The Last Train Home

Chapter Forty-Nine

It turned out that taking a group of teenagers to a lake for a day might not have been the smartest move.

The moment we were all in our swimwear, we turned into children who had consumed too many sweets. Mark was probably the worst out of all of us, deliberately splashing and trying to pull us under the water whenever the opportunity happened to present itself. He tried several times to sneak up on me and punch me in the arm but forgot that water moved and I caught him before he could even break the surface of the water.

I managed to push Eva's comments to the back of my mind and focused instead on enjoying myself and having some fun. Having never been to the lake before, I could hardly believe the beauty in it and I couldn't help but wonder if the country housed anything ugly. Everything I had seen or been to in my time with the Goodwin's had amazed me beyond belief and it all looked so beautiful. From the colours of the grass and the foliage around us to the sounds that encased us, everything had its own beauty.

Except that beauty could very easily be shattered by a fifteen-year-old boy screaming before he jumped feet-first into a lake.

Mark hit the water with an almighty splash, causing a ripple effect in the water and managing to spray all of us at the same time. Enid shrieked and tried to cover her face, but nothing could protect her from the shower of water that followed Mark's collision with the water. Out of all of us, he's the one that reverted back to adolescence the quickest and when he broke through the surface of the water, pushing his damp hair off his face, the laugh that followed was almost hysterical.

"You should have seen your faces!" he said, clutching his stomach from laughing so hard. "You looked terrified."

"So would you if someone's buttocks came flying towards you," Eva said.

"How about a competition, to see who can make the biggest splash." Alec scrambled out of the water and stood on the bank, staring at us.

"What do we get if we win?"

"Bragging rights."

Mark shrugged. "That's good enough for me."

"What is it with you two and turning everything into a competition?" I asked, climbing out of the water and standing on the bank. I had no plans to join in with the splash competition, but I didn't want to be anywhere near the water when it happened.

"It makes life a little more exciting, Syb."

Alec grinned and stood beside Mark, the two of them trying to figure out the rules of the competition and determine how they would be able to judge who created the biggest splash. I watched them, half amazed to see Alec engaging with Mark and not just standing off to the side which was something that he had been prone to doing the few times we had all been together. He never appeared too comfortable with my friends, and I didn't blame him. It must have been hard to be the odd one out in our group.

The four of us had known each other since we were children and I was the only one who had really spoken to Alec and spent time with him frequently since we arrived. Alec was having to try and fit into a friendship group where the only connection he had to it was me. I would have been surprised if he merged into the group seamlessly, but after almost a year, I thought they might be a little more at ease with one another. That didn't seem to be the case unless he was talking about a competition.

It didn't take them too long to figure out the rules of their competition, especially since they just had to make the biggest splash in order to win. Mum used to say that the simplest of things could amuse boys; she was right.

"Anyone else going to join in?" Mark asked, pushing his hair off his forehead.

"I'll be a judge," Enid said, "I don't think jumping into a lake like that is very graceful." Enid hadn't even changed into a swimming costume and had just removed her stockings and spent the entire morning dangling her feet into the water.