wary. One or two who offered smiles; not many, most were blank, giving nothing. She remembered the way Miss Strutton marched to overtake the sergeant and reach the inspector first. How she launched into instructions about tents – Joe go to the one he shared with Matt, and Ella to Charly’s. Ella hadn’t expected this teacher to be small and pretty, or to smile a lot at the inspector, encouragingly, like this was just a friendly visit! She’d kept saying things like, ‘I think you’ll agree that using those tents is by far the most convenient arrangement for everyone. It’s really quite unnecessary to go to the trouble of putting up new tents at this point in time –’
Charly’s tent! Spend a night in it – all empty! Just the thought filled Ella with such desolation that she’d struggled to hold back the tears.
I could see the inspector didn’t like Miss Strutton’s idea. Or her smiles! It all made him angry. He just pretended he didn’t hear her. But he stayed very polite and didn’t once shout like I half expected him to, when she kept on and on.
So now, we’ve got a new tent each, Charly. Joe in his and me in mine, both of us right next to the inspector’s (but I don’t think any of us slept much tonight). I looked outside just now, and saw a torch moving about in Joe’s, and there’s been a lamp on in the inspector’s all night. He’s probably reading the interviews again and again – he says funny things like ‘we must find the angle of light that will illuminate what we have not seen before’ but I know what he means. He says he’s going to talk to everyone here again, while the army’s searches go on. Often I can hear Sergeant Kaonga’s voice in the inspector’s tent, too, but I don’t think anything’s happening, there hasn’t been any helicopter noise for a bit, though I heard them a while ago. There’s two other policemen here as well, keeping contact by radio with the helicopters.
CHARLY, WHERE ARE YOU? HAVEN’T YOU LEFT ME ANY CLUE WHERE YOU’VE GONE? ISN’T THERE ANYTHING TO HELP US?
For a very long while, she sat looking at the last sentences, trying to push back the surge of hopelessness. Make a plan. Make a list of things to do as soon as it’s properly light, she toldherself. So I don’t just wander about and wait, like in the hospital.
In Charly’s second letter was her sketch of the rock and the camp and a place over to one side marked with a little stick figure sitting down, and labelled, CHARLY’S PLACE. Below that:
There’s this place I go to write up my notes – I really wish you were here to see it, Elly. It’s out of the camp, a beach by the stream – fig and tamarind trees lean over it so it’s always cool. There’s always rustling and scuffling – at first it made me nervous, but then I realised it’s just small animals – two tiny antelopes – dik diks – living nearby (Bambis!), frogs and lizards camouflaged so completely you almost never spot them (though I saw a massive green monitor lizard, a metre long or more, I thought it was a crocodile!) – and of course the birds. Even the names are magic – laughing dove, emerald cuckoo, hornbills, sunbirds, hoopoes, golden weavers, purple grenadiers, turacos. High on the rocks are hawk eagles, falcons, red kites, clouds and clouds of swifts and swallows and an eagle owl with a very spooky call, troops of baboons (babies riding their backs) and hundreds of monkeys.
The bigger animals come to drink at the western end of the rock 3 miles away, but we still have to keep a lookout. Atnight we keep dim lights round the edge of the camp to discourage four-footed visitors. We’re circled by glittering eyes – antelope and zebra sneaking in for a closer look. The first night it was really unnerving! It’s the weirdest feeling, the way you turn a corner and there’s something wild. Dusk yesterday, a pregnant lioness walked across the grass in plain sight of the tents! She stopped, looked at us, we
Charly’s tent! Spend a night in it – all empty! Just the thought filled Ella with such desolation that she’d struggled to hold back the tears.
I could see the inspector didn’t like Miss Strutton’s idea. Or her smiles! It all made him angry. He just pretended he didn’t hear her. But he stayed very polite and didn’t once shout like I half expected him to, when she kept on and on.
So now, we’ve got a new tent each, Charly. Joe in his and me in mine, both of us right next to the inspector’s (but I don’t think any of us slept much tonight). I looked outside just now, and saw a torch moving about in Joe’s, and there’s been a lamp on in the inspector’s all night. He’s probably reading the interviews again and again – he says funny things like ‘we must find the angle of light that will illuminate what we have not seen before’ but I know what he means. He says he’s going to talk to everyone here again, while the army’s searches go on. Often I can hear Sergeant Kaonga’s voice in the inspector’s tent, too, but I don’t think anything’s happening, there hasn’t been any helicopter noise for a bit, though I heard them a while ago. There’s two other policemen here as well, keeping contact by radio with the helicopters.
CHARLY, WHERE ARE YOU? HAVEN’T YOU LEFT ME ANY CLUE WHERE YOU’VE GONE? ISN’T THERE ANYTHING TO HELP US?
For a very long while, she sat looking at the last sentences, trying to push back the surge of hopelessness. Make a plan. Make a list of things to do as soon as it’s properly light, she toldherself. So I don’t just wander about and wait, like in the hospital.
In Charly’s second letter was her sketch of the rock and the camp and a place over to one side marked with a little stick figure sitting down, and labelled, CHARLY’S PLACE. Below that:
There’s this place I go to write up my notes – I really wish you were here to see it, Elly. It’s out of the camp, a beach by the stream – fig and tamarind trees lean over it so it’s always cool. There’s always rustling and scuffling – at first it made me nervous, but then I realised it’s just small animals – two tiny antelopes – dik diks – living nearby (Bambis!), frogs and lizards camouflaged so completely you almost never spot them (though I saw a massive green monitor lizard, a metre long or more, I thought it was a crocodile!) – and of course the birds. Even the names are magic – laughing dove, emerald cuckoo, hornbills, sunbirds, hoopoes, golden weavers, purple grenadiers, turacos. High on the rocks are hawk eagles, falcons, red kites, clouds and clouds of swifts and swallows and an eagle owl with a very spooky call, troops of baboons (babies riding their backs) and hundreds of monkeys.
The bigger animals come to drink at the western end of the rock 3 miles away, but we still have to keep a lookout. Atnight we keep dim lights round the edge of the camp to discourage four-footed visitors. We’re circled by glittering eyes – antelope and zebra sneaking in for a closer look. The first night it was really unnerving! It’s the weirdest feeling, the way you turn a corner and there’s something wild. Dusk yesterday, a pregnant lioness walked across the grass in plain sight of the tents! She stopped, looked at us, we
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