Free Raven's Mountain by Orr Wendy

honey till my baggie’s so clean not even a search beagle would know I’d ever had anything in it.
    It’s magical Spirit Bear honey, and my stomach’s feeling better already. No more disgusting diarrhoea stops. With this honey in my body I know I’ll get back to the truck soon.
    I’m weaving my way through the trees, through patches of shady cool and warm sun. Somehow I lost the trail when I   was running from the bees. Maybe it was just a bears’ bee hunting trail, not a regular down-from-the-mountain-to-the-lake trail.
    You think a forest is quiet, but it’s not really, not after you’ve been out in it for a while   – especially a while like thirty-six hours, and twenty-two of them on your own. You learn to hear noises that you didn’t notice at first, and you figure out that some of the scary noises aren’t scary at all, and you go on listening for ones that truly might be. People say that if you’re blind you learn to hear better to make up for it. Maybe losing my glasses isn’t all bad. There are rustling leaves and crackling branches, birds chirping and cawing . . . and an engine kind of noise.
    It’s definitely not a waterfall.
    It’s coming from overhead, and getting louder: a hammering thwunk thwunk thwunk .
    It’s a miracle! Mum got my wish-message and sent a rescue helicopter!
    For a second all I can do is stand and stare, hardly breathing, waiting to see the thing that will save us all. Then the tiredness drops off me like a too-loose jacket, and I’m jumping, waving my arms and shouting.
    But I still can’t see it: the forest is too thick and the trees are too tall   – and that means it can’t see me either. I’ve got to get out into the open.
    Running, waving, screaming, stumbling over rocks and roots, skidding on the steep slope . . . nothing matters except making them find me.
    The noise is so loud it’s hard to tell exactly where it’s coming from; I’m looking up as I run; I’ve got to see it soon.
    I don’t see the hole right in front of me.
    â€˜HUHH-HUHH-HUHH!’
    I land on my stomach, with the world’s most vicious Chinese burn jolting through my right leg from my ankle to my hip. For a minute I think I’m going to throw up. Luckily there’s not enough inside me to try.
    Don’t you dare be broken! I tell my ankle.
    It must know I mean it, because it hardly whines at all once I get up.
    The noise is definitely coming closer.
    Racing again, hobbling on the sore ankle, veering around a huge rounded boulder; turning back to scramble up it, getting a bit higher. Please, please, please let me see it from there. Please, please, please let them see me.
    It doesn’t make any difference. I still can’t see any – text_ thing but trees, and the patch of sky straight above me . . .
    . . . and a flash of silver through the treetops.
    I skid down the boulder so fast my jeans are smoking. I can’t give up now; there’s more light ahead, as if the forest’s coming to an end; soon the rescuers will be able to look down and see me.
    The noise is very close.
    I can see sky.
    I’m safe; I’m safe!
    My breath is gasping, my heart is pounding.
    Doesn’t matter, nothing matters except making them see me!
    I trip, fall, and run again.
    The noise is getting fainter. I burst out of the woods and scream at the sky.
    â€˜HELP! Come back! HELP!’
    I yank my jacket over my head, waving it, an SOS flag any rescuers should zoom straight back for, but the thwunk - thwunk roar is already just a hum.
    The helicopter is gone.
    I’m going to explode.
    I’m a cartoon character with a black cloud over my head and steam pouring out of my ears; I’m a volcano with boiling lava shooting out of my skull.
    I’m angrier than I ever knew I could be.
    Rescuers rescue people! That’s what they do! They don’t just have a quick glance and disappear