Salt Water

Chapter 3

The next day was windy and miserable. Everyone arrived at school in a bad mood except for Ricky, but then it would take the end of the world to put Ricky in a bad mood. Even then I think he might possibly find something good about it... He was just that kind of person. Ricky had insane hair that seemed to explode like those tiny sponges that you put in water and they burst into enormous shapes. When he walked, his hair bounced up and down like an animated comic strip. Most of the time he kept it really short. Ricky was tall and skinny - perhaps not as tall as we thought, but his gawky skinniness made him look taller.

I spent a late afternoon with Olga. If she was suspicious about my hiding out in her shop, she didn't say anything. Even when I started spring-cleaning her shelves, she just looked at me over the rim of her spectacles and then carried on with the accounts and orders she had in front of her.

I took a longer route home - and by that I mean instead of 5 minutes, it took 8. That was when I became aware of them. They were speaking in Afrikaans and I knew immediately they were up to no good - when I rounded the corner and peeped down the alley, my breath caught in my throat and I froze. They were going to kill him - that much was obvious. He was one of them. Oh, great. Just great... I briefly considered the insanity of helping another individual who might possibly drown me until I caught a better view of the stranger. In art history we all had the standard Helen Gardiner's Art History book, but Sarah did one better - she got an obscure modern History of Art book that I loved for one image alone: the Dying Gaul. I was completely intrigued by the work. It was your standard perfection of human form by the Roman masters of sculpture, but there was something intriguing about the work - maybe it was because at first sight you didn't see the model's face his head hung low. Perhaps that element of mystery made it more appealing, but there was something about the stranger as he looked at me with those supernatural eyes that seemed to hold the same enigmatic air. He looked like a young Thor - blonde hair with streaks of white and tiny shimmering hairs on his angular face. His perfect features were interrupted by a nose that looked as though it had seen more than one break and a mouth that was marginally lopsided. My heart pounded deliberately against my chest. The fact that he looked like a wreck didn't seem to mean anything. The fact that I knew he was trouble - as hard as I tried to remind myself of this, I just kept staring blankly at him. It was some charm thing, I convinced myself - I'd have to ask him very nicely to switch the damn thing off as a favour for saving him. Oh boy, some idiots never learn their lesson...

I looked around and saw a few cars parked in the area that I assumed had car alarms. Eventually I found one with an open window, so I squeezed my arm in, unlocked the door and opened it so that the alarm sounded shrilly, piercing my eardrums relentlessly. I ran back to the alley waiting behind the bins and when I saw the boys run out to see what was going on, I slipped behind them. I lifted the stranger up and looked up to see we were a few meters away from the fynbos trail to the beach. Although it wasn't a long walk to the beach this guy wasn't helping at all - I was lifting and dragging a load that was far more than my capacity to drag, never mind lift.

'So,' I panted, 'you'd better not try and drown me in return for me saving your life, buddy.'

A choked cough came from his chest.

Please, I wondered to myself, could you turn off the charm so I can think straight? Aloud, I said: 'You look and sound terrible. What on earth happened?'

'Can't... talk...'

'Right, sorry.'

After what seemed like forever, we arrived at the water's edge.

'Ok, I know your tricks, so I'm staying right here - you go knock yourself out.'

'Thank you,' he collapsed in the water and crawled deeper in.