Please come out.

I’m watching the sea breathe. In and out; I tune my breath to the sea’s. It calms me. 1

I’m alone, perched on this rock, surrounded by all these other potential sitting-on rocks that I could have sat on but decided not too. It’s like when you get into a restaurant and you see all these available seats but you just want one. Yeah, that’s what it’s like. I like this one. It’s smoother than the rest and it’s in the shade, the rest are in the boiling sun. The sun’s twinkling, in the distance, it’s low in the sky – sunset – and there’s a path of golden ripples leading from it to me, from me to it.2

The sea pulls in,3

The sea pulls out,4

It pulls shells in,5

It pulls shells out,6

It pulled you in,7

Please come out.8

This body of water, perfectly formed, there are no cracks in the sea, isn’t it weird that it just rolls? Keeps going, doesn’t care. I’m not saying that’s a good thing.9

This is a story, I’m writing this down, but it’s not like a normal story. It’s just about me, sitting, on a rock, on my own, at sunset. I have no-one else with me: I don’t have a girl lying by me that loves me, I don’t have my best friend laughing with me, I don’t even have my family here by me – comforting me.10

It’s just me and the sea.11

My family –I guess we’re sort of normal. It would probably be logical, in most families, that when you’re explaining the people in it you go from the youngest to the oldest or something – not with ours. We go from room to room…every room belongs to one of us. Not just the bedrooms, I mean every room – the garden, the living room the kitchen. Every room.12

On the top floor, in the attic, is me, I’m the youngest of the lot, fourteen years old. I think I’m the odd one out, but everyone in our family probably thinks that. I’m the scientist; I live in my room, along with my experiments, model planets and chemistry kits. I love science – creating, discovering, learning – in the end isn’t that what humans are meant to do? Create, discover, learn – I can’t get enough of it. He shares a room with me – at least he used to. I’ve still got his bed in the corner, and all his toys. I haven’t touched them – promise. I know he wouldn’t like that. He used to get so mad whenever I touched them...13

Sorry, getting lost in my own day dreams, anyway, below me is the third floor, my two sisters are there. I don’t know what they are, in ‘clique’ terms; I guess they’re both normal. One’s seventeen and one’s fifteen (my twin)…she was born 15 minutes before me and I was born at 12:10 – how unlucky is that! So it’s her birthday today, mine tomorrow, I should be there, right now, but I refuse. I’m awkward like that… I’m waiting here, for him, he’ll come back. She’s nice, Brie – my twin. She’s just sort of normal, not that that’s a bad thing, not at all. She looks opposite to me she’s got blonde hair, I’ve got brown, she’s got blue eyes, I’ve got…blue. Ok, well that’s he only bit of us that looks similar.14

Then there’s Clara (the seventeen year old). Our Clara, she’s a right party girl, she gets home at 4 in the morning, collapsing through the door, throwing up everywhere. Mum gets so mad… She’s nice too, Clare, we’re all nice really, but me and Clara, we’ve never really talked. Clara…I know in books you have to describe characters. She’s not particularly interesting. She’s got short black hair in a bob, black eyes, a pointy face and braces - yeah, see…boring.15

If you can manoeuvre your way around the mess Clara and Brie put together make then you’ll find yourself stumbling into the kitchen. Yes, I know the stairs go into the kitchen, yes; I know it’s weird – shut up.16

So you find yourself in that area…the Rodney zone. Ok, I admit, Rodney isn’t strictly part of our family; he’s not even blood relative let alone does he live here…but he’s nice. OK, I keep saying that. He’s around a lot; he lives alone so he comes round ours. Yeah, you see, we’re quite well off, so we’ve got this lovely huge rickety old house in the middle of the cow-pat filled countryside. We’ve only got one next door neighbour – Rodney and well, we country folk stick together. He’s about twenty eight years old, Rodney is, tall bloke, ginger and wiry. Nice guy.17

So, let’s move past the sweaty, red-haired Rodney and discover (create, discover, learn – aren’t I clever?) the living room…that consists of one TV and an arm chair…this was his room. I suppose, he was the only one, out of all of us who actually did any living…he didn’t actually watch the TV, he was just hypnotised by those flashy images. Yeah, the rest of us, we keep to ourselves and our fanatic hobbies. He tried to live - not very good at it, I guess. No, sorry, I’m such a pessimist.18

Right, we’ll quickly rush through there and get shocked by our pathetic garden. It’s two tiles wide by ten tiles long and it’s stupid. We live in the countryside, there’s acres of land sitting, begging to be taken, all around us and we get this. Why is it tiled? How stupid can you get? Why would you tile the little shred of grass we own. Stupid – sorry but it really gets me annoyed.19

So, anyway, this is Dad’s territory - in the middle of the 2 by 10 tiles is a motorbike (that might be the answer to my earlier questions). It’s a something 200, ultra something stupid. I could easily make up a motorbike name – the Zapper, with ultra speed fiesta 10000000000cc engines and supersonic lights. See? It’s stupid. How the hell can you get a supersonic light? You can’t. Well, Dad says you can – he’s got one – sorry, who’s the potential scientist here? Me, exactly. I can almost imagine him now, Dad, slightly overweight, slightly mad, slightly smelly, but the most wonderful man on the planet.20

Now we have to sprint through this tiled excuse of a garden (be careful not to die on the toxic fumes – I’ve been close at several occasions) and rush into the shed…the mother territory. Most of us avoid it. 21

If we sneak in, careful not to wake her, we can see a huge canvas filled with splodges of colour that is modern art…and then her slumped across the comfy arm chair (that we bought for the whole family) with dribble on her cheek. Her blonde her spread out behind her, her pointed nose armed for smelling dinner. See, she’s weird, she goes out and buys modern art and takes them home…and ruins them. I’m serious, she calls it editing, but she just ruins it. She just adds these glittery pink splodges to an already splodge-full painting and splodges it up - not good.22

I wish I could carry on and present to you some really interesting member of the family, but I can’t – that member is gone.23

I sit and listen to the waves sloshing against each other, playing, laughing, completely carefree, but at the same time ruling the world. I smell that pang of sea salt that clogs up everywhere, you get it on your clothes, on your hands, and somehow you get it in your mouth. But that’s ok – it’s beautiful. 24

I stroke the rock, I comfort it, it’s going to be ok - he’ll come back. I blink and a moment passes, a moment where anything could have happened, a mother could have given birth, a child could have found a penny, picked it up and all the day had good luck or maybe someone, somewhere got back the family member they lost at sea.25

I watch the birds dipping in and out of the sunny blue water, wishing I was them, so beautiful, so free. I want to join them. I slowly take off my clothes and strip down to my boxers. I shiver from the warmth. I shuffle to the edge, careful not to tread on the broken glass, which always seems to be near the sea and I dive. 26

I plunge down into the dark waters, scrunching up my eyes; I can feel the mass of water around me. This mass of water that travels all over the world, these very particles could have come straight from India, first class, just for me. 27

I don’t care that I’m running out of breath, it’s such a great feeling. I am alone, the only one here, I can be a bird. I can leave the floor, I can do somersaults. I can do anything. It’s a rush I haven’t felt before. Spreading my wings out into the water…the feathers won’t get matted…I’m in the sky; I am a bird, not a fish. I am a bird, surrounded by this blue heaven, diving up and down. I’m soaring above everything, but I can’t see. I snap open my eyes. The salt water instantly takes action, burning, stinging and itching. The water goes floods into my mouth, choking me. My eyes are burning. I am going to burst into flames. I struggle, this madness closing in on me. I’m going to die, I know it; I’m going to die.28

I’m going mad.29

I just punch at the water, scream bubbles out my mouth, lashing out against the sea. The sea rolls back at me, slamming me into the rocks, again and again and again.30

It calms. I fall downwards, limp.31

I am suffocating.32

I plunge down,33

Into the darkness,34

Bubbles of life,35

Float from the madness,36

And still I fall,37

Down and down,38

It’s my fault that39

I'm going to drown,40

I’m screaming, silent bubbly words that I can’t even understand myself. My arms have worn out… I squint above me and see something, I see him. It’s his figure, I know it. All tiredness, all fear is lost. I shoot up.41

A spec of light,42

Is dancing above,43

And in a flash,44

I soar like a dove,45

Towards the light,46

That's getting so large…47

I burst through the surface, shake my hair out of my eyes and swim eagerly around looking for him. Suddenly I see him…I swim, as fast as I can, swim towards him. I hook my arms around his hairy shoulders.48

“Seb! Seb!”49

I hug him; pull him around, look into those eyes that I had nearly forgotten - 50

…Then I realise my hope51

Is a mirage. 52

Instead of those round, hazel eyes that I expected are evil green slits – almost like cats eyes. With completely different colour hair too, perfect white, instead of the deep, chocolate brown I have grown to adore.53

I let go and silently paddle to shore, each stroke another battle.54

I heave my self onto my sitting rock and stare into the non-existent sun. It’s night now. The stars are twinkling. Somewhere my family (plus Rodney) aren’t caring about their little science geek.55

I look out at the moon and I know that Seb is gone. It was no-one’s fault. He couldn’t help running out into that strong sea…it was his favourite colour after all…green. Good colour. Just like the colour of the grass we don’t own.56

His little head, I remember, fighting to stay up. The sea washing into his mouth, probably choking him. Then there was that one wave, washed over his head, he couldn’t have survived.57

I can still hear his yelping, his barking, in my head now.58

He wasn’t man’s best friend, he was my best friend, a little pathetic boy and what a good friend he was. 59

I’m going to have to walk home now. I’ll listen to the sizzle of the frying pan from Rodney, the snoring from mum, the brrrm from Dad and whatever my sisters do – I’ll hear it.60

Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll be doing something different, they’ll be looking for me.61

It’s my birthday tomorrow, I think I’m getting a snorkel – yeah, that’s what I’ll do tomorrow, snorkel, create, discover and learn. I’ll bring them with me, my family, me and Clara can chat, me and Brie can discover some similarities apart from blue eyes, me and dad can be, as usual wonderful, me and Rodney can create new recipes, wih my scientific knowledge feeding his culinary (disaster) and me and mum can paint from scratch.62

Champ, don’t worry yourself, it’s alright, you’ve got to move on, get that marvellous brain of yours into action, do what you do best– create, discover, learn – go on. I know you’ve got it in you. I bet you could even create he fastest ever motorbike with super-63

Let’s cut him off there.64

You know what? I have got it in me, I can move on from my dog and I can carry on creating, discovering and learning.65

The sea pulls in,66

The sea pulls out,67

It pulls shells in,68

It pulls shells out,69

It pulled you in,70

Please come out.71