Chapter 14: Fish And Drift Have A Mountain To Climb
It was Fish’s second night in the cold and she was beginning to feel the effects. The fat fish she had eaten raw whilst talking to Florence was now just a distant rumble in her tummy. She needed more food and more help.
“Have you ever been to a town?” she asked her friend, shivering and trying to suck in her tummy to stop it growling.
“Oh yes, lots. Never for long, though. They all chase me away. CLEAR ORF, they shout. STOP BREAKING OUR ‘OMES.” Drift mimicked being chased away. “You people are very scary with your shovels and pickaxes.” He was feeling much better now. His body had regained a lot of its size and his eyes sparkled in the moonlight. When he smiled, it was as though a galaxy was sat in the snow.
“Well, I think we need to go to one. We can’t do this alone. We can’t stop Viktor from hurting mum or stealing our land unless we get help.” Fish’s face creased with worry.
“Oh we can’t do that,” Drift said. He gave her a big smile, as though that was the best thing in the world. “We’re lost, remember.”
Fish curled herself onto Drift’s lap and covered her head with the blanket. “I’m tired and cold and hungry and I want to go home and be somewhere warm and… and…” She ran out of things to say and her voice became just another rumble beneath the blanket.
“Oh you just need to eat something, that’s all,” said Drift.
A head shot out from the blanket and Fish gave Drift a hard stare. “Well OF COURSE I need to eat something,” she said. “And if your head wasn’t as empty as my stomach you’d have realised that ages ago.”
Drift pushed a finger into his head. A lump appeared on the other side. “Seems solid enough to me,” he said. Fish disappeared into her blanket again.
“Have a fish, Fish,” Drift said. The snow on his chest began to sweep aside to reveal two fish as blue as sapphire. “Have a fish, Fish,” he said again. “Have a fish, Fish.” Drift repeated the phrase again and again, enjoying the sound of it until Fish’s head emerged from the blanket once more. She saw the food.
“How did you…?”
“I kept some.”
“For me?”
“Oh no,” said Drift, smiling again. “I was going to turn them into shoes. I thought they would look rather smart. But you can have one of them. I can always use the other as a tie.” He lifted one of the fish from his chest freezer and handed it over. Fish seized it and began to pick away at its hard flesh.
As she chewed, Fish talked. “Drift?” she said.
“Uh-huh?”
“Where did you come from?”
“How would I know? Do you remember being born?”
“Well, no. Of course I don’t but mum told me…”
“Oh! Your mum told you, did she? And you believe her?”
Fish scratched her nose and thought about that. “Of course I believe her,” she said.
“Well nobody ever told me. I don’t even remember my mum so I’ve never really thought about it. I don’t look back and I don’t settle. I’m on the run, you know.” He leaned over and winked.
“I know, but you must come from somewhere. Someone must have made you. That’s just how everything works.”
“Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. Does it matter?”
Fish shrugged and resumed eating. “I suppose not.” She gnawed at her food for a while, letting it warm in her mouth before gulping it down. The wind snatched at her fingers every time they left the comfort of her blanket. “I don’t suppose you could move a bit to the side, could you? Only, it’s getting colder.”
“Of course,” said Drift. “Only too happy to.” He moved and the wind hit Fish with even more ferocity.
“No, the other way. I don’t want to freeze.”
“Oh,” said Drift. “I see.” His eyes sparkled. “You want shelter, like a home. Well let me… hang on.”
Fish felt Drift wriggle as he changed his shape. His chest sank in and became more solid. His arms and legs thickened. Even his head flattened out until he looked less like a snowman and more like a little tent, covering Fish completely. “How’s that?” he asked.
Fish instantly felt warmer. “Oh,” she said. “Oh that’s lovely. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Fish. We can stay here forever. You can have the other fish to eat and now you won’t get cold. Home sweet home.” His eyes shone in the little igloo of his body.
“It’s lovely, Drift. For someone who kidnapped me and then abandoned me to die on a block of ice, you’ve turned out to be the most wonderful friend. However…” She sighed and her breath clouded into the air. “I wish my dad was still around to rescue me.”
Drift’s voice echoed in the little chamber. “I thought it was your mum who rescued you?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“And didn’t your mum come looking for you after I kidnapped you?”
“Of course she did but…”
Fish found her voice drifting into nothing as she began to think. Drift was right. It was always her mum who was there. Her dad had done lots of exciting things with her too and she missed him so much. But if she’d been hurt or sad, she had always turned to her mum.
Drift finally broke the silence and interrupted her thoughts. He’d been thinking too. “Fish,” he said. “I think you know what we need to do.”
Fish’s heart leapt. “Oh Drift, I knew you’d think of something eventually. Tell me.”
“We need to wait for your mum to rescue us.” He sounded delighted at this breakthrough idea. Fish snorted and thumped the wall.
“That’s a silly idea. You said she was Viktor’s prisoner. Held by Block and Blast who, if you remember, KILLED MY DAD.”
“Oh, sure. But…” Drift tried to salvage his idea. “OK, in that case, I’ve got nothing.”
Fish hid in her blanket and curled up on the floor. “Neither have I.”
“I just think we need your mum,” Drift explained, trying again to sound like he was helping.
“Yes,” she said. “We do.” Fish sat up. “No. Wait. We don’t need MY mum…”
Drift poked his head more fully into the igloo. He looked odd but Fish didn’t seem to notice. “We don’t?” he said.
“No. But we do need to climb a mountain.”
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Illustration © Carl Pugh