Free Raven's Mountain by Orr Wendy Page B

wish I was an arrow and could fly down the mountain.
    A little way along, Lost Helicopter Creek joins a smaller one; together they’re a fast, roaring river. At the top of a cliff the new river plunges, straight as a curtain, into a pool at the bottom. The spray shimmers rainbows in the sun; the pool looks as bubbly and foamy as Amelia’s mum’s hot tub.
    It’s the secret cave waterfall.
    I imagine another message to Jess and Amelia: It’s okay: know where I am!
    Ha ha. I am nowhere.
    Because I know where I am, but it’s not where I   wanted to be.
    And I don’t feel very okay. I still feel emptied out and hollow: the only thing inside me is a black pit of exhaustion that keeps squirming into sick. I’ve got to climb down that cliff to find the trail we took yesterday.
    The rocks are smooth and slippery from the spray.
    A raven croaks what sounds like a warning, but I’m too busy to look: I’m crawling backwards, feeling with my toes, clinging with my fingers. Halfway down they’re all cramping so badly I have to stop. That’s when I look down.
    The three bears are splashing in the spa pool below me.
    Not fair, Bears! Couldn’t you have got there while I   was at the top? Not standing on tiptoe halfway down, stretched between two rocks like a basketballer reaching for a goal!
    I don’t know if I can climb back up again.
    But I’m not stupid enough to even think about going down. Mama Bear might decide to catch me instead of a fish.
    The one thing for sure is that I can’t stay here. My hands are cramping and my right leg’s trembling. If I   don’t make up my mind soon I’ll land on top of them. Mama Bear might not think that’s quite as funny as when Hansel and Gretel landed on top of me.
    I slip down the next bit of cliff. Mama Bear stops splashing to watch.
    One more slide, and I land on the Open Sesame! rock. I take a deep breath, shake out my crampy fingers, and sidle around the ledge to the secret cave.
    Yesterday, looking at a waterfall from the inside out seemed as magical as Alice in Wonderland behind the mirror.
    Today it’s so dark after the bright sun that I can hardly see, and it’s damp and clammy. Maybe that’s why I’m shaking so badly. Or because it’s safe.
    â€˜Remember how scared you were after the helicopter disappeared?’ my brain asks. ‘And then you got over it so you could go on walking? Well, you’re not going anywhere till those bears leave, so it’s my turn now! Just so you know: you are petrified, terrified, scared out of your wits   – and very, very afraid.’
    Plus you’re getting weirder , says Amelia. I agree.
    â€˜So quit it!’ I tell my body.
    My body’s too busy shaking to listen. My knees dissolve into jelly, my legs fold like an accordion, and I collapse onto the floor in a quivery, shivery mess. My teeth are chattering as fast and loud as my heart, and I’m so cold I can feel the hairs on my arms standing up straight in their goose pimples.
    So pull up your hood and zip your jacket!
    That’s a Mum voice, and she’s right.
    The shaking is slowing down, and I’ve stopped feeling like I’m going to throw up. I wrap my arms around my quivery legs, stare out through the waterfall and try to feel as strong as my crocodile-hunter dad.
    The strange thing is that even though it’s a fierce sort of waterfall, the more I stare through it the calmer I feel. Sometimes it’s good not being able to see. It feels like being tucked up in bed with the covers over my head, knowing everything’s safe in the house around me. Maybe it’s just that the water’s roaring too loudly to hear all those scary thoughts, but my mind is being washed as clean as a blackboard when the day’s problems are wiped off for the night.
    And I’m rocking, floating in the darkness . . .
    . . . flying through the forest on the back of