your dad, Sam, or is it just you, your mum and sister?”
A lot of people wouldn’t have asked. They would have thought it was nosey. Not Jade.
“Yeah. It is. Just us,” I said.
We’d come back to Cornwall to make peace with my dad’s mum, my grandma, who I hadn’t seen in over ten years. Not since Dad died. And now she was dying. Of cancer. But I didn’t want to explain all that. Not to Jade; not then.
So yeah, it was ‘just us’ in that small house. And right then I didn’t want to be there, unpacking boxes. And Jade was being nice. Really nice. And I thought, How many chances will I get to make friends?
We stayed.
BACK UP TOP, beyond the rock we’d climbed around, where we’d left the bikes, was the entrance to the old mine. Another ‘DANGER – KEEP OUT’ sign was stuck on a grille protecting the way in. But they’d cut through the grille then padlocked it back up. Inside they had their own little treasure store: surf kit, piles of driftwood, four-gallon plastic containers full of some brown liquid. Even rugs and a battered old guitar.
One of the gang, a short, wiry kid with sun-blond hair called Skip, made a fire and ran around getting rugs and cushions for us to sit on. Big G – the serious guy with the cow eyes – Jade and me sat where Skip put us. The last of the crew, Rag, brought out two of the demijohn containers. The others were all fit, looked strong, and dressed in jeans and hoodies. Rag was different. He had a gut bulging out from his filthy T-shirt. He wore tartan trousers and finished the look with a Russian fur hat. He looked stupid, but it seemed deliberate.
“My finest batch yet,” said Rag, pouring the beer into mugs. “Guests first.” He handed me one, and poured a little of his own drink on the ground. They all said, “Libations,” and held their mugs to the sky.
“What’s that you’re doing?” I said.
“Libations. An offering to the sea gods.” It was hard to tell if Rag was joking. No one laughed though. Maybe they were just a superstitious lot. I thought it was weird, but I didn’t say so. “Now, Sam, tell me. How is it?” said Rag, pointing at my mug of foaming brown liquid, a serious frown on his face.
I drank, and pulled a squirming face. “This is your best?” I said.
“It’s all right,” said Skip, “you just have to get through the first one. A bit like his songs.”
“Aaah, a request?” said Rag.
“No!” they all shouted. But he fetched the guitar from the mine anyway, and banged out a sketchy folk song while we sat around the fire. He could play and sing pretty well, but he spoilt it a bit when he lifted a leg on the final note and farted loudly.
“Sorry about that,” he said, grinning.
“Liar! You disgusting pig,” said Jade. She got up, and started beating him round the head, while the others fell about laughing.
The dog even barked at him.
We drank. Big G and Rag were smoking roll-ups too, so I didn’t even notice someone had produced a spliff, till it was under my nose. Jade was passing it straight past me to Big G, just assuming I didn’t smoke, and that pissed me off, so I grabbed it and took some. I got an itchy tickle in my throat that threatened to turn into spluttering, but I got rid of it with more of the foul beer. I passed it to Big G, who took a few long drags.
They talked about the day’s waves and their plans for autumn.
“Thank Christ summer’s over,” said Big G.
“I thought you surfers liked summer?” I said, trying not to cough. They shook their heads and smiled.
“Autumn’s where it’s at,” Skip explained, sitting bolt upright. “The water’s warm. There’s no grockles clogging the line up. And we get storms, maybe even a ghost storm.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“A massive autumn storm…”
“An equinox storm?” I said.
Silence.
“What?” said G.
“Equinox,” I explained. “The midpoint between the summer and winter solstices. You get a lot of big storms then, or that’s what’s believed, as the Earth turns on its axis…” I suddenly wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“You some kind of geek?” said Big G.
“No,” I said, lying. “What’s this ghost storm?”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Big G, pointing at me, sounding just as narky as he had on the shore. “It’s a bullshit myth they put in books for tourists, a load of shit about a storm that raises ghosts from shipwrecks. What is true is that storms come out of the blue. Or a bad storm gets ten times worse for no reason. They’re called ghost storms. They’re violent. They kick up big waves that catch people off guard…”
“Like the one that creamed you today?” said Rag, taking off his ridiculous hat and letting his long blond hair fall out. They laughed. I joined in, but the look Big G gave me shut me up quickly.
“What about you? What do you do for kicks?” said Big G.
“Bit of footy. Xbox.”
This got them shaking their heads. “Don’t get it, man,” said Big G, stroking his wispy beard.
“You think I should be out surfing, waiting for the ghost storm?” I didn’t mean to sound like I was taking the piss, but that’s how it came out of my stupid mouth.
Big G picked up a stick and poked the fire. “Last year two miles off the Scillies,” he said, “there was this tiny island with this old dude living on it. Nothing there but one fisherman’s cottage, a small harbour and a smokery. Ghost storm came out of nowhere. A massive wave swept through, north of the island, ripped open a cargo ship like a sardine can, trashed two fishing boats. Then it hit this little island where this guy lived. All gone. The house, boat, everything. No body found neither…”
“How can water do that?” I said. I was curious. Again, I didn’t mean it to come out like it did. I really wanted to know about it. I had reasons to want to know. Good ones. I knew what water could do. But it sounded like I was having a go.
“You know anything about the power of water?” said Big G.
“No, not really,” I said, lying again.
“I’ll show you,” said Big G. He stood, picked up the near- empty plastic container, and poured the last of the beer into his mug …
Then threw the empty demijohn straight at me.
I caught
