Through The Storm

THROUGH THE
STORM

BY

MARGOT BISH

Copyright 2015
Margot Bish. All rights reserved.

I and
Smashwords ask that no part of this book may be reproduced, stored
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written permission of the author.

At the time of writing, the people in this story followed the
correct procedures as outlined by the Royal Yachting Association.
As I teach
sailing
on
inland
waters, I do not know the guidelines of the canoeing
association or the RNLI and hope they will forgive me if I have not
followed their guidelines in the story. These procedures are
constantly reviewed and amended, and may well have changed by the
time you read this book as the various associations learn from the
experiences of their instructors and have the safety of everyone in
mind when procedures are written. Obviously, to make the story
exciting, there had to be some mistakes made so that an element of
danger could creep in. Otherwise it would be no fun.

Jack gave Ross
a wide grin and a friendly slap on the back.

“
What are
you doing this summer hols then?” Jack asked, and Ross knew Jack
had something good planned. After all it was only the
1
^st
June – six weeks of school
to go……….. It might be something even better than good, Ross
thought.

“Not much”,
Ross shrugged. He could see Jack was at the point of bursting with
his news, but Ross also knew Jack did not want to just tell him. He
was hoping to be asked first, just so that he could act offhand and
cool about it, act like it was nothing much. Just to blow his mind,
Ross turned and looked out of the school bus window. He could see
Jack’s reflection in the glass and watched Jack’s face, waiting for
the frustration to show. Huffing on the glass, he drew a stick man.
The stick man was frowning, but Ross was grinning to himself and he
carefully didn’t turn until Jack’s face creased into a matching
frown. Then Ross swung round with an I gotcha grin.

“Go on then.
Spill it.”

“Sometimes, I
just don’t want to be your friend anymore,” Jack muttered
sheepishly, realising he had fallen for the tease. Then he thought
of the holiday to come and his face lit up. “I’m going to an
Outward Bound Centre in Wales” he crowed.

Even this fell
flat as a punctured football. Ross was supposed to look impressed,
maybe even jealous. Ross didn’t. Ross looked as blank as a bowl of
custard.

“What’s that
then? Some kind of prison? Tie you up on the way out, do they?” he
joked. It was Jack’s turn for the custard look. Ross sighed. “It’s
a pun. Get it?” he added.

“No, stupid,”
Jack exclaimed. “It’s where you get to do all kinds of wild things
– sailing, rock climbing, canoeing, abseiling, parachuting, scuba
diving…..” Jack paused for breath and to rerun the list in his
head. What else could he boast about?

“You sure about
the parachuting?” Ross asked sceptically.

“Er, now you
mention it, no. But all the other stuff. It’ll be magic, Ross.
Nick’s gonna be there too. He’s helping take people canoeing”.

Nick was Jack’s
brother, much older and if you went places with him life always got
dramatic. He was a real fizzing livewire. You never knew if you
were going to get lost in a maze of caves, get stuck up a mountain
or get soaked crossing a river but things always happened.

“Sounds good”,
Ross said and sighed. He knew what his mum and dad had planned. The
normal boring old Isle of Wight beach holiday. OK, yes, when he was
six and seven, the beach was just great, digging sandcastles and
splashing in the sea, but by age ten it was getting a bit
repetitive. He scowled as he compared the two alternatives. Wales
came tops all round, a holiday with his friends, and all those new
things to try out. There was worse to come.

“Dave and Chris
are coming too,” Jack added. “Can’t you come as well ? ”

The bus jolted
to a halt at the school gates and they pushed their way off, five
minutes to get to class. No time to discuss things now.

It was all the
three adventurers could talk about all day. They wriggled and
bounced like helium balloons as they planned the challenges ahead.
Ross stood quietly amongst the chatter and tried not to look as
left out as he felt. Like a slug at a meeting of the snail shell
admiration society, he thought. By the time he hopped off the bus
in the evening, he knew everything about Outward Bound Centres. No
parents, hardly any real grown ups, apart from the instructors for
each activity, and most of them would only just have left school,
or were even still at College or University so they didn’t really
count as grown ups. Everyone would sleep in a dormitory. Ross had
wrinkled his nose at that. It sounded like boarding school, but
then he thought, it was perfect for midnight feasts and such, so
who cared? He ached to be going too. Every evening there would be a
film to watch, and probably it would be something exciting or maybe
scary, something to talk about for weeks after. It’d be the perfect
holiday. Ross had no other ambition as important as going on that
holiday. He knew there’d be trouble though. His parents couldn’t
seem to grasp the fact that he was growing up. Here he was, ten and
a half years old, able to look after himself (apart from cooking
and shopping and washing his clothes and other minor things like
that) and still protected like a toddler. The pillars of opposition
were likely to be unbudgeable, but he was going to push with all
his might, just the same.

“Hi Mum”, he
called, opening the back door.

“Hello Ross,”
his mother’s disembodied voice called back.

Ross found her
on the patio, trying to absorb the sun’s rays as it peeped around
the drifting clouds.

“Good day?” she
asked, peering under her sunglasses at him. This was Ross’s
chance.

“Not bad,” Ross
thought he’d better lead up to the main matter with something to
please her. “I got top marks in Maths. Trouble is, the day was a
bit spoiled ‘cos I found out Jack, Dave AND Chris are all going on
holiday together to an Outward Bound Centre in Wales this summer. I
felt really left out. They want me to go too”, he paused to gauge
the effect of what he was saying. A look of vague sympathy, but no
response, so he continued. “I’d really like to go too. I mean,
there’s grown ups to look after us, and we get to learn some really
amazing things. I mean they might be useful when I’m grown up. Jack
and Chris and David, they couldn’t hardly talk…..” his mother gave
him a look…… “I mean they hardly talked about anything else all
day. I’ll be left out of every single conversation between now and
Christmas if I don’t go. Could I go too, Mum, please?”

“
PLEASE
MUM”

“Hmmm”, Mum
said. “You’re not really old enough to go away without us yet, and
I think some of the really amazing things are a bit too much for a
ten year old”.

She looked at
Ross’s despondent face, and tried to cheer him up a bit.

“We thought
maybe we could do some cycling and sailing as a family this year if
you’d like. Your dad is quite keen that we have a go. Then, maybe
in a couple of years time you can show off what you know at this
Centre”.

She escaped to
the kitchen to make tea. Experience had taught Ross that
persistence while Mum was busy in the kitchen was dangerous and
likely to lead to a firm NO. He lay in wait for his dad.

As the car
pulled into the drive, he hurried outside to open the garage doors
for him and loitered while his dad gathered up briefcase, coat and
laptop and locked the car.

“Hello kiddo”,
he greeted Ross absently.

“Hi Dad”, Ross
replied. “Er, Dad? I’ve got a favour to ask, but it’ll be good for
you and Mum, too”

“Oh yes?” Dad
said, gradually closing down his work brain circuits and coming
back to planet earth.

“I thought you
and Mum might like a holiday doing what you and Mum like doing
best, without having to worry about me, and Jack says the perfect
answer is to send me away to an Outward Bound Centre where I could
have a good time too and be looked after. It’s what Jack’s parents
are doing, and Chris and Dave’s mums and dads think it’s a good
idea, too….”

“And what does
your mother say?” Dad broke into Ross’s sales pitch. Ross sighed.
It was never any good bluffing. His mum and dad communicated too
well.

“She says I’m
not old enough, but I am Dad. I mean, I’m older than David and he’s
being allowed to go”.

“Yes, but that
is up to David’s parents. We’re talking about us and you. Remember
last year? We left you alone for just two hours in a cinema and you
blew the whole week’s pocket money on popcorn and spent the whole
night being sick from stuffing.”

“Yes but I’m a
whole year older now, Dad”, Ross pleaded, “and they probably don’t
sell popcorn, and anyway, I don’t even like it anymore…”

It was no good.
His dad disappeared into the bathroom for his after work shower
and, after rushing tea, they went out for the evening, leaving Ross
with a babysitter.

“Parents!” he
muttered as they waved goodbye from the car.

CHAPTER 2

The months
passed and, despite Ross’s intermittent pleas and arguments, he was
still set for a holiday on the Isle of Wight, while his mates got
more and more excited about independent living in Wales. They tried
to find other things to talk about when Ross was with them but
somehow the conversation always swung round to Wales. They tried
not to get too excited when Ross was there, but there was so much
to look forward to that they often forgot he wasn’t coming too, and
then there’d be an uncomfortable silence when they suddenly
remembered again. Ross tried hard not to show how much it hurt that
he wasn’t going but he could feel the stiffness of his smile and
the deadness in his eyes and started wondering if perhaps he should
find some new friends.

There was only
a week to go when a double miracle occurred. They weren’t miracles
from Chris’s point of view. Chris started to feel ill on Sunday
night. Nothing very bad, just a bit of a sore throat and a slightly
stiff jaw.

“Too much
nattering about this holiday”, his mum said, and put the flushed
face down to excitement. In the morning, though, she had second
thoughts, and despite his protests that it was nothing, she kept
him off school and called the doctor.

When Chris
didn’t turn up for school, Ross collared Carl, Chris’s younger
brother at break time.

“Hey Carl.
Where’s Chris?”

Carl booted his
football to someone else and stopped playing long enough to
explain.

“Mum’s called
the doctor ‘cos he’s got jaw ache”. He laughed. “First schoolday
ever I’ve seen Chris insisting he was well enough to go to school
and Mum insisting he wasn’t. It’s always been the other way round.
Mum thinks it might be mumps.”

Dave and Jack
exchanged looks of horror.

“But what about
the O.C?” Dave said.

“Dunno”, Carl
replied. “Maybe Mum’ll be wrong. Don’t s’pose he’ll be allowed to
go with mumps “.

But Chris’s Mum
was right. “Mum’s furious,” Carl reported on Tuesday. “Chris can’t
go and they won’t return the money ‘cos they can’t fill the place
at such short notice. They said something about she should have
taken out insurance against illness. Mum gave them a right earful
but it didn’t change anything”.

Jack and Dave
groaned. “It won’t be the same with only two of us. We had
everything planned”.