Carol’s Column

In the bush with the terrors

TWENTYFIVE mothers phoned to tell me that their miniature offspring would love to come to Jamie's 10th birthday picnic. Which was remarkable considering we'd only invited 15.

We'd kept the numbers small. Not because we don't like children, but because there is a limit to how many bodies you can squash into a Kombi.

The picnic bit was Jamie's idea.

"Ma, I'm tired of dancing parties." (Wise words from an-about-to-turn-10-year-old). "Films are boring." (An understandable sentiment from the original human dynamo who cannot sit still for more than five minutes). "And dinner parties are for old people like Barry." (Barry is 15).

"But how come there are suddenly 25 children instead of 15?" I asked Jamie. Reasonably, I thought. "I mean, who are they? Where do they come from? Do you know them?"

Jamie, his father's son to the dimple on his chin, shrugged and changed the subject.

Which still left us with 10 children too many.

Eventually Saturday morning dawned.

At 3am Jamie woke us all singing "happy birthday" to himself in case we might have forgotten.

There was the usual last minute rush. I'd forgotten one or two things, such as the birthday cake.

Jamie'd asked for an aeroplane cake. I baked it half an hour before we departed. It was a super cake, but: "Ma, aeroplanes aren't round," he said, "and they don't have chocolate sprinkle spread on top."

"Of course it's an aeroplane cake. Anyone can see it's an aeroplane cake." And that was that.

At 10am my husband, wearing ear-muffs and a crash helmet, disappeared in the direction of the Magaliesberg, accompanied by 17 small boys.

The Kombi shook with the merry sound of raucous yelling. As he turned the corner, I heard his voice, faint, but clear: "Warwick, please take your foot out of my mouth."

I took the overflow. Eight dainty little girls. Demure and quiet as only 10-year-olds can be.

By the time we reached the Nicol Highway they were singing rugby songs I'd never heard before.

My husband had chosen the picnic spot with care. "It's beautiful," he said.

What he didn't say was that there was a huge cliff, a wide river, a monkey-bridge with several wooden slats missing, not to mention kilometres of virgin thorn-filled veld.

I put on my canvas hat, khaki shorts, loud voice and marshalled the group together for words of wisdom in the bush. I bent down to fasten my takkie and when I stood up, they'd vanished.

Cunningly draped across a folding garden chair, lay my husband, action man with his book and beer.

"Do something, quickly, they'll drown or worse," I screeched.

He took a healthy gurgle of beer. "Relax," he smiled. "They'll come back when they're hungry."

I looked around — grass, trees, peace and fresh air. Isn't this a fabulous party? I thought. In the distance, I heard shrieks of joy. "Help!"

Joy?

I shot across to the source of the distress, to see Warwick and Richard clinging to a log in the middle of the river.

"They're shooting the rapids," shouted one of the horrors joyfully.

"Shooting the rapids! They're drowning." My heart stopped beating and I aged 10 years.

Of course they weren't drowning at all.

And the day happened.

"Collect wood for the braai," said my husband at lunchtime. With much enthusiasm, they found a dead tree and set it alight. They braaied the wors on five-metre flames.

The boys caught scorpions while the girls caught the boys and everyone was happy.

Warwick cut his foot, so did Robbie, Dan, Amanda and Michelle.

I went through three rolls of waterproof plaster and two bottles of mercurochrome.

At 2pm, the sun shone and I'd just opened the beer, when Tony arrived stuck like a pin cushion. He and a prickly pear had met head on.

"Clarissa said, 'don't touch'," he said. "So I did."

It took an hour to remove 233 prickly pear thorns from various parts of his anatomy.

At 3pm, the sun shone and I'd just opened a beer when Jamie dropped a wriggling black creature into my lap.

"Isn't that the biggest shongalolo you've ever seen?" he said.

Shongalolos are thick and rounded with 100 legs. This was black, slender and smooth. More like a mamba.

"Good Heavens, a mamba," I screamed. My husband was disgusted. "Since when have you been scared of snakes?"

"Scared? Who said I'm scared? I'm terrified."

At 4pm, the sun shone and I'd just opened a beer when Warwick was reported missing in action. Twenty four anxious, dirty, little faces surrounded me. "Carol, we've looked everywhere, he's vanished."

This was not the appropriate time to say "good".

We searched through scrub, thornbush and the undergrowth.

By 4.55 I'd lost any pretence of calm and was distinctly hysterical.

"Relax," said my husband. "We have 24 left. Why are you panicking?"

At 5pm we found him, under a willow tree, blissfully unaware, demolishing a pocket of pink and white marshmallows and reading "The Hardy Boys".

Nothing much else happened, other than we returned home exhausted.

Next day, Jamie arrived home from school, bursting with important news.

"Warwick nearly died, he got bitten by something poisonous at the picnic and was taken to hospital."

My heart stopped beating. I was horrified. "Is he okay? Which hospital is he in?"

"No, he didn't die," said Jamie. "He was at school this morning. He is still alive".

I gritted my teeth.

"The way I feel, he's lucky," I muttered. "Very lucky."

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