‘Fine.’
After ten minutes on what to do and how to attach the cord to their ankle so their paddleboard wouldn’t float away, they were finally allowed to stand on the board to practise balancing.
Maddie could tell straightaway that it wasn’t going to work, as she was in the sea more than she was on the board. Not that it mattered if she was upside down with her head in the sand, as Giannis was only interested in helping Sofia with the correct stance, which involved lots of body contact and giggling, mainly on Giannis’s part. Neither she nor Charlotte got a look in.
She exchanged an eye roll with Charlotte, as Giannis finally detached from Sofia and spoke.
‘Let’s go a little deeper. And now, I need you to kneel on your boards.’
That, she could just about manage.
‘Then, push yourself up to a standing position with your hands.’
He must be joking. After falling in yet again, Giannis appeared next to her board. The disappointment was writ large on his handsome face.
‘OK, for you sitting down will be best, like this.’
He mimicked climbing aboard and lowering his bottom, all the while keeping his eyes on Sofia. It was hardly subtle.
‘Now, let’s try for real in the sea.’ Giannis pointed into the distance. ‘Don’t go beyond those yellow buoys and call out if you feel you’re in danger. I will be keeping a close eye on you all.’
Maddie caught Charlotte’s eye.
‘I think we all know who he’ll be keeping a close eye on,’ she mouthed.
Sofia and Charlotte were up on their feet and off in moments, followed closely by Giannis.
Staying in the shallows astride the paddleboard and learning how to turn the paddle to decide the direction wasn’t a bad way to spend the next half an hour, Maddie thought. The sun was warm on her shoulders, and the water was cooling on her legs. She congratulated herself on managing to avoid careering into any small children and even spotted some tiny fish below her darting around. Shadowing one small shoal had her staring deep into the turquoise water, but a sudden tug at her paddleboard made her look up again. She was almost on top of a group of rocks at one end of the beach, and her frantic attempts to outsmart the current were failing miserably. She was moving, or being forced, forward at a rapid rate.
Sucked into a channel between two rocks, the sea pushed her from behind like an overenthusiastic Boy Scout. Not that she was in any real danger, but she’d noticed earlier that there wasn’t a lifeguard on the beach. Maybe it was too early in the season.
The little pushes became big shoves as the paddleboard bucked beneath her like she was a competitor in a watery rodeo. Soon she’d be eyeballing the rocks from a geologist’s viewpoint. How was she ever going to reverse her way out? There was no point asking for Giannis’s assistance. He’d probably fixed Sofia’s safety cord to his own ankle by now, if not another part of his anatomy.
Embarrassing though it was, it would have to be the girls to the rescue.
‘Help! Sof! Char! Over here.’
When she craned her neck to look behind her, her two friends were paddling towards her like maniacs, no sign of Giannis anywhere.
She’d finally come to a halt with the nose of the paddleboard against the rock face, and she was stuck fast. The water was only up to her knees, but the channel was narrow, and it was a tight squeeze.
A scrabbling noise behind her told her that her rescuers had arrived.
‘I can’t move. Can you pull me out?’
The sound of barely smothered giggling reached her ears as inch by inch the paddleboard was eased away from the rock. How very dare they!
‘You’re not laughing at me, are you?’
‘No … not really.’
Charlotte’s voice sounded like she was being strangled. Sofia didn’t speak at all.
‘I know you are. That’s so mean.’
Without warning, the paddleboard whooshed backwards out of the channel like a cork out of a bottle and Maddie gasped as she parted company with the board and hit the seabed with a thump.
Before she could react, two strong sets of arms pulled her upright again.
