Free Red Fever by Caroline Clough Page A

scared, my legs were turning to jelly,” said the boy.
    “So why didn’t you swim for it?” Toby asked, trying hard to keep the anger out of his voice. “If you’d just got into the water and swam out a little I’d have got you much quicker. You wouldn’t have had to run so …”
    “I can’t swim,” the boy stated quietly.
    “What?” Toby was shocked. He’d never heard of anyone young not being able to swim before. Yes, hisgran hadn’t been able to swim, and neither had old Mrs Pratt who lived in the village, but they’d been ancient.
    “I’m not proud of it,” said the boy. “I never learnt, that’s all. Mum was always busy with her work. Too busy to take me to swimming lessons. No big deal.”
    “What about your dad?” asked Toby. His dad had driven him to the local town every Saturday morning for years, and sat and read the paper while Toby had struggled up and down the pool. Finally he’d become a confident swimmer and then his dad had been happy to take him sailing with him. But Toby hadn’t wanted to go.
    “Never had a dad,” said the boy.
    Lucky you , thought Toby, but then he felt a pang of disloyalty. He didn’t really think that about his dad, at least not all the time.
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said instead.
    “It’s OK. You can’t miss what you never had,” replied the boy in a matter-of-fact manner.
    “So, anyway, what’s your name? Mine’s Toby, Toby Tennant.”
    “Oh, yeah, sorry.” The boy put his hand out for Toby to shake. “Mine’s Jamie, Jamie McTavish.” Jamie took hold of Toby’s hand and shook it in a serious, adult sort of way.
    “Ah!” yelped Toby. “That hurts.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Jamie. “Let me have a look. I’m goodwith wounds and things. Went on a first-aid course with the Cub Scouts once.”
    “You’re not old enough to have been a Scout!” declared Toby.
    “I’m thirteen,” declared Jamie.
    “Really? You don’t look it; sorry but it’s true,” said Toby.
    Jamie took Toby’s hand and started to unpeel the hankie, but blood and dirt had glued it to the skin. Jamie left him for a while and then came back with a bowl of bottled water.
    “What are you going to do with that?” asked Toby.
    “I’m not going to be able to get this yucky hankie off without soaking your hand first,” said Jamie.
    “OK, OK. Whatever.” Toby put his hand into the ice-cold water. “Ah!” he yelled. “That’s cold!”
    “Hold still,” commanded Jamie.
    With his hand soaking in the water, Toby had time to look at the boy while they sat chatting. He was very fair, with silvery-blond hair that fell in curls to his shoulders.
    Bet he got a hard time for that when he was at school , thought Toby.
    The boy’s skin was pale, milky white. It wasn’t white like Sylvie’s, whose skin had a strange white-grey pallor. His had a transparency to it so that the blue of his veins could be seen at his temples and wrists. When Jamielooked at him, Toby could see that his eyes were a brilliant, piercing blue, almost like the sea itself — only not the North Sea, more like the Mediterranean.
    The dog sat quietly at Jamie’s side, watching out to sea with pricked ears.
    “She’s very bonny,” said Toby. “What sort of dog is she?”
    “She’s a Pyrenean mountain dog. That’s not a sort, that’s a breed,” replied Jamie.
    “I didn’t think there were any pure-bred dogs left. I thought there were only mongrels these days.”
    “My mum bred her herself. She’d always had mountain dogs. She bred her mother and her mother’s mother. Belle is the last one.”
    “Why did that man want to kill her?”
    “Er, well, she bit him,” said Jamie.
    “She bit him? Oh, great!” exclaimed Toby, pushing himself away from the dog. “Was there a reason?”
    “Yes, the man was going to hit me. He raised his hand to strike me and Belle went for him.”
    “Why would he want to hit you?”
    “I had something he wanted and I wouldn’t give it to him,” replied