Rhiannon - Dragonrider

Chapter Six - The Idea of the Island

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, with just a touch of early morning haze which was soon going to disappear. At breakfast, Droopy announced that we were going to hike south along the coast to find a beach she'd read about.

The pathetic troop trailed down through the village but I quickly got fed up with that so, as soon as we got to the path, I dashed on ahead, pretty much running up the steep climb... only Megan could stay with me. When we reached the top, we basically collapsed onto the grass, laughing and panting as we watched the millions of birds wheeling on the wind as the waves crashed on the rocks down below.

At long last Droopy lumbered up to us, sweating in the early morning sunshine. "That was quite a climb!" she wheezed. She was pretending to admire the view but I was vaguely wondering how they were going to get an ambulance up here if she collapsed!

"Right, gals," she said, once she'd half way recovered, "off we go. Now I've been told that the path along here is quite rough so take care, please."

We strolled along the broad grassy path for a couple of miles but then the view suddenly opened up and we found ourselves looking down on a beautiful bay, surrounded by high cliffs. The tide was out, leaving a large beach of white sand, and, at the far end, there was a rocky bit with millions of little pools glistening in the sunshine.

"I've read that there are some quite unusual sea anemones in the pools down there," Miss Parsons told us. "I was hoping to go down and have a look. The way down should be over there somewhere." She wandered over to the edge of the cliff.

"Now be careful on the way down," she said nervously, standing back and letting us lot go on ahead.

I gave Megan a look. I mean... it was a bit steep but it wasn't all that bad. So I set off down, casually jumping from rock to rock, with Megan following on behind.

"I said be careful," Droopy wailed pathetically after us but, by now, we were far enough away that we could pretend not to hear.

And, for the first time, it felt like a proper holiday. The sun was warm and as soon as we reached the beach we kicked off our shoes and socks and ran down to the water. The others did the same and, by the time Droopy made it down, we were having a great time.

She looked on for a bit but then decided we were having too much fun so she led us along to the rocky bit by the headland to hunt for her stupid anemones.

I vaguely nosed around in this bored sort of a way but I had this strange feeling. I mean... I'd never been here before in my life but I still knew that there was something going on... and, as we drifted closer to the headland, the feeling got so strong that I just couldn't ignore it

"There's something funny round the corner there," I told Megan, "I'm going to have a look. You coming?"

She glanced back but Droopy had found one of her precious sea anemones and she'd basically not have noticed if the whole lot of us wandered off.

We scrambled round the headland... it was a bit tricky because the sea was coming in quite close to the cliffs and the rocks were wet and slippery... but at last we made it round

And the little cove we found made it worthwhile. There was a narrow, sandy bay surrounded on three sides by rocks and high cliffs.

"It's perfect," Megan exclaimed.

I nodded... but then I noticed this big pile of rocks and stuff over by one of the cliffs. "What's that?" I asked.

"It looks like there might have been a rock fall. You can see the mark on the cliff."

As we wandered over to investigate, I noticed something lying, half buried in the pile. "What d'you think this is?" I asked.

"What's what?" Megan replied.