, Chris was lowering herself. She stopped to talk to Susan. Rupert was next on the nearest rope. The instructor was talking calmly to Susan, who wasn’t listening. Rupert asked if he could start. The instructor was distracted and nodded; she should have held him back really, in case she needed to go down.

Rupert lowered himself to be beside Susan; on one side of her Chris was talking quietly to her, on the other side now Rupert was talking.

“Hi, Susan? Enjoying the view. It’s lovely.”

“No, it’s terrifying.”

“You scared of heights? I am too.”

“I’m not scared of heights, I’m scared of falling!”

“Oh, hahaha.” He couldn’t stop himself, it made a lot of sense, he started laughing. Susan started laughing too. It relaxed her a little. “Look, try and release and stop, just a little; I’ll swing over and hold your rope, so if you slip, I’ll catch you.”

“Or at least you land on a soft body.” added Chris. Up above, the instructor was issuing a string of incoherent instructions about “releasing the descender” or “letting off the belay”. None of the three understood a word. She was an expert, no doubt, but not an educator. Susan let off her rope and dropped a couple of inches. “Good, good. Now again. Heh, Chris, you saying I’m fat?” Rupert and Chris kept up a banter to help distract the middle girl “I’d say you offer more pillow shaped softness than me, wouldn’t you agree Susan?”

“Ah, but I’m meant to have pillows. Yours are the result of too many chips.”

Susan couldn’t help assessing her two helpers; she had dropped a metre now. “I’d say you are both far too bony to land on. I’d rather land on my sister.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” She was only a few feet above the ground now and nearly enjoying herself.

“Oh, well done. All three of you! Very well done. You okay ... Susan is it?” Said the instructor who was receiving them below. He made a note to work on what to do when someone froze; they had clearly not practiced that enough. They had other standard procedures, but not a good one for when someone starts and then freezes.

The day was half way through. They sat in an open barn and opened their home made sandwiches. “Rupe, your sandwich is bleeding.”

“I know, I should have cooked the mouse.” Silence around the room. “It’s BEETROOT, of course it is ... you only have mouse with Marmite.”

“Mrs Craft, do we have to let Rupe do the cooking tonight?”

“Well yes. But we don’t have to eat it.” At first, there had been some hesitation about having a boy in the group. Susan, Chris, and Jo had been unsure, they wanted to talk boyfriends and stuff; but the whole group was coming round to him more and more; he could take a joke against himself; he didn’t try and be He-Man one girl said. Actually she said ‘a he man’, so when Abigail said that he was more like Skeletor to look at, she had no idea what was meant.

It was a short drive to the Via Ferrata, a short drive or a mile walk. Everybody voted to drive.

“Susan, I’ll be right behind you all the way, okay? Nothing to worry about. Enjoy it.”

“Thanks Rupe. I bet you’d prefer to be helping Abigail or Mary.”

“Not at all. You are my favourite eleven year old in all the world. Actually the only one I know.” It was very gentle flirting, but she liked it. By the end of the week, she’d have a crush on him, but by the end of the week a few girls would. Chris thought he was nice; the real risk was Jo, who would go from virtually telling him he didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her (in fairness, it wasn’t personal, she seemed to dislike most people) to making it abundantly clear that he could do any amount of disgusting things to her slowly expanding twelve year old body. He was pleased to escape her before she actually made a real move.

They were togged out in unflattering overalls and helmets. The instructors with them checked all of them and then the group leaders also did make sure the helmet fitted. The overalls made them all look baggy and unfeminine. All, Rupert noticed, except Amelie, who managed to get a small size one and squeeze into it. It hugged her body and when she walked, it swivelled with her bottom. He was actually glad that her group was near the front and his near the back; she would have distracted him. “Yes, she looks good doesn’t she?” Mary said to him. “I don’t know how she manages to look so good. Even for rock climbing.” They set off up a track and then across a steel rope bridge. Then they found what the helmets were for; they went into a tunnel. It was an old lead miners tunnel. In fact it went across the hill instead of into it. It had been dug along a seam that was near the surface and had re-appeared on the other side of the granite slope. The seam apparently picked up again on the other side of the gorge, but that part did disappear into the hill. Cavers had been lost down there, the group were told. No-one wanted to ask if they were lost and rescued or lost, full stop. The tunnel was left deliberately unlit. There was light at the end, so the trekkers could see where they were going, but in the middle they had to follow the wall by hand. Plenty of giggling at first, and ‘spider touches’, gave way to silence as they reached the darkest section. It wasn’t so much scary as awesome. The silence got to them all.