The Survival Game by Tim Wynne-Jones Page A

washed his clothes and hung them out to dry in the north wind, made roaring bonfires on the beach with fat pine, resinous and hot.
    Alone, Burl found himself caught between anticipation and relief. But he got on in fine style with the business of living. The Maestro would return when he returned. And when he did, Burl was determined not to get in his way. To that end, he started work, making something of a sleeping quarter in the shed.
    It was a challenge. There was all kinds of building material – rigid insulation, lengths of two-by-four, oddly shaped scraps of plywood – but after he’d made his raft, there was not enough of anything to actually wall off the diesel engine.
    Then one day, while he was working in the shed, his mind wandered to what he had read on the invoice. The Old Starlight Claim. Burl stopped what he was doing. Maybe the prospector had never found gold or whatever he was looking for, but he might have made himself a cabin of some kind. He stepped outside the shed and was surprised that it had never occurred to him before to look. For right outside the door the path that led up from the beach continued right past the shed, if only he’d had eyes to see. It was well and truly overgrown.
    There are paths in the woods. Tunnels. They still have walls if you can make your eyes adjust, see the signs. The hill climbed steeply. Branches brushed against Burl’s face, closed in on him. He kept his eyes peeled. Finally he found a blaze in a tree trunk. He went on. Then he found another blaze, long healed but still a sign. He was high enough to catch glimpses of the lake through the poplars. Then he was on a rocky ridge. He came to a digging site – not a mine, but a man-made depression in the ground. And then, finally, he came upon what he had hoped for. A tiny perfect cabin not much bigger than the Maestro’s shed.
    The door bristled with sharp black spikes, business side out. The windows were shuttered in the same manner. This was bear-proofing at its gruesome best! For all that, the door was not locked. In fact, when the latch was opened, the spiked door swung out to reveal a plain wooden door behind it. Burl ventured inside.
    There was an iron bedstead. A wide shelf under the window near the door with a large white enamelled bowl, a couple of tin saucepots, a black iron frying pan. On a narrow shelf above this counter, beside the window, sat a couple of plates, bowls, cups and a wooden box with a few pieces of cutlery in it neatly wrapped in a tea towel. There was a tin box with matches inside. In the corner sat a tiny old woodstove vented through the wall. A cast-iron teapot sat on the top. That was all. There was no closet – only three hooks on the wall. There was no chest of drawers but only a shelf behind the door, empty. There was a layer of dust on everything, several dead flies, mouse droppings. But otherwise the place was as neat as a pin.
    Burl walked around the little cabin again and again, marvelling at its orderliness. Outside there was a neat stack of firewood with a sheet of plywood over it held down by rocks to keep it dry. Within half an hour of arriving at this spot, a person could have it cleaned up and a pot of tea bubbling on the stove.
    On the south side of the building there was a bare and rocky outcropping from which Ghost Lake, almost the whole expanse of it, could be seen – all but the beach directly below where the pyramid stood.
    Burl could not believe his luck. This is where he would stay when the Maestro came back. He didn’t need much. He could stay out of the Maestro’s way when he was composing or when he was in one of his moods. He would come down to cook meals and fix stuff that needed fixing. He would earn his keep. It was all so perfect.
    Burl closed up the cabin carefully. On the way back down the hill, he freshened up the blazes on the trees and added a couple of new ones. He would clear some of this trail. It would be something