The Last Summer of Us by Maggie Harcourt

crackling.
    I can’t look at either of them any more. Not Steffan, for what he’s done, and not Jared, for not letting me stop him.
    â€œI’m going to bed.”
    My bag’s already in my tent. I zip the entrance closed behind me and lie down on the thin foam mattress and I close my eyes, because no one can really cry with their eyes screwed shut and if I don’t cry then it doesn’t hurt. It can’t.
    There’s an owl out there somewhere, and I can hear it hooting nearby. Calling to its own kind. It’s peaceful. Soothing. At least, it’s soothing if you’re not a mouse or a shrew or any of the other small furry things that are about to become its dinner…
    I can hear the others moving about outside the tent, probably getting ready to turn in for the night themselves. I feel momentarily guilty: I guess I put a bit of a damper on the evening. Well done me. There’s a hissing sound as one of them throws water on the fire, and Steffan coughs.
    They’re very quiet by their standards, quieter than they should be, and it’s not because they think I’m going to sleep or anything. If they wanted to make a racket, they’d make one regardless of who I was or what I was doing. I catch the odd word of Welsh – mostly Steffan, but sometimes Jared. They’re talking about something, talking quietly like it’s a thing that shouldn’t be discussed in the open. Like it’s a secret. Even though I can’t understand what they’re actually saying, I understand the tones of their voices well enough, and Jared’s not happy. Neither of them are, not really. However cheery they seemed in the day, the night has brought something else out of them.
    I’m still listening to the murmur of their voices and wondering what it is they don’t want me to know as I drift off into sleep.
    limpet’s iPhone / music / playlists / road trip
    Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble
    The Killers - Mr. Brightside
    Mallory Knox - Death Rattle
    The Heavy - How You Like Me Now?
    Catatonia - International Velvet
    Stereophonics - Local Boy in the Photograph
    Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly
    will.i.am feat. Skylar Grey - Love Bullets
    Ella Henderson - Glow
    5 Seconds of Summer - Amnesia
    The Vamps - Wild Heart
    Avicii - Wake Me Up
    limpet’s iPhone / notes & reminders
    Charge phone in car.
    Beach!
    Kick S till he bleeds, because bastard…
    Never sleep in tent again. Ever.
    J’s dad?
    Call Amy!!!

ten
    I sleep better than I have done for weeks, even though I’m in a tent in a scrappy little bit of woodland in the middle of nowhere and my neck aches and I’ve obviously been lying on an entire fallen tree the whole time. Still the best sleep I’ve had in a while. When I woke in the night once or twice, all I could hear was the river, and someone snoring. My money’s on Steffan.
    But the sound that wakes me in the morning? That’s not snoring. That’s…
    My ears are telling me I know that sound. I know what it is, and it shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be hearing that out here . No way. Scrabbling for the zip to the tent, I shake the last of the sleep from my head and – ever graceful – half climb, half fall out into the daylight. Jared and Steffan have obviously done the same thing, and as I dust myself off and straighten up, we stare at each other.
    â€œYou heard that too, right?”
    â€œWell, yeah.”
    â€œSo I’m not losing my mind? Good.”
    â€œ Losing? Ha!”
    â€œFunny.”
    And then everything stops, because there’s the sound again – and it is very, very definitely being made by an elephant.
    We stare at each other some more.
    â€œThat’s insane,” says Steffan.
    â€œThat can’t be real,” says Jared.
    â€œWhere do you think it’s coming from?” I ask – and the two of them are frowning at me. “What?”
    Maybe they’re waiting to