Part 7 (2/2)

'Keep to the middle of the channel, guys, in case there are rocks near the surface.' Amber led the group cautiously out of the caves. They paddled slowly, in single file.

One by one they slipped out into the open sea. Immediately the air sang with the cries of birds. Amber checked her compa.s.s. They were heading back towards the Kyle, the big inlet of water, but the ma.s.sive bridge had vanished in the fog. She could see Hex beside her, and he could see Alex and Tiff behind, but she couldn't see anyone else.

'Paulo? Li?' she called.

'Here,' called two voices.

They were only about eight metres away but she couldn't see them.

Amber took her compa.s.s off her wrist and fastened it to the loop at the front of her spray skirt. That way she could keep an eye on it all the time. She took a glow stick out of her lifejacket pocket and broke the vials inside. It gave off a pink light. She slipped it into a see-through panel on the shoulder of her lifejacket.

In the gloom behind her, another appeared, and another. Five fluorescent blobs, like lights seen through opaque gla.s.s. OK, now she could see everyone. She just had to get them back.

She had navigated her parents' yacht through bad weather before, in the open sea far further from land than this. But a yacht felt substantial. Right now she felt like she was sitting in a sleeping bag on the water. Any moment she expected the whale to heave up and capsize one of them again.

She put such thoughts out of her mind. She had to stay calm, give confident leaders.h.i.+p. She paddled steadily, decisively. The others followed.

A bird loomed out of the mist and brushed against her shoulder, a heavy, fluttering shape. The shock nearly made her capsize. Behind, Tiff let out a cry.

'They're attracted by the glow sticks,' said Alex. 'They won't hurt you.'

Tiff let out a storm of expletives.

Alex's voice soared above the sound of the wind. 'Tiff, don't throw the glow stick away. If you fall in or drift away we could lose you.'

Amber glanced back. Tiff had the glow stick in her hand, about to throw it into the sea. Another bird buffeted against her and she cried out again.

A bird screeched next to Amber's ear. Her heart turned somersaults as wings brushed against her face and she wobbled crazily in her kayak. Somewhere behind her, Paulo and Alex were pleading with Tiff.

Amber recovered her balance, took a deep breath and checked her compa.s.s again. Just as she thought: a little off course. She adjusted, then looked behind to check the others were still there. Five eerie fluorescent blobs, like alien life forms. Good. Paulo and Alex had persuaded her.

Amber kept her strokes slow and sure, aware of every variation in the current. It would be so easy to drift, the fog was completely disorientating. 'Sea fret', that's what sailors called a mist like this. It was a good name.

Tiff paddled on. She couldn't see anything but acres of white, and the five shadowy figures of the others. Inside her was a cold, numb fear. In her mind's eye she saw the sea stretching endlessly away, with her floating helplessly like a speck of plankton. A bird swooped out of the whiteness like an arrow. She threw her arms up to protect her face, imagining hooked beaks and claws.

Somewhere dimly above her, Tiff heard a swish of car tyres on a wet road. 'Hey!' she yelled. 'I can hear cars!'

'It's the bridge,' said Alex beside her. He sounded so calm and confident. Tiff felt angry. Why had they brought her out kayaking if they knew something like this could happen? Another bird dive-bombed her. She clamped her lips shut and batted it away, determined not to scream. If they'd planned all this to frighten her, she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

'Land!' There was a rasp as a kayak bit into the pebbled sh.o.r.e.

Thank goodness, thought Tiff. She splashed out into the water. It was freezing but she kept her complaints to herself.

'Are you OK, Tiff?' asked Paulo.

'Fine,' said Tiff, tight-lipped.

'You're doing really well.'

If this is some kind of test, thought Tiff, I'll make you regret it.

The beach was white and featureless, like the sea. 'Hey where's the Range Rover?' asked Hex. He actually laughed. The steel in Tiff's heart hardened even further.

Amber put her compa.s.s back on her wrist. 'This way.'

They stowed their paddles in the kayaks and picked them up. Amber began to walk and the others followed her pink glow.

Tiff picked up the kayak. She could barely get her arm around it. Not like Paulo, who found it easy to carry because his arms were as long as a gorilla's. But they probably wanted her to stop and complain. Her feet were slipping on the wet rocks, she was freezing cold and the sea birds still kept coming after her. She stopped and took her glow stick out of its see-through pocket.

'No, keep it,' said Li urgently. 'You might still get lost.'

Tiff put it back wordlessly. You really are going to regret this, she thought. Somehow I'll make you pay.

They reached a slope strewn with boulders. The group slowed, working their way up carefully. Tiff's kayak b.u.mped on the rocks. She lost her footing and crashed to the ground. Her kayak boomed like a drum roll in a circus. She got laboriously to her feet, fuming, and picked it up again.

The others had got ahead already. Their glows were like a stain of candy fading into the liquid mist. 'Hey!' she shrieked.

'We're here,' called Paulo, glowing orange. 'Follow the lights. Are you all right?'

'Yes.' Tiff spoke through gritted teeth.

'Not far now,' said Alex. 'Just keep going.'

On they trudged again. The ground changed under her feet. Soft springy turf, not those slippery boulders. Suddenly something made an electronic chirruping noise. Two sets of orange lights flashed. Tiff nearly jumped out of her skin.

'Ah, there you are,' said Amber. Tiff heard a car door opening. They had found the Range Rover.

Tiff felt like sitting down and having a good cry. She had never been so frightened in her life.

Alex was carrying an armful of lifejackets in through the front door of the hostel when he heard a door slam emphatically upstairs.

Li, unlacing her boots in the arched porch, had heard it too. 'That's the bathroom, unless I'm very much mistaken. Think she's going to be a long time?' The mist was thinner up here. Li could see the others outside lifting kayaks and paddles down from the roof rack.

Alex smiled. 'Long enough for a conference.'

'I saw the men in the boat too,' said Paulo.

Amber tapped a pen on the desk, turning it over and over. 'Yeah, I wondered what they were up to.'

They didn't think Tiff would disturb them, but just in case, they held their meeting in the office. Wetsuits had been swapped for T-s.h.i.+rts and shorts.

'You say they had deer?' said Hex. 'The carca.s.s in the cave must have fallen out of that boat.'

'Would it have got into the cave in that time?' said Li.

<script>