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who might slide on the wet wood and fall off the path altogether and into the quagmire beside it. This railing was stout enough to sit on and there today, like Little John in the Robin Hood story, perched Adam’s nemesis, looking him full in the face as he approached. Adam froze. For a second or two he thought about the choices open to him: to turn on his heel and push his bike back the way he had come with what little dignity he could muster; or to push on rudely, muscling his way past the stranger’s jutting knees and feet, bumping his bike over the logs as he went. But the young man’s sculpted face softened into an uncomplicated smile of recognition. He said, ‘Regarde ça,’ and flicked his expressive eyes away to Adam’s left where rocks climbed away from the side of the path towards the cliff. Adam looked. He knew what to expect: the spring coursing out of the fissured limestone at head height and decanting into its mossy, ferny, pool. It was the overspill from this pool that created the boggy surface that the path traversed just here, necessitating the log sleepers and the handrail and, indirectly, this present confrontation. But today the usual tranquil picture was transformed. The rain-swollen waters gushed in four or more places from the face of the rock, their torrents meeting and splashing into each other, and the energy of these multiple collisions was throwing up a fine spray that filled the air above the basin. Right now the sunbeams slanting through the bare trees were catching the droplets and causing miniature rainbows to dance like the butterflies in the dappled light.
    ‘ Pas mal,’ said Adam. To have said more would have been deeply uncool. At the same time he discovered that any question of choice about what to do next had vanished as abruptly as any rainbow and he found himself propping his bike against the railings, springing quickly up and parking himself next to his no longer quite so new acquaintance, thigh against thigh. ‘Pas mal,’ he said again, looking straight in front of him at the spectacle as though he and his companion were in adjacent if uncomfortable seats at the theatre. His eyes did wander down to his neighbour’s lap, though, to see whether the ancient black trousers were open at the braguette . They were not. Perhaps he had more than one pair of mouldering black legwear. Adam felt momentarily cheated and then immediately was cross with himself for: one, being disappointed, and two, having looked in the first place.
    ‘Juste un p’tit-loup ,’ said the young man pensively, though whether he was referring to Adam or to himself was not clear.
    Adam decided to understand the former. Some survival instinct told him that if the creature was going to call him by a name it would be safer if that name were not Adam, and P’tit-Loup , which meant not only ‘kid’ but also ‘Little Wolf’, would do as well as anything. ‘ Then I shall call you Fox,’ he said, surprising himself by his boldness. ‘ Fox means renard ,’ he explained.’ He had named Fox in English.
    The other gave a little laugh of surprise. It seemed he liked the idea. ‘Viens.’ He jumped down from the handrail and beckoned with his head. ‘Leave your bike here behind the tree,’ he said once Adam had followed him across the log track and onto firmer ground. ‘Nobody’ll nick it from down here even if you leave it in the open, but hiding things always seems to make people feel better. Don’t know why but it does. Non ?’
    The path was narrow and where they could not go abreast Fox led the way. Adam already knew its twists and turns, he had explored them last autumn, but he felt suddenly excited at sharing the lonely woodland track with someone who also knew it, and knew it better. That was not the only thing that was starting to excite him, but he pretended that it was.
    The path wound upwards to throw in its lot with the high banks and cliffs on the left while the waters of the spring funnelled