Into the Sea

They were there again.

Danny ducked behind a half-built boat and peered through the gaps in the planks. He'd thought seven would be early enough, that Paul and his cronies would still be in bed, or stuffing Coco Pops into their mouths and watching breakfast cartoons.

But even Paul wasn't going to spend his half-term holiday in bed, apparently. He was going to spend it being in exactly the places Danny wanted to be.

For a moment, Danny looked beyond the gang of boys down on the gray beach. He turned his eyes farther out to the wide sea flecked with white foam under a dour October sky. A gust of raw salt breezed across the endless water, bringing the smell of distance into Danny's nostrils. The smell of —

Adventure.

His hand trembled; he pushed hard against the boat in a spasm of hope, and the boat toppled slowly sideways, off its wooden rest.

It crashed onto the pavement at the top of the beach, and the gang of boys looked up. Danny didn't waste time trying to freeze in the hope they wouldn't notice him.

He ran, like a coward.

"There he is!"

"Get him!"

He kept to the concrete, hoping that the sand below would slow them, but they hadn't been far away, and within a few strides, they were at the top of the beach and pounding after him — Paul, the captain of the Year 9 soccer team, and his friends — his newly made holiday friends —

Danny's head jerked sideways as pain bit at his ear. Now they were throwing things. Stones. Shells. Flotsam and jetsam from the grimy beach.

And then he was hurdling the low wall around the pavement, and there was only the beach path to run along, and the land to his left was sand and gorse and chips of stone, leading nowhere but down to the sea.

He had run the wrong way. He should have taken off back into town, run to the house of his parents' friends, knocked on the door, and bolted inside.

"Go on! Get him!"

A stone smacked into the small of his back. Numbness shot down his leg, fizzing and popping. He couldn't swing it properly anymore, could only run with an awkward limp. He hopped and skipped.

"Skipping like a girl! You're a girl, Danny O'Neill!"

If only he could run with his arms, like a monkey. He stumbled, pitched into a gorse bush, pushed himself free of the thorns, and ran on without stopping to examine the angry red scratches along his arms that hissed out blood.

Another stone hit his back. He gasped, drawing burning air into his chest. But he didn't need to run so fast. They were just playing with him now. They were running him, like cowboys with a steer, herding him toward the edge of the sea. When he got there, they would surround him, and there would be nowhere left to run.

Danny looked desperately to his right and left, hoping that the sands might throw up some help — a massive hole, maybe, or a rope that would zip up out of the beach like an enormous buried snake and throw its end into his hands so he could be dragged up into the sky as if he were hanging on to the tail of a giant kite.

There was nothing like that here, of course. Only the gray morning and the autumn chill picking at the wind.

He kept running, even though there was no point, and then, a short way down the beach, he saw a little wooden boat in the shallows.

Waiting for him.

Perhaps it had come adrift from its moorings in the harbor and washed up here. Perhaps some magic spirit had taken pity on him and left it to aid his flight.

Either way, he doubled his pace and sprinted for the boat, and he heard them behind him, gathering themselves, seeing their prize suddenly slipping away. But he was far enough ahead, and he splashed into the shallows, leaping into the little boat and fumbling for the oars.

They were still in the rowlocks, neatly tucked across the seats. Danny swung them wide into the sea. Bracing his arms against the solid bulk of water, he took a pull, and the boat glided away from the shore.

For a second, he felt as though the wings of an enormous bird had sprouted from his shoulders and he was beating them against the clear air, launching himself up into the sky.

He'd done it. He'd escaped them.

They stood on the shore, their dumb faces slack in disbelief. Paul threw a bit of driftwood, but the rising wind batted it back toward him, protecting Danny.

"Big fat girl!" Paul shouted.

Danny let himself smile and kept pulling at the oars.

"We'll get you next time!" yelled one of Paul's goons.

There would be a next time, for sure. Once upon a time, Paul had been Danny's best friend. Then all the strange things had started to happen, and Danny had made the mistake of telling Paul. And it seemed as though Paul had been, through all their years of friendship, just a pile of toadspawn waiting to hatch out into a huge, warty, bullying toad.

"Just ignore him," the teachers said. But how could you ignore someone when you went on holiday, miles and miles from home, and he turned up there too? Danny just wanted to explore the place and throw stones into the sea. Apparently that was too much to ask.

The wind hissed, and the waves rose. The little boat toppled from wave to wave, throwing Danny's stomach around like a beach ball. He looked back toward the shore. It seemed impossibly far away. Paul and the others were drifting back to town, and the beach lay empty.

Without warning, a big wave hit the side of the boat, sending a cold spray of salt against the back of Danny's neck. He took a better hold on the oars, trying to steady himself. Already the sea felt too powerful.

There was no need to panic, though. Out here, he had a weapon. He wedged the ends of the oars under his armpits and reached into his pocket, pulling it out.

The taro.

It was just a twig from a sycamore tree, brown-barked and smooth from handling, the size and shape of a pencil. But the taro had been the beginning of all the strange happenings. In summer, there had been a storm. It had left behind a bolt of lightning, trapped inside a stick. And then, and then ...

Danny forced himself to close his mind to all that other stuff. He shut his eyes and listened, following the sound of the waves from the bristling surface down into the dark depths of churning water, and he listened hard to the very heart of the sea. He had spoken to the sea before, a long way from here, and it had been wise and kind. Hopefully this would be the same sea.

When he could feel the sea's voice coating his mind, he said, inside his head, "Sea? Sea, can you hear me?"

The sea flattened itself in one...