Free Taylor Five by Ann Halam

bank of the stream, Donny was huddled up under one of the animal blankets. He must have been clutching it when they were dragged out of the Land Rover, and he hadn’t let go. He had pulled it over his head, as if he was in bed, hiding from a nightmare; and he was shaking. She tugged it aside. Donny looked up and pushed the blanket away, embarrassed. “Did they kill him?” he whispered. “Did they shoot him?”
    “There’s no body. They just took him away. Like everyone from the refuge.”
    “Oh . . . oh, that’s good. At least he’ll be with Mum and Dad.”
    Tay put her arms round him. “We’re on our own, Donny. You and me. We’ll have to look out for each other, and behave so Clint, and Mum, and Dad, and everyone, would be . . . will be proud of us, when this is all over. Do you agree to that?”
    “Yes . . . I agree to that. Where’s Uncle?”
    “I don’t know.” She hadn’t noticed what had happened to Uncle. “He’s gone. He’s a wild animal. I suppose he’s doing whatever seems best to him. Remember what Clint said, the apes are free now. They have a chance, they might survive.”
    Donny nodded. Tay started thinking over the contents of her rucksack. Matches, pocketknife, compass, first aid kit. Some water and food. It was a pity they’d lost the bigger rucksack, with most of the supplies they’d collected in the kitchen. Was there a map? She hoped there was a map. Donny has a blanket. And we’re
children
, she thought. We can avoid the rebels and find ordinary people who will help us. We will make it. . . . It was sad and peaceful in this hidden green valley. This is what Clint told me, she thought. The fire doesn’t take everything. What survives will grow stronger.
    “Tay,” said Donny, “could you look at my back? I think something hit me when we were running. It doesn’t hurt a lot, but it feels strange.”
    She looked at his back. There was a red stain on his T-shirt. When she pulled it up, she could see that he’d been hit by a bullet under his left shoulder blade. The wound was small and not bleeding much.
    “You’ve been hit by a spent bullet,” she told him. “I’ll put antibiotic powder on it, and a dressing, and you’ll be fine until we get to a hospital.”
    “A spent bullet? That’s what Clint had too. What does it mean, exactly?”
    “A bullet at the end of its flight, with no strength left. It can’t have hurt you much.”
    She hoped she was right. She cleaned the wound, her second bullet wound of the day, and used the tweezers from the first aid kit to try to reach the bullet, if it was lodged inside. She couldn’t find anything. Donny hardly whimpered. She didn’t know if he was being incredibly brave or if he was too shocked and exhausted to react.
    They ate biscuits and drank some water, and rested through the heat of the day.
    The afternoon grew cooler. Dusk began to fall; and Tay realized they were here for the night. No harm in that, she decided. They needed recovery time. She lay with her brother’s head cuddled into her shoulder and her arm around him. They talked about Clint, and how brave he had been. If he was still alive, they would see him again, and he’d get a medal for bravery. They didn’t talk about Mum and Dad, only about their friend Clint. That was all they could cope with for the moment.
    At last they slept.

t ay slept very lightly and woke to the sound of birdcalls. She left Donny sleeping, found a place to get down to the water and washed her face and hands: cleaned her teeth with her finger, and took off her boots and socks to wash her feet. She felt much better after that. When she’d put her boots on again she looked in the rucksack, and thank God she’d not been imagining that she’d packed a map. A map of your area was basic survival kit, even though she and Donny had only been going to the caves. It was still there.
    She spread it on the grass and searched until she found a thin blue line flanked by tight contour lines,