orveren! Weâll get caught! Letâs go back and wait for the boat!â shouts Jenna, but I keep on running as if I havenât heard. Weâre nearly half-way across the causeway to the Island. Jenna wonât turn back without me. Sure enough, I hear her feet splashing over the cobbles behind me.
âMorveren!â
We can make it, I know we can. The tide has reached Dragon Rock and is pouring round it. Weâll get a bit wet maybe. Iâm not turning back to wait for the boat now.
âMorveren!â
I donât stop, but this time I look back. My sister is standing stock still on the causeway. The wind flails her hair over her face and the creeping water is already at her feet. I want to keep running but my feet wonât do it. Maybe sheâs got a stitch. I race back to Jenna, and grab her hand. Itâs cold, and her face is panicky. I pull her hard, but itâs like pulling a statue.
âWeâll drown if we stay here! Youâve got to run!â
The tide is coming in behind us too. We canât go back to the mainland now, even if we want to. Thatâs the way the tide tricks you. When youâre looking ahead, the water slides in stealthily from behind. But we can still reach the Island if we run as fast as we can. Every second counts. I yank Jennaâs arm and she unfreezes.
âWe canât go back now, Jenna. Look, itâs too deep.â
She knows it. Jennaâs the sensible one usually, but if we stand here much longer itâll be too late to go on as well as too late to go back. Iâm hot all over with anger at myself. We should have waited for the next boat. Jenna wanted to, but I wouldnât. Dad will be so angry if we get caught by the tide. Thereâs a refuge a hundred metres ahead but if we have to climb up there someoneâs got to bring a boat out to rescue us and everyone will know how stupid weâve been.
We race as fast as we can over the causeway cobbles. Our feet slip, slide and splash. The tideâs not racing, but itâs coming in relentlessly, pulse after pulse. The stones are almost underwater now. Hereâs the refuge, standing firm with its ladder and iron handholds. Itâs only just been rebuilt because the old one was swept away by last winterâs storms. We pound past it without slowing down. We donât have to discuss it because Jenna feels the same as I do. Weâre not going to be stuck up there, waving for help like tourists. Thereâs no mobile reception out here, or on the Island.
Jenna and I run on side by side, clutching hands. If anyone saw us weâd get in so much trouble. Itâs only because I had a detention and Jenna waited for me that we were both late. The seaâs putting out claws of grey water now, slopping over our feet. Surely the causeway will start to slope upwards soon, to the Island shore. Rainâs driving in too, big flapping sheets of rain that hide the rocks. But weâre nearly there. All that scares me is the way the water keeps on getting deeper. If it rises past our knees thereâs a danger that the tide will be strong enough to push us off the causeway into deep water. We could be swept away.
The sea is pushing us now. It wants to win. You only have to make one mistake, Dad always says, because the sea never makes any. All our lives weâve been taught to respect the sea. Dad would go mad if we got swept away.
Jenna stumbles. My shoulder wrenches as I drag her upright.
âQuick, Jenna!â
But as I pull her I lose my balance and my foot turns on the cobbles under the water. This time itâs Jenna who hauls me back.
Weâre nearly there. Itâs going to be all right. My legs hurt because itâs so hard to run when youâre almost knee-deep in water. We wade and slither and stumble, shoving ourselves forward as if weâre running in a nightmare. The water licks our legs hungrily, but itâs not going to get us this time, because suddenly, with a rush of relief, I see that the outline of the cobblestones below us is getting sharper again. The waterâs falling. The causewayâs rising. Weâve made it.
At that moment the strangest thing happens. I stop fighting the swirl of the sea around my legs. I slow down. The smell of salt fills my head as a curtain of rain moves across my field of vision and hides the Island. A herring-gull swoops down, combing the air above my head. The tide shoves in, almost lifting me off my feet.
And for a moment I want to be lifted. I want to know where the surging tide will take me. If only I could fly through the water like that gull which is skimming away, free, towards the horizon⦠My mind fills with longing and for a few seconds everything else is crowded out. Even Jenna, my twin sister, closer to me than I am to myself â Jenna vanishes from my thoughts. Grey water, glistening water, the smell of saltâ