I started to swim toward where Charlie had last been floating, and then I saw her. She was barely visible and thrashing. I called out to her but she didn’t respond. She was in trouble. She disappeared under again. My heart twisted in my chest.
‘It’s OK, Charlie,’ I shouted, ‘I’m coming. Don’t panic, OK?’ I moved as quickly as I could. She was wild in the water. I inched closer and I remembered my water-safety trainer’s advice. ‘Don’t climb on me. OK?’fn1
I wasn’t sure that she could hear me, she was really struggling. I was nearly beside her now. I didn’t have a buoy, but I was still wearing my T-shirt. I ripped it off and twisted it into a sort of rope. She was struggling, gurgling and slipping under. I threw it to her.
‘Charlie, grab on.’ She flailed around and I moved closer and she grabbed it. I pulled her toward me. ‘I’ve got you,’ I said. ‘Just hold on.’
I moved in a straight line back to shore, just like my trainer had taught me. I looked back every few strokes to make sure she was still holding on but always keeping a safe distance. We were nearly back to shore before the boys realised that something was wrong.
Johnny J was the first to reach us. He helped me carry Charlie onto the sand. She dropped to the ground. Her lips were a mix of purple and blue. I thought robbing was terrifying, but that was the most scared I’d ever been. My heart raced in my chest and my hands shook.
‘Call an ambulance,’ I said, and I rolled her onto her side. Johnny J’s mam had forced him to do the same course as me, so he was busy checking her airway, breathing and circulation. She coughed and spluttered and raised her hands.
‘Don’t call an ambulance,’ she said, but it was in a hoarse whisper that worried me.
‘I think we should,’ I said.
Johnny J looked worried too, but then she sat up and breathed in and out slowly and steadily.
‘If I go to hospital, we’re done for,’ she said. ‘I’m fine, really I am.’ Then she looked at me and she smiled with her purple-blue lips. ‘Thanks, Jeremy, you’re my hero,’ she said, and even though I was wearing Papa Smurf shorts on a crowded beach in front of everyone, it felt really good to be called a hero.
‘You’re welcome,’ I said, and we just looked at one another for a few seconds. I blushed and I looked away first, but it felt nice. Then she started crying, I mean really crying. I didn’t even know Charlie was capable of that kind of loud, snotty, full-on ugly-face crying.
Johnny J hugged her and told her everything would be fine, and when she got up to walk back to the caravan, she walked away with him. I’d saved her but she left with him. As I watched them go, my chest tightened a little. Walker couldn’t believe what had just happened.
‘This is all mad,’ he said, ‘totally mad.’ He boxed Sumo on the arm. ‘Chips?’ Walker said.
‘Oh yeah,’ Sumo said.
They didn’t ask me; I don’t know if they just expected me to go with them or if they even noticed I was there. They just walked off and I was left alone on the beach in my Papa Smurf jocks. It was depressing.
I didn’t feel like going back to the caravan. I lay on the beach and let my T-shirt and jocks dry. Even though it was hot it took a long time and my T-shirt was stuck together with sand. I brushed it down, and when I finally got my wet jeans on, I walked up and down the beach for a long time, watching people come and go, scratching and shaking sand from my back, front, sides and armpits and thinking about my family at home in Dublin. My mam was probably going insane. I missed her. I missed her cooking and I missed her washing my clothes. How am I supposed to get sand out of my T-shirt?
I missed her smile and laugh and even the way she shouted. I missed my dad too. He’d be upset because my mam was upset. He couldn’t bear to see her sad. In my head I could see him pacing up and down the hall corridor the way he always did when he was worried, sad, frustrated or scared.
I wondered what Rich was thinking. I thought about how I’d feel if Rich robbed garages. I’d be worried. Maybe he was worried too. It was a pity Johnny J would probably be incarcerated somewhere. That would mess up the band. I missed Rich. Weird. I hoped Rachel wouldn’t stay home with the family to mind my parents, because she needed to go back to nursing school. It was important to her.
I thought about my friends and the trouble we were in. Charlie could have died. If she had, it would have been my fault because she wouldn’t have been in that water if she hadn’t robbed a garage and a security van and run away with us. I was supposed to be going into secondary school in September, but now my friends and I would be heading into some kids’ detention centre. I was angry at the world and God and myself, Auntie Alison and Johnny J and even poor Mrs Tulsi. I thought about running away for good, from everything and everyone – my friends, family, jail, life. But I couldn’t. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. So I walked back to the caravan with a head full of sand and a heavy heart.