A Bear Grylls Adventure 5 Page 4
“Well, uh, it wasn’t far to fall,” he managed to reply. “But thanks.”
His tracksuit bottoms were absolutely sopping. He took fistfuls of cloth in his hands and squeezed so that water trickled out between his fingers.
“Um, could I ask you a favour?” Fatima said shyly, as Jack tried to wring his trousers out. “It’ll sound really silly …”
“No, go on,” Jack said. However silly her favour sounded, it couldn’t be any stranger than what was going through his mind right now.
He remembered spending a day and a night beside a huge roaring river. And he remembered surviving rapids and floating down a raging river – all on his own. Well, except for his friend and guide, Bear.
But it was pretty obvious none of the others had noticed any time passing at all.
Fatima handed him her orienteering sheet.
“Could you get this stamped in there?” She nodded at the cave.
There was something the way she was looking at him that Jack recognised. Her mouth was clamped a little too tight. There was a very faint hint of a tremble by her lips.
He knew those signs.
It was like when he didn’t want anyone to know he was scared.
Jack wondered what she was frightened of. Bats? Spiders? It could be anything you might find in a cave. He didn’t want to embarrass her by asking.
Maybe one day she would meet someone like Bear, who could help with whatever it was. He looked at the strain on her face and remembered how kind and encouraging Bear had been.
“Sure,” he said, taking the sheet.
The cave wasn’t big. The stamp was a plastic widget tied to a trestle table at the end, so no one could take it. Jack stamped his and Fatima’s sheets, and carried them back outside to join the others.
“Thanks so much,” she said, putting the sheet in her map wallet. “I got split up from my team and I think they’ve already gone ahead.”
“Why don’t you finish the course with us, then?” Jack said with a smile, and she smiled back.
“Thank you!”
The last control point was by the lake. The four friends jogged along the beach towards it.
“Last one there has to smell Charlie’s t-shirt!” Joe yelled, and broke into a run.
“Hey!” Charlie shouted indignantly, and he pelted after Joe. Fatima and Jack laughed, and then Fatima stumbled.
“Oh, hang on. My lace is undone.”
Her map wallet rustled in the breeze as she put it down on the ground. Just as she pulled her laces tight, a gust of wind blew the wallet into the air and it got caught in some branches that stuck out over the lake.
“Oh, I don’t believe it!” Fatima groaned.
Jack and Fatima stood on the shore looking up.
“It’s not far,” Jack said thoughtfully. “If I stand on that branch there, I can reach it.”
“No,” Fatima said with resignation, “let me. You could fall in.”
Jack patted his trousers and laughed.
“Hey, I’m already soaked!”
He gave her his own wallet to hold. Then he hoisted himself up onto the lower branch, and carefully pulled himself up to his feet. Jack held on to the higher-up branch, and sidled out across the water.
The branch he was standing on began to bend under his weight.
Jack kept working his way along. The plastic wallet was getting closer …
But then Jack realised it was also getting further away, as the branch bent down towards the water. Even though he stretched up as high as he could, his fingers couldn’t quite reach the wallet.
“Don’t worry, Jack,” Fatima called. “It’s not worth it.”
“Hey, I’ve come this far!” Jack replied. There was still one way to do this.
He flexed his knees, and jumped with his arms held up. His fingers snatched at the wallet and held on, just as he started to come down again.
Jack grinned as he hit the water backwards.
“ Woot!” he yelled happily as he stood up. Water poured off him in every direction.
“You’re mad!” Fatima laughed as he waded back to shore. Jack laughed too as he handed her the waterproof wallet.
“I guess I’d better go and get changed.”
“I hope you didn’t lose anything in the lake.”
“Nah, I just had the compass on me and …” As Jack pulled the compass out of his pocket to show her he realised there was something else in there. What was that?
Jack’s voice trailed off as he saw what he had just pulled from his pocket.
It was a stump of bamboo.
With tooth marks on it.
His panda souvenir!
“Um – why have you got a bit of chewed-up bamboo in your pocket?” Fatima asked.
“Good question …” Jack murmured as he stared at it.
Then he remembered that moment at the cave. Fatima had been scared of … something. He still didn’t know what.
But he did know someone who could help. He had the bamboo – his adventure had been real.
Had the compass guided him to Bear? Could it do the same for her?
Stage one: believe.
Jack held the compass out. “Here, this is for you. It’s a gift.”
And with that, Jack ran off to join his teammates.
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. Bear is also honorary Colonel to the Royal Marine Commandos.
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
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 this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-7869-6022-1
Bear Grylls is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre,
a Bonnier Publishing Company
www.bonnierpublishing.com
Bear Grylls, A Bear Grylls Adventure 5
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