Did you know that elephants weigh up to six thousand kilograms and yet they pad about so silently you don’t know they’re coming until they’ve practically crushed you to death? Well, Samir appeared like an elephant.
“Where did you spring from?” I snap, feeling spooked.
“I came on the bus,” he says. He looks half frozen, hunched in his gray sweatshirt and denim jacket, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Is this where you live?”
Then I remember I’d invited him and feel a bit mean, snapping like that.
“Yes, over there.” I nod in the direction of our cottage.
“I never know what to do on Saturdays,” says Samir, kicking through some of the rubbish on the beach.
“I’m just walking my dog, you can hang out if you want,” I say, and his face relaxes into that terrific smile. I want to tell him he should flash that around in school a bit more. It makes him look taller and less of a frightened rabbit.
But instead I say, “Your brother’s a bit fierce.” Samir sort of tucks into himself and I don’t want him to think I’m being rude so I say quickly, “Families, who’d have them.”
Samir just stands there staring out to sea and I wonder how he manages to keep everything to himself. Not like me, always blurting stuff out.
I’m just about to suggest hot chocolate back at my house when we hear the sound of a motorboat coming straight toward us across the sea lane. The mist is still quite thick so we can’t actually see it and I’m thinking that it’s a bit dangerous out there today. I haven’t seen any other boats going out.
The engine roars as someone pulls the throttle back and there’s a lot of shouting and then we hear a single scream and a massive splash. It sounds as if someone is dumping a fridge or something at sea and then a gap appears in the mist.
I can’t believe my eyes!
“There’s a man in the water!” I yell. I look around desperately for some help, but there’s nobody except Samir. Trudy has started to bark as I run down the pebbly slope to the beach, thoughts flying through my mind. The water’s freezing and the currents here are so strong they could drag him under. He’s going to have to start swimming or he’ll drown. As I get to the water’s edge, I look around at the Lifeboat Station. It looms up through the mist but I didn’t see anyone over there earlier. I look back at the sea just as a huge wave breaks over the man’s head and he disappears. Oh God! There’s no time to raise the alarm. The currents will drag him under. I have to go in and get him. Why is this happening to me?
Then I see his head break the surface and I stop in relief, waiting for him to start swimming. But all he does is scream out and splash around, gasping for air. Another wave breaks over his head and he disappears again under the surface.
Samir has run up and I can hear him breathing hard behind me. This is the most dangerous water around Hayling Island, all eddies and currents and whirlpools.
“Never go swimming by the yacht club,” Grandpa said, almost every day. “You’ll be swept out to sea and drown. No one will save you.” It used to make chills run down my spine.
I never even paddle here. But I don’t have a choice now, I can’t leave this man to drown. Grandpa wouldn’t, would he? I throw off my jacket and kick off my shoes and I’m not sure if I’m trembling from cold or terror.
“I’ll have to go in,” I yell to Samir. “Stay here, the currents are very strong.”
Then I’m in the sea and it’s so cold my throat seizes up. I’m up to my knees almost immediately and I know if it gets to my chest I won’t be able to breathe. The man surfaces, flailing about. Just a few more steps and I’m praying to God and elephants and everything else that I don’t get swept away and Mum has to make her own dinner tonight.
The water is up to my waist. I can feel the beach dropping away sharply and the current is beginning to suck at my feet. I can’t go much farther. I lean forward and fling out my arms but he’s just out of reach. His eyes are wild with fear and his arms are flailing out in all directions. I take another step forward but I can’t feel anything beneath my feet and I jerk back, nearly falling down. The man screams and reaches toward me, just as a huge wave splashes my face, blinding me for a few seconds. When my eyes clear I can see the man is a bit nearer. It’s now or never, I think, and straining forward I manage to grab his wrist. He’s so slippery and heavy I almost let go, but Samir is in the water now and reaches us just in time. Together we heave the man back up to dry land and collapse on the ground.
I’m lying there practically dead myself and Trudy is whimpering and licking my face and then I hear Samir gasp. I open my eyes. It’s like a horror film.
I’m practically eyeball to eyeball with the man and his face is all bloody and bruised, one eye puffed up like a football. Terrified, I scrabble backward and grip Trudy to my chest so hard she yelps in pain.
“Is he dead?” I whisper, my teeth already beginning to chatter violently from the cold.
Samir doesn’t answer. He’s up on his knees, his fingers on the man’s wrist, looking for a pulse. If he’s not dead, I think, he will be soon. This bloke didn’t have time to get dressed this morning. He’s only wearing a pair of tatty shorts. Trudy escapes from my arms and starts to lick the man’s face, which seems a good idea, and then there’s a spluttering sound and Samir props up the lifeless-looking head, pushing Trudy away.
I know I should try and rub some life into his blue-looking legs. Grandpa was always going on about sailors practically freezing to death at sea. “Hypothermia. The body temperature drops quick on deck in winter,” he used to say, scanning the horizon.
But I can’t bring myself to touch the creepy flesh. Maybe he’s already dead, I think, and this is what they mean in books by being in “death throes.”
I grab Trudy’s collar and pull her away. A weird sound like shouting under water comes from the man’s mouth and he opens his one good eye and some water dribbles from the corner of his mouth. Don’t be sick, I plead silently. I’m no good if someone’s sick.
But the man isn’t sick, instead a torrent of words pours out of his mouth, at first in a very croaky voice and then louder and louder, until he’s shouting like a lunatic and throwing his arms around.
Trouble is I can’t understand a word.