I’d had a terror of drowning ever since I was small. I don’t know what set it off. Maybe I got out of my depth at the swimming pool. Maybe Dad had got drunk when I was a baby and dropped me in the bath. Whatever it was, it was a memory too bad to bring back. I used to imagine how drowning would feel – the panic as you take in your first lungful of water, trying to scream and call for help.

But then I read something in the library about drowning. It said that the way we imagine a drowning never really happens. The person doesn’t splash and cry out and go down and then up and then down and up a few more times. It’s silent, calm. You take in a lungful of water, and then that’s it. Down you go, no struggling, nothing. Smooth. And that made me even more scared of it, not less.

But I was being stupid and letting my thoughts get muddy with panic. Kenny would be at the road by now. Help was on its way. What would it be? A helicopter? I hoped it would be a helicopter. They’d send down a man with a stretcher and they’d winch me up. I’d be able to see the river, the gorge, the whole mountain, Yorkshire, England, the world, as I spun slowly round. A great story to tell everyone. I’d tell my dad, and Sarah, and then my mum. Everyone at school. I’d be famous. There’d be a special assembly. The head teacher would go on about what a hero I was. I’d go up on the stage in the hall, looking shy and embarrassed while everyone clapped and cheered. “Modest, isn’t he?” I’d hear someone say. I’d get a medal. What was that one they gave you for bravery when you weren’t in the army? The George Cross, that was it. Stupid name. Who’s called George these days? It must have been after some king. And what brave things did kings ever do? Well, maybe they were brave in the olden days, riding into battle. But not now. How is it brave to sit in a palace or to go and open a new leisure centre? They have someone to put the toothpaste on their toothbrush, my dad said. Someone to wipe their arse for them. Maybe they might slice a finger off when they were cutting a ribbon. Or get an ankle bitten by a corgi. A yapping corgi. Yap, yap, yap.

Yapping.

I opened my eyes.

Fifteen

Fifteen

The water was even closer, and the roar of it was louder than ever. The stream really had changed into a raging torrent now. But that wasn’t what I’d heard.

Barking.

Tina.

She was there. Here, I mean. Tina was trying to shake off the wet. Or was she shivering?