“Come on then,” Veronica said eventually, when their laughter had at last died down, and she opened the door to the changing room where she unlatched the cupboard that housed the switch for the pool cover.

“You know, my parents will go mad if they catch us,” Sarah warned, a grain of sense for a moment interrupting the adventure. She was blighted by this always, unable to resist the great family sentiments of responsibility and right. “We’re not allowed down here without them knowing. Even in the day.”

“It’s not dangerous,” Veronica sighed, hand on hip.

“I know. But they don’t like it. And they might see the cover moving when it gets to the deep end.”

“It’s dark.”

“Yeah but the movement and stuff…”

“So let’s only open it halfway.”

To this Sarah had no response, so stood aside, tension curling her bare toes, while Veronica carefully held down the switch until the cover had retreated halfway up the shadowy water.

The swim was short-lived. Although the water was heated, in the night air their teeth quickly chattered. And though it was thrilling to dive down, lost in the darkness of liquid abyss, they found themselves to be suddenly alert to every rustle of leaf and squawk of bird and floating piece of garden debris. The adventure, however, was not a failure, Veronica made sure of that, despite their premature return to the pool house. Instead of swimming, she coined The Chatting Room and made such a production of it that quickly this seemed the real objective of their night-time sojourn, and not the fleeting frolic in the water.

“This room will be for serious chatting only,” she stated, wrapped in her damp towel, the two of them shivering and huddled with bent knees on the bottom bunk. “Things we wouldn’t usually talk about. Or that we don’t want other people to hear.”

“Okay,” said Sarah. “Like what?”

“Like, what we really think about people. Or, about each other. Or things about our families, or just things we think, but stuff we wouldn’t tell other people.”

“O-kayyy,” Sarah repeated. “Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know.”

“It’s your idea.”

“Forget it,” Veronica decided with a nonchalant flap of her hand. She stood up and with the towel still draped over her, wriggled out of her wet costume. With her foot, she flicked it up to her hand and hung it on the top bunk, the drips splashing on the floor between them. Veronica clicked her toes against the floor. “Okay, I’ve got a different idea.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, so we’ll come down here every night. And each of us has to think of one really hard, really embarrassing question, something we wouldn’t usually ask, and the other one either has to answer it, or do a dare. But it has to be a really hard dare, harder than the question.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you start,” said Veronica, pulling her scrunchie out of her fair hair and tugging knots between her fingers.

“I haven’t had time to think of anything good,” Sarah answered, untying her own ponytail and sucking on the chlorinated end.