Free Love Notes from Vinegar House by Karen Tayleur Page B

attention now. He was further up the beach. I looked back to see him cupping his hands to his lips and calling out to me. Rumer stood to one side behind him and shook her head at me. She said something to Luke, but her words were snatched away by a breeze that lifted the loose sand and dropped it swiftly again.
    I didn’t have to hear her words to know she was saying something about me. Maybe she was telling Luke I had a crush on him. The shame of the thought flooded through me like a hot tidal wave, so I did the only thing I could think of. I threw my windcheater off and ran further into the water. Although my feet were wet, it was nothing compared to the shock I felt as the water reached my knees. My shout of surprise was sucked from my body as a gritty wave dumped over me. I emerged to hear Isabella yelling at me, but I ignored her and began to swim away from the beach, my uneven strokes chopping at the steel-grey water. I hadn’t planned to swim to Seal Rock, but it was something to aim for.
    The cold was a band of ice squeezing tightly about my chest, leaving me gasping for breath. The water dragged at my jeans, which made it difficult to kick. I looked back at the shore and noticed Rumer standing alone to one side of the group I’d left behind. While the others were waving frantically, yelling at me to come back, Rumer was drawing something in the sand with a long piece of driftwood. She was clearly annoyed that I was getting all the attention for a change. I was smugly enjoying this thought when the next wave caught me from behind. It drew me into its frothy embrace, sucked me down and tumbled me around so that down became up, and up became sideways, tumbling, tumbling and the dull roar of it filled my ears. Then it spat me out, and I bobbed on the water’s surface, gulping at the air, my heart racing, the blood pounding in my ears. It was time to return to the others.
    And then I stepped off into nothing. The hard sand beneath my feet had fallen away into the deep water of the drop off. I tried a few wild strokes towards shore, but the tide held me fast in its grip. My feet frantically searched for solid ground, but I was treading water.
    The first time I went under I was scared. I was going to die and the adults would find out I’d gone swimming and we would all get into trouble. I hoped Rumer would get into trouble the most. This is what I thought as the little silver bubbles of my breath rushed past me to the surface. I didn’t know how, but in some way she was responsible for my unscheduled swim. She was definitely the reason Luke and I weren’t friends any more. I clawed my way to the surface and managed two large gulps of air, waving my hand about before sinking again under the water. The cold was leaving my body. So had my mind. It wandered above the waves like a hovering seagull, watching the action around me. I could see the beach and those left ashore. I could see the craggy bluff with its jutting rocks and stunted coastal scrub. And further back, leaning over us all, was Vinegar House with its unfriendly face and crooked shingle roof.
    That’s when I noticed the light – a single beam of light reaching out to me from the very top window of Vinegar House. How strange, I thought.
    And then someone grabbed my hair and dragged me to the surface, and I was back in my body again. I was hauled through the water then dumped, face first, on the smooth packed sand of the shore.
    I gasped and coughed and coughed until a thin trickle of seawater left my mouth and then I started to cry. Isabella gathered me in her arms and shushed me, and told me off and shushed me again, until my sobs stopped and only hiccups remained.
    My saviours – Angus and Luke – stood nearby, while the others crowded around in a huddle discussing what to do. If there was any possible way we could get back to Vinegar House and dry off without being detected, then that was our aim. An elaborate plan was hatched. A diversion. And it came