Hills End by Ivan Southall

schoolday.’
    â€˜Can’t say I want to come back again, ever. I’ve had enough of this place…Whose schoolbag is that?’
    â€˜Mine. I hadn’t forgotten it.’
    â€˜Righto. I’ll go in front with the torch. The rest of you string along behind. And bung Harvey in the middle. We don’t want to lose him.’
    â€˜Hey! What do you think I am? A baby?’
    â€˜You said it. I didn’t.’
    â€˜You’d better hurry. That torch is getting weak.’
    â€˜Call me a baby! I’ll give you a black eye, Paul.’
    â€˜Don’t be silly. You couldn’t reach that high. And pipe down, Junior. You’re a disturbing influence.’
    â€˜Can you find Miss Godwin’s string, Paul?’
    â€˜I’m blowed if I can. We’ll have to take pot luck, I think. The string has been washed away or broken or something.’
    â€˜Take pot luck then, or we’ll be left in the dark. I wouldn’t give that torch another minute.’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Gussie, ‘and they say that girls are talkative.’
    â€˜That’s why we’re talking. To keep you quiet.’
    â€˜I’d say that was the way, Paul. Down there.’
    â€˜So would I. Still a lot of water about, isn’t there?’
    â€˜If we don’t get any more than wet feet we can’t complain. You girls all right back there?’
    â€˜Of course we are. Do you think we’re silly?’
    â€˜All girls are silly.’
    â€˜You keep out of it, Harvey, or you’ll get your ears slapped.’
    â€˜My dad always says— ow! You beast , Gussie. You only hit me because you know I’m not allowed to hit a girl.’
    â€˜I see daylight.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜Switch your torch off, Paul.’
    â€˜Golly! It’s sunlight, too.’
    â€˜Have we been sitting in the cold when it’s lovely and warm outside?’
    â€˜Sunlight!’
    â€˜What’s wrong?’
    â€˜If it’s daylight why haven’t they come for us?’
    â€˜Hurry up. Let’s get out.’
    â€˜Gosh! It’s great to breathe fresh air again. Isn’t it beautiful?’
    â€˜Is it? I want to know why they haven’t come for us.’
    â€˜The sun’s high. Must have been up for two or three hours. Must be eight o’clock.’
    â€˜Yeah. Eight o’clock.’
    â€˜Set your watch, Adrian.’
    â€˜It’s funny that they haven’t come for us.’
    â€˜Look! Look at the rock pan!’
    They looked at the rock pan, and they didn’t want to talk any more. They all felt very weak and very frightened.
    The rock pan was like a great river in flood, littered with uprooted trees that must have come for miles and with all sorts of rubbish. It seemed that half the forest must have been washed from the mountains. They couldn’t even begin to comprehend it. It was something that they had never seen before and probably would never see again. They couldn’t even describe it to themselves, couldn’t find words to express the degree of destruction.
    â€˜Oh dear!’ whispered Gussie.
    â€˜Isn’t it terrible? ’
    The lovely world they had known had gone, and Adrian buried his face in his hands—that way of his of expressing horror.
    â€˜Miss Godwin,’ he breathed, ‘and Butch! They’ll be dead. That’s why no one’s come. They mightn’t even know about us.’
    â€˜Even if they did know,’ Paul tried to say calmly, ‘they couldn’t come, could they?’
    â€˜But Butch and Miss Godwin are dead.’
    â€˜We can’t say that for sure.’
    Gussie began to cry and Maisie tried to comfort her and started crying herself, and Frances, not as unkind as she seemed to be, snapped, ‘Stop your blubbering.’
    â€˜It’s all right for you, Frances. You’re big.’
    â€˜Do as I say. Stop blubbering!’
    They