The storm is deadly close now; looking up I see the treetops bend and wave in the wind.

‘Let’s go. Quick!’ I pat my shoulder for him to hold on to, but he tosses his head in refusal, with that proud, stubborn look on his face again.

‘Fine then, be like that,’ I mutter as I squelch hurriedly through the riverside mud just ahead of him, leading us towards the cave.

We’ve gone about a dozen footsteps when the next lightning flash crackles so close it makes my hair prickle. Instinctively, I start to run. I look back over my shoulder at the boy and he’s trying to run too, lolloping awkwardly on his bad leg. Then I gasp in horror. Behind the boy, the lightning finds its target; it reaches out of the black sky like a jabbing finger and strikes that tree we were only just leaning on.

I freeze, transfixed for a second by the beautiful horror of it as the tree is lit up from the inside out, branches turned white like bones in an X-ray. With a monstrous tearing sound the lightning-struck tree starts to lean towards us.

‘It’s falling!’ I scream, but the creak and wrench and crash drown out my voice.

STORM VOICE

The boy yells, he grabs my arm. And we’re running then, holding tight to each other, desperately slipping and sliding across the mud. Lightning jitters make everything juddery like a strobe light flickering and I can’t see properly. I feel the whoosh of wind at our heels and the dark gape of the cave mouth is suddenly just in front of us. I drag the boy in behind me and we dive together on to the floor of Deadman’s Cave. The tree hits the ground outside with an almighty splintering thud; I feel its reverberations in the whole of my body as I lie, belly-down, on the cool rock. The air I breathe smells singed, like woodsmoke and fireworks.

I sit up slowly, dazed, spitting bits of muck from my mouth. My ears ring. I feel the boy’s eyes watching me in the half-dark. I turn to face him.

‘Cholliemurrum,’ he says quietly, sitting up too. His face looks almost old suddenly in his seriousness. He takes his spear and touches its glinting flint tip to his chest, right where his heart would be. ‘I give thanks,’ he whispers. He touches his spear tip to my chest too. I feel the cool of it through my damp T-shirt. But I don’t pull away, I don’t need to, I trust him. I understand. ‘I give thanks,’ he says again.

‘No worries. Anytime,’ I answer. A little tear trickles out of the corner of my eye. I brush it away quickly before he sees, my fingers trembling like crazy.

Turning away, I squint out of the cave through the net of fallen-tree branches and the sheets of rain. Lightning crackles, making the forest flicker like an old old film; I wince at the brightness. Thunder crashes so loud it echoes in my heart.