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It was frightfully hot and they sheltered in the shade of boulders.
    Miss Godwin took an apple from her haversack and began to eat it, thoughtfully and slowly, chewing each mouthful twenty-two times, sitting erect, shoulders squared, eyes puckered against the glare. She was very, very tired. She had forgotten that she was getting older, that the last time she had come here she had not been compelled to set an example to a group of children, that she had not been distressed for any reason at all, and that she had not been afraid until she had actually reached the bluff.
    Paul peeled an orange and he could feel his heart thudding against his ribs and he ached all through. Miss Godwin had set too fast a pace. She was tough. My word, she was tough! Boys liked to stop and start, to poke under logs, to drink from springs, to throw stones into pools. Boys liked to take their time and if they didn’t get to their destination no harm was done.
    Poor Butch was nearly finished. His feet were sore, he was soaked in sweat, he wanted to lie down and sleep. He was too weary even to eat.
    Gussie panted in the shade, longing for a tall glass of home-made ginger beer. She felt she wanted to cry. She couldn’t understand why Miss Godwin had to hurry, hurry, hurry. Usually her nature walks were fun. This was awful.
    Frances was hot and bothered and worn out. She knew now that something really was wrong with Miss Godwin. She wasn’t her usual self at all. She seemed to have retired into another room. Her face had never looked so thin and tight.
    But Adrian stared at the bluff, half a mile away across this rocky gap, rearing up and up, hazed over with heat, not frying in the sun, but toasting in the sun, browner and browner. A rugged face of rock so huge it looked like the wall at the end of the world, and this gap in front of him was the moat at the end of the world. There was water in the moat as there had been since time began, always running, trickling, rushing, welling up from the depths of the earth or oozing from the wall or cascading from some immense height above it. Here they had come to find the drawings that weren’t there.
    Paul, Adrian was sure, didn’t understand him. They were so close but so far apart. Paul was too precise, too accurate in everything he said or did. All Paul was interested in was the truth. Adrian liked to look for things beyond the truth; he liked to romance; he liked to create things, not out of logs of wood or lumps of stone, but out of his mind, with a pencil in his hand or a brush, or nothing at all in his hand. He only had to close his eyes and he could see things that weren’t there. The drawings weren’t really a lie. Adrian had created them for himself. They only became a lie when other people believed they were real. And they had believed him. And then he had lied to protect himself.
    â€˜Very well, children. Time’s up.’
    â€˜Please, miss.’ Butch turned his eyes on her, great big pleading eyes. ‘Please, miss,’ he said, ‘but d’you think I could stay here? Honest, miss, me feet are killin’ me.’
    Miss Godwin clucked, ‘“ My feet ”, Christopher, “are killing me”.’
    â€˜Are they, miss? Oh, I’m sorry, miss.’
    â€˜Not my feet, Christopher. Your feet.’
    Butch blinked. ‘That’s right, miss. They’re killin’ me. Honest.’
    Miss Godwin clucked again. ‘I cannot leave you here, Christopher. That would never do. Oh dear, no. The sun is far, far too hot.’
    â€˜Gee, miss!’
    â€˜If your feet are hurting you so much it would be wiser if you hobbled another hundred yards or so until we found a nice pool in the shade where you could soak them. Does that sound better?’
    â€˜Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.’
    â€˜Come along, children.’
    They trailed after her, down through the boulders and the gravel, past the dead wood and the debris dumped there by