Craig
sat in the tree and watched the police divers plunge into the lake from their inflatable launch. Light rain drifted through the muggy air falling gently onto
the surface of the lake. Two helicopters buzzed overhead; one a police vehicle
with heat seeking equipment, the other a news chopper filming the scene.
More
vehicles were arriving all the time; news crews, ambulances, fire search and
rescue trucks and more and more police. Craig’s village had never seen the
like. Craig’s neighbours were coming down to the lake to have a look and see
what all the fuss was about.
As
divers re-emerged from the water Craig could see them shake their heads to
confirm they had found nothing. No sign of the missing girl they were searching
for. It wasn’t long before they were heading back down into the dark depths to
search another area of the lakebed.
On the
shore a police officer was giving an impromptu press conference to the
assembled media. Craig couldn’t hear what he was saying but he could guess.
‘At
3.30 this afternoon we received a report that a teenage girl had run into
difficultly whilst swimming in the lake. Blah blah blah.’
The
media were everywhere, a typical mid-summer slow news day had them jumping on the smallest uncorroborated
story to fill their 24 hour rolling news coverage. They were interviewing
locals, asking who the girl might be.
Craig was loving it. He watched four
dog-handlers set out with their immaculate hounds and then heard rustling down
below and saw Ronnie climbing the tree.
‘Hey
they’re looking for you.’ He said, nodding at the police launch with a huge
smile on his face.
‘Well
they are not going to find me there,’ she beamed back.
They
sat in silence watching the commotion below.
‘Cool
eh?’ Ronnie broke the silence.
They
hadn’t really expected this; they’d just thought it would be a bit of fun.
Craig had had the idea that morning. Ronnie was one of the best swimmers the
village had ever seen; she was like a fish. She had swam out into the middle of the water, waved her
arms round for a bit until Craig raised the alarm and then ducked under water
and swum to the other shore.
The
divers resurfaced again with another shake of their heads but Ronnie and Craig
had seen enough, they were hungry and it was time for their tea. They climbed
down from the tree and wandered home leaving the police to search for a girl
who was soon to be tucking in to her Shepherd’s Pie.
No comments:
Post a Comment