‘What?’ I said.

‘I said it doesn’t matter how hard Mum works, we have money and things that ninety-nine point nine per cent of people can only dream of. And even if I accept that Mum deserves it, we don’t. We were just lucky enough to be born into the right family. Yup. Spoiled is a pretty mild term for it.’

‘So you don’t think I should report that man for what he said?’

Aiden looked at me as if trying to work out if I was serious.

‘Hey,’ he said finally. ‘Pretty thin skin there, Ash. Of course you shouldn’t report him. He’d probably lose his job. I don’t think we’re that spoiled that we would like to see someone else suffer just because we can.’

I lapsed into silence. Aiden’s words mingled with Mr Meredith’s from last night and I was confused. This was something I’d really have to think through.

‘Thanks, Aiden,’ I said. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about.’

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I’m all in favour of thinking.’

‘I’m going to join Charlotte now.’

He waved a hand at me.

‘Missing you already,’ he said.

He can be such a smart alec sometimes.

Kayaks are dangerously unstable. I discovered this when I was doing my practice runs at the part of the river that was little more than a sluggish pool. I don’t think any of us had done kayaking before, but I suspect it wouldn’t have mattered if we had. Mr Meredith and Ms Anderson insisted we go through all the safety procedures, like how to right the kayak if we capsized. I was more concerned about getting out of it if I capsized. To be honest, losing a kayak wasn’t something I was too bothered about. Mum could buy them another twenty. They told us things like, if we fell out, to stay upstream of the kayak to avoid getting pinned between the boat and a rock and to hold on to it for flotation until one of the assistants came to help.

‘Never try to stand up in a kayak,’ said Mr Meredith to the whole group. Was he mad? Who in their right mind would want to stand up in something so small and flimsy? I was scared just trying to fit into it and when I did, it wobbled from side to side in a frightening way.

It took nearly two hours for all of us to practise getting in and out of the four kayaks and there was plenty of laughing and screaming when people fell into the shallow water. That didn’t matter. It cooled us down. I tried the paddle and even managed to keep the kayak in a fairly straight line for the ten or so metres we were allowed to travel before giving someone else a turn. Finally, Mr Meredith decided we knew the safety basics and had enough experience to take them out for a proper go.