Linksshifter II

A Path Between The Waves - ~~~~~

There was a Lidl right by the crossing over the train tracks, and Sonali felt around in her pocket as she braked and slid to a stop by the bike rack. A fiver, wedged in under a used tissue and a bunch of lint; anywhere but here, it wouldn't be enough. She leaned her bike against the rack and hurried in; she was climbing up the cliff the now. By the time Sonali had grabbed her carry-out, stink-eyed the clerk into letting her pay for it, and gotten back out, she was up at the top. She balanced the package on the front handlebars, guessing, and turned off at the railroad crossing, following the gravel along the tracks to cut her off, at the place where she had to be.

"Hoi," she said, bike wavering as she slowed, calling out to the head coming in towards the tracks, towards the footpath crossing, out of the heather. "Hoi, Colleen – do you have a minute?"

Colleen stopped, like she wasn't sure that she didn't want to run back into the maze of briars. "What? You're –"

"Sonali Patel; I'm one year under you at school. And more than who, I know what you are, and I think I've got a fair idea of what you've been doing – but before I grass you up or nowt I want to know why."

Colleen looked flustered for a second, but set her face hard. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I –"

"Your ID, you noticed this morning it wasn't quite in its right place," Sonali said, taking a stab in the dark. "It was me that moved it; well, it was that crab you had for breakfast, but it was me with the crab that did it. I've not been in the cave in my own skin since the first time, when I saw your other jacket, the one that's down there the now." Colleen had somehow gone even paler, wincing as she reached out to the heather for support and found nothing but a handful of thorns. "I've seen everything, and those other piles of clothing would make a fair braw story for the Evening Express – don't mind how it's magic sealskins anaw, they're the ones who made up the deep-fried Mars bars, they'll print any old rot they come across. But that Liam, he came back from the sea, so you let him go back, and then he left on his own hook to go away again. So you're not a monster, not a beast nor a naga or a sea hag, and I don't want to dob you in if you're not doing nowt wrong. Can you take a minute then, and we'll talk about it, and see if I can't understand a little better?"

Colleen breathed, steadying herself, and stepping away from the hedge. "I don't know – I'm not on the swim team, not yet, so I don't have to go to their meeting, but –"

Sonali held up the six-pack. "I've a carry-out. That's as you know it's serious; canny have a serious discussion without a kerry oot."

Colleen wrinkled her brow, the first unambiguous sign of real emotion that Sonali had seen out of her. "This early? And I can't – my biology isn't –"

"Come on, it's barely more than water," Sonali said, rolling her bike a little closer. "Lidl's not stocking Brewdog in plastic bottles, that's for sure. And nobody's saying we've got to finish it, it's just to think over."

Colleen looked down at her hands. "Can we come back from the tracks, in case a train comes by? There's a patch up here that's almost clear, that won't be so bad." Sonali nodded, and followed her back into the heather.

A few steps into the brush, Colleen slid between the arms of a gorsebush and sat herself down on a boulder, the bare rock breaking up the heather, raised up enough to be able to look up over the cliff beyond. Sonali tore the outer plastic open and wedged it through her brake cables, then tossed one of the bottles up to Colleen before she ducked in through the gap herself, leaving most of the beers in around the roots. Colleen took a sip as Sonali hoisted herself up onto the rock, and grimaced. "This is vile. Even for beer this is beyond vile."