‘Ready?’ shouted Harry. Then, side by side, the lads sprinted across the grass yelling, ‘Yeahhhhhhhh!’

They thundered to the edge of the cliff and launched, their impetus sending them on a graceful arc that ended with a near-vertical plummet, spray flying up, silver and gold, as they crashed into the waves. Clancy held her breath until they bobbed to the surface of the glittering sea, shouting out their exhilaration, and then watched them swim out of sight, their laughter carried up to her on the breeze.

Filled with the compulsion to know the same short but thrilling flight, trembling with excitement and adventure, she took off her shorts and T-shirt and stacked them with her towel while she waited for the lads to reappear.

When they did, rubbing the goose bumps from their arms as they trotted over the grass, Harry roared his approval. ‘She’s going to do it!’ and they took up station out of the flight path but on the cliff edge to watch her safely down.

Heart bouncing around her chest and knees not quite steady, hardly believing what she was about to do, Clancy paced back to where she’d seen the boys begin their run-ups.

Slowly, she turned around to regard the sea and the two expectant faces.

‘One,’ she counted out loud, ‘Two …’ Then, because her heart felt as if it were going to beat itself out of her body added, ‘two and a half …’

‘Just friggin’ jump!’ Harry bellowed.

‘Three!’ Clancy exploded into action, arms pumping, feet flying, ignoring any discomfort to the soles of her feet in her race towards the cliff edge as Harry and Rory shouted, ‘Go-go-go-go!’ The edge approached at a frightening speed and her stomach lifted as if it had already hurled itself out into thin air.

And then she heard another voice. ‘NO! Clancy! No! NO!’

Hazily, she realised Harry and Rory, too, had begun bellowing, ‘Stop! Stop!’

With a heartbeat like a clap of thunder she tried to hurl herself to one side, skidding, bruising, scraping as she concentrated on sliding sideways, not over the edge to crash on the rocks below.

She squeaked to a stinging halt with one foot over the abyss but the rest of her safely on dry land and still high up above the sea.

Then Nelson was pouncing on her like a hot, hairy waggy-tailed missile and she could hear Aaron calling, ‘NO! Nelson! No!’

Clancy covered her mouth against an enthusiastic canine tongue, crowing for breath and getting an unnerving close-up of Nelson’s permanently shut eye.

‘Are you OK?’ Aaron arrived, skidding, gasping for breath, falling on his knees and dragging Nelson off her.

Harry and Rory jogged up too. ‘Sorry, Aaron,’ Harry said guiltily. ‘I didn’t see Nelson running after her.’

‘Holy hell. Do you have to make everybody as bonkers as you are, Harry?’ Aaron crashed down onto his back on the grass beside Clancy, clutching his chest. ‘First I thought Nelson was going to follow you over then I thought you were both goners. Fuck. Thanks for managing to stop.’ He coughed as he tried to suck air into his lungs.