Lost Girls (17 page)

I see a boat, not too far away, heading past the next island. And there’s no fire. I’ve failed. I’ve failed everyone—poor little Jody and Carly, who have lost their sisters. I’ve failed Jas. I am as bad as Layla Campbell.

The sun has gone behind a black cloud. I desperately rummage around in my backpack for more scraps of kindling. Ouch! I’ve cut my finger. The pain flares. Cut on what? The mirror; it’s May’s broken mirror. I pull it out gingerly and wait, hardly breathing, until the sun appears again. Holding the mirror up to the sun, I point it in the general direction of the boat, turning my hand up and down slightly. Is it working? Is there a flash of light reflecting toward the boat? Is anyone looking in this direction?

But the little boat is already heading away, toward the setting sun, where the sky is like the marbled endpaper of an old Bible. I collapse in a self-pitying heap and sob. I have failed, and night is coming. Shall I stay here on this exposed rock all night on my own as we arranged, or try to reach Jas and Jody before the light goes? Oh, Mom, I wish you were here. Or rather, I wish I had never come. The sudden night is here and I must survive it.

DAY 14

SUMMIT OF FIRE MOUNTAIN, INTERIOR OF KOH TABU

If I had stayed at the base of the rock I might have been sheltered from the wind, but I’m frightened of being trapped down there by a tiger. Or the beast that dragged Sandy away—whatever that was. At least here I am safe from predators, I think. Well, I
feel
safer, anyhow. There’s a large slice of yellow moon making an intermittent appearance between huge clouds, and I can
see if anything does get anywhere near me.

The flashlight beam is fainter than it was. I switch it off and try lying down in my sleeping bag, using my backpack as a pillow—that way the wind goes over me instead of through me—but it’s a very hard rock. I ache all over. I get up and walk around, back and forth, back and forth to get some feeling in my limbs, slamming my arms against my sides, jumping up and down to keep the blood circulating. I sing loudly to keep myself company, to keep wild boars away, to scare off tigers. I sing all the old Scottish folk songs Grandma taught me.

An’ it’s Oh! But I’m longing for my ain folk,

Tho’ they be but lowly, puir and plain folk.

I am far beyond the sea, but my heart will ever be

At hame in dear auld Scotland wi’ my ain folk.

Jas would laugh if she heard me. She says my singing would scare anything away.

Oh ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road

And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye,

For me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie bonnie bank of Loch Lomond.

Oh, dear, that’s made me cry. Instead of singing, I fantasize about Lan Kua—about being in his arms. His light brown skin and warm smile, his lips on mine. His spicy breath. The muscles of his arms. Oh, I wish I’d stayed at home.

I force myself to think of Scotland, and of my grandparents’ home when I was little: Their house is the middle coast-guard cottage of the three, with bare floorboards on which I run my Matchbox cars. The wheels make a satisfying whoosh and then a mighty crack as they crash against the skirting boards. The peat fire smokes with a damp, earthy fragrance. A smell I love.

I peer down into the forest. How are Jas and Jody getting on? I haven’t seen a glimmer of their flashlight. Perhaps they are too well hidden from me. I keep having visions of a tiger leaping on them, dragging them from the sleeping bag, tearing them limb from limb and devouring them. I briefly flash my light in their direction, but there’s no answering beam.

To keep from worrying about them, I go back to my childhood in Scotland again. It helps.

I wake in the night to the sound of pebbles hitting the cottage window. They have been hurled by the gale and mountainous waves from the rocky beach far below. I call out but no one comes. I scream for an hour or more in the dark, the wind howling in the chimney and rattling the windowpanes. Eventually the neighbor woman comes in to me. I am inconsolable, hysterical. She has to send someone—her husband, I suppose—to fetch my grandparents from the lighthouse.

As the minutes creep by, my thoughts become angry. What is my mom thinking? Does she think I’m dead? Where is she? Where’s Dad? Why haven’t they come to look for me? And the parents of all the other girls? If they were alive they would have come—they wouldn’t give up, would they? Is Mrs. Campbell right? Were the clouds we saw explosions? What was exploding? Cambodia is next door to Thailand. Everyone knows the war has gone there, too. Dad flies there all the time. It’s supposed to be secret, but we know it’s happening. Cambodia’s the next killing ground, Dad said.

When the moon disappears behind a cloud and there are no stars to try to identify I stare at the glowing dial of
the watch my parents gave me for my fourteenth birthday. It’s waterproof. I have snorkeled with it on and it works. What happened to my snorkeling gear? Last time I saw it, it was in a bag in the boat. Did I unload it? I can’t remember. We could have caught fish if I had my snorkeling gear.

I remember Dad teaching me to swim. I was four. I wore a snorkel and a mask and big blue flippers and he held me under the tummy so I was lying on top of the water, and told me to put my head down so I was looking at the seabed. I was so amazed by what I was seeing—little fish swimming around, the waving sea anemones and coral that looked like pink cabbages—that I didn’t realize he had taken his hand away and I was floating on my own. I flapped my big blue feet and moved forward. I was swimming, just like that. He said I wouldn’t sink even if I tried to. So I tried and I didn’t sink. He was right.

And I remember when I was ten and I had a swimming exam to do and I had a bad cold and Mom didn’t want me to do it, but Dad said it was my decision. And I did it. And I didn’t get pneumonia or bronchitis like Mom thought I would. They’ve always stood by me whenever I’ve made a decision they weren’t too happy about. Like when I chose to come with them to Thailand, leave my school and come with them. I could have stayed with my
aunt Beth in Edinburgh, or gone to boarding school like lots of officers’ children, but I wanted to be with them. I couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing them for months—then we thought it would all be over in months, not years. I’m glad I came with them, even if I’ve ended up on this island trying to survive. I’ve lived in the tropics and learned to speak Thai—well, a little. I have met Jas and Lan Kua and eaten wonderful Thai food. There can’t be many girls my age who’ve been stranded on a desert island, discovered a golden Buddha, and seen a tiger.

I’m probably unique.

In Borneo I had a pet praying mantis that lived under my mosquito net. It caught any insects that had managed to get through the barrier. He was bright green and watched me as I read in bed. When I spoke to him he moved his articulated long neck, and I swear his eyes followed me around the room. I called him Maurice. I didn’t tell Mom about him; she would have had him removed. I also had two cockroaches living under my bed. (The maid wasn’t very good at cleaning.) I fed them bread crumbs. I didn’t tell Mom about those, either. I was a completely free spirit in Borneo. I never wore shoes. My feet became so thick-skinned I could step on a thorn and not feel it. I could run on pebbles and it wouldn’t hurt. The only
problem was scorpions. There were two kinds: blue ones, whose sting would make you very ill but wouldn’t kill you, and black ones, which sunbathed on the wooden walkways of the compound, and which could kill you. The local people, the Ibans, showed us how to kill them. The best way was to approach one from the rear, so that its curved tail was projected forward, and step on it. After Mom came across one on the front step she insisted I wear shoes.

No scorpions here, yet! Instead, ants are biting. How do they survive in this wind? My neck burns from the bites. I scrape the insects from under my sweatshirt collar. Chiggers have burrowed into my crotch and armpits. There’s nothing I can do except scratch.

I close my eyes and pull out another Scottish memory:

There are lots of peat bogs, heath and moss, black lochans where wild ducks paddle and fish, a lighthouse surrounded by a white painted wall. Behind on the hill the low-built coast-guard cottages, castellated and painted white, huddle from the winds. There are also the remains of buildings that were once radar stations to track U-boats passing through Scapa Flow during World War II. These buildings are empty, but still frighten me for some reason. I don’t like going anywhere near them. In my head
they contain something that has the power to destroy my world. The sea almost surrounds us, but the sky is bigger than anything else and is always changing. Huge clouds race from one distant horizon to another. I see in each a lumbering hippopotamus or a castle of glass. My imagination turns thunderclouds into furious giants. Rainbows are everywhere and nowhere; you cannot catch them even when they end in your backyard. Rainstorms move from one part of the coast to another, blanketing the moor, the lighthouse, the gray flat country beyond the headland.