‘Danny. Danny. Dan. Hello, Dan, is there anyone there?’ He turns his head sharply as Meg shouts at him from across the fire.
‘Your turn,’ she says. ‘You’re the last one.’
‘OK, OK.’ He forces a laugh. ‘If I must. I’ve got a massive phobia about small spaces. When I was little I got stuck in a bucket at nursery. You can all laugh and take the piss now.’
And they do. Everyone apart from Honor, who gives him a suspicious sideways look. She knows Jessie wasn’t the only one who lied about her phobia. He did too.
Chapter 5
JESSIE
Day two on the island
Danny and Honor are arguing. They’re pretending they’re not, doing that low-pitched hissing thing my parents do when they don’t want to cause a scene in front of me, but whenever the fire lights up their faces you can see how irritated they are with each other. I’m not sure what they’re arguing about. It seemed to kick off after the discussion about phobias. That was awkward – the phobias topic. I could have told the truth about mine; it did cross my mind but I didn’t want the others to pull sad faces at me or for there to be a weird silence. As it was there was an awkward silence but Jeffers broke it with his vomit story. I know Danny is wary of Jeffers – there’s always been a bit of a weird tension between those two, even when we were younger – but he’s clever and he tells it like it is. And he’s more empathetic than he lets on. He didn’t chime in with his vomit story because he likes the sound of his own voice, he just didn’t want me to feel awkward.
It’s so ridiculously dark now that the sea has become a long black strip of satin shimmering in the moonlight. There’s no chance I’m going anywhere near the jungle. The birds have stopped singing but I can still hear the low whooping of the monkeys. There are other sounds too: clicks and whistles and buzzing. I can tell that they’re freaking Milo out. He keeps twisting round and looking behind him as though he’s expecting a huge great snake to slither out from the trees. His confession surprised me. I thought he’d say he had a phobia of something more physical like deep water or being buried alive. Snakes, no.
Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did. Why else would Jeffers warn me off him earlier? It’s not because Jeffers has any kind of ulterior motive. He came out the summer we all turned fifteen. Milo and Danny were surprised, but it wasn’t a shock to any of the girls. The boys held back while we all hugged Jeffers and, for a second, I wondered if things were going to be a bit weird between us all, but then Milo said something that made everyone laugh, Jeffers pretended to punch him round the head, and we were all back to normal. That was the summer that Danny and Honor got together. It had been on the cards for ages. They’d been really flirty in our WhatsApp group chats and Danny hadn’t held back on commenting on Honor’s Instagram photos. He blatantly fancied her and, when I took Honor to one side to ask if she felt the same, she admitted that she did. All we had to do then was set them up in the most unsubtle fashion ever. We were on holiday in Croyde. It was Danny’s birthday and Milo arranged for us all to go to the beach one evening, to watch the sunset. One by one we made excuses to be somewhere else, leaving Danny and Honor sitting on the beach together. Next time we saw them they were holding hands and grinning like idiots.
They’re not smiling now, though. They’ve given up the pretence that they’re not arguing and Honor’s voice cuts through the jungle sounds like a knife.
‘Danny!’ She twists away from him and throws her hands up in the air in frustration. ‘I’ve been sitting next to you for the last two hours. How is that being off with you?’
‘You’ve barely touched me!’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did I miss the rule where we have to have our hands locked together, twenty-four hours a day?’
‘No, but you did miss the rule about flirting with other people.’
‘Who?’ Honor physically recoils, anger lighting up her face as she gets to her feet. ‘Who have I flirted with? Anuman? Jeffers?’ She stares across the fire. ‘Milo? You seriously think I’ve been flirting with Milo?’
Milo raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say a word. Is this what Jeffers was warning me about earlier? Has something been going on between him and Honor?
‘Sit down!’ Danny grabs Honor by the wrist. ‘You’re overreacting.’
‘I’m overreacting? You’re the one acting all needy for no reason.’ She yanks her hand from him and turns to face us. ‘Am I right? Guys? Tell me I’m right.’
The silence that follows is painful. Not one person says a word and when I sneak a glimpse to my right, Meg and Milo are both staring down at the sand while Jeffers determinedly whittles away at a piece of wood with his pocket knife. No good can come of getting involved with Danny and Honor’s argument. It’s a lovers’ tiff and there’s no point taking sides. They’ll have made up and be all lovey-dovey again by the morning.
‘Sod this!’ Honor shouts. ‘I’m not staying here. Anuman, first thing tomorrow I want you to take me back in the boat.’
Our guide looks up impassively. He doesn’t want to get involved either. Honor doesn’t wait for a response. She stalks off down the beach with Danny running after her, shouting that there’s no way he’s letting her go anywhere alone.
The others are asleep, lying side by side in the shelter; a row of multicoloured worms in their waterproof sleeping bags. Meg and Milo went to bed first, shortly followed by Jeffers. Anuman tried to convince me that I should go to bed too. When I said no, that I wanted to stay up for a bit longer, he shrugged, retired to the food prep shelter and crawled into his own sleeping bag. A few minutes later I saw the shapes of Danny and Honor wandering back towards camp. You could have driven a truck between them they were standing so far apart. As they drew closer the fire illuminated Honor’s puffy eyes, her eye make-up striped down her cheeks. Danny was still raging; his eyes narrow, his jaw tight. Neither of them so much as looked at me as they rounded the fire and scrabbled around in the gloom, trying to find their stuff. Danny lay down first, taking a spot on the ground next to Jeffers. Honor stood with her back to me, clutching her sleeping bag, for the longest time. She looked like she was trying to decide where to sleep – next to Danny or next to Meg, on the other end of the row. Finally, she made her choice and lay down next to Danny, rolling onto her side so she had her back to him.
It’s after midnight and the sweltering heat of the day can’t have dropped more than a few degrees. When Danny started the fire earlier Anuman explained that, in a survival experience, it’s vital to keep it burning all the time; that it’s our only source of heat, cooking and water purification. He sent us all into the forest to collect wood, and there’s a huge pile stacked up behind me. But that’s not the reason I’m still awake. I’m not worried the fire will go out. I’m terrified it will get out of control. And if the whole island goes up in flames, so will we.
Chapter 6
DANNY
Danny groans and stretches as he wakes up. Every bone in his body aches, as though he ran a marathon the night before. Honor, beside him, is still asleep, her back curled away from him. He woke in the night and, forgetting their argument, snuggled up beside her and threw an arm around her waist. They haven’t had sex all holiday. Back at the hotel he tried knocking on Honor’s door when he was sure Thea was asleep, but Honor refused to let him in, claiming the walls were thin and her mum would hear. Last night, as he pressed up against his girlfriend on the cold, hard shelter floor, she curled into a tight ball. She didn’t want him to touch her.