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legs were sturdy and thick. “Where are you off to?”
    “I’m just going out,” I said.
    “Who with?”
    “Oh. Just some mates I met at the pool.”
    “Some fellas, eh?”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    “Brilliant. I told you that Dome was the place to be. Is that where you’re meeting?”
    “Nah. We’re just going to ride around a bit. On the bikes.”
    “Good lad. Don’t forget your old dad, though, eh? I’ve booked us the tennis court for one. Shall I meet you there?”
    My heart sank, but I couldn’t face an argument. I couldn’t face the consequences of an argument. “OK,” I said.
    The thing about Lexi was, as soon as I saw her, I seemed to forget about myself. It was such a relief to think of someone else. That morning, as I neared the lake, I heard her changing direction in the water, and I felt that surge of energy again. When I got to the clearing, I could smell smoke. By the big tree, there was a steaming hump of canvas, held down by rocks. It looked like a dead body, and I stayed well away.
    Lexi was out in the water, searching its depths with her eyes, looking for something. I made myself visible as soon as I could, so she wouldn’t accuse me of peeping from behind the trees. “Hello,” I said. “I’m back.”
    She looked up from the water, smiled, and then put a finger to her lips. She began to follow something with her gaze and then she dived beneath the surface. Several seconds passed. For a moment I thought she’d been dragged under by some beast. I thought I might have to go in and try to find her. But she surfaced, eventually, ten meters away, with a full-beam smile on her face. Her arms jerked for a second, and then she held a silver fish above her head.
    “No way,” I said to myself.
    She swam to the bank with one arm. “Good to see you again, Daniel.”
    “And you,” I whispered.
    “You don’t have to be quiet anymore,” she said, holding up the fish. “I don’t think he’s going to hear you.”
    I was a little overwhelmed. “Are you a mermaid?” I asked.
    “Are you insane?” she said. I laughed, snapped back into the real world.
    “You look very well this morning, Daniel. Rosy cheeked. Did you exercise yesterday?”
    “I did. I went swimming. I tried to swim like you.”
    “And did you?”
    “Not as good.”
    “Oh. You’re being kind.”
    She took the canvas off the steaming mound, and I flinched. But it was just grass and stones underneath, with a few cobs of corn and a couple of other fish on top. “This is my cooking pit,” she said. “I thought I’d make us some breakfast.”
    “Won’t the grass catch fire?” I asked.
    “No. It’s just steam. It comes from the hot rocks underneath.”
    “Where did you learn that?”
    “The Crow.”
    “What’s the Crow?”
    “They are a tribe of Native Americans.”
    “Jesus. Where are you from?”
    “Derby. We studied the Crow Indians in history class. This pit is very similar to the meat holes they built to cook buffalo. Do you like history, Daniel?”
    “My mum does. I don’t get very high marks for history.” I didn’t get high marks for anything.
    “I believe history is a circle, made by men who don’t learn from their mistakes. What do you think?” she said.
    “I don’t know. We’re doing the Second World War. It’s pretty cool.”
    “Pretty cool, eh? All those people dying? All that aggression and pain? I’d debate that it was cool,” she said. “This one is done. It’s been in for ages.”
    She flipped one of the fish off the grass and onto a plate. I recognized the blue rim design of the plate from the Pancake House. She used a wooden skewer to get a cob of corn out of the pit and placed a packet of margarine beside it. “There you go, Daniel. The best breakfast at Leisure World, but don’t tell the chef at Café Rouge.”
    “Thank you,” I said. But I didn’t begin to eat. I was looking at her face. At first I couldn’t be sure, because of the light, but it soon became clear: the