Chapter 52

The rain continued on through the rest of the evening and into the night. Kathryn seemed to have decided that silence was the best policy following our somewhat uncomfortable conversation. I don't know why I hadn't told her that I'd broken up with Debbie. I mean, it was because it shouldn't be important, but still, you do tell a friend that stuff. I suppose I was paranoid that it would seem forced somehow, that I'd somehow betray myself.

Instead, it just ended up with a different kind of awkwardness, with Kathryn probably thinking I was just like Keith, obsessed with my own happiness with no regards for other people's. This wasn't the way I wanted her to think of me, but it felt like any further explanations would only muddle things further.

Nonetheless, we were mostly far too busy over the next week to spend much time brooding. Soon the samples Georgie and Tim had collected began to stack up and I developed a backlog, meaning that even rainstorms could now be spend prepping samples for analysis.

I had both Jonas and Kathryn helping me, and we got quite a lot of work done before the first trip back to the village had to happen. We needed to get more fuel for the generator, as well as more food (we had sacrificed bringing in more food in order to carry necessary equipment), in addition, Jonas would be leaving us, heading for a plane home to the UK - six months messing about all over Chile with reliable net access and other kids his age was one thing, but more than a fortnight in a rainforest with nothing but his DS and rapidly more repetitive field work was a bit much.

I could tell Kathryn was slightly upset; for all that she tried to play the 'cool mum' it couldn't be easy sending Jonas away. We packed up our day packs and set out early in the morning, leaving Georgie and Tim in charge of the camp until we returned. Jonas was in... moderate spirits - he was obviously relieved to be getting away, but reluctant to leave his mother, and certainly reluctant to show his relief in front of her.

"So you were getting pretty good on Tim's guitar there," she was saying as we picked our way along the path. "Do you think you'd like to take lessons back home?"

"Really?" Jonas looked mildly surprised at this, then his eyes narrowed. "Wait, would I have to learn to play classical stuff?"

"Do you want to learn to play classical stuff? Some of it's pretty good, y'know..."

"Yeah, not really. I mean, some of it's okay, but I want to learn to play like Pearl Jam and stuff..."

"Well, okay, we'll find you a teacher who can teach you to play stuff like that," she said, glancing over her shoulder with a smile.

I assume Jonas, tramping along in front of me, smiled back. I know I was captivated, even though the smile wasn't directed at me.

We made good time on the journey - it was much easier without lugging crates of equipment or bulky tents on our backs. Kathryn made sure we all drank enough water and had dried fruit snacks readily available, which only made Jonas rhapsodise loudly about all the junk food he was looking forward to eating when he got back to 'civilization'.

When we arrived back at the village I quickly made myself scarce, heading over to where we'd stored our extra supplies to load us up for the walk back to camp, leaving Kathryn and Jonas to say their own goodbyes.

 

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