Aidan Chambers

So the only way to go now was seaward. Cool. Unpeopled. What Barry (he who became it) called ‘the escape route’.

Good old happy-go-lucky Spike was in school that day with exams still to sit. I had crewed for him once or twice, cack-handedly. He only took me out, I think, because for some reason he thought I was good for a laugh. And I liked him because he is one of those people you never have to worry about. He’s always in trouble at school because he won’t wear anything but raggy jeans and a scruffy shirt. Sometimes I think his blood must be laced with anti-freeze because he wears the same outfit summer and winter, no matter how cold the weather gets. But there are other kids who dress worse than he does and who don’t get into as much bother. I think he does because he is one of those kids who exude sex. His flesh is somehow more fleshy than other people’s. Girls take one look at him and tremble at the sight. In the right mood I tremble a bit myself. On Spike a crummy shirt and well-worn jeans only serve to emphasize his sexiness. I think he knows it too. He certainly takes advantage of everything going. And that just gets adults, especially teachers, even more riled. He’d been up in front of the Head five times that summer term already, ostensibly because of the way he was dressed.

Well, that day last June Spike was sweating it out in the exam room. And I didn’t think he’d mind if I helped myself to his Tumble and gave myself a free sail while I did my thinking. I’d never single-handed anything more than a beach cushion before, but what the hell, I thought, it couldn’t be that difficult. The weather was calm—a steady breeze not strong enough to blow a castaway ice-cream wrapper along the prom, the sun bright and hot, the sea no more than chuckling. The tide was on the flood but the water was still shallow enough for me to wade out to Tumble if I went now. What harm could I do?