Chapter 44
Chapter 44
G ertie blinked away the snowflakes from her eyes and felt the tiniest tug on the rope. She looked up through the maelstrom. A confused pair of hazel eyes was looking down at her from over the lip of the cliff, and the owner of the eyes was hauling with some effort on the ropes.
“Sorry, sorry I’m fine, pull me up!” she said, shaking her head to come back to herself.
Back on the ledge Struan, Denise, and Gertie retreated to the side, where it was quiet enough to have a conversation.
Mrs. McGinty was still in the corner of the cave, refusing to engage.
“Hiyah,” said Gertie, who had always been as scared of Mrs. McGinty as everyone else.
Mrs. McGinty shook her head fiercely. “I’m not going down,” she barked.
Denise was already strapping herself into the harness.
“I have to go,” she said severely. “Pamela, you have to manage yourself, or retreat further into the cave until we figure something out and the weather clears.”
This had been a bluff to make the woman move, but it failed.
Mrs. McGinty looked defiant as ever.
Denise was exasperated. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I have to choose a priority.”
“You have to go,” said Gertie, quickly. “The children...”
“Yes,” said Denise, still clearly in bits at leaving someone behind.
Denise glanced down sharply. Struan showed Gertie what to do and, hurrying, they lowered Denise down as quickly as they could manage.
Gertie couldn’t think how to persuade the head teacher to follow her. Struan, utterly exhausted from wrestling twelve bonny children down a steep cliff, was out of ideas too, and he glanced back at the cave, then looked at her and oddly, given that they barely knew one another, they each understood what the other was saying straight away. They would have to beat a retreat.
Denise gently landed and disentangled herself from the harness and they hauled it back up, worried about what, exactly, was going to happen next. Would Mrs. McGinty move? And if she didn’t, what were their options?
As it happened, she leaped up as soon as Denise disappeared.
“Where’s Denise?!” she demanded, eyes and hair completely wild. She had discarded the hat and her head was covered in snowflakes. She looked like a mad witch.
“Uhm, she’s gone down,” mumbled Gertie.
“Oh my God,” said Mrs. McGinty. “You work in the supermarket! Oh my God! Are you meant to save us?”
“Denise has gone to take the children back,” replied Struan.
“Well, I want... I want to be where Denise is!” said Mrs. McGinty, shooting a terrible look at Gertie. “Not with a shopgirl!”
“Well,” said Struan boldly, infuriated. “You underestimate Gertie at your own risk!”
Gertie looked at him, surprised. But also, they didn’t want to be encouraging Mrs. McGinty to stay where she was.
“No, no,” she said, stepping forward toward the woman. “You’re quite right. I’m just a shopgirl. I’m useless. You should absolutely go where Denise is.”
And she held up the harness.
For a second Mrs. McGinty was caught between them. She paused, her face appearing terrified.
Then she looked again at the two young people.
“DENISE!” she yelled again, and stepped forward and grabbed the harness.
“T HIS IS HOW you unstrap yourself at the bottom,” Struan was trying to explain, but it was obvious Mrs. McGinty wasn’t listening. She kept saying, “Denise will sort me out.”
Meanwhile Gertie didn’t think Denise would still be there. She’d already be taking the children down to desperately needed safety and warmth.
“I need to hurry up,” Mrs. McGinty was saying. Well, she could probably catch them up, just about. Gertie radioed and Ranald said he’d wait at the bottom; Morag and Denise had gone on. Once Mrs. McGinty was down, Struan and Gertie would have to use the knots method. The ropes, Gertie knew, were very strong, and the pulley was holding. It would work.
When Mrs. McGinty heard Denise was already heading back down the mountain she was even more keen to get away. She simply wasn’t listening to Struan’s repeated instructions, and when they lowered her over the edge she kept hollering at them to go faster, faster. Once suspended, she kicked her legs against the side of the icy rock to try and make it go, giving a lot of strain to the side of the pulley Gertie and Struan were working on together.
“Nightmare,” said Struan, rolling his eyes.
“I always knew she was evil, even in Primary 4,” chipped in Gertie, and Struan smiled.
“Me too! My mum said I was being daft but...”
They shared a look.
When she reached the bottom, Mrs. McGinty had to unclip herself from the line, which could then be hauled back up and used again.
In her panic, and her refusal to listen to reason, she did not do this.
Instead, as soon as she reached the bottom, the head teacher dashed straight off down the hill in pursuit of safe sensible Denise, pulling the harness and rope with her, then, as she realized, desperately pulling herself away from it—whereupon the harness, dumped on the icy ground, simply slid off the other side of the path, and tumbled all the way down the mountain.