Evie wanted so badly to be in that lovely, cool cave – but she also didn’t want to be disturbed by a bad-tempered dangerous wild animal. She looked around.

There was a tree about forty metres away, standing on its own. It reminded Evie of a giant mushroom. The trunk was tall and thin. The branches were like a flat layer, much wider than the tree’s height.

“Good spot,” said Bear. “That’s an acacia tree, and its branches are good and thorny – let’s grab a couple of those fallen ones.”

Evie and Bear had to make a couple of trips to drag the branches over to the entrance to the cave, while the savannah slowly baked around them. Evie got a nasty jab in her thumb from a thorn that just went straight in, deep, before she noticed it hurting.

After that, she took a bit more care to avoid the thorns.

Bear tied his knife to the end of a stick with a bit of nylon cord from his rucksack.

“Just in case,” he said, when he saw Evie looking confused.

Then, with the barrier of thorns behind them and the spear in front of them, finally, Bear and Evie went inside the cave. It smelled of the animals that had used it, but it was cool. It must have been twenty degrees cooler than outside.

Evie could feel all the tension draining out of her. She wanted to lie down and sleep.

“We’ll give it four hours,” said Bear. He pulled his bag of biltong out of his rucksack. “Then we’ll move on. Have a bite?”

Evie felt too tired to put up a fight. She knew she needed to eat it – even if it did look like a bit of old leather. So, before she had time to think of all the reasons why she didn’t want to, she took a piece and put it into her mouth.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

Surprisingly, it tasted okay. Sort of sweet and salty at the same time.

They washed their biltong down with another swig of water. After that, Bear put the meat and the bottle away and then gave the rucksack to Evie to use as a pillow. He lay down and put his hat over his face.

Evie gazed out beyond the thorns at the brightly lit savannah.

Everywhere she looked, the air was shimmering.

What would happen if they didn’t find more water in this merciless heat?

7

EVERY MEAL’S A FEAST

When Bear and Evie stepped into the daylight again, the sun had moved low in the sky. The tops of the mountains were touched with a flash of orange.

“It’ll be night soon,” she said. “Shouldn’t we stay here?”