SUN KISSED

by Jenny McLachlan

  ‘I wish I could ride on the back of a whale,’ says Nanna dreamily. ‘It would be better than a dolphin, but my big dream is to ride a manatee.’ There’s a moment’s silence, then everyone laughs, even Peeta.

  ‘What’s a manatee?’ asks Pearl.

  ‘Imagine a cross between a seal and a cow,’ I say.

  ‘And Otto,’ adds Leo.

  We start discussing which animals we’d most like to catch a ride with (me: extremely tame lion) and then Nanna announces that she’s always wanted to kiss a platypus right on its bill and we move on to a whole new animal-based topic of conversation. Somehow, Nanna’s habit of saying whatever pops into her head makes the awkwardness disappear, and we all talk at once.

  Gradually, the sun slips below the horizon and Otto starts to play a mega mix of obscure Swedish dance-band tracks. I’m just explaining why kissing a slow loris would be a good experience when I notice that Pearl is shredding a beer mat – a warning sign that she badly needs a cigarette.

  She groans and rolls her head back. ‘I’m so bored I could eat a slow loris,’ she says. ‘I need to do something.’

  ‘We could build a fire,’ says Leo. ‘I know just the right beach. Totally deserted.’

  Perfect, I think.

  ‘Boring,’ says Pearl. ‘What else?’

  Leo shrugs. ‘We could try the floating sauna. The hotel has a sauna on a raft in the sea – a really old-fashioned one with coals. No one goes there this late, because officially it’s closed, but they never lock it and it should still be hot.’

  ‘A floating sauna?’ says Pearl, smiling. ‘Now that, I like the sound of. C’mon, Kat.’ She jumps to her feet. ‘Let’s get our bikinis. Time for my first ever sauna!’

  Pearl and I take a shortcut to our cabin through the woods. The moment we’re in the trees, she punches my arm. ‘So, about Leo …’ she says.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Nothing. Just –’ She kicks at the pine needles and I smell the resin in the warm evening air.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I kind of think you might still like him?’ She glances sideways at me.

  ‘Well, I kind of think you’re wrong.’

  Pearl laughs. ‘But you go quiet when he’s around and you’re always sneaking looks at him …’

  ‘He humiliated me, Pearl.’ I drop behind her, walking slower. I can’t think about that night without thinking about what went before. ‘Those five days I spent with him felt like the start of something.’

  ‘The start of what?’ She snaps a twig off a tree and starts breaking it into smaller pieces, dropping them on the path as she walks.

  I can’t tell her it felt like the start of everything; I don’t think Pearl believes in love. ‘It doesn’t matter because then his girlfriend turned up and I found out what he really thought about me.’

  ‘How do you know she’s his girlfriend?’

  I laugh. ‘Peeta announced it the minute she arrived, just in case I hadn’t got the message.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ahead of me, Pearl shrugs. ‘We’ve seen Peeta on her own loads. Tonight was the first time I’ve actually met Leo. They don’t hold hands or kiss. They don’t even talk that much.’

  We walk on and fall into silence. I remember that night, how Peeta kissed him on the lips … but have I ever actually seen him touching her? I push the thought to the back of my mind. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘He still said those things about me.’ Pearl’s ahead of me, a silhouette on the moonlit path. I run to catch up with her. ‘Anyway, who cares about Leo? I’m about to swim to a floating sauna with my bestie!’

  ‘Yeah!’ says Pearl and we link arms. ‘Tiann is going to be so jealous.’ Our feet crunch along the path. ‘But can I say one more thing, you know, about Leo?’

  I sigh. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing really. It’s just … he sneaks looks at you too, you know.’

  We swim towards the sauna in a straggly line. Nanna and Pearl are at the front, whispering and giggling, followed by me and Peeta and then Leo. It’s unusually dark tonight. The moon is a thin crescent of silver and the sea is black and feels spookily deep. Pearl turns round to check we’re all keeping up. She looks at me and grins. She loves doing anything naughty, and breaking into the hotel’s sauna is probably even better than underage drinking.

  Soon, she’s climbing the rusty ladder up to the platform and trying the sauna door. ‘It’s open,’ she says, disappearing inside.

  ‘Don’t fall in the hole,’ Leo calls after her.

  We all shuffle into the sauna, feeling our way in the darkness. The platform wobbles from side to side. ‘Is this made for five?’ I say as I squeeze in, shutting the door behind me. Immediately, the heat hits my skin, drying my lips and throat.

  ‘Watch it.’ Nanna pulls me down on to the bench next to her.

  ‘What?’ My eyes adjust to the darkness and then I see a rectangular hole cut in the middle of the floor. Dark water is sloshing up through it. Leo and Peeta are sitting on the bench opposite me and Pearl is taking up a whole bench to herself. ‘Is it safe to have a hole in the floor?’ I ask, dipping my toes into the sea.

  ‘Don’t worry. This sauna’s been here for years,’ says Leo.

  ‘Why’s it got the hole?’ I sit back and breathe out. The heat is starting to get to me, making me dizzy.

  ‘It’s well known that jumping into cold water improves circulation,’ says Peeta. ‘Also, it’s good for the immune system.’

  ‘It just feels lovely,’ says Nanna. ‘It’s a plunge pool. You get really hot, then jump in the hole and either swim out under the sauna, or climb back in for a bit more heat.’

  ‘Cool. An escape hatch,’ says Pearl. ‘We are all going down there.’

  ‘Can you hit your head on the platform?’ I still don’t like the look of it.

  ‘Is you scared, Kit Kat?’ Pearl leans over and strokes my hair.

  ‘Yes, I am scared of jumping in that creepy dark hole full of fish, and lobsters, and crabs … But if you’re all doing it, then so am I.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ says Nanna. ‘You just jump into the middle and start kicking straight away.’

  Leo takes a ladle off a peg, scoops up some sea water and throws it on the coals. A burst of steam fills the cabin. ‘This is freakin’ boiling,’ says Pearl. She laughs then starts to cough.

  ‘Even the air tastes hot,’ I say as sweat drips down my face. ‘I don’t get your obsession with temperature extremes.’

  ‘We’re tough like Vikings,’ says Peeta. ‘Maybe you can’t handle it …’

  ‘I can handle it,’ says Pearl. ‘It’s lush.’

  We sit it out for ten more sweaty minutes while Nanna and Leo swap tales of previous floating sauna visits. Peeta is strangely quiet. Usually she’d make sure we all knew she was the best at enduring heat, but she’s just slumped against Leo, eyes down. Suddenly, Leo sits up and says, ‘Who’s jumping first?’ We all stare at the black hole.

  ‘Me!’ says Peeta, standing up. She places her toes just over the edge, breathes deeply, raises her hands above her head and pauses to make sure we’re all watching her. It looks like she’s found her mojo again.

  ‘Me actually,’ says Pearl, and she gets off her bench and jumps straight into the hole, soaking Peeta and making Nanna collapse with laughter. Immediately, Peeta jumps in after Pearl, like she’s going to get her.

  ‘Oh my God,’ says Nanna, as the platform rocks from side to side. ‘They might have a fight!’ She looks at me and then at Leo. ‘Hang on. This is weird …’

  ‘No it’s not,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. It is. I’ll leave you to it.’ She gets up, holds her nose, and then jumps into the hole, barely creating a ripple. Suddenly, Leo and I are alone … in a very hot sauna.

  We look at each other. The platform sways and the coals hiss. ‘Shall I go next?’ I say, breaking the silence. ‘I don’t want to be the last one.’

  ‘No.’ He stands up then immediately sits down. The sauna t
ips and water sloshes through the hole. He pushes his hands through his hair, glances at me, then looks away. ‘I mean, don’t go yet. I really do need to talk to you.’

  For a moment, we sit opposite each other in the dark, shadowy cabin. It rolls gently from side to side. ‘I’ve been thinking about how you must have felt, that night at the cafe, when Peeta turned up.’ Just remembering the moment still makes my cheeks burn. I see Peeta slip her hands over Leo’s eyes and then take her place next to him as if she belonged there. I stare at the water until Leo breaks the silence. ‘You see, I was going to go to Stockholm the next day. I was going to tell Peeta not to come to Stråla –’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about you and Peeta.’ I stand up. The wooden boards feel cool under my feet.

  ‘Please, listen,’ he says. ‘Peeta and I have been friends for a long time. Then, a few weeks before the summer holiday, we started going out.’ I don’t sit down, but I stand there, arms folded, and I force myself to listen. ‘Peeta said she wanted to come here and compete in Tuff Troll and I said yes, even though I knew it was a mistake. When I kayaked to Stråla, I had a lot of time to think. You see, right from the start, I thought we were better off as friends. That’s really all I ever wanted us to be. Even before I met you, I knew we had to break up.’ He looks at me. ‘But when she arrived early, I didn’t know what to do. She’s had such a hard time recently, her mum and dad have split up and she’s been really down. If she thought that you and me …’ He takes a deep breath. ‘It would have hurt her feelings so much.’

  ‘So you decided to hurt me instead?’ I feel the ache creeping back like it never went away. ‘I guess I’m such an airhead you thought the words would just bounce off me! You said’ – I point a finger at him – ‘that being with me meant nothing.’

  Now he’s on his feet. ‘I didn’t know you were there, listening.’

  ‘You still said it.’ I say this quietly, but my heart is thumping wildly. ‘Do you really want to know what I thought that night when Peeta arrived and when I heard you both laughing at me? I felt like my heart was going to break.’ I don’t care about hiding anything now. I want him to know the truth. ‘Because, guess what, I liked you. So much. And the pathetic thing is, I thought – for the first time in my life – that I had met someone who –’ I pause, I don’t know if I can say another word without crying – ‘liked me.’ I put my hand on my chest. ‘But you can’t have, can you? Because if you had, you would never have said those things.’

  We stand facing each other. ‘I got everything wrong,’ I say, ‘and now I want to forget about it, but most of all, I want to forget about you.’ Every room should have a hole you can jump into when you’re about to burst into tears. Without hesitating, I plunge into the black square of water.

  I shoot down, water rushing into my nose and eyes. Wow! Icy, icy, icy! I go down, down, down, my lungs, toes and fingers stinging. Then I remember I’m supposed to be kicking and I force my tingling legs to move, pushing myself up through the black water towards the surface.

  I burst out on the open water, and gasp, taking one huge breath after another until breathing stops hurting. A thousand stars shine down on me, but the sea is as black and still. The only sound is my wild and frantic breathing. Over on the beach, I can see Pearl standing on a rock, looking for me. I wave and start swimming towards her.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘Move those lazy butts!’ Otto yells through the trees.

  My legs feel like stone, but I force myself to run on.

  ‘Stretch it out, Kat,’ says Pearl. ‘C’mon.’ And she moves ahead of me. I can’t let her beat me! We run up to Otto’s cabin and Pearl screams with delight as she gets there just before me. I sink to the floor and rest against a tree, but Pearl jogs over to Otto and does something totally unexpected: a high five! Back home, Pearl would never ever allow her palm to slap enthusiastically against someone else’s in a moment of triumph.

  ‘Two kilometres in eleven minutes,’ Otto says. ‘Your fastest time yet, girls. But that’s all you are doing today. You need to rest so that you are ready for the race tomorrow.’

  Since we swam to the sauna, Pearl and I have thrown ourselves into our training. Pearl claims she’s motivated by getting a cigarette – Otto told her that when she gets forty stickers he’ll give her one of his roll-ups – but I’m not so sure. Having seen the high five and the amount of time she spends here with Otto, eating liquorice ice creams and arguing, I think she might be motivated by trying to get his approval, definitely a first for Pearl.

  I’ve thrown myself into training because now I want to do Tuff Troll more than anything. I don’t even think it’s got anything to do with Leo and Peeta any more. We’ve bumped into Leo a couple of times, and I let Pearl or Nanna do the talking. Leo and I have even stopped looking at each other. I still find not looking at Leo quite a challenge. I really should get a sticker for it.

  ‘There you go, Kat.’ Pearl drops my training sheet on my head. ‘Thirty-eight stickers.’ She kicks my foot. ‘Get up. Nils is coming round to put beads in my hair and we have to carry this back.’ I look up. Pearl is holding one end of a battered kayak. ‘Otto says we can use it for Tuff Troll. We’re allowed to pimp it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Paint it, write on it, whatever we like. He’s scrapping it after the race.’

  ‘Is it safe?’ Wincing, I stand up.

  Otto sticks his head out from his hut. ‘Of course it’s safe.’

  ‘Then why are you getting rid of it?’ I pick up my end of the kayak.

  ‘Because it’s really, really heavy.’ Immediately, I drop the really, really heavy kayak on to the floor. He’s not exaggerating. I take a deep breath and pick it up again.

  ‘Bring it to mötesplats this afternoon,’ calls Otto as we stagger into the woods. ‘In the morning, I’m taking all the kayaks to Fejan, ready for the race in the afternoon.’

  *

  As we walk back to the cabin, we see something strange gathering in the sky: clouds, dark grey clouds, and we even hear some grumbles of thunder.

  Then, as Nils is putting beads in Pearl’s hair, it starts to rain. We all rush to the cabin door and watch as a summer’s worth of rain plummets down. It’s so heavy, it makes waves on the sea and the ground starts to steam. Pearl sticks her hand outside and fat drops splash her arm. ‘It’s warm!’ she says.

  Frida brushes past us and skips on to the beach in her pants and T-shirt. She puts her arms up to the sky and turns round and round. Nope. Cancel the pants. ‘Let’s go for a swim,’ she calls.

  ‘You’re alright,’ says Pearl, but Nils is keen. He runs after her, pulling his T-shirt over his head as he goes. ‘Hey, Frida!’ Pearl has to shout loud to be heard over the rain. ‘Can we paint the kayak in the cabin?’

  ‘Of course,’ Frida says, before Nils pounces on her and they both tumble into the grey, choppy sea.

  ‘C’mon,’ says Pearl, thumping me on the arm. ‘I know what we’re going to do.’

  We drag the kayak into the cabin and balance it on the table. Pearl hands me a brush. ‘You add teeth here.’ She points to the front of the kayak. ‘And I’ll do some skulls and stuff.’

  ‘So it’s going to be … ?’

  ‘A pirate shark kayak.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, and I start to paint a row of white fangs.

  ‘Make it grin,’ says Pearl. ‘I’m going to give it a name. What shall we call it?’ She chews on the end of her paintbrush. ‘Kick Ass? Epic Win?’

  ‘Tragic Loss?’

  ‘What about: the Pearly Queen?’

  ‘No way. I’m going to be sitting in there too.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, and she starts painting, the beads in her hair hitting against the side of the kayak. ‘Teeth,’ she reminds me. Obediently, I dip my brush in the paint and get back to work.

  ‘What do you think?’ Pearl asks, a few minutes later.

  I look up. Written in sloping, dripping letters across the side of the kayak are the word
s: Wild Kat. ‘Well? Do you like it?’

  ‘What about you?’

  She scowls. ‘Do you like it, or not?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, grinning. ‘I love it.’

  ‘Then shut up and finish those teeth. This is your race, Kat. I’m just coming along for the ride.’

  When the rain clears up, we carry Wild Kat to the mötesplats. ‘Everything feels different,’ says Pearl as we walk through the woods, the kayak banging against trees, and, occasionally, a tourist.

  ‘Muddy?’ I ask, stepping round a puddle.

  ‘I dunno,’ she says. ‘There are more people and the rain has made everything smell strange.’ She sighs. ‘I just can’t believe Tuff Troll is tomorrow, and the next day we’re going home. No more Lakrisal –’

  ‘No more Nanna,’ I say. ‘No more Otto, tampongs or ABBA.’

  ‘No more Sören dancing like a freak or seeing your auntie’s butt first thing in the morning.’ She trails off, kicking a branch off the path. It spins into the woods. She doesn’t say the last ‘no more’, but it hangs in the air between us.

  No more Leo, I think.

  We find Otto setting up a marquee and bossing the islanders around, making sure every inch of the clearing is covered in Swedish flags. It’s like Solsken, only it’s nothing like Solsken. I’m wearing my spotty shorts, an old sweatshirt of Frida’s and my feet are bare. When did I stop wearing shoes? Instead of make-up, I’m covered in paint, and my hair has been in the same plaits for three days.

  ‘Girls!’ Otto shouts, wobbling at the top of his ladder. ‘Put your kayak with the others. Good God, what have you done to it?’

  ‘Made it look bad ass,’ says Pearl.

  ‘Hmm.’ Otto frowns. ‘Have you both been resting?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Pearl, ‘but I need one more sticker.’ She gives the base of his ladder a kick.