Tangled Yarns: Breath-taking

swimming. It had been a stupid thing to do, diving in when she was so hopeless at swimming. But now she knew she was good at holding her breath. At least that was something.

"Out!" ordered Mrs Throp.

Reluctantly, Edna moved across to the ladder and climbed out.

After school she went for a walk down to the beach. This was her favorite place. The best thing her parents had ever done (she thought) was to buy the house which fronted onto sand hills and marram grass and salt sea spray and gulls wheeling, and further on there was a track which went twisting down to a stony beach. It was all theirs, and hers, and when she was down there she could be by herself without anyone ever knowing.

Most days, when she came here, she would crunch along the stones, stopping now and then to pick up a shell, a stick, a smooth-edged piece of glass, or whatever caught her curiosity. Delicate treasures. The sea always tossed its jewels up, and took them back if nobody claimed them. Far out at sea, in the blending of grey and blue, the faint outline of a cargo ship crawled along the horizon.

And this was Edna's world favorite. It was wild, and clean, and there were no people to laugh at her, or criticize her, or make her work. The gulls didn't know she felt so useless. The seaweed didn't know she was all thumbs at school work. The sea never picked on her, or called her names. That was something she realty loved about Nature. It was entirely Other. It wasn't even neutral. It just lived its own life whether she was there or not, and she loved it for that. She could stay with Nature forever.

The sea was blind when it splashed about and speckled her face, and the gulls wheeling above her had no notion of how she was feeling. And the cold sea, the cruel sea, wasn't really cruel, or kind. It just was. If a ship got in its way, the sea pounded it to death. If the ship turned into the waves, the sea lifted it and carried it safety.

Today she was in her swimsuit because she didn't mind the cold. The suit made her feel freer somehow. The coldness of the sea's breath stung her bare arms and legs as she danced along the edge of the tumbling white water. She held her hands out, flapping them like a bird and she ran, tiptoe across the stones, hardly disturbing them. Today she was a creature of the sea, a mermaid with legs, a ballerina of the deep.

But she was still cautious. It would not do for anyone to see her skipping into the water, especially when it