Darkwater by Georgia Blain Read Free Book Online Page B

headed to the tuckshop queue and I hesitated for only a brief moment before deciding that I had nothing to lose.
    Standing right behind him, I could look without him knowing. His hair was bleached by the sun and hung to his shoulders. His arms were tanned, deep copper. On his left wrist he had three strips of leather tied close. Probably given to him by a girlfriend, I thought. Like all the boys in older years, he never wore shorts, even when the temperature was pushing 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the fifth day in a row. Instead, his cords clung close to his legs, frayed at the bottom, and on his feet he wore black thongs, despite the fact that they were banned.
    Nicky was a surfer. He hung with a group of older kids who took a panel van out to the beach on the weekend. He rode his skateboard to school each day, crouching low as he swooped down the hill that led to the gates, curling in at the last minute and leaping off with only inches to spare. I loved that arc. It was, in fact, what had first made me notice him.
    â€˜Hey.’ He turned as I accidentally stepped on the back of his thong, and then seeing it was me, he grinned, teeth white against the darkness of his skin. ‘It’s Joe’s little sister. The one who won’t tell me her name.’
    I looked him square in the eye. None of my friends were around, it was just him and me. People die, I thought, thinking of Daniel’s face when he’d come back to class. People like Amanda are just suddenly gone. It was time to take a risk.
    â€˜I’ll tell you my name.’ I took a deep breath. ‘But there has to be an exchange.’
    â€˜Nicky.’ He bowed with mock ceremony. ‘Nicky Blackwell.’
    â€˜I know. That’s not the exchange I meant.’ I could feel my breath, fast and furious, fluttering with a heat I wanted only to dampen, and I had to steady myself.
    He was curious now, forgetting to progress in the line, the gap between him and the person in front widening as he waited for me to explain.
    â€˜I want a skateboarding lesson,’ I said. ‘And then I’ll tell you my name.’
    He shook his head, his hair falling in his eyes as he looked me up and down. ‘Girls don’t skate,’ he eventually said.
    â€˜Why not?’ I asked. ‘I have two legs, two arms.’ And I wanted to suggest that he familiarise himself with Germaine Greer, but I knew I’d lose him if I went down that track.
    He smiled. ‘I could find out your name anyway.’
    It was true. ‘Just one lesson.’
    And then, as Mrs Judd called out ‘Next’ from the tuckshop window and he realised that she meant him, he eventually nodded. ‘Why not? Friday. At the front of the school gates – four-thirty.’
    Sonia didn’t believe I’d had the nerve. Nor did I. The excitement was sparkling and cold each time I recalled the moment, first to her, and then frequently to myself, wanting only to silently recount that conversation over and over again.
    We were swimming in her pool after school, the icy water a brilliant chlorined turquoise that stung our eyes and dried our skin into smooth scales. I had been trying to do a backwards flip, each time landing with a slap in the water, while she lay on the pebblecrete, shifting the lines of her bikini to make sure her tan was even.
    â€˜How was that one?’ I asked, emerging from the deep end, my stomach scraping on the edge as I hauled myself out, sprinkling cold droplets onto the heat of her skin.
    â€˜Didn’t see it,’ Sonia admitted, and I scooped my hand down to splash her in frustration.
    She grinned. ‘Just ’cos you’re Nicky Blackwell’s girlfriend–’
    â€˜I asked you to give me a score.’ I sat on the warmth of the small fake stones, holding my knees close to my chest with one arm as I leant across to get the bottle of GI cordial we had left tossed in the grass, the plastic sweating in the