Bradley, I kid you not, pulls out a pink woolly hat from somewhere and jams it on his head until his ears are covered, and the tips of his twists peek out like adorable bits of tinsel. I can’t stand this boy.
We step into the short, midmorning shadows at the edge of Sherwood Forest, sidling over to the circle of Breakspeare Explorers who are listening avidly to an older, bearded white guy in a green anorak. I recognize the leaf-printed lanyard around his neck as part of the groundskeepers’ uniform.
Sherwood Forest is close to home, but I haven’t visited since…well. Since Dad took me and Giselle hiking here, a little before my ninth birthday. It was a weird trip. He was on his phone a lot and he got annoyed with us over the slightest things—Giselle’s moodiness, my nonstop questions. At least now I know why. His mind was elsewhere.
You’d think the forest would seem smaller, now that I’ve grown, but if anything, it’s bigger because I’m more aware of its darkness. The weather is bitter and gray; the forest is vast and stuffed with ancient trees I can’t identify—trees whose highest leaves I could never reach and whose massive trunks I could never fit my arms around. From here, I can see a rugged path into the undergrowth that’s for hiking, and I know there’s plenty more scattered about. This cabin sits on the south side of the forest and a gift shop and restaurant sit to the north, but between those two spots of civilization there’s nothing but wild and twisty woods that’ll take a hell of a lot of trekking. That tracks. According to my mental itinerary, this week is for learning key survival skills—testing our resilience, our relationship building, maybe our leadership, all while not getting eaten by wolves. (Supposedly, England doesn’t have wolves, but in my opinion, official sources of information are not to be blithely trusted.)
Brad and I try to slide into the circle without notice, but the bearded man stops whatever he was saying and pins piercing blue eyes on us. The wind whips his sparse hair upright on his head, and his upper lip wiggles like he’s scenting the air. “Ah,” he says in a tone so pointed it’s basically a health hazard. “These are our latecomers, are they?”
Every eye in this circle is burning into my forehead.
“You must be Bradley Graeme,” he says, scanning a raggedy-looking bit of paper in his hand (no tablet for our friendly local forest hermit, apparently), “and Celine…Celine Bang…?”
Bradley beats me to it. “Bangura,” he says, sounding annoyed. Which, yeah. It’s literally phonetic.
“Well.” Beard Guy sniffs. “I’m glad we are all present and accounted for. As I said before, my name is Victor—”
Oh, good. Now I have an actual name to use when I mentally rant about how much I dislike him.
“—and I’ll be guiding you through this training course. You will be expected to work hard and be punctual.” Another pointed glare from good old Victor. Clearly he is a person of great subtlety. “You will also be expected to do for yourselves; nothing will be spoon-fed. Our first activity, therefore, will be an ice-breaking exercise in two teams of ten.” He counts quickly, reaches a midpoint in the circle, and waves a hand to indicate the group should split in half. We do. It’s all very organized.
“Within this sector of the forest are hiding spots that contain training booklets. These booklets will act as your guide to understanding the forest flora and fauna later this week, but first, you have to find them. Your supervisors have maps and compasses to give you. Using these tools only, each team must find their cache. The first to complete their mission wins a welcome party tonight!”
There is an audible hum of excitement. Apparently, we are all the competitive type.
“The losers,” Victor continues, “will be on washing-up duty for the rest of the week, starting tomorrow. And I’ll warn you; we’ve only the one Brillo pad left in the cupboard.” He guffaws as if this is the funniest statement ever made.
I have no idea if anyone else laughs along; I’m too busy panicking about my crappy sense of direction and what happened that one time I tried orienteering in a year-eight PE class (I fell down a hill). I knew this whole thing was going to be hands-on, but this is, er, quite hands-on.
Also, teams of ten are huge. How are we supposed to collaborate effectively? Do I establish myself as a leader early on, or is that bossy? Do I hold back and try to be a good teammate, or is that too meek? And, Christ, why am I standing next to Bradley? Now he’s on my team!
As if things couldn’t get any worse, the gray sky does as it’s been threatening all morning and releases a gentle but miserable shower of rain.
I hope these booklets are laminated.
BRAD
I know as soon as the rain begins that I’ve messed up, clothes-wise, but in my defense, this is a travel outfit. As in, a comfortable outfit for traveling. How was I supposed to know they’d throw us into the forest within five minutes?
“Excuse me,” I call, raising my hand. “Sorry—can I change?”
Victor snorts. “No.” Then he stalks off into the cabin, where it’s dry. Ugh.
I suppose I could’ve changed when we arrived, but I needed that time for my social plan; I found some easygoing guys to talk football with, so I’d have a ready-made group for the week. Turns out that was a complete waste of time, though, because the only guy from said ready-made group who’s part of my current team is my roommate Thomas, and he’s already busy making eyes at Celine…
Who is busy glaring at me. God only knows what I’m supposed to have done now. Probably I caused the rain, or something.
“We should take cover,” someone says—a short girl with silky, straightened hair and a voice that reminds me of Coach, a friendly authority that’ll steamroll you with its sheer enthusiasm. Maybe that’s why we all follow her without question into the woods. Watching mud creep up the edges of my Nikes is severely pissing me off, my fingers are already aching in this icy drizzle, and I am definitely being contaminated by dirt and animal urine as we speak—but fear is the mind killer, so I kick that worry into a river and focus on the issue at hand. I wonder if our supervisor—Holly, I think her name is—will score me 5 out of 5 for creative thinking because I’m the best dressed Explorer here.
She is very sensibly wearing a raincoat, combat trousers, and walking boots, while my socks are already damp, so…probably not.
This little corner of Sherwood Forest smells like wet and greenery. It’s fresh and cool and ancient, somehow, like we’ve traveled back in time and we’re alone and Robin Hood might show up in a second. I take a lungful of clean air and tip my head back. The rain is struggling to reach us here between the trees, and the weak sunlight makes the thick ceiling of leaves above us all see-through and pretty. Maybe I should change my book’s setting and plop the main character Abasi Lee onto a forest planet instead of a desert one.
A few meters away, I hear someone from the opposing team say, “Let’s all take a picture.”
“Oh—we can split up!”
“But we don’t all have a…”
Here’s my first strategy: don’t mouth off as loud as them and give our techniques away.
My team huddles together, ten of us packed tight with Holly standing off to the side. Then we stare at each other, apparently lost. Celine clears her throat, because of course she does. “Should we introduce ourselves?”
Thomas nods like a ginger bobblehead and says with completely unnecessary enthusiasm: “Absolutely! Cracking idea!”
I narrow my eyes.
To be clear, I have nothing against Thomas. He seems nice (even though his accent is so upper class, I wouldn’t be surprised if he grew up riding his nannies around the garden like racehorses. Sorry, I’m being judgmental). But as soon as we sat next to each other on the bus, he poked me in the ribs and pointed between the gaps in the seats and said, “Look! Is that her? It is, isn’t it?”
I blinked and followed his finger. “Who?” Then I laid eyes on my archnemesis, who was texting at the speed of light, devouring a Twix, and glaring at her fellow passengers every few seconds like clockwork, presumably to make sure no one came within five feet of her.
“@HowCelineSeesIt!” Thomas hissed. “You follow her, right? She’s…” He trailed off and turned scarlet, which I took as a dangerous sign. Then he added, “She’s basically famous. I’m gonna talk to her about, er, conspiracies and stuff,” which I took as an even more dangerous sign because Celine hates talking.