Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute(21)
He is technically right—I can’t be bothered with distractions right now—but that just pisses me off more, because how dare he accurately guess what I do or don’t want?! “You do realize Katharine isn’t going to be here, right?”
“Fine,” he huffs. “Then you don’t want him chatting you up while you’re impressing Katharine’s holy representatives on earth.”
“That is not funny.” That was very funny. I hate him. “You are the most unbelievably arrogant—”
Someone clears their throat. Loudly. We both whip around to find the Energizer Bunny, Zion, waiting for us by the door with a disappointed expression and a leather-encased tablet. “You’re missing the introductory meeting, guys.”
Oh shit. First day, first meeting, and one of the supervisors catches me wasting time with Bradley Goddamn Graeme. Perfect. Just perfect. I am going to eat at least five sticks of broccoli at dinner as penance.
“Gosh, sorry,” Bradley says in the kind of sweet, genuine apology I have never managed to achieve (not since I turned ten anyway). My own voice sounds sarcastic at the best of times, never mind when following Bradley’s Earnest Angel routine, so I just wince and follow them outside, where the wind is doing its best to inject us all with thousands of tiny ice needles.
Bradley, I kid you not, pulls out a pink woolly hat from somewhere and jams it on his head until his ears are covered, and the tips of his twists peek out like adorable bits of tinsel. I can’t stand this boy.
We step into the short, midmorning shadows at the edge of Sherwood Forest, sidling over to the circle of Breakspeare Explorers who are listening avidly to an older, bearded white guy in a green anorak. I recognize the leaf-printed lanyard around his neck as part of the groundskeepers’ uniform.
Sherwood Forest is close to home, but I haven’t visited since…well. Since Dad took me and Giselle hiking here, a little before my ninth birthday. It was a weird trip. He was on his phone a lot and he got annoyed with us over the slightest things—Giselle’s moodiness, my nonstop questions. At least now I know why. His mind was elsewhere.
You’d think the forest would seem smaller, now that I’ve grown, but if anything, it’s bigger because I’m more aware of its darkness. The weather is bitter and gray; the forest is vast and stuffed with ancient trees I can’t identify—trees whose highest leaves I could never reach and whose massive trunks I could never fit my arms around. From here, I can see a rugged path into the undergrowth that’s for hiking, and I know there’s plenty more scattered about. This cabin sits on the south side of the forest and a gift shop and restaurant sit to the north, but between those two spots of civilization there’s nothing but wild and twisty woods that’ll take a hell of a lot of trekking. That tracks. According to my mental itinerary, this week is for learning key survival skills—testing our resilience, our relationship building, maybe our leadership, all while not getting eaten by wolves. (Supposedly, England doesn’t have wolves, but in my opinion, official sources of information are not to be blithely trusted.)
Brad and I try to slide into the circle without notice, but the bearded man stops whatever he was saying and pins piercing blue eyes on us. The wind whips his sparse hair upright on his head, and his upper lip wiggles like he’s scenting the air. “Ah,” he says in a tone so pointed it’s basically a health hazard. “These are our latecomers, are they?”
Every eye in this circle is burning into my forehead.
“You must be Bradley Graeme,” he says, scanning a raggedy-looking bit of paper in his hand (no tablet for our friendly local forest hermit, apparently), “and Celine…Celine Bang…?”
Bradley beats me to it. “Bangura,” he says, sounding annoyed. Which, yeah. It’s literally phonetic.
“Well.” Beard Guy sniffs. “I’m glad we are all present and accounted for. As I said before, my name is Victor—”
Oh, good. Now I have an actual name to use when I mentally rant about how much I dislike him.
“—and I’ll be guiding you through this training course. You will be expected to work hard and be punctual.” Another pointed glare from good old Victor. Clearly he is a person of great subtlety. “You will also be expected to do for yourselves; nothing will be spoon-fed. Our first activity, therefore, will be an ice-breaking exercise in two teams of ten.” He counts quickly, reaches a midpoint in the circle, and waves a hand to indicate the group should split in half. We do. It’s all very organized.
“Within this sector of the forest are hiding spots that contain training booklets. These booklets will act as your guide to understanding the forest flora and fauna later this week, but first, you have to find them. Your supervisors have maps and compasses to give you. Using these tools only, each team must find their cache. The first to complete their mission wins a welcome party tonight!”
There is an audible hum of excitement. Apparently, we are all the competitive type.
“The losers,” Victor continues, “will be on washing-up duty for the rest of the week, starting tomorrow. And I’ll warn you; we’ve only the one Brillo pad left in the cupboard.” He guffaws as if this is the funniest statement ever made.
I have no idea if anyone else laughs along; I’m too busy panicking about my crappy sense of direction and what happened that one time I tried orienteering in a year-eight PE class (I fell down a hill). I knew this whole thing was going to be hands-on, but this is, er, quite hands-on.