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Hope ends up carrying her over her shoulder. Luckily Natalie’s small and not too heavy. Jody hangs on to Jas’s arm and cries incessantly. Carly drags behind Mrs. Campbell. The rest of us carry sleeping bags, the remaining backpacks, the water bottles, the waterproof bag, and the rest of our food.
    “Watch out for thorny bamboos and scorpions andbiting ants,” Jas tells us. Mrs. Campbell looks alarmed, and Jas nods at her. “Yes. And there could be snakes. What am I saying? There are bound to be snakes.” May and Arlene leap to Mrs. Campbell’s side, shrieking stupidly. Jas smiles cheerfully at them and rolls her eyes at me.
    At least this trek will give me an opportunity to fill in more features on my map, and I try to take mental photographs so that it will be as accurate as possible. Dad will want to see it when I get home. We clamber over slippery rocks, helping the juniors and Hope where it’s steep. There are narrow paths and climbing vines to cling to, and we are now in a small jungle of palms, the high leaves clapping like wild applause in a football stadium. No birds, though. I wonder if they were all blown away in the storm. Or did I imagine that cloud of birds? No one else saw it. Steam rises from the forest floor and surrounds us like a fog, and when we stop for a rest I take out my map, quickly draw three palm trees, and label it the “Forest of Murk,” or the “Maze of Mosquitoes.”
    I’ll decide later.
    The air is full of biting insects, and we flap at them constantly as we walk. Thank goodness Mom packed a brand-new tube of insect-repellent cream. I share it with the others. It only has to last a day or so.
    Suddenly we come to a halt, almost crashing into one another.
    “Oh no!” Arlene has walked straight through a huge spiderweb and has bits of it stuck to her hair and clothes.
    “There’s the spider, Spider-eyes, it’s in your hair,” jokes May, and Arlene screams.
    “No it isn’t, don’t be silly, May.” Mrs. Campbell is hot and frustrated. We all are.
    “Look out for snakes.” May has the last word, as usual. Hope keeps tripping over lianas and roots of trees. She has taken off her one-eye specs and put them away, so now she is practically blind. She’s had to hand over the care of Natalie to Mrs. Campbell, but because she’s not very strong, we bigger girls take turns carrying the poor kid.
    We climb uphill for quite a while, resting every few minutes. It’s hard work and our shoulders are aching like crazy. Everyone has sores and cuts. I try wrapping large leaves around my ankles to protect them and it helps. Some of the others copy me. “You’re a genius,” Jas tells me, and we both wrap leaves around Hope’s ankles.
    All of a sudden, just as we’re beginning to think we’ll never stop climbing, we hear the sound of running water. It’s a rushing stream, where tall canes clatter and palm fronds whisper and we top up our water bottles. There are huge moths, I think, not butterflies; they’re enormous. Lizards dart under rocks. You know they are therebut they disappear as soon as you look at them, like tiny green ghosts. Long spearlike leaves shiver and tremble.
    “Look, a hornbill!” Jas points to where the top-heavy bird is sitting high up in a tree. At least one has survived, then. Just then, with a
whirr
of wings, several hornbills appear, and go to roost in the same tree. They land with a loud zipping noise. Their wings look like hands of thick fingers spread wide. Scarlet hibiscus flowers glow like lamps from the dark shade of the foliage.
    Jas keeps up a running commentary on what we can see. I know she’s trying to keep our spirits up, but the juniors aren’t interested in anything.
    “Here’s our freshwater supply,” Jas tells us.
    “But we’ve got enough bottles to last.” May is unimpressed.
    “Let’s hope so,” Jas replies, so quietly that I think I am the only one to hear.
    The wind is less noisy under the shelter of the trees, but as we