FOURTEEN

Paulo was deeply asleep, lying flat on his back, when his bed started shaking. He tried to ignore it, but the shaking persisted. Then something light and feathery stroked a ticklish path back and forth across his face. He groaned and opened his eyes. Li was bending over him, tickling him under the chin with a handful of her long, black hair.

'C'mon, sleepyhead,' she whispered. 'Time to get up. You're on breakfast duty.'

'Go 'way,' muttered Paulo and closed his eyes again. They had all gone to bed with the sunset, exhausted by the day's activities and subdued by Amber's sad face, but Paulo's sleep had been broken when Alex woke him in the middle of the night to take his turn on watch. Now, all he wanted to do was sleep for another ten hours.

'Wakey wakey,' persisted Li, moving the hank of hair round to Paulo's ear. He did not shift. 'OK,' warned Li, 'I'm going for the belly now, so you'd better move.'

She lifted the hem of Paulo's T-shirt, then froze, eyes wide, staring down at his stomach. 'Paulo,' she said, quietly. 'Don't move.'

'Move, do not move,' grumbled Paulo, starting to turn onto his side. 'Make up your mind-'

'I said, don't move!'

Li's voice was sharp with urgency and suddenly Paulo was fully awake. He could feel something lying heavily on his stomach. Slowly he raised his head to see what was there. Equally slowly, Li eased his T-shirt away from his stomach and folded it back onto his chest.

For two seconds, Paulo stared at the sleeping snake coiled on his belly. He wanted to jump up and knock it away from him, but he forced himself to stay calm while he tried to identify it. The snake was about the same length as his arm. The head was small and the body was ringed with thick, alternating, black and white bands.

Paulo closed his eyes and took a slow breath. He was almost sure the snake was a small krait. The only thing he had going for him was that kraits were rarely aggressive. They had no need to be. Their bite was fatal.

'Krait?' he breathed, looking up at Li.

She nodded, staring at the snake with big eyes. 'What shall I do?'

'Step back,' whispered Paulo. 'Then make some noise.'

Carefully, Li moved backwards, one step at a time. She reached the campfire and picked up the storage tin and a coconut shell.

'Sure?' she whispered, looking uncertainly at Paulo. He gave the faintest of nods and she started bashing the coconut shell against the side of the tin. The snake stirred. It reared its head and turned, focusing its beady, black eyes on Li.

The other three woke up, complaining about the noise as Li continued to bash the tin. Li pointed to Paulo and, one by one, they saw the snake and froze.

The krait uncoiled and darted its head back and forth. It was disturbed by the noise, but reluctant to abandon the warm spot it had found. It moved up onto Paulo's chest and looked down into his face. The forked tongue flickered in and out of its mouth as it tested the air. Paulo held his breath but he could not stop his heart from pounding and his chest jumped under the snake with every beat. Finally, the krait decided it was time to move on. With one fluid motion, it slid down onto the sand and slithered away into the forest.

'So, it's true,' drawled Hex, into the stunned silence. 'Paulo really doesn't care what he sleeps with.'

Ten minutes later, Alex, Li and Hex were threading their way single file along the game trail that led through the forest to the pool. They carried stout sticks and Hex and Alex had a rucksack each, full of empty containers. They were out of water and had no option but to return to the pool to stock up, leaving Amber and Paulo behind on watch and breakfast duty.

Moving quickly and quietly, the three of them checked from left to right as they hurried along the trail, but the early morning forest was quiet and they reached the pool without meeting anything.

Outside the cave, the insect cleaning squads had been at work. Every remaining scrap of the slaughtered deer had gone and the rock was smooth and clean. Warily, the three of them waded into the pool and began to fill up their water containers, scanning the cave mouth and the forest all the while. Nothing stirred and they began to relax.

Alex and Li were washing themselves under the waterfall when a deep growl issued from the cave in the cliff. Their heads came up and they began to back slowly out of the pool. Alex turned, looking for Hex, but Hex had disappeared. He turned back to stare into the cave mouth, feeling his neck prickle with fear. Had something come out of the cave, grabbed Hex and dragged him inside without either of them noticing? If so, they were facing a deadly hunter.

The growl came again, echoing from inside the cave. Alex moved in front of Li, gripping his stick tightly. Then Hex popped his head out of the cave mouth and grinned at them. 'Admit it,' he said. 'I had you going then.'

'Hex! Get out of there!' yelled Alex.

'But there's nothing in here. It only goes back a little way, then it's blocked by a rock fall.' He turned and looked back into the cave. 'Hang on a minute, there's something sticking out of the bottom of the rock fall. I wonder what it is? I'll just go back in and have a look.'

Hex started to head back into the cave but Alex bounded out of the water and shoved him hard in the chest.

'You will not go back in there!'

'What?' said Hex, looking into Alex's furious face with genuine surprise.

'Grow up, Hex! This is real life, not some computer game! You can't just say "game over" and start again if you get eaten by something or buried under a rock fall! You'll just be dead!'

Hex raised his hands, palm up. 'OK,' he said, backing off. 'I'll leave it.'

Alex slammed an empty bottle into Hex's chest. 'Fill that,' he grated. 'And stay where I can see you.'

Alex led the way on the return journey. He was still angry with Hex and stalked on ahead without looking back.

Hex marched along after Alex, the heavy rucksack dragging on his shoulders and the bottles of water bumping against his back. It sucked, being a castaway. The physical work was no problem – his body was toned and fit from regular work-outs at his local gym – but Hex felt completely out of place in this environment. He could surf the wilder regions of the Net with the ease of a total expert but he knew nothing about how to survive in this sort of wilderness. Over the past thirty-six hours, he had spent most of his time blundering about like a complete idiot and having to be told what to do by some Northerner who probably thought a megabyte was someone who could eat three Weetabix in one go. Hex glared at Alex's retreating back and quickened his pace to catch up.

Li brought up the rear, also wrapped in her own thoughts. She was going through a mental list of the larger carnivores to be found in this part of the world, but still she could not put a name to the creatures they had heard in the rainforest. She was thinking so hard that she did not notice that Alex and Hex were leaving her further and further behind. A twig snapped over to her right, bringing her out of her thoughts. Li lifted her head, saw the distance between her and the boys and was about to break into a jog to catch up when she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye.

She came to a halt and stared closely at the large bush to the right of the trail just in front of her. She frowned. She was almost certain she had caught a movement from the far side of the bush, but now everything was still. In fact, everything was very still and absolutely silent. Li felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck as she realized that there was no bird noise in this part of the forest. Even the crickets had stopped their two-note song.

Li swallowed and took a deep breath. As she did so, she caught a hint of a smell. A bad smell, like rotting meat. She hesitated, then cautiously took one step forward and bent to peer through the leafy branches.