Free Papa Georgio by Annie Murray Page B

on about you since we saw you on the boat!’
    I was so pleased to hear this that it made me want to turn cartwheels.
    ‘He’s gone down to the beach. Why don’t you go and find him there? You can come back and have ice creams.’
    I scrambled over the tough grass down to the green, white and rose-pink pebbles of the beach. The sun was pouring down, little chiffon clouds were scattered across the sky and the sea was a deep, crinkled blue. About half a kilometre out, parallel with the shore, a long line of rocks had been piled up like a wall, enclosing the water near the shore into a lagoon. Within it, sailboats with pale blue and white sails went skimming across the water.
    For a second I stopped and shaded my eyes. I saw Fizz straightaway. Over to my left, a shallow stream ran down the beach to the sea and Fizz was kneeling beside it, holding a green fishing net, his dark hair falling over his eyes.
    He was so stuck into what he was doing that he didn’t hear me coming. I stood in front of him and saw him gradually take in the fact that there were legs there suddenly: green pumps, bare, skinny shins, lime green shorts, orange T-shirt, finally looking at my face, my choppy hair blowing in the breeze.
    His face broke into the widest of grins, showing his big square teeth.
    ‘’Ello!’ He looked really pleased to see me, which was gratifying.
    ‘What’re you doing?’
    ‘Catching things.’ He spoke very seriously. I remembered that intense way he had of making everything he was doing seem very important and an adventure. I was drawn back in by him straight away.
    I knelt beside him and squinted into the water. ‘What things? There can’t be any fish in there?’
    ‘Not fish – well, probably not. But there are things you can’t see. Microbes – thousands of things! They’ re all in there.’
    Both of us stared at the obviously empty net. ‘You’re weird,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go and fish in the sea?’
    ‘Yes,’ Fizz agreed, but he was still staring into the water as if trying to make out the invisible. At the bottom of the stream, the stones shone like coloured jewels.
    ‘It’s marble, all this,’ I told him, feeling I ought to know something. Fizz seemed to know everything. Facts . ‘We’re near Carrara – it’s famous for marble.’
    Fizz looked round at me, solemnly, then down at the stones again, before bending to. pick up a handful of the bright marble pebbles and letting them fall through his fingers.
    ‘Marble,’ he said, as if he’d just taken in the information somewhere deep within himself. For a moment there was something so sad about him that I lurched inside, though I didn’t know why.
    Fizz leaned over, twisting to reach behind him.
    ‘Look what I’ve found.’ He thrust towards me a whole load of dangling orange legs.
    ‘Ugh!’ I recoiled, almost overbalancing into the stream. ‘What’s that?’ It looked like an enormous spider and I hated spiders.
    ‘A crab. This is the kind they have here – a Mediterranean crab.’ He dropped it again, a rounded, spiny body with hairy orange legs. ‘It’s dead.’
    ‘Well I can see that,’ I said scornfully, trying to make up for having been frightened before.
    We walked down to the sea together. I’m with Fizz I found myself thinking. I wondered whether he liked being with me.
    His trouser legs were already rolled up and he was wearing a faded red T-shirt, too big for him. I took my pumps off. There were grey-ish patches of sand at the shoreline but it was still stony, little coloured pebbles rolling back and forth with the froth-edged wash of the waves. The water felt cold at first, gritty sand pushing up between my toes, but as we paddled up and down I soon got used to it. Fizz kept dipping the net into the water, catching pebbles, delicate pink shells and once or twice, tiny shrimp-like creatures, with indignant twitching whiskers. He showed me everything, as if it was as exciting as catching a shark or that giant