Free The If Game by Catherine Storr Page A

the Martello Tower,’ Dad said.
    â€˜What’s a Martello Tower? Why is it there?’
    â€˜They built them to prevent the French from landing. Napoleon. You know.’
    Stephen did know, vaguely. Napoleon, hundreds of years ago. Before wars were fought with planes and flying bombs. He said, ‘Like the Armada?’
    They were back in the car now and driving over the empty land between sea and town. Dad said, ‘You’re only about two hundred years out. But like the Armada because the danger was from the sea. People expected the French troops to land anywhere along here. The Martello towers were built as defences against them. There are several of them, all along the south coast.’
    â€˜Can we see some of them? Can I go and look at this one properly tomorrow?’
    Dad, as usual, said, ‘We’ll see.’
    But they were driving up one of the little steep streets and Stephen called out, ‘Dad! There’s a fish and chips! Stop!’
    The fish and chips were delicious. They tasted quite different from any others Stephen had had, eaten while sitting on the grass outside the tent, in the light of a hurricane lamp—Mike’s dad’s, of course. After which, both tired, they decided for bed. Stephen opted to sleep out, promising to come into the tent if it started raining. His dad disappeared under the canvas. Stephen had meant to stay awake to luxuriate in being where he was, to count the stars, to watch the moon rising. But he did none of these things. He was asleep before he had done one of them.

11
    They spent the morning on the beach, throwing stones at cairns they had built, eating ice creams from a van that came tinkling along the beach road, reading the paper—that was Dad—looking at the sea. That, of course, was Stephen. The sun shone, it was warm. Stephen thought he would try swimming, and did eventually get over painful shingle into water that felt icy at first, but which gradually became bearable, even gentle, and at last was waist deep and he could really swim. It was exhilarating, wonderful. But he was shivering when he came out and his dad made him run on the crunching pebbles for ten minutes. Hard work. He was warm again when he stopped.
    He made himself a sort of seat, by pushing the stones around so that he could lean back against them. He began examining them properly. They were all sorts, all colours, all shapes. He found one with a hole right through it and pretended to use it as a spyglass. Very childish, but there was no one to see, and anyway, at the seaside you could be a bit of a child. He collected on his towel the stones he liked best. A small black stone which fitted snugly, as if custom made, into his closed hand. A big black and white stone, with scrawls traced across the white side as if someone was trying to draw something. A very precious amber-coloured stone, almost translucent. An almond shaped stone, so exactly like a sweet that he could have offered it to Dad to suck and taken him in. A smooth brown stone like a bread roll. And there wereother treasures. A ball made up of brittle spheres which Dad told him was made of a cuttlefish’s egg cases. Half of a broken, long, pale pink and brown razor shell. Clumps of seaweed. Three winkle shells, one badly chipped.
    â€˜You’ll find other things if you look at the high tide mark,’ his dad said, raising his head for a moment from the paper.
    So he went up the shifting shingle to the line of seaweed and assorted rubbish that ran just under the sea wall. There were things there he didn’t want to find, including several dead birds with oil encrusted feathers. Horrid, he avoided them. There was too much drowned paper, bright orange string, wooden spatulas from ice creams, a canvas sandal, innumerable plastic bottles and bags. He left it, disheartened.
    To his surprise, his dad wasn’t reading the paper. He was half leaning back, half lying on the shingle, just looking at