Free Through The Storm by Margot Bish

CHAPTER
1

    Jack gave Ross
a wide grin and a friendly slap on the back.
    “ What are
you doing this summer hols then?” Jack asked, and Ross knew Jack
had something good planned. After all it was only the
1 st June – six weeks of school
to go……….. It might be something even better than good, Ross
thought.
    “Not much”,
Ross shrugged. He could see Jack was at the point of bursting with
his news, but Ross also knew Jack did not want to just tell him. He
was hoping to be asked first, just so that he could act offhand and
cool about it, act like it was nothing much. Just to blow his mind,
Ross turned and looked out of the school bus window. He could see
Jack’s reflection in the glass and watched Jack’s face, waiting for
the frustration to show. Huffing on the glass, he drew a stick man.
The stick man was frowning, but Ross was grinning to himself and he
carefully didn’t turn until Jack’s face creased into a matching
frown. Then Ross swung round with an I gotcha grin.
    “Go on then.
Spill it.”
    “Sometimes, I
just don’t want to be your friend anymore,” Jack muttered
sheepishly, realising he had fallen for the tease. Then he thought
of the holiday to come and his face lit up. “I’m going to an
Outward Bound Centre in Wales” he crowed.
    Even this fell
flat as a punctured football. Ross was supposed to look impressed,
maybe even jealous. Ross didn’t. Ross looked as blank as a bowl of
custard.
    “What’s that
then? Some kind of prison? Tie you up on the way out, do they?” he
joked. It was Jack’s turn for the custard look. Ross sighed. “It’s
a pun. Get it?” he added.
    “No, stupid,”
Jack exclaimed. “It’s where you get to do all kinds of wild things
– sailing, rock climbing, canoeing, abseiling, parachuting, scuba
diving…..” Jack paused for breath and to rerun the list in his
head. What else could he boast about?
    “You sure about
the parachuting?” Ross asked sceptically.
    “Er, now you
mention it, no. But all the other stuff. It’ll be magic, Ross.
Nick’s gonna be there too. He’s helping take people canoeing”.
    Nick was Jack’s
brother, much older and if you went places with him life always got
dramatic. He was a real fizzing livewire. You never knew if you
were going to get lost in a maze of caves, get stuck up a mountain
or get soaked crossing a river but things always happened.
    “Sounds good”,
Ross said and sighed. He knew what his mum and dad had planned. The
normal boring old Isle of Wight beach holiday. OK, yes, when he was
six and seven, the beach was just great, digging sandcastles and
splashing in the sea, but by age ten it was getting a bit
repetitive. He scowled as he compared the two alternatives. Wales
came tops all round, a holiday with his friends, and all those new
things to try out. There was worse to come.

    “Dave and Chris
are coming too,” Jack added. “Can’t you come as well ? ”
    The bus jolted
to a halt at the school gates and they pushed their way off, five
minutes to get to class. No time to discuss things now.
    It was all the
three adventurers could talk about all day. They wriggled and
bounced like helium balloons as they planned the challenges ahead.
Ross stood quietly amongst the chatter and tried not to look as
left out as he felt. Like a slug at a meeting of the snail shell
admiration society, he thought. By the time he hopped off the bus
in the evening, he knew everything about Outward Bound Centres. No
parents, hardly any real grown ups, apart from the instructors for
each activity, and most of them would only just have left school,
or were even still at College or University so they didn’t really
count as grown ups. Everyone would sleep in a dormitory. Ross had
wrinkled his nose at that. It sounded like boarding school, but
then he thought, it was perfect for midnight feasts and such, so
who cared? He ached to be going too. Every evening there would be a
film to watch, and probably it would be something exciting or