Annie Christie's Family Fictions:
Episode Five
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: One mild one only.
Description: Always wear a buoyancy aid.
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The morning was bright enough but the Loch looked mighty choppy. Mum was concerned that we might fall in – she’d obviously been listening closely to Ellie’s chatter the night before and she made us promise that we’d all wear buoyancy aids. Fortunately Marco had thought to get four. I still wasn’t clear where or how he’d got the boat in the first place. The why was lame; ‘to play Hornblower’ and the rest of it seemed so random.
No one else cared. As long as we were wearing buoyancy aids Mum seemed satisfied. Marco promised to keep us close to the shoreline and not to go out into the Loch any distance. We thought he just said that to keep Mum onside, but when we finally got the boat down to the Loch side, it turned out he had another reason. Marco couldn’t swim. More than that, it was clear he was pretty scared of water.
What kind of idiot travels half way across Scotland with a boat strapped to the roof of his car and then is too afraid to go out into the water with it? Marco, that’s who. It turned out that all this ‘playing Hornblower’ was really just a cover for him being scared. Because he built this whole story about how we had to hug the coast as part of our way of not being observed by the fictional enemy on land. I ask you, how lame.
Even Ellie wasn’t buying it. She wanted to get out there and explore the Loch. Despite Ollie pointing out that if Daisy Cheape had drowned a hundred years ago there was no chance her body was about to pop up out of the centre of the Loch like some Loch Ness Monster the very day that we were on it. He was trying to freak her out but it didn’t work. Not on her at any rate.
However, Ollie’s suggestion gave Marco the willies even more and he became completely determined that we would stay close to the coast at all times. So of course I decided that as soon as we could get out in the boat without Marco, we’d do some proper exploring.
We’d none of us rowed before, but it didn’t take long to get used to it and because Marco was too scared to do the rowing, we got plenty of practice. Even Ellie took her turn, adding blisters on her hands to the ones she was still carrying on her feet – without complaining.
We must have spent a good three hours out there rowing around going nowhere. With the current and Marco’s determination to stay close to the coast it was all in all a pretty pointless exercise. It certainly wasn’t fun.
No one wanted to be the one to break, but eventually the boredom got to me and I suggested going home. At which point Marco told us he’d brought lunch for us all and sure enough, there was a bag in the bottom of the boat – but the amount of water we’d taken on board while learning the finer points of rowing meant the sandwiches were pretty soggy and unappealing.
Marco didn’t want us to sit in the boat without someone rowing, so we pulled in to the shore and ate our soggy sandwiches. Even Ellie had a hard time trying to turn that into one of her famous picnics!
When it came time to set off again, Ellie and I hatched a plan.
‘You and Marco go out in the boat,’ I said, ‘and me and Ellie will play the enemy.’
I just said it to get out of the boat, but Ellie jumped at the opportunity too. Marco didn’t seem that bothered and Ollie was as terminally grunting as ever, so that’s what we did.
‘We’ll make our own way home,’ I said. ‘You hug the coastline and we’ll go back along the path. We’ll beat you there.’
So Marco and Ollie set off – mostly round in circles to begin with – and Ellie and I climbed up the shore. When we got to the top we found that we were actually pretty close to Castle Dare – as she called it – and she demanded that we have another look around. Maybe demanded isn’t the word. Ellie could persuade you without making you feel like you were being railroaded. It’s a skill. A valuable one, and one I’ve never figured out.
I tired of Castle Dare long before she did. And she suggested that I go back on my own, leaving her there.
‘Will you be okay?’ I asked her.
She gave me a withering look, like I was asking a stupid adult question.
‘I’m twelve,’ she said. ‘Can I not have a bit of an adventure on my own?’
She had a point. She knew where we were staying, and it was a more or less straight path. And wasn’t she entitled to a bit of time in her own fantasy world? I thought so.
‘Don’t go too close to the edge,’ I said, not quite able to let go the older brother routine.
She laughed at me. ‘Always wear your buoyancy aid,’ she replied and I realised I was being stupid. She wasn’t a kid. She knew her own mind. And I thought the best thing I could do was give her some space. So I did.
As I walked along the road I couldn’t see any sign of Marco and Ollie, but then they were probably ‘hugging the coast’ so tightly no one would see them and they wouldn’t even be getting their feet wet, more likely wrecking the bottom of the boat by scraping the fibreglass on the bottom. I’d have laughed if Marco wasn’t so annoying. But he was. So instead I worked out a plan that would see us have use of the boat and have some real fun, and leave Marco behind. I needn’t have bothered. Marco had a plan all of his own and it kicked mine totally into the long grass. For which I will never forgive him.
When I got back Marco and Ollie were already there, sitting outside the cottage having a cold drink. There was no sign of the boat. Marco said they’d left it tied up by the shore. Which would help my plan no end. My intention was to get out in the boat without Marco. And I didn’t want to be dragging it down to the launching place from the cottage by hand.
Mum and Dad were sitting out there with Marco, and Ollie. Mum wanted to know where Ellie was, and I thought I was about to get a bollocking for leaving her on her own but Dad came to my rescue and said she was well old enough and sensible enough to play out on her own. He went into the that’s what’s wrong with the modern world, that kids don’t get to play out on their own any more speech that he sometimes employs. In this respect Mum was a lot more risk averse than Dad. She always worried. I suppose all that actuarial work made Dad able to assess risk in a more objective way and as he pointed out, the only danger to Ellie between here and Castle Dare was the midgies.
All the same, he offered to come with me and drive back to Burg to pick her up. I thought it might be a good idea since I’d seen her blisters. But I worried that she’d think we were checking up on her, and no kid likes that. Dad sold it to me though, quietly, when he said he’d give me a chance to drive the car on the path. My first driving lesson. Dad said it would be okay on a private road. Even though the road between Tiroran and Burg isn’t really a private road, it was as good as, and I jumped at the chance. So off we went, me kangaroo hopping and crunching the gears and feeling like I was doing some real male bonding. It was certainly more fun than drinking coffee – even with three spoons of sugar in it.
We pulled up a bit short of Burg and dad said I’d done a great job, and before we’d even got out of the car, Ellie came running towards us. She said she’d been chatting to the old woman in the NTS place and she’d had a great time and been perfectly safe but she looked happy to have a lift home. Dad drove.
On the way back Ellie told us more about ‘the boy’ she’d met at Castle Dare. She didn’t say his name (she told me afterwards it was because his name was Alasdair and she didn’t want to tell dad that) and she was pretty sketchy on the details – or maybe I wasn’t really listening hard, still thinking about how to effect a change from second to third without grinding the gears – but it was clear she’d found a friend and had a good time.
When we got back home Dad had obviously been listening more closely than I had as he announced over dinner that ‘Ellie got herself a boyfriend’ and she blushed.
‘Not a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘Just a friend who’s a boy.’
That got Mum asking all the questions women want to know, like where does he come from, is he here on holiday and all that sort of thing. I didn’t listen to any of it, I was thinking of a way to get Ollie on side for my plan. Because I didn’t reckon I could do it on my own. And even though Ollie and I were usually sworn enemies, sometimes you need a brother to do things with. Not ‘play’, just ‘do’.
I put it to him later on. The adults were outside getting eaten by midgies while they sucked back the wine, and we were in trying to watch television on the rubbishy small screen with appalling reception.
The plan was basically for him and me – and Ellie if she wanted – to go out in the boat on our own. Strangely enough, Ollie was up for it, but he didn’t think we should go in secret, as my plan had been. He was pretty sure he could talk Marco out of another boat trip – ‘Should have seen him on the way back,’ he laughed, ‘he nearly shat himself when I went twenty metres out from the shore.’
‘As long as we convince Mum we’re ‘responsible,’ he said, ‘we’re home and dry.’
‘Or wet and free,’ I added.
And it looked like the holiday might be doing us some good. Ollie and I were on speaking terms but didn’t have to share a room. I guess that’s what having a common enemy does for you. When it came down to it we were brothers and together we could have a better time than we’d have with Marco babysitting us.
Telling you now, Casey, I realise that I didn’t think about Dad. Perhaps I should have thought to ask him to come with us but I didn’t. I’d had enough of adults. It was my holiday too and after all, Dad had been the one who said we should be allowed to be kids on our own, away from adult intervention. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I realise I was just being selfish. Like we all are to our parents when we’re teenagers. If I’d known what was going to happen I’d have done it all differently. But then you can’t go back and change the past, can you? Not in the real world. If only Ellie had known that.
Swearwords: One mild one only.
Description: Always wear a buoyancy aid.
_____________________________________________________________________
The morning was bright enough but the Loch looked mighty choppy. Mum was concerned that we might fall in – she’d obviously been listening closely to Ellie’s chatter the night before and she made us promise that we’d all wear buoyancy aids. Fortunately Marco had thought to get four. I still wasn’t clear where or how he’d got the boat in the first place. The why was lame; ‘to play Hornblower’ and the rest of it seemed so random.
No one else cared. As long as we were wearing buoyancy aids Mum seemed satisfied. Marco promised to keep us close to the shoreline and not to go out into the Loch any distance. We thought he just said that to keep Mum onside, but when we finally got the boat down to the Loch side, it turned out he had another reason. Marco couldn’t swim. More than that, it was clear he was pretty scared of water.
What kind of idiot travels half way across Scotland with a boat strapped to the roof of his car and then is too afraid to go out into the water with it? Marco, that’s who. It turned out that all this ‘playing Hornblower’ was really just a cover for him being scared. Because he built this whole story about how we had to hug the coast as part of our way of not being observed by the fictional enemy on land. I ask you, how lame.
Even Ellie wasn’t buying it. She wanted to get out there and explore the Loch. Despite Ollie pointing out that if Daisy Cheape had drowned a hundred years ago there was no chance her body was about to pop up out of the centre of the Loch like some Loch Ness Monster the very day that we were on it. He was trying to freak her out but it didn’t work. Not on her at any rate.
However, Ollie’s suggestion gave Marco the willies even more and he became completely determined that we would stay close to the coast at all times. So of course I decided that as soon as we could get out in the boat without Marco, we’d do some proper exploring.
We’d none of us rowed before, but it didn’t take long to get used to it and because Marco was too scared to do the rowing, we got plenty of practice. Even Ellie took her turn, adding blisters on her hands to the ones she was still carrying on her feet – without complaining.
We must have spent a good three hours out there rowing around going nowhere. With the current and Marco’s determination to stay close to the coast it was all in all a pretty pointless exercise. It certainly wasn’t fun.
No one wanted to be the one to break, but eventually the boredom got to me and I suggested going home. At which point Marco told us he’d brought lunch for us all and sure enough, there was a bag in the bottom of the boat – but the amount of water we’d taken on board while learning the finer points of rowing meant the sandwiches were pretty soggy and unappealing.
Marco didn’t want us to sit in the boat without someone rowing, so we pulled in to the shore and ate our soggy sandwiches. Even Ellie had a hard time trying to turn that into one of her famous picnics!
When it came time to set off again, Ellie and I hatched a plan.
‘You and Marco go out in the boat,’ I said, ‘and me and Ellie will play the enemy.’
I just said it to get out of the boat, but Ellie jumped at the opportunity too. Marco didn’t seem that bothered and Ollie was as terminally grunting as ever, so that’s what we did.
‘We’ll make our own way home,’ I said. ‘You hug the coastline and we’ll go back along the path. We’ll beat you there.’
So Marco and Ollie set off – mostly round in circles to begin with – and Ellie and I climbed up the shore. When we got to the top we found that we were actually pretty close to Castle Dare – as she called it – and she demanded that we have another look around. Maybe demanded isn’t the word. Ellie could persuade you without making you feel like you were being railroaded. It’s a skill. A valuable one, and one I’ve never figured out.
I tired of Castle Dare long before she did. And she suggested that I go back on my own, leaving her there.
‘Will you be okay?’ I asked her.
She gave me a withering look, like I was asking a stupid adult question.
‘I’m twelve,’ she said. ‘Can I not have a bit of an adventure on my own?’
She had a point. She knew where we were staying, and it was a more or less straight path. And wasn’t she entitled to a bit of time in her own fantasy world? I thought so.
‘Don’t go too close to the edge,’ I said, not quite able to let go the older brother routine.
She laughed at me. ‘Always wear your buoyancy aid,’ she replied and I realised I was being stupid. She wasn’t a kid. She knew her own mind. And I thought the best thing I could do was give her some space. So I did.
As I walked along the road I couldn’t see any sign of Marco and Ollie, but then they were probably ‘hugging the coast’ so tightly no one would see them and they wouldn’t even be getting their feet wet, more likely wrecking the bottom of the boat by scraping the fibreglass on the bottom. I’d have laughed if Marco wasn’t so annoying. But he was. So instead I worked out a plan that would see us have use of the boat and have some real fun, and leave Marco behind. I needn’t have bothered. Marco had a plan all of his own and it kicked mine totally into the long grass. For which I will never forgive him.
When I got back Marco and Ollie were already there, sitting outside the cottage having a cold drink. There was no sign of the boat. Marco said they’d left it tied up by the shore. Which would help my plan no end. My intention was to get out in the boat without Marco. And I didn’t want to be dragging it down to the launching place from the cottage by hand.
Mum and Dad were sitting out there with Marco, and Ollie. Mum wanted to know where Ellie was, and I thought I was about to get a bollocking for leaving her on her own but Dad came to my rescue and said she was well old enough and sensible enough to play out on her own. He went into the that’s what’s wrong with the modern world, that kids don’t get to play out on their own any more speech that he sometimes employs. In this respect Mum was a lot more risk averse than Dad. She always worried. I suppose all that actuarial work made Dad able to assess risk in a more objective way and as he pointed out, the only danger to Ellie between here and Castle Dare was the midgies.
All the same, he offered to come with me and drive back to Burg to pick her up. I thought it might be a good idea since I’d seen her blisters. But I worried that she’d think we were checking up on her, and no kid likes that. Dad sold it to me though, quietly, when he said he’d give me a chance to drive the car on the path. My first driving lesson. Dad said it would be okay on a private road. Even though the road between Tiroran and Burg isn’t really a private road, it was as good as, and I jumped at the chance. So off we went, me kangaroo hopping and crunching the gears and feeling like I was doing some real male bonding. It was certainly more fun than drinking coffee – even with three spoons of sugar in it.
We pulled up a bit short of Burg and dad said I’d done a great job, and before we’d even got out of the car, Ellie came running towards us. She said she’d been chatting to the old woman in the NTS place and she’d had a great time and been perfectly safe but she looked happy to have a lift home. Dad drove.
On the way back Ellie told us more about ‘the boy’ she’d met at Castle Dare. She didn’t say his name (she told me afterwards it was because his name was Alasdair and she didn’t want to tell dad that) and she was pretty sketchy on the details – or maybe I wasn’t really listening hard, still thinking about how to effect a change from second to third without grinding the gears – but it was clear she’d found a friend and had a good time.
When we got back home Dad had obviously been listening more closely than I had as he announced over dinner that ‘Ellie got herself a boyfriend’ and she blushed.
‘Not a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘Just a friend who’s a boy.’
That got Mum asking all the questions women want to know, like where does he come from, is he here on holiday and all that sort of thing. I didn’t listen to any of it, I was thinking of a way to get Ollie on side for my plan. Because I didn’t reckon I could do it on my own. And even though Ollie and I were usually sworn enemies, sometimes you need a brother to do things with. Not ‘play’, just ‘do’.
I put it to him later on. The adults were outside getting eaten by midgies while they sucked back the wine, and we were in trying to watch television on the rubbishy small screen with appalling reception.
The plan was basically for him and me – and Ellie if she wanted – to go out in the boat on our own. Strangely enough, Ollie was up for it, but he didn’t think we should go in secret, as my plan had been. He was pretty sure he could talk Marco out of another boat trip – ‘Should have seen him on the way back,’ he laughed, ‘he nearly shat himself when I went twenty metres out from the shore.’
‘As long as we convince Mum we’re ‘responsible,’ he said, ‘we’re home and dry.’
‘Or wet and free,’ I added.
And it looked like the holiday might be doing us some good. Ollie and I were on speaking terms but didn’t have to share a room. I guess that’s what having a common enemy does for you. When it came down to it we were brothers and together we could have a better time than we’d have with Marco babysitting us.
Telling you now, Casey, I realise that I didn’t think about Dad. Perhaps I should have thought to ask him to come with us but I didn’t. I’d had enough of adults. It was my holiday too and after all, Dad had been the one who said we should be allowed to be kids on our own, away from adult intervention. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I realise I was just being selfish. Like we all are to our parents when we’re teenagers. If I’d known what was going to happen I’d have done it all differently. But then you can’t go back and change the past, can you? Not in the real world. If only Ellie had known that.
About the Author
Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project and is now happy to be welcomed into McStorytellers with her first published serial, Family Fictions.
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project and is now happy to be welcomed into McStorytellers with her first published serial, Family Fictions.