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  “I think you should take a sleeping pill and go to bed,” she said. “Now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Joe finished his tea. “I can’t just leave the camp to fend for itself and go to bed.”

  “You’re no use to anyone if you get ill, Joe,” said Sadie. “Jonesy and I can handle the rest of today. It’s only free time and a movie.” She stood up. “Come. I’ve got some good stuff that works great and doesn’t have bad side effects.”

  Joe hesitated, but he didn’t want to give in. “No, Sadie,” he said. “I keep telling everyone else not to skive off – how can I go to bed in the middle of the day?”

  Jonesy came up to the table. “I heard my name,” she said. “Joe, you look like hell. I hope you’re listening to Nursie.”

  “I’m telling him to take a sleeping pill and go to bed,” said Sadie, folding her arms. “I said you and I could handle the rest of the day.” She turned to Joe. “How about if we promise to wake you up if anything at all goes wrong?”

  “You should go sleep, Joe,” said Gabriel, his mouth full of Caitlin’s unwanted chicken pie.

  “I agree,” said Richard. “I won’t think less of you, honest.”

  Joe stood up. He looked defeated, but grateful too. “Thanks guys,” he said. “Maybe just a few hours. And you’ll call me if anything is wrong?”

  “Of course!” said Jonesy, putting her hand on his back and steering him away from the table, then looking back at the others and winking. “If someone burns the place down, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Sadie followed them to Room 13 and got a sleeping tablet for Joe, then took the office keys from him before he went to his room. This was crazy, she thought. Joe couldn’t carry on like this. She looked down at the keys in her hand. It was her turn for a shift in the admin office after lunch. Maybe she could get something important sorted out while she was there.

  An hour later, Sadie put down the phone in the office and sat back in her chair, very pleased with what she had accomplished. Someone at Head Office had been gently convinced that the gap in the staff at their camp was a serious problem and needed to be addressed right away. An “admin person” had been contacted and convinced to make himself available. By Tuesday, Joe would have experienced help in the office; another senior staff member to take some of the burden off his shoulders. Sadie stood up, closed the laptop and left the office, locking the door behind her with Joe’s key and hanging it around her neck. Hopefully by now Joe was fast asleep, and now, temporarily, she had a camp to run.

  Chapter 10

  Sadie was sitting on the lawn outside the dorms a few mornings later with some of the other staff during tea time when the camp minibus pulled up. The passenger door opened and a man got out – a tallish man, probably in his mid-thirties, already wearing what must have been an extra-large red Camp Bellevue T-shirt. His skin was light brown and his hair was soft black, and something about the look of him made Sadie hope …

  “Thanks for the ride!” he said to Dave, the driver, taking his bag out of the back seat. Sadie jumped up at once.

  “You must be Alvin!” she said, going up to him. “And did I hear right? Are you South African?”

  “Oh yes,” said the man, with a wide smile. “I am Alvin, come to save the day, I hear. And yes ma’am, I am a proud South African, as I am guessing you are too?”

  “Yes, yes!” said Sadie, bouncing on her feet in excitement. “Now I’m not the only one!” She hadn’t realised until that moment that even though she was loving meeting people from so many different places, she felt very different to them. Linda had been a pain sometimes, but she was from home, and she understood things that Sadie’s new friends didn’t. And now this big, cuddly, friendly person, who sounded just like so many of her friends at home, was here to help with running the camp. She was so glad she had made that phone call to Head Office.

  Alvin settled in as if he had been there all along. Joe knew him from the camp they had worked on the previous year, and Sadie was impressed to see an actual smile on Joe’s face when he came out to meet him. He had hardly put his bag down before he was in the office, looking at the schedules and the transport arrangements and congratulating Joe, Jonesy and Sadie on what they had managed so far. Alvin was an itinerant teacher who had worked for Camp Bellevue a few times before during his summer holidays – this year he had decided to take a break but had been convinced to step in at Sternwood. Now that he was around to sort out schedules, rosters, venues, supplies and transport, Joe and Jonesy were freed up to manage the kids, staff and events.

  “It’s such a relief to have you here, Alvin,” said Joe. “Now I can actually be on top of what’s going in, instead of being on the phone and in the office all the time.”

  “Ja well – I wasn’t going to do a camp this year but when I heard what happened with Mr You-Know-Who, I didn’t want to leave you stranded. Seriously – how can he think he can just shove you into a job you didn’t want and leave you short-staffed on top of that? And I can always use the money.”

  “Would we do it if not for that?” sighed Joe. “I don’t think I would. The only reasons I stayed were that I need the money and it was too late to find something else.”

  “Not you, Joe,” said Alvin, giving him a pat on the back. “You should be in a library with your head in a book or travelling to Mongolia or Sudan with the UN or something. This is not where you belong, my friend.”

  Joe grinned. Sadie was surprised. She had heard Ian say Joe was a student, but she hadn’t asked what he was studying. “Mongolia?” she asked. “What are you studying, Joe?”

  “International Relations,” he said, briefly. Since the day Sadie had made him go to bed they had hardly spoken. She had wondered if he felt embarrassed of his weakness that day, and she had wished she could find a way to tell him she didn’t think he was weak at all.

  “Looks as if you’ve got things under control!” said Alvin, sitting back in his chair.

  “Yeah maybe, but it’s been ridiculous,” said Jonesy, leaning back too and putting her feet on the table. “We’ve hardly slept. The kids have been all right, except for that fire alarm – but there’s just way too much for two of us to do. We had to get poor Nursie involved!”

  “Ah yes, Nursie – the one responsible for all the colourful koki posters?”

  “Kokis!” laughed Sadie. “It’s so nice to hear South African words, Alvin. Where are you from exactly?”

  Amazingly Alvin was from Cape Town too and had grown up just a few kilometres from Sadie. They had a good chat over supper that evening, finding more in common and even discovering a mutual acquaintance. After supper, while everyone was eating jelly and ice cream, Joe, who had actually sat down with some of the other staff to eat that night, stood up and banged a spoon on a glass to get everyone’s attention. Once again Sadie was impressed at how quickly the kids quieted down, at how his voice demanded to be heard.

  “I would like to introduce you all to Alvin,” he said. “He will be helping us in the office.” Alvin stood up and bowed, and got a round of applause from the kids and the staff. “And I also need to say …”

  He paused, and coughed.

  “I need to apologise to everyone for my … grumpiness. None of you deserves to be shouted at.”

  There was silence as the kids and the staff looked at each other in surprise.

  “At least,” said Joe, “not all the time.” There were some giggles from his audience, from both the kids and the staff. Again, Sadie thought she saw a hint of a smile. “Hopefully Alvin being here will mean you have a less stressed-out Camp Director.”

  Someone clapped, and someone else whooped.

  “That doesn’t mean anything changes,” he said. “The rules will be obeyed, or there will be consequences. Understand?”

  “Yes Joe!” It was Fernando, shouting out from a corner of the dining hall where he sat, surrounded by girls who giggled at his boldness. “Yes, Joe!” echoed Francesco and some of the other kids.


  “Good,” said Joe. “I hope you all mean that.” He stood for a second – it almost got awkward, Sadie thought, and then sat down at the table again.

  “Good on ya, Joe!” said Jonesy, patting him on the back. “You’re such a solid fella, aren’t you?” Joe kept his eyes down and ate his dessert, his expression unreadable. But Sadie was impressed. She was starting to figure out a little more what it was that made Joe Donovan tick.

  Chapter 11

  The next day Sadie was eating breakfast, when Alvin came up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Nursie,” he said. “Can you help us out with something?”

  “I can try,” she said.

  “Ingrid has been up all night, puking.”

  “Oh no,” said Sadie. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I should go and see her. Maybe she needs some rehydration sachets.”

  “I think she’ll be okay – her roommate says she’s asleep now, so the worst is probably over. There’s one of her classes this morning that none of the other tutors can cover, though – how about it?”

  “Me?” she said, her eyes wide. “You want me to teach an English class?”

  “You speak English, don’t you?” he said. “You don’t have to do much, they just need to be supervised, really. Just chat to them if you want. It’s an elementary class; their English is terrible. It would be hard not to teach them something.”

  “Okay, I’ll try,” she said, feeling a little nervous but excited too. She really liked these kids – except for some of the older ones who were bored and looking for trouble most of the time, they were fun and interesting to be around, and unlike many kids at home (and English kids, she supposed) they were used to relating to adults.

  Later that morning Sadie had attended to Ingrid, who was indeed over the worst, and was standing at the teacher’s desk in a classroom. She wanted to laugh at the idea of herself as a teacher, in her ripped denim shorts and red T-shirt, her purple sandals and her blue hair which Emma had put into a bunch of tiny plaits the night before. She had pulled the plaits into a messy knot at the back of her head, but she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a window and thought she looked less like a teacher than one of the students – some of them were even taller than she was. There were fifteen of them in the class – a few of the younger Italian boys, including Francesco, two nervous, quiet Polish sisters, and the rest were mostly Russians.

  “Good morning, class,” she said, with mock primness, pushing her glasses down on her nose and peering at them over the top. The class laughed. “Your teacher is sick, so I will be your teacher today.”

  The kids sighed and opened the exercise books on their desks. Sadie went up to Francesco’s desk and looked at his book. He seemed to be half way through copying out a long vocabulary list in dreadful spidery handwriting. He looked up at her.

  “Hmmm,” she said. “Close your books.”

  They did so without hesitating, looking up hopefully. “I think we need some music,” she said. “Who knows Ed Sheeran?”

  The kids looked excited at the prospect of music, and some put up their hands.

  “I know him!” said Daniella, an Italian girl with long blonde hair and perfect make-up. “He has … red hairs!”

  Sadie laughed. “Yes, that’s him, but we say, ‘red hair’ not ‘hairs’, okay?” The girl nodded. Sadie picked up her phone, which she had connected to Ian’s hastily borrowed portable speaker. “Let’s listen to this song, and you tell me what you hear.”

  She played the first few lines of a song. There was silence in the room as the kids listened, straining to hear from their desks. Sadie stopped the song. “Come closer!” she said. They gathered around the teacher’s desk, and she started it again.

  “Who heard what he sang?” she asked.

  “I know! I know!” said a small Russian boy called Nikolai.

  “Write it on the board for us, Nik,” said Sadie. Nik picked up the chalk and stood on a chair, writing: “Love can hurt. Love can hurt sometime” in careful letters.

  “Is he right?” asked Sadie. “Let’s listen.” She played it again.

  “Loving!” said Daniella. “He say loving, not love!”

  “You go and change it, Daniella,” said Sadie. “What else?”

  “Play it again, Nursie!” said Nikolai, and the kids carefully listened again. This time they all shouted out.

  “Sometimes! He say sometimes!”

  “That’s right!” laughed Sadie, and Nikolai changed it on the board. Slowly the class worked through the first verse of the song, listening with intense concentration to get the right words and be the one to write on the board.

  “Fantastic!” said Sadie, as she surveyed the words to the first verse and the chorus, written on a now very smudged-out board. Daniella was bouncing and clapping her hands. “Now let’s sing it together,” said Sadie, starting at the beginning again. She cranked up the volume and the kids sang along, some linking arms and swaying to the music. Francesco seemed to enjoy it immensely, entertaining the class with his dramatic “Wait for me to come home!” at the end of the chorus. They carried on with the rest of the song, and Sadie was amazed that the time had gone so quickly when there was a knock on the door as the next tutor arrived with his class. “Quickly, guys! I didn’t know it was so late!” she said to the kids as they packed up to move off to the next activity.

  “Thank you Nursie, you are good teacher!” said one of the Polish girls, with a smile, as they left the room.

  “I don’t think Joe like it,” said Francesco, walking beside Sadie across the grass to their next activity, which was tennis with Caitlin.

  “Joe? What do you mean?”

  “I see him watching us in the window,” said Francesco.

  “Really?” Sadie was puzzled, and a little embarrassed.

  “He come past and watch in the window,” the boy insisted. “Only for short time. I don’t think he like it; he look like this.” Francesco did his grumpy-faced Joe impression again.

  Sadie tried not to laugh. “Don’t do that, Francesco,” she said. “You’ll get us in trouble.”

  “Don’t-a worry!” he said. “Joe make that face but he can laugh too. I see it.”

  Joe laughing? Sadie had seen a smile or two but never a laugh. She wondered what Francesco meant. At supper later, Joe came up to her while she was finishing her macaroni cheese.

  “Hi,” he said. “That doesn’t look too bad.”

  “It’s not,” she said, feeling a little self-conscious. “The chicken pasta didn’t look great.”

  “It was vile,” he said. “Like melted plastic with pieces of tripe in it.”

  She laughed. “That’s what it smelled like.”

  He smiled back. She was glad – she still felt a little responsible for Joe’s improved state of mind since Alvin’s arrival. It was like a little secret she kept just to herself. He had a really nice smile – his eyes crinkled up at the corners and his whole face changed.

  “I wanted to mention your English lesson this morning,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry – I was a bit out of my depth. I just thought I’d do something fun with them.”

  “It was great,” he said. “I was walking past and heard the music, so I watched for a while – I hope you don’t mind. It was a good idea. The kids really loved it. And thank you – I appreciate you filling the gap. Again.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I like trying new things. It’s fun finding all kinds of new things I never thought I could do.”

  “Really?” he said. “Like what?”

  “Like teaching a lesson. Being an actual nurse on my own. Making friends with so many people. Doing admin and getting things done. I’m happy.”

  “You are,” he said. He was looking straight at her, as if he was trying to read what was behind her words. “You appreciate life and I think it rubs off on all of us.”

  Sadie blushed. Before she could say anything more, Gabriel was behind her, leaning down to put hi
s arms around her neck. “Ah, mia chica bonita,” he said, into her ear. “I was looking for you!”

  Joe grinned. “Maybe on some more than others,” he said. “Gabriel – cool it on the PDA’s, okay?” He got up to leave.

  “Thanks for the encouragement, Joe,” said Sadie, as he left. He smiled and walked off to join Jonesy where she was sitting with some of the others, having a lively conversation about football.

  “What does that mean?” she asked Gabriel, as he sat beside her.

  “It means pretty girl,” he said. “And I do not know what PDA is.”

  “Public Display of Affection,” she said. “Not allowed when there are kids around, remember?”

  Gabriel looked concerned. “Crazy English,” he said. “In Spain your mother will be angry with you if you do not hug and kiss your uncle, never mind the sweetest girl on the whole camp!” He shook his head and Sadie laughed. She had nothing against Gabriel’s PDA’s.

  Chapter 12

  Sadie was dreaming about home. She was somewhere on the mountain, in her hiking boots, the vista of Cape Town spread out before her as she had seen it so many times. She could feel the wind in her hair and sticky sunblock on her skin, the faint musty, sour smell of the vegetation in her nose, and the sound of singing behind her. It was him singing, Paul, her ex-boyfriend, the boy the old Sadie had loved and then grown to fear. It was a song she knew well, one she had played over and over until she knew every word, a song she had sung in church so many times. ‘Living he loved me, dying he saved me …’ In the dream she shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears to drown out the words, but she still heard them, the volume increasing until her ears hurt. “Buried he carried my sins far away …”

  “Stop!” said Sadie, in her dream. “Please, stop singing!” The noise continued, changing from music into a piercing whine as Sadie returned to consciousness. It was the middle of the night, she was on her bunk in Room 11, and the fire alarm was going off again. She groaned, reached for her glasses and dragged herself out of bed, shaking her head against the still-warm memory of the dream, of Paul’s voice so real in her ears.