A Bear Grylls Adventure 1 Read online

  “I won’t. I promise,” Olly told him. He got the idea nothing he said would convince Omar he had changed. Olly knew that he would just have to show him. “Maybe I’ll surprise you,” Olly said with a smile, then started to climb out of the tent.

  * * *

  Olly looked up at the climbing wall and tried not to feel nervous.

  He wanted to do this. He really did. It wasn’t just that he wanted to show Omar and Jack. It was because they were meant to do this as a team, and Omar and Jack were his team.

  And he wanted to do this for himself. To feel that sense of pride again.

  But it was a long way up and he had never really climbed before.

  The wall was twelve metres high, and shaped like a real rock face. There were ropes dangling down which attached to metal clips on the front of their harnesses, so if anyone slipped then they wouldn’t fall and hurt themselves. Everyone watched as an instructor demonstrated how to climb. She was already halfway up. “You’ve got two hands and two feet,” she called down at them. “So always make sure that three out of four are holding onto something. Only ever move one at a time, like me …”

  She made it look so easy. In fact, she reminded Olly a little of Bear. She could make it look easy because she was very good at it, and she had put in a lot of hard work to get there.

  “You are going to climb up three at a time, against the clock and we’ll see which team is the fastest. First group up for the Yellow team is … Jack, Olly and Omar!”

  A lot of kids looked quite happy that someone else was going first. They could make the mistakes for everyone else to learn from.

  The instructors came forward with helmets and harnesses. Jack started to put his on without any help because he had done this before. Olly got tangled up, and an instructor had to help him out. And by the time they were both done, Omar was helmeted, harnessed and ready to go.

  Eventually the three boys took their places at the foot of the wall. Olly was in the middle, with Omar on his left and Jack on his right.

  “You going to drop out, Olly?” Omar whispered. “Just tell them you don’t like heights and they’ll let me and Jack do it on our own.”

  Olly just shook his head. He knew Omar would never believe he could do this, until he saw it.

  “Get ready!” an instructor called. The boys braced themselves. The instructor was poised with a stopwatch.

  “Get set … Go!”

  Olly swallowed his nerves, grabbed hold of the wall, and started to climb.

  10

  TEAMWORK!

  It wasn’t long before Olly felt fire in every joint of his body. His shoulders and hips felt like someone was slowly pulling his arms and legs off.

  It wasn’t like the way his arms had ached as he scooped out the snow with Bear, or how his legs had felt like lead weights after trekking through the mountains. Every movement he made on the wall had to haul the weight of his body upwards, which meant that everything he did was against gravity. Climbing used different muscles to walking, and his muscles were making sure he knew about it.

  But Olly kept going.

  He still had the advice from the instructors ringing in his ears, about how you should only move one bit of your body at a time. So that was what he did. It was like when he had walked with Bear. There was a rhythm to it. Move foot. Lift body. Move hand. Lift body.

  And above all, just keep going.

  And Olly used another trick he had picked up from his adventure in the mountains. Bear had been looking ahead every step of the way. He always knew exactly where he was going to put each foot before he put it down. So Olly tried the same trick with the rock face. By looking up, he could always see where the next handholds and footholds were, so he was ready and could move fast.

  Olly used to just give up the moment he started feeling tired or uncomfortable. But something had changed in him. It was as if the storm had made him stronger. He knew now that some things take effort. The feeling of being part of a team gave him new strength. Sure, it was tiring, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

  The three boys were practically neck and neck as they climbed together. But then Omar grabbed for a handhold too quickly and suddenly his fingers slipped off the wall. He fell half a metre backwards with an angry shout.

  His rope caught him and he dangled awkwardly in mid-air.

  Omar managed to get one foot and one hand on the wall, but his body still wobbled and he couldn’t find anywhere else to grab.

  Olly instinctively stopped climbing. His teammate needed him.

  “To your right!” Olly called. He had spotted the handhold a moment earlier.

  Omar grabbed at the wall on his right. “A bit lower …”

  Omar moved his hand, and he was able to grab a bump of rock and hold himself steady.

  His eyes met Olly’s. “Got it,” he said.

  Jack had also stopped climbing to watch what was happening, so none of them had got too far ahead. Then all three boys started climbing again. Steady, together, with renewed purpose and effort.

  And in no time, the trio reached the top of the wall – together.

  The leaders helped them over the edge at the top while the kids on the ground were cheering. They had done it! Olly saw Jack and Omar’s happy grins, and then he realised he was grinning too.

  Then Omar held up a fist with his knuckles towards him.

  “Good job, team,” he said. “And thanks for the help.”

  Olly and Omar bumped fists together.

  After the climbing, they had an hour to themselves and they headed back to their tent. On their way they passed the football pitch, where a five-a-side match between the Yellow and Red teams had just finished. As the boys walked past, a girl close to them suddenly screamed and Olly recognised her as the girl who didn’t like creepy-crawlies.

  Back at the tent they had a small victory feast to celebrate the climb. Olly had some fruit and nut bars, and Omar produced some crackers, and Jack had a bottle of juice. Together they sat and shared the treats.

  Then Jack suddenly stopped and wriggled, as if he was sitting on something uncomfortable. He reached under Olly’s sleeping bag.

  He held up the object and examined it.

  “Hey, Olly, what did you bring these for?”

  Olly looked up and saw what Jack was holding.

  Olly felt his heart start to pound.

  A pair of goggles.

  But not just any old pair of goggles. These were the very same goggles which Bear had given him in the mountains.

  Olly felt his heart pound.

  If the snow goggles were real, then so was the rest of it! Maybe the compass would show him its fifth direction again so he could get back there.

  How could he get the compass to do it again?

  But then he thought of what Bear might say. If you were part of a team then you didn’t just do things for yourself. And Olly knew someone who needed the compass more than him.

  So Olly put his drink down.

  “Back in a minute, guys!” he said as he crawled out of the tent.

  He didn’t know where to look, but he didn’t need to. He heard a familiar scream from a tent nearby. The flap pulled back and a girl crawled out. She was muttering to herself something about stupid insects and she sounded really cross.

  She looked up and saw him. “What do you want?” she snapped.

  Olly could see she was embarrassed. She’d turned bright red.

  “I just want to give you this,” he said. He held out the compass. “It’s a gift.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Your adventure,” Olly replied, and smiled.

  The End

  Bear Grylls got the taste for adventure at a young age from his father, a former Royal Marine. After school, Bear joined the Reserve SAS, then went on to become one of the youngest ever people to climb Mount Everest, just two years after breaking his back in three places during a parachute jump.

  Amongst other adventures he has led expeditions to the Arctic and the Antarctic, crossed oceans and set world records in skydiving and paragliding.

  Bear is also a bestselling author and the host of television programmes such as Survival School and The Island.

  He has shared his survival skills with people all over the world, and has taken many famous movie stars and sports stars on adventures – and even President Barack Obama!

  Bear Grylls is Chief Scout to the UK Scouting Association, encouraging young people to have great adventures, follow their dreams and to look after their friends.

  When Bear’s not travelling the world, he lives with his wife and three sons on a barge in London, or on an island off the coast of Wales.

  Find out more at www.beargrylls.com

  Ready for some more adventure?

  Can Sophie face up to her fear of creepy-crawlies and find her survival spirit?

  AVAILABLE NOW

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  80-81 Wimpole Street, London, W1G 9RE

  Text and illustrations copyright © Bear Grylls Ventures, 2017

  Illustrations by Emma McCann

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication should be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Bear Grylls to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for th
is book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-7869-6018-4

  Bear Grylls is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre,

  a Bonnier Publishing Company

  www.bonnierpublishing.com

 

 

  Bear Grylls, A Bear Grylls Adventure 1

 

 

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