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<h2>13</h2>
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<p><em>August 1. 3.30pm...</em></p>
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<p>"Look at that," Doug called out, pointing straight ahead. The others reached the low brow of the hill and stood beside him. Down the slope, the four black pools, each of them almost perfectly circular except for the last which was kidney shaped, descended in steps. They were evenly spaced and nearly identical in size, as if they had been dug for a purpose.</p>
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<p>"Dead straight line," Billy said. "The bombers must have come right over the hills." He stuck his arms out and made a noise like a fighter plane in a dive and started to run down the hill zigzagging left and right. He stopped half way and beckoned to them with a wave of his arm.</p>
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<p>The others started to follow him down towards the craters.</p>
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<p>The first one was deep and ridged all around its rim where the earth had been thrown up by the force of the explosion twenty years before.</p>
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<p>"Just like a crater on the moon," Corky said. A dragonfly came soaring towards them, buzzing like a miniature helicopter. It banked on clattering wings before it reached them and zoomed out across the still water.</p>
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<p>"We must be close," Danny said. "If they were dropping their bombs up here."</p>
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<p>Tom shrugged. "Could still be miles away." His face was still smudged with dust and ash and streaked with his tears. He had come along with them but he looked more reluctant to stay. Behind them, far in the distance, a pall of smoke still hung in the sky, but it was fading away now, just a smudge of grey against the blue. From where they stood, the town, three miles away, was hidden from view by the curve of the hill. The faint sounds of the foundry steam hammer and the clanging from the shipyard down in the distance had all but faded, leaving them only the piping of a curlew on the hill and the liquid sound of a lark rising on the hot air.</p>
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<p>They ambled down towards the lowest crater-hole, this one completely round and deeper than all the others. The water was slick and patched with duckweed. Pond skaters slid on the surface while underneath them, water boatmen darted in search of prey. They dropped their bags in a heap and slung the tent beside them. All five of them lay on the sheep-shorn grass at the lip of the pond and peered down into the depths.</p>
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<p>Danny reached out slowly and dipped his hand under the surface sending the slick of algae undulating in slow ripples. "It's warm. You could swim in it."</p>
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<p>He moved his hand slowly very slowly, only an inch or two above the silt a foot below the surface close to the bank. Corky watched and saw a long black shape resting on the mud close to Danny's creeping fingers.</p>
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<p>"What's that?" he started to ask, but just as he did, Danny lunged and hauled his hand clear of the water. Without hesitation he dropped the black shape on the grass. It was three inches long and wriggled furiously out of its element twisting its segmented, coal-black body this way and that.</p>
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<p>"Dragonfly," Danny said and everybody crowded round.</p>
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<p>"Can't be," Billy contradicted. "It hasn't got any wings. Creepy looking beastie."</p>
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<p>"It's a larva. It's got to change first. It climbs up a stalk and breaks out."</p>
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<p>"Metamorphosity." Corky said, knowingly.</p>
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<p>"Ugly <em>baskit</em>," Doug said. "Bet it can't wait to grow up." They all laughed.</p>
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<p>Danny broke a stem of reed and jabbed it close to the insect's bulbous eyes. Immediately the bottom jaw shot out with a tiny click sound. It looked like a long, jointed arm, jagged with grabbing spines. The underslung mandible clawed viciously.</p>
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<p>"Jeez-o, it's a flamin' monster." Billy exclaimed.</p>
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<p>The jaw snatched the reed and pulled at it, and they all crowded round to watch the alien wriggling thing twist and turn, viciously defending itself.</p>
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<p>"There's a big water beetle that's got pincers," Corky said, holding his hands up at the side of his mouth and using his first fingers to imitate the motion of how those pincers worked. "Big enough to go right through your skin right into the bone. If it flies into you it can crack your skull."</p>
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<p>"Well I'm not swimming in here," Tom said. "You could get bitten to death. It must be full of creepy crawlies like that. Probably piranhas as well.</p>
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<p>Billy got to his feet and without warning he stamped down hard on the black larva. It crunched against the grass. "Something that ugly shouldn't be allowed to live," he said, grinning. Doug made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.</p>
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<p>"How would you like somebody to do that to you?" Danny asked, getting to his feet. The black larva twisted slowly now broken and burst, its legs clawing weakly at the air. Yellow liquid oozed out from the split in its abdomen.</p>
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<p>"Nobody big enough," Billy said, wiping his foot on the grass. He grinned. "And I'm not ugly, neither."</p>
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<p>He sauntered round the pool while Danny watched angrily, wishing he hadn't caught the insect, even if Billy was right. It was ugly and alien, something from a nightmare, but it would have gone on living if he'd left it, and some day it would have turned into one of the long , flickering streaks of black and gold that cruised on the summer air, hunting for insects.</p>
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<p>Billy hunkered down. Something splashed in the water right in front of him. He reached, made a grab, missed his footing and stumbled forward into the pool. One foot sank into the soft mud.</p>
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<p>"Dammit," he grunted. He reached again and snatched a bobbing shape up from the floating duckweed, then hauled himself out. His baseball boot and the leg of his jeans was red with mud. He shook his foot then turned and held up the fat green frog, waving it like a trophy.</p>
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<p>"Hello <em>froggy," </em>he sang, making his voice grate like a juvenile Louis Armstrong. He brought it across and thrust it in Tom's face. The smaller boy squirmed away from it.</p>
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<p>"What, scared of frogs?" Billy demanded.</p>
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<p>"No I'm not." Tom protested. "It's covered in slime,"</p>
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<p>Billy giggled. "You can have great fun with frogs. Watch."</p>
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<p>He searched around for a dried piece of reed and broke off a narrow stem, holding it up to the light to see if it was hollow.</p>
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<p>"You have to watch for earwigs with these things. They crawl into your mouth and down your throat." He held the frog tightly while they watched. The creature jerked powerfully in an attempt to escape but Billy had its head in a strong grip. The legs pinioned helplessly.</p>
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<p>"See its hole?" Doug agreed that he could see it. Billy jabbed the reed at it. The legs kicked desperately. There was a little pop sound and the end of the reed disappeared into the frog's vent.</p>
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<p>"Aw, Billy," Corky protested. "That's bloody awful."</p>
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<p>Billy grinned and raised his eyebrows up and down. "Now for the piece of the resistance," he said, grinning like Gomez Addams. He bent his head, put the free end of the reed in his mouth and blew steadily, puffing his cheeks out with pressure. .</p>
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<p>The frog inflated. Billy squeezed the free end of the tube to close it and leaned back.</p>
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<p>"You're lookin' swell, <em>froggy</em>," he sang. He breathed in through his nose and blew again. The frog blew up to the size of a tennis ball. The sun glinted on transparent skin. The round body swelled so much the spots on its pale belly had expanded to the size of shirt-buttons. The yellow eyes glared out from a distended head.</p>
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<p>"Look at its face," Doug said.</p>
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<p>It was an odd moment of fascination tinged with disgust and blackly cruel humour. Danny and Corky each screwed up their own faces, but they did not stop watching. Billy blew again and the frog expanded even more. "I can tell, <em>froggy!</em>"</p>
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<p>"It's going burst," Doug said, shaking his head and taking a step back and holding his hands up protectively just in case. "Give it a break Billy."</p>
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<p>"You're still growin', you're still <em>growin</em>' " Billy rasped.</p>
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<p>"Oh, that's really rotten," Tom said, and then, without warning, he burst into horrified laughter. Danny looked at him, feeling the disgust rise inside himself. He turned to the frog. Its eyes were bulging now and it bore a look of complete and mute bewilderment. A hiccup of laughter bubbled up from inside him and he tried to swallow it down feeling a flush of shame at how hysterically funny he found this.</p>
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<p>"Looks like Fat Sonia Kowalski," Corky said. Doug giggled then the two of them exploded with laughter. Billy turned and the frog slipped from his hands. It fell off the reed impaling its vent and landed on the water. Immediately bubbles came farting out in a steady stream. Its legs kicked out but it was still swollen to five times its size and they only paddled against air, hardly touching the water at all. It floated like a balloon on the duckweed, turning slowly in a little circle.</p>
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<p>Billy let out a howl. Tom was holding his sides. Danny and Doug were holding on to each other, convulsing with laughter and Corky was lying on the ground doubled up. They were completely helpless for several minutes until the hysteria passed.</p>
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<p>"God, that was really mean," Doug said, the manic laughter still in his eyes. He tried to keep his face straight and failed. "You should be done by the animal inspector."</p>
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<p>"Look at it," Billy said. "It's as big as a flamin' football, and it's farting away like crazy."</p>
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<p>"Fat Sonia," Doug said, remembering what Corky had said, and he was off again, bending over and holding his belly with both hands. "Oh, stop it," he pleaded. "Don't make me laugh."</p>
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<p>"That's really rotten," Tom said, stifling his laughter. "It never did any harm."</p>
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<p>"It's only a frog," Billy said, dismissively. "What are you worried about? They don't feel pain like us." He turned picked up his pack and started walking towards the lip of the valley.</p>
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<p>The rest of them looked at each other. Danny felt flush of shame creep across his face, making it hot and red. It had been cruel, dreadfully cruel, but it had been funny and the frog <em>had </em>looked like Fat Sonia Kowalsky. The inflated frog was out in the midle, vainly trying to cross a patch of weed. It would die in the heat for sure. The flush of hot disgust, at the frog's torture and at his own laughter stayed with him.</p>
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<p>"He's right off his head," Tom said with feeling. "I'm telling you. He's ten cents on the dollar."</p>
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<p>Behind the next ridge of tussock grass, Billy turned. "Come on you lot. At the double."</p>
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<p>Doug shrugged, sniffed. They moved on past the ridge of the crater, leaving the algae ripples to settle to silence, and the dragonflies snatching clegs and horseflies out of the air.</p>
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<p>It was another hour before they got to the floor of the valley where the Blackwood Stream tumbled clear and fast over the smooth rocks. They had followed the contours of the hill, travelling parallel to the flow of the water, walking on the sheep-tracks until they reached the end of the thick forest that covered both sides. Beyond that, single trees and small clumps grew here and there, perched precariously on the steep sides of the valley, hazels and ash and some alders. The stream had cut the moorland into grooves here, deep gorges that fell away down to the twisting flow below. High on the sides, scrubby hawthorns and an occasional rowan clung to almost sheer walls. Branching tributaries bringing the winter melt water down from the Blackwood Hills to the west and the Langmuir Crags on the east side, cut the land into chevrons of gullies and fissures. The five boys trudged along the edge, tired and slow now and ready for a rest from carrying their bags and the increasingly heavy dead weight of the tent. The valley swooped below them, the steep sides lined and striated with alternating dark bands of thick shale sandwiched between hard mudstone which slashed white parallel lines in layers from the stream bed to the high ridge of the canyon lip.</p>
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<p>"It's like something out of the movies," Doug said. They had caught up with Billy and nobody mentioned the frog. "Like cowboys and indians."</p>
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<p>"Treasure of the Sierra Madre," Corky said. "That's what it's like." He turned to the others. "We don' have to show you any <em>steengking</em> badges," he said in a reasonable imitation of a Mexican bandido. Danny grinned widely at the impersonation and lopped the head off a nettle with his stick. Billy looked puzzled.</p>
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<p>"It's a film," Corky explained. "Really good and scary too. The baddy gets it in the end. But the book's better. You should read one sometime."</p>
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<p>Billy drew him a look that told them all he wasn't interested in books.</p>
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<p>"It's like the grand canyon," Tom said. "I saw a picture of it in geography. It goes down for miles and it's got these lines all along the sides. I've never been up as far as this before."</p>
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<p>"Right up in the wilds now, Tiny Tom," Billy said. "Miles from home. Only us mountain men and the wild frontier."</p>
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<p>"There's bears and wolves and sabre-tooth tigers up here," Doug added, grinning his wide goofy smile.</p>
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<p>"Tyrannosauruses and stegosaurs." Danny threw in.</p>
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<p>"Giant spiders." Corky said, keeping it up. "Martians with three eyes."</p>
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<p>"And window-lickers from the special school bus." Tom said. He rolled his eyes up and let his tongue hang out imbecilically. "That's you lot, that is. A bunch of morons if you believe all that stuff. And I bet you do, every one of you."</p>
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<p>They started down the slope, reached the edge where the grass stopped and the steep shale fell away for more than a hundred feet at such a steep angle it seemed almost vertical from where they stood. Doug stepped back from the edge. "It's high, isn't it?"</p>
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<p>"Not really," Tom said mildly. "Only from up here. It looks further than it is, I think."</p>
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<p>"I don't like heights," Doug said. "I got stuck on the quarry once. Scared the shite out of me. It took me ages to get the nerve up to climb down and I missed most of the afternoon."</p>
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<p>"What quarry, the one behind the school?" Danny asked. "Where Crawford Rankine fell off?"</p>
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<p>Doug nodded gravely. "Yeah."</p>
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<p>"Thrown off," Tom corrected. "They thought he fell at first, but he got thrown off. Same time as Don Whalen was caught. Brenda Fortucci saw it all."</p>
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<p>Doug shrugged, not caring for the moment, though this was something they'd all discussed, and at length, in the long weeks running up towards the end of the school holidays. He looked down to where the Blackwood Stream meandered down there, a silver snake crawling through the steep valley. "I hate falling. I'd rather get shot."</p>
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<p>"Like my old man," Billy said. "He got shot a couple of times. You don't feel it if it gets you in the head. You don't even hear it. He wiped out a whole Japanese patrol, so he did."</p>
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<p>He stuck his hands in his pockets. "He could have taken Cammy Galt and Plooks McGill and your Phil all at the one time. He could have molocated old <em>Twitchy,</em> that's for certain. No bother."</p>
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<p>Doug ignored him and looked away. They'd all heard it before. "Can we find somewhere that isn't so steep? You could fall and break your neck here."</p>
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<p>"It's all right," Corky told him. "It's not as steep as it looks, and even if you fall, you won't go far. Watch."</p>
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<p>Corky took a leap forward. Doug blurted a warning as his friend leapt off the edge. Corky yelled at the top of his voice and went plummeting down. He hit the slope feet first, sending up a bow-wave of shale and then went sliding down the scree on his backside, forcing a fountain of gravel into the air, leaving a deep groove of his passing. Danny went skidding right behind him and Doug was encouraged enough to follow. Billy took the rear, bouncing down heavily, leaving wide footprints with every stride. In only a few minutes, they reached the bottom and followed the stream until they reached a flat part at the conjunction with another of the feeder tributaries that had cut the chasms in the moor slope. The twin gorges angled away from each other, each of them filled with the echoing sound of running water. Danny stripped off his canvas shoes and threw his socks onto the grass. He rolled up the legs of his jeans and waded into the clear stream shallows just down from the deeper pool where the crystal water tumbled through a low cleft. Corky kicked off his old scuffed boots and followed him in.</p>
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<p>"What's it like?" Doug asked, struggling out of his torn denims.</p>
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<p>"Magic," Corky told him. He came out of the water and rubbed the droplets from his legs. Already he was getting some brown hairs on his calves. Danny, who had stripped off his own denims, looked at them enviously. His own legs were white and smooth.</p>
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<p>"Let's get the tent fixed up," Corky said when he came back out, dripping water. "then we can light a fire."</p>
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<p>"Bags me to light it," Billy demanded. "I can get a blaze going with one match."</p>
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<p>"Yeah, we know that. Just so long as it stays in one place," Tom said rancorously. "You nearly killed us the last time."</p>
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<p>"Oh, give it a rest, <em>Titch</em>," Billy rounded on him. "It was an accident, OK? He pulled his tee-shirt over his head, slung it behind him and ran up to the rocky ledge at the side of the pool. Without stopping he scrambled to the edge.</p>
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<p>"Bombs away..."</p>
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<p>His cry echoed down the valley. He leapt into the air, bunched his legs together and hugged his knees so that he curled into a tight ball and hit the water so hard the impact it sounded like a drum in the confines of the pool. An immense splash of water arched out on all sides, soaking the bags and the tent.</p>
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<p>Billy came up to the surface, his black hair glistening in the sun. Underneath him the red mud which had dried on the leg of his jeans dissolved in the current and trailed downstream in banded clouds of ochre silt like streams of blood.</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>August 1. 4pm.</em></p>
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<p>He watched their progress from the cover of the thick trees on the other side of the valley, standing very still so that he betrayed no movement at all.</p>
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<p>The fire had died away but there was still a musky smell of grass smoke on the dry air, mingled with the aroma of burned gorse and its perfumed pollen. The hills up beyond the farm rolled away into the distance, barren of trees up this high, covered in heath and heather and thick bracken fronds.</p>
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<p>The five of them had followed the cattle track down to the pools and then they had moved on. He followed for a while, feeling the tide of heat swell inside him. He was in no hurry, none at all. The time was not yet right. There were still things to do, important things.</p>
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<p>He hunkered down beside a fallen pine tree that had broken its back as it tumbled, and pulled a piece of dried meat from his pocket, smoked pork from the dry-store next to the farmhouse kitchen. He chewed on it absently, waiting until the troop of boys began to angle down the slope, like a patrol in the hills. If he listened he might hear them call out.</p>
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<p><em>Dung fly.</em> There was no rush. Up here he had all the time in the world to do what he had to do. . There was no hurry for now. He would watch and he would wait. He would let them know, as some stage, when the time was right, who he was and why he had come.</p>
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<p>He rose to his feet and went down into the trees, heading back towards the farm where the others were waiting for him. He blinked several three times in quick succession, and the world flickered in a strobe of flashes, intermittent light and dark. The boys were going along the ridge at the edge of the valley where the land fell away sharply in the narrow cleft down to the stream, and in a line, just like a troop of infiltrators. It was steep there. Maybe one of them might fall...</p>
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