Free The Journey by John Marsden Page A

swim.’
    Argus was keen enough; he had not forgotten his earlier daydream of Temora naked on a beach. He grabbed some food and joined her outside the caravan. The day was already warming up and Argus quickly caught Temora’s mood of excitement.
    The distance was not much greater than it had been on Argus’ previous trip to the surf. This time they simply followed the inlet, watching a late fishing boat ahead of them. When they reached the sea they turned to the south. They rounded a rocky headland and discovered beyond it a beach as perfect and unspoiled as the one Argus had been on less than a week earlier. They ran, giggling and excited, to the middle of it and flung themselves into the sand, rolling in it like otters in water.
    â€˜Have you got a swimming costume?’ Temora asked.
    â€˜No,’ Argus admitted.
    â€˜Good,’ Temora announced, ‘because neither have I.’
    She jumped up and, turning away from the boy just a little, stripped off her few pieces of clothing and ran laughing towards the water. Argus, his heart pounding from the glimpses of her body, realised that if he did not hurry he would be left looking foolish. He threw off his shirt and pants and ran after her. He looked down at himself as he ran and was relieved to see that not only had his penis grown in recent weeks to a mature size, but also that it was behaving respectably given the circumstances it was now in. He splashed through the water after Temora, embarrassed enough to send up a big cloud of spray that would screen him for a few moments. But Temora seemed to be thinking only of swimming: she dived under one wave and over the top of the next, like a sleek porpoise at play.
    Argus had swum and bathed many times with his sister and mother. But he had not realised the sheer beauty of a girl as perfectly proportioned as this one. As they swam around each other he stole what glances he could, fascinated by her unselfconscious nakedness. The surf was quite different from the earlier occasion that had nearly cost him his life. Now the waves were small and gentle. There was no undertow, and on this beach he was able to go a long way before getting out of his depth. He threw himself in and out of the breakers with no thought of anything but pleasure, revelling in the tingle and zest of the surf.
    It was nearly an hour before he decided he was cold and tired enough to stop. He jogged out of the water to where their discarded clothes lay like giant butterfly wings on the sand. He stretched out on his back and watched Temora. After a few minutes more she too left the water and walked up to him, without haste or concealment, and lay down, laughing and dripping.
    â€˜Oh, it’s fantastic,’ she said. ‘I wish we could do this every day.’
    Argus became aware that his body was no longer behaving respectably. He rolled over onto his front, Temora was too quick for him. She leant over and pushed him, continuing the roll, so that he ended on his back again. She was giggling as she inspected him and reached out with a tentative finger to touch him. Argus lay still, afraid that if he moved, or breathed, she might stop. But she continued to tease with her light fingers. ‘Oh,’ Argus sighed. To himself he thought, ‘Oh, this is too much.’ While he had the strength still in him he turned sideways to her and ran his hands along her body. She was smooth, like music, smooth like mahogany.
    The sand, the sky, the ocean, all became lost, all were absorbed within the two of them on the beach. Argus could not believe what he was feeling. Even the touch of a breeze was a caress, a tantalizing feather drawn down his bare skin. Everything was a source of wonder to him — the wetness, the curling hair, the opening, the slow opening before him, the slow cry of the seagull from the wet sand.
    Argus felt as though his fingers had gained a new sensitivity. He could feel the blood stirring in her body, the growing