August 1995

Rosalyn’s family had been on the road all day.  They’d shaken off the familiar streets and fields and buildings after the first couple of hours, and now they were driving through strange lands full of pink mountains, stony beaches, mysterious structures by the road, trees that seemed to bow to you as you passed, and too much besides to take in.  If they’d driven past a dragon’s cave or an enchanted castle, Rosalyn wouldn’t have been surprised in the least.  It would have fit right in.

Rosalyn and her brother had kept themselves amused in the back seat- there were a pile of brand new books to look through, and Rosalyn had started drawing a comic called “What’s The Story? Hyena Glory!”, starring the hyenas from The Lion King and named after a song their parents had played a lot during the journey- but it was always a relief to get out and stretch their legs a bit.  They’d eaten breakfast at a Little Chef (pancakes piled with ice cream and chocolate sauce), and they’d had lunch at a McDonalds by the motorway that had been full of stools you could spin around on.

Now they were at a playground.  Not a playground attached to a café or anything, just a playground on its own, tucked away behind some trees by the motorway, waiting there for children on long journeys.  The sort of place that saw a different group of people every hour.  The sort of place that almost nobody would ever visit twice, because even if you tried, you’d have to come back the exact same way and be quick enough to spot it when you passed.  It was hidden away, on this one particular part of the road, and you only saw it if it wanted you to.

As soon as they got there, Rosalyn and her brother met Bronwen, a tall girl with a brown ponytail that looked like she could use it to whip her enemies into submission, and quickly found out that she and her parents were heading to the same holiday village as they were.  She’d never been to Penzance before, either, and she was excited.  “It’s famous for its pirates,” she told them.

Rosalyn’s brother gave her an awed grin.  Pirates were Oliver’s favourite type of people, next to footballers. “Really?”

“Yeah.  There’s even a play called The Pirates of Penzance.  My Aunt Samantha was in it last Easter.”  Bronwen looked thoughtfully at the rope bridge in between the two metal climbing frames above them.  “Hey, we could pretend we’re on a pirate ship right now.  That bridge could be the rigging…  We could pretend the slide’s the figurehead…”

Rosalyn frowned.  “Er…”

“Oh, come on!” said Oliver, “Pirates!”

“Well…”  She looked up at Bronwen, who had an understanding listening expression that Rosalyn recognised from some of her teachers.  (Bronwen looked a little bit older than Rosalyn, which probably meant they were the same age.  Rosalyn was just naturally short and baby-faced.)  “It’s just that I’ve been reading a really great book about the king of the monkeys, and he has a monkey tribe living behind a giant waterfall…  I thought we could play that.”

“Oh, Rosaly-y-yn!” whined Oliver.

Bronwen looked from one sibling to the other.  “Well…  We can play that later, right?  But this place really looks like a pirate ship, so…”

There was something about Bronwen’s face that told you she actually did want to play Rosalyn’s game later, which was probably why Rosalyn agreed so quickly.  “Fine,” she said, and followed Bronwen and Oliver onto the climbing frames.

In the game, Bronwen was Captain Anne Bonny, looking wild and fierce with lit tapers in her hair, and Rosalyn and Oliver were her loyal crew, joining her in singing sea shanties and using the zipwire to swing from ship to ship.  They lived on rum and ship’s biscuit, and slept in hammocks hung from the mast.  They felt the sea spray on their faces as they brandished their cutlasses at the king’s men.  They made anyone who crossed them walk the plank and fall into the ark, bottomless depths below, prey to all the terrible beasts who might live down there.

Rosalyn didn’t know how long they’d been there when the rain started to fall and everyone’s parents called them over.  It felt as if they’d been at sea for a month.  She’d almost forgotten that they had parents.

With some regret, Rosalyn hopped off the climbing frame and wandered over to her parents.  Maybe the rain wouldn’t last long, and they’d have time to play for a few more minutes when it stopped.  You never knew.

It was only when she reached her parents, over by the gate leading to the car park, that Rosalyn noticed she was alone.  She looked back, and saw where Oliver was.  He’d got right to the top of the climbing frame they’d been on, and he was perched up there like a bird, staring up at the sky.

“Oliver!” Mum called out, but he didn’t move.  The rain was hitting his face like a barrage of arrows and dribbling down his cheeks, and he never even flinched.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Rosalyn froze.  There was thunder.  The climbing frame was made out of metal.  And Oliver was just sitting there, staring upwards, as of he was under a spell.

In the split-second before Mum could call out again, a figure shot out from the side of the playground.  It was Bronwen, and she was moving like a racehorse.  The rain seemed to fly off her as she ran.

Before Rosalyn could blink, Bronwen was halfway up the side of the climbing frame.  She seemed to pull Oliver off the top one-handed.

The lightning flash came seconds after they’d got away.  Later on, Mum and Dad would tell Rosalyn that it had been off in the distance, in the woods, and that it hadn’t hit the climbing frame at all.  But Rosalyn knew what she’d seen.

Bronwen slowed down as she approached Rosalyn and her parents, and she nudged Oliver towards them, as if she was presenting him to them.  He was dazed and soaking wet, but still in one piece.

(“Why’d you do it?” Rosalyn asked him later, while they were unpacking their bags in their bedroom at the holiday house.  Most of the last hour in the car had been full of angry explanations of the ways in which Oliver could have been killed and how heartbroken Mum and Dad would have been if that had happened, so Rosalyn hadn’t had a chance to ask him before.

Oliver shrugged.  “I wanted to see what the lightning looked like from underneath.”)

Bronwen looked at Rosalyn.  For a moment, she worried that Bronwen was going to ask her why she hadn’t run out and saved Oliver, when he was her brother after all, but it was nothing like that.  Bronwen just nodded at her and grinned, as if she was returning something Rosalyn had dropped.

(Later still, when they met in the holiday village’s pool the next morning, Bronwen would tell her that she’d also been in trouble with her parents for running out into danger like that.  Rosalyn thought that was the most unfair thing she’d ever heard.)

“Thanks,” mumbled Rosalyn, because there wasn’t anything else she knew how to say.  In that moment, Bronwen looked more like somebody from a book than a person who lived in real life.  She looked like the kind of girl who slayed giants and outwitted hungry wolves.

“That’s alright,” said Bronwen, “See you at the holiday place.”  And she turned and jogged back through the rain, back to her parents.

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