The Golden Day Read Online Free Page B

bought a pineapple doughnut at the tuckshop, which she ate in great gulps like a dog.
    ‘Boo-hoo,’ said Elizabeth with the plaits, who never had money to buy things from the tuckshop.
    ‘My feet hurt,’ said Martine. Her shoes were also from New Caledonia. They were shiny and pretty like ballet slippers, and had silver buckles instead of laces.
    Ahead of them they could see Morgan climbing down the sandstone wall encrusted with mussel shells that separated the gardens from the Pacific Ocean. They watched him turn and hold out his hand for Miss Renshaw, and then she too leapt down from the wall. He gestured at them from a distance, his long arms making loops in the air.
    ‘I guess the cave must be down there,’ said the tallest Elizabeth. ‘We have to get down on the beach.’
    ‘Oh, do we have to?’ Bethany wailed, but now in her voice was an edge of pleasure.
    They had never done anything like this before – get down onto the beach! What if somebody saw them? Remember, girls, you are representing the school. Now, instead of dawdling, they broke into a run to see who could be there first.
    They waited in turn above the wall while Morgan helped them down. One by one they each took his hand, that tender, dusty hand that nurtured dying plants back to life, and jumped, one by one, down onto the beach. It was hardly a beach, more a rocky platform. The waves lapped forward over shelves of rocks and filled the empty craters with water. Inside the rock pools there were shells and crabs and even tiny silver fish.
    ‘You’ve got to watch it here,’ warned Morgan. ‘Keep your balance.The rocks are slippery.We don’t want anyone breaking a leg.’
    ‘What did he say?’ asked Bethany, jumping, and then she slipped and screamed so loudly that for a moment Cubby thought she must have died, although then she remembered that if Bethany had died she couldn’t have screamed.
    Bethany wasn’t dead but her knee was badly scraped, and there was blood everywhere and tears came pouring out of her blue eyes.
    ‘Oh dear, Bethany, goodness me, you silly girl,’ said Miss Renshaw, shaking her head, exasperated. ‘You really must listen to what you’re told.’
    ‘I couldn’t hear,’ began Bethany in a blubber, but then Morgan splashed water gently over the wound, so the blood flowed off into the ocean, never to be seen again. He pulled her sock right up over her knee.
    ‘Are you all right to walk?’ he asked and Bethany sniffed, so Morgan lifted her up and slung her over his back like a mother koala. ‘Piggyback time,’ he said.
    Bethany grinned backwards at the others through the remains of tears, triumphantly.
    ‘It’s because she’s so small,’ muttered tall Elizabeth. ‘I bet he wouldn’t have carried me.’
    ‘Stop talking, Elizabeth,’ said Miss Renshaw, ‘and concentrate on walking.’
    They picked their way painstakingly along the rocky coast, which slowly began to become sand. The waves crept up and soaked their black school shoes, their socks and Miss Renshaw’s shoes and stockings. The sun grew strong behind gathering grey clouds and burned their eyes.
    They turned a corner of the coastline, and came face to face with a man standing on the shore, drying himself with a towel. He had obviously just been swimming and he was completely naked. The naked man gazed at them, monumental and whale-like.
    The little girls were shocked to the core.
    ‘Is this a nudist beach?’ Cynthia asked Miss Renshaw, trying not to laugh.
    But Miss Renshaw, her head bent down, quickened her pace.They stumbled after her, half-looking back and half-looking away.
    They turned another bend and the naked man was gone. Then it was windy, so windy that Martine’s hat blew off. They watched it rise up in the air and then out, gathering speed, round and round like the wheel of a car, until it landed in the waves. It bobbed there, a little circular boat of straw.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Renshaw, grimacing. ‘We don’t want to lose