What I Was by Meg Rosoff Read Free Book Online Page B

new edition of the latest James Bond (much in demand) stolen from the school library. From what I could tell, Finn read a good deal, and appeared to have memorized the hut’s meagre collection in its entirety; his appetite for fiction was considerably stronger than mine. I suppose there wasn’t much else in the way of entertainment by the sea. And I, after all, had him.
    In my impatience, I arrived at the beach an hour early on the first Saturday morning of the January term. The outgoing tide still covered the causeway in a foot of frigid green water, but I was unwilling to hang about in the cold. Removing shoes and socks and rolling up my trousers, I plunged in, finding myself first ankle-deep, then knee-deep, and then, panicking, thigh-deep in icy water and mud, overstuffed satchel balanced on my head, unable (and unwilling) to turn back. I lost all feeling in my feet almost immediately, which rendered me even more clumsy than usual. My arms ached with the weight of the heavy bag.
    About halfway across I realized what an idiot I was. The current was so strong that I could easily be swept out to sea and drowned. When I stepped on something that rocked, and slipped sideways, terrifying seconds passed before I regained my balance. By now the food and I were soaked.
    This is how people die, I thought, intrigued despite my predicament. This is how people get swept away and make next day’s newspaper headlines ( Schoolboy Drowns, World Indifferent ) with no mention of what the aforementioned schoolboy was doing standing in the middle of a treacherous tidal canal with a bag on his head to begin with. I tried to brace myself, pausing to get my breath back as I imagined the private glee that would greet so tragic an announcement. I would be written off once and for all as the colossal imbecile the school had always suspected. Although it would require a certain amount of speaking-ill-of-the-dead, I would be eulogized as an incompetent, sexually suspect cretin. And for once they’d be right, I thought, choking as I inhaled a lungful of wave and sank to one knee, eyes clenched against the dark face of the sea.
    With a final Herculean effort, I threw myself exhausted on to the sandbank and looked over at the line of huts. No sign of Finn, thank God. Even the thought of the possibility of his presence made me tremble.
    It was nearly twenty minutes before I managed to wring the salt water from my clothes as best I could, gather my belongings, and set off again. I arrived cold and wet, teeth chattering, and tapped on the door. Finn answered immediately, seemingly unsurprised at – or by – my appearance. He raised an eyebrow, but offered no reproof.
    ‘Come in,’ he said, with an expression that was neither sympathetic nor amused, but contained minute traces of both. ‘You haven’t really got the hang of this, have you?’

11
    ‘The high-water mark is advancing quickly,’ he told me, eyes politely averted as I changed out of my wet school uniform and into a woollen sweater (his), and a threadbare towel. ‘Geologically speaking, that is. The high tide only began cutting us off in the last decade.’
    Peering out of the hut’s window I could see the sea, only about fifty feet away. It wasn’t much of a distance, particularly considering that the tide was now at its lowest.
    Finn followed my gaze. ‘If you compare the coastline to maps from a hundred years ago, you can see how much it’s changed.’
    I tried to dry my legs without giving away too much of my physique. Not that it mattered; Finn never seemed to notice me the way I noticed him. If I’d affected an eyepatch, dyed my hair purple, and developed a lisp he wouldn’t have blinked.
    ‘We never used sandbags until recently. Last year storms flooded the house for three weeks, I lived upstairs and wore waders to light the stove. It wasn’t much fun.’ He reached over me for a book, a collection of local maps. ‘Look,’ he said, placing it on the table and opening