I allow my feet to touch the bottom, which makes a sucking sound when you stand. My toes curl around the mud as I wade against the water, feeling strong as I press it away. The other two are shouting and laughing still. I shouldn’t have told Luca to come. I swim until my arms and legs are burning and my heart’s pounding in my ears, then I climb onto the bank, my wet dress sticking to me like another skin. The dog pushes its head against me, shaking, and I pat it between its eyes.

Maria comes out next and throws herself on the ground beside me. ‘You didn’t tell me you were bringing your brother.’

‘You don’t seem to mind.’

She smiles at me and rolls onto her front. I wish she would put her clothes back on. ‘Are you cold?’ she asks. I’m shaking and there are blue and yellow patches on my legs and arms.

‘I’m fine, but you must be …’

She turns onto her back and stretches her arms long over her head, her toes pointing towards the ground, back arched. I see Luca staring over, and I cross my eyes and touch the tip of my tongue to my nose. He pokes his tongue through his teeth, narrowing it, before he too, touches his nose.

‘Impressive,’ says Maria, deadpan.

‘I bet you can’t do it,’ I say.

‘Nope, and I wouldn’t even bother trying. It’s a Zanesti thing.’

I feel a small shiver of victory.

‘The clouds are moving about fast up there,’ Maria says. We both look up at the shifting shapes in the sky. ‘I’d love to get on an airplane and fly away from here.’ I ask her where she thinks she’d go. She tells me her older sister Alina met a man in the village who said he could get her a job as a waitress in Greece, and she could earn more money in a month than she would working in a factory in Chişinău for a year.

‘You’re too young,’ I tell her.

‘I heard Papa say I will make a good marriage, in time.’ We both lie silently, staring at the clouds as they skitter across the blue. I don’t want her to go away from me. I don’t want her knowing this.