We sat cross-legged licking the hundreds and thousands off our ice-lollies trying to get to the strawberry layer before it dribbled down our fingers and onto our knees.
"They love them," Katie nodded " I mean, who doesn't?" she added, while starting on the next layer. "Come on, let's eat these and get building."
"Good plan," I said.
I broke the news about the panther to Katie one evening after school over Cokes and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. Katie's Dad, who had just gone inside for another round, had taken us to our favourite pub as an end-of-term treat. In our opinion it was the only pub to go to on the island thanks to the enormous pot-bellied pig who sunbathed in the beer garden, but who no longer had our full-attention. Katie leaned back from the bench table, brushed her sandy coloured fringe out of her eyes and stared at me gravely.
"What are we going to do?" she asked,
"I don't know," I said solemnly, "but we need to think of something, and quick. Graham says he saw him in the field during football practice on Tuesday and Kayleigh brownie-promised me that he walked straight past her in the car-park after ballet."
"What, at the bottom of the Billy Track?" she gasped,
"Precisely," I agreed, "I think he's been sleeping on the beach nearby."
"I guess, but how did he escaped from the zoo?" she wondered aloud.
The idea for building the den came a few days later when Peter Pan had been put on by my exasperated teacher as a last ditch attempt to re-focus her over-excited class. Already brown and freckled in their short-sleeved shirts, my friends were far more interested in competing over their upcoming family holidays abroad, Disneyland Paris being the winning trump-card, but all I could think about was dens. That evening, as soon as I was allowed, I ran around the corner to Katie's house carrying a fist full of felt-tip penned plans that I'd drawn that afternoon instead of finishing an art project.
When the Summer holidays finally arrived, we were ready. Two gardening trowels had been quietly removed from my mother's potting shed and hidden in the back of my wardrobe along with; an OS map of Normandy, a multi-pack of sun maid raisins, two bottles of Robinson's squash, a compass my sister had been given for her last birthday and a magnifying glass. Our cover story was faultless; if asked we were 'going to hang-out in the newly-built playground around the corner.' We vowed not to tell another soul what we were actually doing until it was finished and ready for our families and pets to hide in should the panther show up on our front doorsteps.
We'd set our sights on the beach opposite my house for the den's location but discovered almost immediately that this was a dreadful idea. While the sweeping shore was strewn with seaweed (ideal for camoflague) and sand wet enough to build with, not too mention there being enough driftwood for a decent roof, the tide abolished our daily labour overnight. It also became quickly apparent that the beach was too exposed and Katie said that the windsurfers running up and down with their colourful sails would be like flags to 'a bull in a china shop' if the panther appeared. Although we fought over what a bull was doing in a china shop to begin with, we did settle on the beach being far too risky. We'd have to find somewhere else.
We walked along the shore which sloped upwards and ran into a grassy pebble-strewn bank that was tangled with blackberry bushes. Rabbits' burrows pock-marked the ground, which was already heavily interrupted by thick roots from crippled trees bent in half by sea-storms. Here was where we would build. This was the spot.
For weeks we stomped onto the beach with our bikes, building tools and pockets full of Penguin bars that we hoped wouldn't be missed. We had settled on a clearing within a bramble bush for our den which could only be reached by sliding on your tummy through a gap on one side. We reckoned that this prickly fortress would easily protect us from the panther, who'd be far too large to wriggle under the thicket and would be deterred by the fuss of it all. The den itself was high enough to stand up in and the gnarled roots inside from nearby trees became our seats and tables. On sunny days we would split our time between cutting back stray brambles with crawling out of the den to take breaks paddling in the water, or looking for shells to decorate with. Whenever the sun disappeared behind the clouds, or the evening began to draw in, our nerves started to falter and one of us would carry on while the other kept a look out for the panther until it was time to go home.
One afternoon we had been digging out mud from beneath tree roots with the intention of making a kitchen sink, or maybe a mixing bowl, or a bath? Content with our fingers caked in mud, we hadn't noticed the prickles of light coming through the brambles begin to fade. It was only when I couldn't tell my fingers from the tree roots that I noticed the darkness that had enveloped us. We were in seriously big trouble. Being home before dark was an un-breakable rule and keeping it prevented our whereabouts from being cross-examined by worried parents. We scrambled to find our rucksacks in a panic and quickly crawled towards the way out.
"We got lost, we'll say we got lost" gabbled Katie ,
"They won't believe that," I groaned,
"You think of something then," Katie shouted,
"I'm….!" I began,
"Shhhhh!" she hissed.
Leaves rustled nearby. A branch snapped.
"It's just a rabbit" I whispered, but my ears were strained and I was hugging my rucksack tightly.
Katie said nothing. I could see her crouching in front of the den's exit, rooted to the ground. Somewhere behind us something was coming closer, tearing its way through the thicket until, quite suddenly, it stopped. All we could hear was silence. Nothing moved, not a seagull cried and the waves seemed to have flattened themselves, too afraid to reach the shore.
A deep, low growl erupted from the darkness. It filled the hollow of our den and crept up the hairs on my arms and along the back of my neck. Katie let out long meowing sob.
"RUN," I screamed.
Katie bolted through the gap, barely crouching low enough to make it clear. I leapt after her disappearing feet and threw myself through the brambles. My face and hands stung when they reached the night air but my feet kept on moving. We didn't stop running until we crashed with pounding fists into Katie's front door.
Despite our scratched and tear-stained faces, we were grounded, for pretty much the rest of the Summer, and there was no going back to the beach unaccompanied; a term of our punishment we were happy to obey.
Years later, when I'd outgrown my fear of the hungry prowling panther, I reasoned that it had been a bad-tempered dog who had smelt our supply of chocolate biscuits and become frustrated by the prickly barrier in his way. Although every now and again I do Google panther sightings on Hayling Island and wonder…The full list of big cat sightings in Hampshire
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