Phosphorescence Read Online Free

about the dangers of being caught by fast incoming tides. At the opposite end of Salt Head is the Sand Bar, with its colony of seals.
    The seals are a real attraction for tourists, and in Staitheley there are two different businesses running trips out to see them. We are friends with them both, but closest to the Lawsons, two brothers in their twenties who used to babysit me when I was small. I usually get a ride with them if I want to go out round the end of Salt Head. Today their boat is way ahead of ours, and its red bulk is a bright but distant beacon in the heavy flat sea.
    Seal Point is a sandbank beyond the island and it isn’t really anywhere most of the time because it is underwater, but at low tide it is exposed and the seals from the Sand Bar go and loll there on the warm wet sands. I don’t go out there on my own because it istoo far for my small Laser and the currents are dangerous. Dad won’t let me, so it feels very liberating to be heading off there with just Josh in charge.
    Josh still hasn’t looked directly at me and we have been in the boat for ages – at least twenty minutes I should think. Sadie is singing to her Barbies, and I gaze out at the horizon with a totally blank mind.
    Josh leans towards me and shouts, ‘Have you heard about the whale?’
    â€˜What whale? Is it a joke?’ I shout back, and suddenly the ice between us is broken and we both laugh and begin to talk, and once we start we are so easy with one another I feel I have been chatting to him like this all my life. He tells me that a thirty-foot dead whale has been beached further up the coast and people have got caught by the tide wading out to see it. We reach the seals at lunchtime and the water is so clear that we can see their black torpedo bodies as they zoom beneath our boat to emerge, popping up in the sea, with amiable sleek faces which Sadie is convinced are smiling at her.
    â€˜Look – that one is Starburst. I named him last time when Josh and Daddy brought me. He wants to play with Barbie.’ And without so much as a last goodbye, she flings one of her three Barbies into the water.
    Josh and I look at one another and the moment is intense before we burst out laughing.
    â€˜Do you live with the Christies now?’ Dad askssharply at supper one evening a week later. ‘You haven’t been here for days.’
    I spear a cherry tomato and eat it before answering.
    â€˜They’re really busy getting the boats ready. The sailing school’s starting any time now and Caroline – I mean Mrs Christie – is doing all the admin for it. It’s going to be brilliant.’
    Dad puts down his knife and fork with a clatter.
    â€˜It makes life awkward. I would have thought Caroline would realize that,’ he mutters. I stare at him.
    â€˜Why is it awkward? I’m good with children. I love Sadie and it’s really nice at their house – no one is in a bad mood all the time.’
    I am so sick of Dad looking gloomy. I think he might be ill. He used to come home with things he had found to show me and with stories about everyone in the village and lists of things that needed doing. He was the person the old ladies would ask about fixing a gate or putting up a noticeboard, but now he is morose and silent and he doesn’t call Miss Mills back when Mum tells him she telephoned to ask him about the date of the next Parish Council Meeting.
    Mum looks at him across the table and her eyes are hard.
    â€˜Come on, Richard, lighten up,’ she says.
    Dad pushes his plate away and gets up. He puts on his coat and goes out, calling Cactus to follow him into the dark. Sighing, Mum takes both her plate and his to the sink and I am left, looking at the last twotomatoes in the bowl in front of me, alone at the kitchen table.
    â€˜I’ve got to go too,’ I mutter, ‘I’m babysitting,’ and I rush out of the door.
    At the moment I really don’t like