We all showed our agreement by leaping into action – all of us except Patricia. She stayed put while the rest of us went below for jumpers and jackets and to get money for dinner. Less than ten minutes later, seven of us stood on the pier as Duncan tried one more time to get her to join us. ‘I’m going to stay here and soak it all in,’ she said, dismissing us with a wave of her hand. Soak it all up was probably more like it.

Gary led the way, and we all followed without a glance back to the boat. The climb left all of us breathing heavily, except Duncan who looked like he ran steep flights of stairs for fun, and we stood at the top catching our respective breaths while he went to get us a table. Without much fuss from the waiter, we were soon seated outside with an incredible view of the sun setting over the marina. There was a lively discussion about what to order, but we left most of it up to Duncan.

The food came and then kept coming – plates and plates of fresh seafood, horiatiki and tzatziki. We drank watery retsina – actually, I stuck to Mythos, the Greek beer. As we ate, we talked, learning more than the snippets we’d shared a couple of hours before. And we laughed – a lot.

After I piled another helping of fried calamari onto my plate, I settled back in my chair and looked around the group. All those fears, all those concerns about who they would be and how I would get along with them, had gone. This little group was going to be my floating family for the next week and a half and I already liked them. It felt good being part of this group. It was going to be a great trip.

And then I remembered Patricia.

Chapter Four

Around three the following morning, the snoring from the cabin next door woke me from a restless sleep for the thousandth time. I guessed it was Patricia, because I could hear the melodic undertones of drunkenness. I whispered to Hannah to see if she was awake too.

‘Oh my god,’ she whispered back. ‘I’ve been lying here wondering if I could climb down and get into the bathroom without waking you. I’ve got sleeping pills.’

Sleeping pills? I never thought I would be so excited to hear those two words.

‘You sharing?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then I’ll get ’em. Where are they?’

‘In my toiletry bag.’

I climbed out of my bunk and rooted around in the bathroom in the dark, finally finding both the toiletry bag and the Ambien. Ahh, Ambien. You can’t buy a Kinder Surprise egg in America – choking hazard, apparently – but you can buy a blissful little over-the-counter sleep aid called Ambien.