“Whoops,” Will laughs as we smash into another boat, coming in the opposite direction. “It’s like bumper cars! Afternoon, guys!”
Another couple smile and wave at us, looking blissfully stable.
With a tiny squeak, I hold on to the sides.
“Isn’t it lovely here?” Will is very clearly in his element. “Look at those buildings! So beautiful. Which one did Darwin go to, do you reckon? I love Darwin. He’s my favorite old dude with a beard.”
“Christ,” I mutter as the boat wobbles yet again.
“Sorry?” Will continues shoving his long stick into the mud and propelling us pretty much nowhere. “Didn’t quite catch that.”
“Christ’s College,” I say, raising my now squeaky voice. I try not to look at a memory of my father, waving at me from the bridge. “Darwin went to Christ’s College, as well as John Milton the poet and Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. Could we go a little more slowly, do you think?”
The boat has now run into the opposite bank with a loud crunch.
We pitch to the left and I squeak again, this time a lot more loudly. I have officially changed my mind about punting. This was a terrible idea, and about as romantic—and hygienic—as eating the same strand of spaghetti and then offering them the rest with the end of your nose.
“Sure!” Will tries to push us away, to no avail. “You know, that guy was right. This is a lot harder than it looks.”
“So maybe we should get out.” Really panicking now, I begin shuffling down the boat toward him. I’ve lost all sense of reason and rational thinking: I just want this to stop. “Maybe I can help you, or we can drag the boat back from the sides.”
“Cassie, please don’t—”
I instinctively shuffle forward a bit more; Will loses his balance and drops the pole. The boat suddenly swings out toward the center of the river, the world rotates on its axis and I don’t need to be a seer or prophet to know what’s going to bloody happen next.
“Bugger,” I hear as the universe tips over.
And in we both go.
Will is laughing loudly; I am not.
“Well,” he chuckles, wiping his eyes, swimming to the boat and clinging on to the side. “I’m guessing that wasn’t part of the plan, was it?”
My throat is tightening; my eyes are filling up.
I’m wet and I’m dirty and I’m cold and there’s duck shit in my hair and my new dress is permanently ruined and I’m going to be wet and dirty and cold and faintly green for the rest of the day because I didn’t bring a change of clothes, and I’m trying really hard to be cool with this, to brush it off, laugh about it, find some kind of silver lining, but all the other punters are laughing at us and it’s not funny and my father is gone and there’s duck shit in my hair and I’m dirty, I’m dirty, I am so bloody dirty.
“Cassie?” Will reaches out a hand as I attempt to kick my feet and panic sends me under again. “God, can you swim? I should have checked.”
With my mouth open, I involuntarily take a gulp of dirty water, then start crying, which means more open mouth and more dirty water and more duck shit, and I go under the water again, choking and gulping, and I see Will’s horrified face and this isn’t romantic, this isn’t connecting, and I think I just saw a dead rat and I think I’ve just ruined everything.
Desperate, I close my eyes.
“Everything okay?” Will frowns at me. “Cassie?”
“Absolutely.” Amazed, I look down at myself—dry, clean, not sobbing—and honestly, time travel is the best present ever. It’s like a massive fluffy towel, handed to me by the universe. “I was just trying to remember our first date activity, that’s all.”
I take another look at the plan.
“Not punting,” I say firmly. “I don’t like punting. Picnic?”
“Oh,” Will says with a faint air of surprise. “Sure. Did I see fudge on the list? Because I fancy grabbing some of that on the way too.”
We get the fudge again, plus sandwiches, Pimm’s in cans, crisps.
Feeling hopeful all over again, I wander with Will to the side of the river this time and together we watch the punters, slowly gliding up and down, laughing and kissing. I feel a sharp pang of isolation: I guess I can add that specific romantic scene to the list of things I’m permanently shut out of.
“This is so nice.” Will returns from the ice-cream van and hands me a Mister Whippy, then lies next to me so he can lick his. “I travel abroad so much, sometimes I forget that this country is also full of amazing adventures.”
Licking my ice cream too, I try to lean back just like him. “Yes.”
Will’s brown eyes are suddenly trained on me.
Stiffening, I stay as still as I can and attempt to look like a person who cannot feel themselves being studied like a bug in a jar. I’m being a normal human, right? This is how people sit, isn’t it? Am I jittering, rocking, bouncing, clawing? Has Will noticed that I’m just copying his body language and facial expressions, or is he thinking how pretty I look in the sun? Does he like me, or is he faintly creeped out by me? Is he interested, or bored? Is he considering kissing me, or wondering why I look like I’ve only been given this body recently and still have no idea how to drive it?
(“Cassandra seems to believe she might be an alien.”)
It’s all a complete mystery.
All I know is the longer he studies me, the more confused I become. Also, the sheer effort of not accidentally playing piano fingers on my ice cream is exhausting: it feels like I’m fighting the Colchian dragon and hoping nobody will notice.
“You have ice cream on your chin,” Will laughs finally, reaching toward me and wiping it with his shirt collar. “Like a little goat.”
Before I can react, he leans in and kisses me, softly.
With my eyes closed, I tilt into the kiss and suddenly feel a flash of his colors like a red apple: round and sweet with flashes of green. All at once, I feel my entire body relax. As if his colors are now mine too.
I also feel ice cream dripping down my hand.
Now there’s a tongue on my face.
“Oh, hello.” Will laughs as we break abruptly apart and a large black dog lunges for my ice cream. “Where did you come from?”
I reel away: my Mister Whippy has gone all down my front, and I watch in mounting horror as the dog spins in a circle, knocks the Pimm’s over my skirt, eats my cheese sandwich, steps in the grape box and sticks his nose in my bag, all in approximately three seconds flat.
“Basil!” A cut-glass male voice behind us. “Basil! Naughty boy! Come here!”
Will laughs again as the dog bounces away.
“Little bugger,” he says amenably, grabbing a few napkins and trying to mop up the damage, which is clearly unmoppable. “Cassie, do you want my sandwich instead? I can just fill up on the fudge. Let’s be honest—I was going to do that anyway.”
Starting to hyperventilate again, I stare down at myself. I’m covered in long black hairs and ice cream and orange stains and I’m sticky and dirty and I still don’t have a change of clothes and I cannot believe this has happened again and before I can stop myself I jump up, turning to face the owner of the dog as my brain starts to audibly slam the inside of my head like a woodpecker.
Don’t do it, Cassie. Don’t do it. You’re not a milk monitor anymore. Don’t do it, not in front of Will, not when everything is going so—
“Can you not read the sign?” I point at it. “It says Keep Your Dog on a Leash.”
“I’m so sorry.” The owner grimaces. “I took him off for just a—”
“There are rules,” I snap, brain slamming again. “There are rules for a reason. Why do you think rules apply to everyone else but not to you?”
“Cassie...” Will starts next to me. “Don’t—”
“WHY CAN’T EVERYONE JUST FOLLOW THE BLOODY RULES,” I bellow, starting to cry again.
The dog owner scuttles away, clearly terrified, and as the fog clears, I turn back and see Will’s face. The happy apple color is totally gone. He looks absolutely appalled—wondering what kind of maniac he just bought an ice cream—and I feel the horror in myself: now it’s mine too.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as my rage subsides and is replaced by a wave of nausea. “I am so sorry, Will. I don’t know what came over me.”
I do know what came over me. It’s exactly what always comes over me when someone breaks rules, no matter how totally arbitrary they seem to be. Something in my brain snaps, and I detonate like a hand grenade. Which is incredibly hypocritical, given how happy I am to ignore rules if I don’t personally agree with them.
So I think the more appropriate question is: What the hell is wrong with me?
“Cassandra—” Will says slowly, and I close my eyes.
“Everything okay?” Will frowns at me. “Cassie?”
“Absolutely.” I swallow, now absolutely exhausted. “I was just trying to remember our first date activity, that’s all.”
I peer down at the plan.
“Why don’t we start with a treasure hunt?”
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