Piggy

When Amy’s beach ball was new, it was shiny and yellow, with a bright purple brontosaurus smiling at her from each side. Daddy bought her the ball three years ago when she was four. Amy loved dinosaurs, and those on the ball matched the enormous cuddly one that she slept with: Derek. Amy was really getting too big for soft toys now, and this summer she proudly left Derek at home, standing guard on her neatly made bed, ready to frighten off any burglars.

The ball had come on every O’Hagan family holiday since it was bought from the beach shop in Cornwall, along with a brand new bucket and spade. It was starting to get a little grubby now; the dinosaurs were fading at the edges, although the big blunt teeth still glistened in the sun when it was wet.

Amy wasn’t too old for beach balls yet, and neither was Sam.

Sam was fourteen. When his friends weren’t around sometimes he still liked to play with Amy. Today it was piggy-in-the-middle, played first on the sand and then gradually wading out to sea. Amy was piggy.

Sam threw the ball back and forth with a girl his own age who they’d met by the ice-cream van. The girl was called Clare. She laughed whenever she spoke even if nothing was funny, and used a different voice to talk to Amy than she did with Sam. Amy thought perhaps Clare thought she was younger than she really was, because sometimes she aimed the ball straight at Amy; it was so obviously on purpose that she felt too proud to catch on those throws. Instead she leapt high when it was Sam’s turn, sometimes brushing the ball with the tips of her fingers. Sam knew she wasn’t a baby; she was almost eight now, even if she was small for her age.

Amy hoped she would grow as tall as Sam. Mummy said he’d been small too. Although Amy was certain Sam had always been huge, in the past year he had almost doubled in size, towering over her, nearly as high as Daddy. He looked different too: his hair had grown really long and it was brown now, not butter-coloured like her own. Amy wondered whether her hair would turn brown, or if it would stay blonde like Mummy’s. Mummy’s hair was yellow, but stripy, the same as the other Mummies who waited outside school. Perhaps that was what happened when you had children.

Sam’s skin had a deep tan, and apart from his navy shorts clinging tight around his middle, he was all brown. His wet skin looked hard and warm, like varnished wood; it would feel different to Amy’s, and different again to the girl, who was soft and pink as a toasted marshmallow, her frizzy hair crinkling in the heat like a burnt edge .

Sam’s arm made a loud smack as he hit the ball – the sound of a cricket bat – followed by a decisive splash when it landed just out of her reach. A large wave carried it away, directly into the arms of the girl, who received it with another high pitched giggle. Her hands hardly made a sound as she pushed the ball netball style from her chest. Although it was aimed at Amy, the wind took it wide this time, and she had to swim after it – her best front crawl. Sam dived under water and got there first easily, emerging dripping and even shinier, the waist of his shorts now completely submerged, billowing under the surface.

Next time Sam threw, Amy jumped right out of the water, high and sideways like a proper goalkeeper. She slapped the ball firmly with her left palm, batting it right back over her brother’s head.

But when Amy came down the seabed wasn’t there anymore. One foot landed on what felt like a rock, but her foot went right through, a tangle of seaweed wrapping hungrily around her ankle.

Amy was a good swimmer; she’d just passed her red badge, and could swim a length of the big pool easily. But she couldn’t see, and she couldn’t feel the bottom. Her nose was pouring water. Flailing her legs to find a footing she went under again. She needed to go backwards and find solid sand: but which way was backwards? She could float, if she threw herself flat on her back, but wouldn’t she get swept out to sea like those people on the news with the dingy?

Bobbing above water again, she tried to open her stinging eyes to work out the direction of the beach, and felt something firm, like a thick branch clamp around her waist.


Amy screwed her face up tight and pressed her lips together to keep out the flying spray as Sam pulled her back towards the shallows. He was wading knee deep before he loosened his grip and Amy dared to open her eyes.

He was looking down at her, red faced, panting and sodden. His shorts were weighed down and hanging low on his sharp bony hips. A trail of biscuit coloured hair she’d never noticed before crept up towards his belly button.

He pressed both hands down heavily on Amy’s shoulders, forcing her head to look up at him. Sweat and sea dribbled down from his forehead and came to rest on the thin ridge of hair between his eyebrows.

“Are you OK?” he gasped at her, his voice low and strange.

Amy nodded at him. A faint shout came from the direction of the horizon; they both turned their heads to look. The girl they’d been playing with was bobbing toward them, water lapping at the tops of her freshly sunburnt breasts. Behind her, Amy’s beach ball disappeared over the top of a wave, the purple dinosaur still smiling as he slid from view.