About a Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

you can tell us the time again?’
    â€˜ Approximately …?’ put in the other.
    I looked at the sun. ‘I think the time is approximately … fifteen minutes past three,’ I said, making a great show of thinking about it.
    â€˜We’d better get back!’ they said in unison, looking at each other. Picking up the fallen sunhat, they thanked me and ran off.
    â€˜Do you know what you are?’ said Flynn teasingly, as we turned around to go back ourselves. ‘You’re a Time Lord!’ She bent down and picked up a piece of dried kelp from the sand and placed it around my shoulders. I shook it away with a smile, and we glanced at each other. Her look was full of affection.
    When we got back to where we’d left our things, Flynn stripped off and put on her bikini. There was no one around on our stretch of beach, so there was no need for modesty, but I self-consciously struggled into Flynn’s old one-piece.
    Flynn was taller than I was, sturdier and more muscular, so her swimmers were a bit large for me. She tried tying the straps together with a hair ribbon she found in her bag, but the whole arrangement came undone again.
    â€˜Oh, what does it matter if they fall off in the surf?’ she said. ‘Who’s going to look?’
    They did fall off in the surf, or at least the straps fell off my shoulders and the top sagged down, exposing my breasts. I struggled for a while, and then left the water. I didn’t like to admit it to Flynn, but I don’t really like swimming in the ocean. It’s too salty, too rough, and makes you too gritty and uncomfortable afterwards. I have a pernickety side to me. I can be as fastidious as a cat.
    I took our things up under the shade of a scrubby tree growing at the edge of the sand, and sat there in a sticky heap. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I watched as Flynn went out into the waves again and again and again. She seemed tireless.
    Finally she came out, water streaming from her hair. ‘This,’ she said, throwing herself onto the sand next to me, ‘has been the best day.’ She blew water from her nose and sat looking out to sea, her sandy knee touching mine.
    â€˜Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘Because I’m starving .’
    I ought to have been hungry, because I’d had no breakfast, just that cup of tea. I wasn’t hungry, because being there with Flynn somehow filled me up and made me not need anything else.
    More than anything, I wanted to lean across to her. It wasn’t far, after all, our knees were still touching … I yearned for the courage to move my head just so far, but the distance was like an eternity, if distance can be measured in time …
    What if I leaned over and kissed Flynn on the mouth?
    It would be a warm, sticky, salty kiss. I would feel the heat from the sun on Flynn’s face. I would see her face up close, and she would be a different Flynn, once I had made that move.
    But I lacked the courage.
    Flynn leaned back and took an orange from her bag. Peeling it with her hands, she tore it apart and handed bits to me. I ate them and licked my fingers clean. Flynn delved into her bag for another orange, and repeated the procedure. Then she sat with her elbows on her drawn-up knees, orange juice running from wrists to elbows, her fingers splayed.
    I reached out with my index finger and took a drop of juice that ran down her arm. And put it in my mouth.
    Without indicating that she’d noticed what I’d done, Flynn stood up abruptly and dusted the sand from her legs and backside with firm thwacks that resounded in my ears. Then, without even looking at me, she ran into the water to wash the sand off.
    We struggled into our clothes and found a fish-and-chip shop. We took the parcel down to a nearby jetty, and watched the boats and the pelicans while we ate. Flynn ate delicately but hungrily, pulling the fish apart with her fingers and popping tiny pieces into