Chapter 8
I must have been asleep for some time but couldn’t tell how long. I had woken up shivering and cold. Looking outside, I could see that the light was dim, but not completely dark. I suppose I was about ten to fifteen feet inside the cave or whatever this place was.
I could see that it was raining hard and I could hear thunder and see the flickering of lightning through the slit like gap of the opening. The noise of the thunder echoed around the confined space and the noise didn’t help the headache that was thumping in my head.
My leg felt strange and I felt the place where I had broken it and could feel a lump there. It was tender to touch and a bit hot. I then started feeling all hot and clammy. I nearly fainted again and I leant back against the damp wall until the feeling passed.
My mind wandered a bit as I thought about what had happened to me. Could my Dad be a criminal and was Claire a friend or not? Flic’s Mum; was she in it or was she really just trying to help?
So many questions and no answers, my head was spinning. I felt that it was so unfair that I was expected to be all grown up and make decisions that even adults would find hard. I had gone from one bad thing to another and I was now in such a state that I didn’t know where to turn. I was angry, frightened, confused and lots of other things and the worst of it was that I didn’t know what was going on. What I finally did realise in my muddled mind was that I now knew that it was a bad mistake to run away, as it obviously didn’t solve anything. Maybe I should have waited and perhaps find out the truth some other way.
So here I was, in a cave with a broken leg and nobody knew where I was.
I was cold or hot, depending what minute it was and my leg hurt badly; added to that, my head felt like someone was banging a hammer on it. Outside, the weather was really bad; I could just see the spray from the waves as they hit the top of the beach on the rocks just below where I was. The wind was gusting and making strange whistling noises as it went through the rocks outside; it was quite scary and I wondered if the waves were going to get any higher and if I might drown here. I tried to be brave, but it was very hard.
My eyes closed as I was feeling a bit weak and light headed; before I knew it, I was asleep.
When I woke up, I could hear a scratching noise. I looked around and could see something small and furry over to my side. It was a mouse! I was glad it wasn’t a rat as I wasn’t that keen on them even though Georgie’s brother had a white one and I had held it and stroked it sometimes.
The mouse was quite small and I think that it was a brownie grey colour; it was difficult to see in the gloom.
‘Hello mousie,’ I said, ‘it’s nice to see you. This is a funny place to find a mouse. What’s your name? Oh sorry you can’t speak. Well you look like a girlie mouse so I am going to call you Minnie…’
The mouse looked up at me and I could have sworn that she understood what I was saying. She didn’t seem frightened of me and that was nice. She proceeded to clean herself as I carried on chatting to her.
‘Well Minnie, it does seem a bit nasty outside now, doesn’t it? Is that why you are here; to get out of the wet, nasty, horrible weather? I hope someone comes soon though cos I’m not very well at the moment. I have broken my leg and it hurts…lots.’
The mouse glanced up at that and I could see her looking me up and down.
‘I know, I’m all wet and dirty. I would love to have a shower; a lovely hot shower and put some nice clean clothes on. Dad would then call me down to the kitchen and we would have a nice meal…takeaway fish and chips would do or pizza. We do have some ready meals in the freezer, if the cook was out or away, so we could do that instead. You would like our cook, Mrs Murphy; she does lovely steak and kidney puddings. Yes, it would be a good idea to eat a takeaway and not rely on Dad’s iffy cooking if she wasn’t there!’
I shook my head, realising that I was rambling a bit.
Minnie then took another look at me and then scampered off somewhere.
‘Don’t go.’ I called…but she was gone and for some reason I started to cry and feel very lonely; then eventually, after a little while, I fell into a fitful sleep.
I don’t know how long I was asleep because when I woke up it was daylight outside.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and then could see that the sun was shining and the light was reflecting off the walls and little pools of water were scattered about the place. I still had a bit of a headache and my leg was quite painful, but only when I tried to move it. To be honest, I was very stiff and it hurt to move anything. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable down below as well and judging by the smell, I think that I may have had a little accident in my panties….I think that I had wet myself while I had been asleep. This upset me no end as I felt that I had no control over my body; things were going wrong and I didn’t know what to do!
I was very thirsty and I took a chance as I leaned over to the left, where there was a puddle of water and I managed to cup some in my hand. I touched the water with my tongue and it didn’t taste salty, so I took a small sip. It was fresh water, probably from the dripping ceiling! I immediately cupped my hand again in the puddle and drank thirstily.
After a few minutes of this, my thirst had gone away and it lifted my spirits a bit. I wasn’t hungry because I felt a bit sick, but having the water cleared my head somewhat and I could start thinking about what I should do.
I didn’t know if anyone would be using the beach or would find me where I was, so I had to try to do something for myself. I thought about things and realised that I might be caught by Claire or someone who might want to hurt me but that must be better than staying here with my leg getting worse and being exposed to any more rough nights alone.
I shivered, it was cold in my cave and it confirmed the fact that if I stayed there I might die.
I had to go.
Once I made my mind up, I gritted my teeth and proceeded to drag myself to the mouth of the cave. I whimpered a bit as my bad leg gave me nasty stabbing pains. My bare legs and arms scraped against the hard floors as I dragged myself painfully forward. It seemed like ten miles, getting to the front of the cave and I couldn’t believe that I had managed to crawl so far in when I first arrived here.
I stopped several times and panted like a dog as I tried to overcome the pain and sickness I felt, but eventually, I was at the mouth of the cave.
It was as if the bad weather had never happened. The beach was clean and dry and the tide was a fair way out. The sky was blue and the sun’s rays felt warm against my body. I wiped my hand across my face, which felt gritty and salty after my ordeal.
I could see my leg more clearly now that I was out of the gloom of the cool damp cave. About six inches above my ankle on my shin, there was a huge livid bruise and a nasty swelling. I didn’t want to touch it so I kept my hands away. I looked along the beach for as far as I could see; it was empty. I didn’t know what time it was as I had lost my watch somewhere. I leant back against the side of the cave and fell into an exhausted sleep.
I dreamt that I was playing on the beach with Flic. We had a beach ball and we were throwing it to each other. It was fun and we had to keep retrieving the ball from the sea.
Flic was shouting at me, but I couldn’t quite catch what she was saying…………………….
I opened my eyes, smiling as the dream faded and receded in my mind.
‘Melissa!’
I could hear her calling; it was Flic! I looked around and saw with dismay that Flic was on her little boat. The tide had come in and her boat was quite near where I was, bobbing up and down in the gentle sea. She was pulling down the sail so she didn’t shoot past me.
She was waving like mad and shouting at me. It was hard to hear but I just caught, ‘Wait there.’
I smiled at that. I wasn’t going anywhere!
The boat shelved on the soft sand and Flic pulled it up, with some difficulty, out of the water.
I watched her, slightly detached as if I was still
dreaming. I shut my eyes for a second and suddenly she was with me.
‘Melissa! Ooh what have you been doing to yourself?’
‘I…I broke my leg.’
She looked down and went a bit pale.
‘Oh no, it looks terrible. Are you hurting much?’
I nodded, unable to avoid the tears forming in my eyes.
‘Everyone’s been looking for you. You’ve been missing for two days! What have you been do…oh that can wait. I have to go and get help. This bay is cut off from ours by the tide. I’ll have to leave you and go back by boat. I promise I won’t be long. Will you be okay?’
I just nodded and closed my eyes…too weary to do anything else.
I felt her kiss my wet cheek and then heard her scrambling over the rocks to the beach.
‘Don’t fall over,’ I whispered, ‘you might break your leg.’
Time seemed stand still; I kept waking up and going to sleep again. The pain woke me up sometimes and my exhaustion made me drift off again.
I could hear the sound of an engine coming from a long way off. I couldn’t be bothered to open my eyes. I licked my lips; I was getting thirsty again and could have murdered a coke! The engine noise grew louder and I cracked opened my eyes. I could vaguely see a helicopter, quite a way off, coming closer to where I was. I couldn’t help wondering where it was going and whether if I waved hard enough, I might get a lift. Perhaps they could take me away and help me hide somewhere away from Claire and everyone else who wanted to hurt me.
I closed my eyes again and nearly drifted off, but the noise from the helicopter was now getting quite loud. I was getting annoyed with it, as all I wanted to do was sleep. When I was asleep, all my aches and pains went away. Why couldn’t it just go away and leave me in peace?
I could feel a strong wind from somewhere and looking up I could see that the helicopter had landed on the beach just a little bit further down the tiny bay. The tide had gone out a bit and it had landed on wet firm sand. The blades were still turning and making a lot of noise. Some side doors slid open and three people in funny looking wet suits and helmets got out and ran towards me. I gently waved at them and one of them waved back. Two of them were carrying a stretcher and wondered who it was for….perhaps it was for Minnie…
Then I smiled; I was being silly. I remembered that I had seen Flic and she had promised to get some help…it wasn’t one of my dreams then!
They ran up to me and I smiled up at them. I couldn’t see their faces as they had the helmets on and the sun was in my eyes, so being a polite little girl, I just said ‘Hello, I’m Emma, I mean Melissa!’
‘Hello Melissa,’ said a man, ‘we’re just going to have a look at you; you’re safe now.’
He started feeling me all over; and another one, a lady just asked me how I felt and where I was hurting.
I kind of gave them some sort of answer, but to be honest I was paying more attention to the third person. I didn’t even really pay much attention when someone injected something into my leg.
There was something about the man…He was taking his helmet off and having a bit of a struggle with the straps. It was quite funny and I started giggling a bit and then suddenly, I recognised him and gasped, my heart going madly….it couldn’t be….it was…
‘DAD!’