David Clarke

The Latvian Gambit

The challenge was to write a short story which (1) takes place – at least for a part – in Paris, (2) includes a game of chess and (3) involves a snorkel but not in water.

I'd never really thought about school exchanges until our teacher raised the subject. I suppose they're a good idea in theory: you get to spend three or four weeks in another country, staying with a family and so being more or less forced to speak the language, and as a result you get better at speaking it, as well as learning about another culture. On the other hand, if you're unlucky and you get stuck with some total idiot it can be four weeks of absolute hell.

I tried to duck out on the grounds that my English is already excellent (my mother is English, so we speak English at home quite a lot and we also spend some of our holidays in England) but my parents said the experience would be good for me, and so my name was put forward, and in due course I got an introductory letter in fairly feeble French from a boy called Jack Fielding. Like me he was in the Cinquième, although in England it's called Year Eight – either way it's the school year you go into when you're twelve. By the following July I was thirteen, nearly fourteen, because my birthday is in September, but Jack was still twelve because his birthday wasn't until the end of August. Perhaps being almost a year younger than me accounted for his unimpressive French…

Anyway, he arrived at the start of July, the Monday after the end of the summer term, and I soon decided that I liked him. He was a little taller than me, despite being younger, and he had light brown hair, blue eyes and a nice smile. To start with I only spoke French with him – after all, the idea was for him to practise his French while he was here and for me to practise my English when we went to England in August – and to be fair he did try, even if it involved a lot of pointing at things and scrabbling in a dictionary. But after a bit I took pity on him and helped him out with some translations, and after that the smile appeared rather more often.

For the first few days we did some of the obvious touristy stuff, visiting the Arc de Triomphe, the Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame and of course the Eiffel Tower. He was keen to go up it, but as usual there were massive queues for the lifts.

"You need to get here really early," I said, speaking English – by now I'd got used to using English most of the time. "Or you could walk up if you like, but if you decide to do that I won't be coming with you."

"Why not?"

"Because there are one thousand, six hundred and fifty-five stairs," I told him.

He thought about that. "I reckon I could do it."

"Go on, then!"

He looked at me. "So you're too chicken to come with me?"

"No, I'm too sensible. Like I said, we should come back earlier in the day."

He looked at the stairs running up the leg of the tower and then stared upwards.

"I still think I could do it," he said. "But obviously you're too feeble, so I suppose we'll have to come back tomorrow. Pity – I reckon I could get some good pics from up there."

"Oh, if that's what you want, we can do that easily. Come on."

I started walking and he tagged along behind. Once we got about halfway down the Champ de Mars I pointed east.

"See that ugly black slab over there?" I said.

"What, the big tower block?"

"Yes. It's the Tour Montparnasse, and it's got a viewing area at the top. It's cheap, there are never any queues and, best of all, it's the only place in Paris where you have a great view of the city without having to look at the Tour Montparnasse."

Half an hour later he was clicking away with his camera, taking selfies and generally enjoying the view.

"Haven't you got a camera on your phone?" I asked.

"I didn't bring my phone. It costs too much to use it abroad and anyway my dad was afraid I'd lose it. This is a bit old, but it works. And thanks for bringing me up here. You might be feeble, but at least you know stuff."

"Watch who you're calling feeble!" I said. "I let you get away with it once, but it won't happen again!"

"Yeah, right!"

"I'm warning you," I said. "If you get too lippy I'll take you down the catacombs and lose you. You can walk for miles and miles down there and never find the way out."

"There are catacombs in Paris?" he asked, dropping the attitude.

"Sure. Only a little part is open to the public, but they really do run for miles. To be honest I've never been in them except for the public bit, but I'd like to explore down there one day."

"Sounds like fun," he agreed.

"Not if you're lost," I said. "So don't call me feeble, okay?"

"Bet I could find my way out."

"You couldn't even find your way back home from here."

"Yes, I could."

"Okay, then, prove it. Get us back to my place without asking me for directions."

In fact it's not all that far from the Tour Montparnasse to our apartment – it's not much more than a kilometre or so, and so easily walkable – but it's a lot simpler to use the Métro, and Jack duly led me down into the station at the foot of the tower. He spent a while looking at the map and then set off (correctly) towards Line 6, only to stop short when faced with two tunnels, one saying 'Direction Nation' and the other 'Direction Etoile'.

I know that in London the tube lines are labelled 'Eastbound' and 'Westbound', for example, but in Paris you have to know the name of the station at the end of the line, otherwise you're likely to end up going in the wrong direction. I expected him to ask, but instead he marched down the tunnel marked 'Nation'. On every platform there is a diagram showing which stations the train will call at, and at that point he discovered that he was going the wrong way, so he took us back to the 'Etoile' platform. Something similar happened when we changed to Line 8 at La Motte-Piquet – Grenelle, but he still got us back to my home station of Félix Faure without having to ask for my help.

"See?" he said when we reached our apartment.

"Okay, I apologise," I said.

"So you should, Feebleman!"

"Don't push it!"

"Or what?"

I'm not a lot of good at wrestling, as I subsequently proved, but it was fun all the same. Eventually he got off me and helped me to my feet.

"So what are we doing tomorrow, Feebleman?" he asked. "Eiffel Tower in the morning, catacombs in the afternoon?"

"Okay," I agreed.

"Can I borrow your laptop to download my pics? I've got a USB stick somewhere."

"Sure."

I followed him into our spare room, which he was using, and watched as he delved into his suitcase, looking for the camera's USB lead. He didn't seem to have brought much except clothes, but there was a facemask, snorkel and flippers as well as his swimming shorts.

"Why did you bring these?" I asked.

"I thought maybe your parents would want to take us to a beach somewhere. Or perhaps I'd be able to swim in the river."

"You want to swim in the river? Here? You'd have to be insane," I said.

"Why? I thought it had been cleaned up, and there are supposed to be artificial beaches and stuff."

"That's true. I just said that if you went swimming in the river in Paris you'd be in Seine. In. Seine?"

It clicked. "Ha, ha," he said, though he did seem to be trying not to smile. "So is it possible? It's been warm enough. Or I suppose we could just go to a pool."

"Not in those," I said, indicating his swim shorts. "In France you have to wear speedos. And a swimming cap, too."

"Really? Why?"

I shrugged. "Something to do with hygiene, I think. But we can check out the beach next week if you like."

He found the lead and his stick and used my machine to download his photos onto it. It was a very small USB stick, only about two centimetres long by one and a half wide, but it held eight Gb, so it was plenty big enough.

"So what are we going to do now until your parents get home?" he asked when he had finished. "Have you got a pack of cards?"

"Somewhere, I think. Or… do you play chess?"

"A bit. Okay, let's do that."

I'm not especially good, but I have been playing a while and so I hoped I'd be better than him, and indeed I won the first game fairly easily, helped by a couple of blunders from him.

"Lucky," he said. "I bet you can't do that twice."

"Bet I can."

"Okay, then: if you win this time I'll apologise for calling you feeble. If I win you have to admit that you are feeble."

"Fair enough," I said.

Once again I won, though again it was more due to mistakes on his part than brilliance on mine, but that didn't bother me at all.

"All right," he said, knocking over his king. "I apologise for pointing out how feeble you are, okay?"

"That's not a proper apology."

"Okay, you're not feeble. Satisfied?"

"Perfectly."

We played another game with the same result, and by now I was getting a bit cocky.

"Maybe it's you that's feeble," I said. "At chess, at least."

"You've just been lucky. I'll beat you this time."

"Bet you don't."

"Okay, then, let's make it interesting: whoever loses this game has to go up onto the roof of the block and strip naked."

I stared at him. We'd been up on the roof, of course, and I knew that it would be reasonably safe to strip up there as long as there was nobody on the roof of the adjoining buildings, but even so, this was unexpected. I hadn't thought it remotely likely that he would be interested in doing anything… well, interesting: the best I'd been hoping for was that I might get a chance to check out his physique if we went swimming. And yet here he was, more or less offering me a full-on exhibition. I didn't for one moment consider that I might lose: so far he'd played like a novice. The possibility that I was being hustled never even crossed my mind.

"Yes, okay," I said, before he could change his mind. "My turn to be white, I think."

I played P-K4, as I usually did. He replied with the same move, and I moved out my king's knight, again as usual. And his second move was P-KB4, which looked absolutely awful: it left him with two undefended pawns, both under attack, and it opened up his king.

"Let's make it really interesting," I said. "Let's say that whoever loses this game has to pose naked for as many photos as the winner wants."

"Well…"

"Chicken?" I taunted him.

"No, I just don't want to embarrass you."

"Listen, I said, recklessly. "If I lose this game, I won't just pose naked here: I'll pose naked in front of at least three tourist attractions, including the Eiffel Tower."

"You're on!" he said instantly.

A flicker of doubt crept past me, but I dismissed it. Surely I couldn't mess up a position as good as this…

I thought about which pawn to take and settled for knight takes pawn, which left my knight in a nice central position. He ignored the knight completely and played B-B4, so I promptly gobbled up the other pawn with PxP. And then he threw his bishop away with BxP check, even though the bishop was undefended. I duly took it with my king, so I was now a bishop and a pawn up… but after that everything fell to pieces. His queen came out to attack my king, a couple of moves later I lost my knight, and about six or seven moves after that I got checkmated. I couldn't believe it.

"Shall we start on the roof?" he said, grinning at me. "I'll just go and get the camera…"

"Oh, come on!" I protested. "You're not really going to make me… I mean… are you?"

"Hey, posing in front of the Eiffel Tower was your idea, not mine," he pointed out. "I wouldn't want to stop you fulfilling your ambition of making the entire population of Paris die laughing!"

"Yes, but… Look, I'll strip off on the roof if you want, but…"

"That will do to start with," he said. "We can sort out which landmarks you want to show off in front of tomorrow."

Okay, I'd dropped myself into this particular mess and I couldn't back down without looking really bad. On the other hand, I thought that getting arrested for public nudity would be going much too far, but then I didn't think he'd really make me do that, at least as long as I didn't try to wriggle out of the rest of it. So I led him up to the roof.

I couldn't see anyone on the neighbouring roofs but that didn't mean that there was nobody further away looking through binoculars or a telescope or something. But Jack was looking at me, the expression on his face suggesting that he was expecting me to chicken out, and I decided that I wasn't going to do that. I walked round to the side of the sort of stone hut that houses the top of the stairs, removed all my clothes and leant casually against the wall.

"Satisfied?" I asked.

Jack was staring at me, but he quickly recovered and snapped off a couple of photos.

"I didn't think you'd do it," he admitted as I got dressed again. "Of course now I understand why it didn't bother you that much: you haven't got anything worth hiding."

"Hey!" I protested, stung. "It's not that small!"

"It's not that big, either. In fact I reckon my kid brother is bigger, and he's barely ten. Still, you did it, which is fair enough. Now we just have to decide which tourist attractions you're going to pose in front of tomorrow. I thought maybe you could stand underneath the Arc de Triomphe next to the Eternal Flame, and maybe in front of the high altar in Notre Dame."

Either of which would get me arrested on the spot, I thought, and probably charged with treason in the first case and sacrilege in the second.

"Er, no!" I replied. "Come on, Jack, you know I can't do that!"

"Why not? It's so small I don't think anyone would even notice."

"Shut up! You wait until I beat you at something!"

"It isn't going to happen, Tiny."

"My name's Jean-Philippe," I reminded him.

"Yes, but that's far too long a name for someone with something so short. 'Tiny' suits you much better."

"Remember the catacombs!" I said darkly.

"Seriously, though, it'd be a laugh to try to get away with a couple of photos outdoors," he said. "Obviously we can't do it anywhere like those places I said, but we only have to find a quiet corner somewhere where you can see the Eiffel Tower or some other landmark in the background, and I bet you can find a couple of places like that. It'd be the best dare ever!"

"Well, if you put it like that… all right, I'll do it."

"Sick!" he said, with the biggest smile I'd seen from him yet. "This is going to be so cool…"

When I mentioned at supper that we were intending to visit the Eiffel Tower next day my dad suggested that we book it online, since that way we could avoid the queues. So when we'd finished eating I found the website and discovered that we could book for a particular time, which would also save us from having to leave the house too early. We settled on half-past ten. The other big advantage of booking online was that my dad actually paid for us, since obviously I don't have a bank card.

We still got up in time for breakfast with my parents next morning – after all, mealtimes, which were conducted entirely in French, offered Jack a good opportunity for speaking and listening practice. But once they had left for work we still had a couple of hours before we had to be at the Tower, and so Jack said that I should use the time to get used to being photographed naked.

"After all," he reminded me, "you did say that the winner can take as many photos of the loser as he wants, didn't you?"

So I got undressed and spent the next hour naked, first doing the washing up, then tidying the kitchen and finally sitting down in the living room. Jack clicked away from time to time and I tried to ignore him, something that got easier the longer it went on.

Eventually I said that we probably ought to leave.

"Okay," he said, "but you don't want to wear any more clothes than you have to. That way if we do find a quiet corner you can get undressed and dressed again really quickly."

That made sense, so I went out wearing only a tee-shirt, a pair of football shorts and my trainers. He even persuaded me to leave my boxers at home.

He enjoyed the Eiffel Tower a lot. I was hoping he might fill up the camera's memory card while we were up there, but he quickly realised that one aerial view looks much like another and so limited himself to three or four general cityscape shots, though he also took some of me and a couple of selfies. Afterwards we walked up to the river and followed it downstream for a bit… and then we had a bit of luck.

The Bir Hakeim Bridge was apparently being repaired, because although there were no workmen in sight it was closed to traffic in one direction and there were solid, waist-high barriers along the centre. So we climbed over the barriers, found a nice position under one of the arches that supported the metro lines above, checked that there was a clear view of the Eiffel Tower and then waited until there was a break in the traffic. I'd already removed the tee-shirt – it was a fairly hot day – and it only took a couple of seconds to kick off my trainers and slip out of my shorts. Jack had already lined up the shot, and the whole business, from climbing over the barriers to returning to our starting point, probably took no more than twenty seconds.

"Nice one, Tiny," said Jack, grinning. "That must have taken some balls."

I shrugged modestly, though I was pleased with the comment. I could have done without the 'Tiny', though.

Later that day we found a derelict demolition site, partially boarded over, with a distant view of Montmartre, including the Sacré-Coeur, and that was two landmarks dealt with. We took our time over that one because it was pretty obvious there was no likelihood of interruption, though we changed our minds when a dilapidated homeless guy pushed his way through the fence. Fortunately he didn't look our way. And then we went to the catacombs. We had to queue here too, but eventually we managed to get in.

I'd been here before – my dad had taken me a couple of years previously – but seeing that number of bones stacked up, and in places arranged into patterns, was still pretty impressive. The only problem was that the party was marshalled quite closely, so we didn't get a chance to slip away for some more unusual photography.

"So you still need to find one more," Jack pointed out as we left. "Any ideas?"

I thought about it. "If we leave it until later this evening, maybe the Invalides," I said. "Once everything is closed we should be able to find a place without too many people about. Or maybe…"

I took him to the grounds of the Ecole Militaire. Around the Place de Fontenay we found a large number of parked coaches and these shielded us from passing traffic, allowing Jack to take a quick shot of me with the dome of the Invalides visible behind me.

"There you are, then," I said, dressing rapidly. "Three landmarks as promised. Happy?"

"You said 'At least three', he reminded me. "But… yes, I suppose you've pretty well done what you said. Let's go home and see what they look like on the laptop."

So we went back to the apartment and he transferred the photos to his USB stick, and I have to admit that they came out well, well enough that you could see both me – all of me – and the various landmarks in the background.

"Of course, we'll have to hand out magnifying glasses to anyone who wants to look at them," he said.

"Nobody's going to be looking at them. These are strictly between you and me."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Besides, you don't know anyone here to show them to, and you can't risk taking the stick back to England with naked photos on it. What if you get stopped by Customs?"

"I know how to hide things… but maybe you're right. I'll think about it when it's time to go back. So, want to try for some more tomorrow?"

"Why don't we take some of you tomorrow instead?"

"Because you lost the game. Besides, if you saw me naked you'd only get jealous."

"No, I wouldn't. And I know I lost, but it was sort of exciting doing it. I reckon you'd like it."

"Maybe I'm not as weird as you. Still…perhaps we could play chess for it again. If I lose I'll have a go at posing. But if you lose again we'll have to think up some really nasty penalty for you."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure we can think of something between us."

I looked at him and he looked at me. This was obviously an invitation to suggest something… well, interesting, like I said before, and I would definitely have liked to, except… I was a bit scared. After all, I didn't really know him very well, and perhaps I was reading him wrong. Perhaps if I suggested doing anything physical he'd get angry and beat me up, either here or – much worse – when we got to England and there would be nobody to help me.

"Scared?" he asked. "Come on, JP, so far you're winning three-one."

"True, but you won the last one. Let's just play. If I lose we can discuss it then."

So we set up the board once more. It was his turn to be white and he started out with P-K4 as usual. I replied the same way but I certainly wasn't going to risk the line he had used, even though he had won with it. Instead I played the more usual N-QB3 as my second move.

The game went on. I was being careful and not rushing my moves, but his position improved while mine got worse, and about ten moves in I lost a bishop.

"You're going to lose again!" he said. "Thought of a good penalty yet?"

"No. Anyway, I haven't lost yet."

I thought I was going to, though – until he inexplicably failed to move his queen away from an attack by one of my knights. And even I couldn't mess it up when I had a queen and he didn't.

"I can't believe I didn't see that," he said, afterwards. "Well, I suppose I'll have to make you jealous after all."

"Shall we start on the roof?" I suggested, grinning at him.

"No. We can start in here, though. How long have we got before your parents get home?"

"At least an hour."

"Okay, but… a bit later on."

"What's wrong with now?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Just… because."

"Stand up," I said.

"No!"

So I grabbed his arm and pulled him up, and of course it was obvious then why he didn't want to strip.

"Sorry," I said. "That's no excuse. The rule was that the winner can take pictures whenever he wants, and I want to do it now."

"Okay, then. But it's just going to make you jealous."

"Don't care."

So he removed his clothes, pulling his jeans and his boxers down at the same time, and then stood up and put his hands on his head.

"Putain, merde!" I exclaimed because, not only was it thicker and longer than mine, it also had some proper little curls of hair at the base, something I certainly haven't got yet.

"Told you!" he said.

"How big is it, anyway?" I asked.

"Just under five inches."

"What's that in centimetres?"

"No idea. Go and get a ruler and we'll find out."

So I went and got a ruler, offering it to him.

"You do it," he said. "Then you'll know I'm not cheating."

I held the ruler alongside, but it was difficult to get a measurement because the object I was trying to measure kept twitching.

"Can't you keep it still?" I asked.

"No. Just grab it with your other hand if you have to."

I wasn't going to refuse an invitation like that. It felt hot and hard and extremely interesting, and those little curls of hair felt soft, and…

"Well, measure it, then!"

"Sorry!" I said, jerking out of my semi-trance and holding the ruler in place.

"I make it about twelve point two centimetres," I told him.

"And how long is yours?"

"I don't know. I've never measured."

"Then get undressed and we'll find out."

I could have pointed out that I'd won the game, but this situation was far too interesting for that. By the time I got my shorts off I had an erection myself. I handed him the ruler.

"Go on, then," I invited him.

"Maybe we can get it a bit bigger first," he said, and stroked it a couple of times.

I'd fantasised about being touched like this, but it had obviously never happened before, and so I'd had no idea of how good it would actually feel. I was quite disappointed when he stopped stroking and held the ruler alongside it.

"About nine and a half centimetres," he told me. "So if twelve point two is around five inches, then it's about two and a half centimetres to an inch, which makes yours about three and three-quarters inches. That's not bad, I suppose, but you have to admit it's not very big for thirteen."

"Perhaps you can make it get a bit bigger," I suggested shamelessly.

"I suppose I could try," he said, grinning. He set to work again and it felt incredible, even though he couldn't coax it up to ten centimetres. It was interesting that his own erection never flagged, even though neither of us was touching it, so it looked as if he was enjoying this as much as I was.

"Perhaps we ought to get dressed," he said, after a couple more minutes. "We don't want your parents catching us like this."

Reluctantly I agreed and we got dressed.

"So you're okay about posing outdoors tomorrow?" I asked.

"Well… I suppose so. But mine goes hard all the time, and if it happens while I'm posing… well, it would be hard to miss. When yours is soft people probably wouldn't notice it at all, but… I don't want to get into trouble."

"Okay, then why don't you wear your mask and snorkel?" I suggested. "That way your face would be covered and nobody who saw you could possibly identify you again afterwards. Or not unless they could recognise your stiffy, anyway."

"That might work, I suppose."

So when we set out next morning he was only wearing shorts, trainers and a tee-shirt, and he was also carrying a bag that held his swimming mask and snorkel. To start with we went straight to the Bir-Hakeim Bridge, since we knew that was pretty safe and I wanted to give him an easy start. Once the coast was clear he slipped his clothes off, put on the mask and snorkel and posed, and I lined up the shot…

"No, wait," he said, pulling the mask and snorkel off again. "If you can do it properly, so can I. Go ahead."

So I clicked the button – we'd agreed to use his camera because my phone saves photos to the cloud and I wasn't sure if that would be safe – and then he dressed quickly and we jumped back over the barriers.

"You're right," he said. "It's a bit scary, but sort of fun, too."

We took a couple more photos that day and over the rest of that week we took it in turns to pose naked outdoors. We never got caught, though we did get shouted at once and had to run for it, which somehow increased the thrill. When we got home one afternoon I suggested that he should measure me again: perhaps exposure to fresh air and sunshine would have caused some growth. It hadn't, but he was quite happy to do it anyway.

"Can you shoot yet?" he asked, putting the ruler down.

"Not properly," I said.

"Can I try to make you?"

"Okay."

It felt completely different from doing it myself. I really enjoyed it, even though at the end I only produced a little colourless liquid.

"That was wicked," I told him. "Thanks."

"Now do you want to do it to me?"

I certainly did, and that felt really interesting, too. He could spurt a bit and his stuff was white – a watery sort of white, but still white. And apparently he'd enjoyed it, too, because that became a regular part of the rest of his stay.

On the last day before we were due to go to England I raised the issue of wiping the USB stick again. By now it held quite a lot of pictures of both of us, some inside the apartment and some outdoors, and both of us had erections in some of them. I was pretty sure he'd be in big trouble of he got stopped and searched on the way back.

"I tell you what," he said. "You go and lock yourself in the toilet and I'll hide the stick. If you can find it we'll wipe it. If you can't, it'll come back with us."

"Okay, but it has to be on you or in one of your bags," I said. "You can't hide it anywhere else in the house."

"Obviously. And to make it more interesting, if you find it you can make me pose for more photos in England but you won't have to unless you want to. And…"

He took a deep breath.

"And… I'll suck your cock."

I stared at him, because although I'd heard about this I'd never thought I'd get a chance to experience it.

"Don't worry," he said. "You don't have to do me if you can't find it. But I will make you pose for more photos in England."

"No, we should be fair," I said. "If I can't find it I'll do it to you."

I wasn't completely sure about it, to be honest, but I was confident I'd find the drive anyway. Yes, it was small, but there weren't too many places he could hide it.

I waited in the bathroom until he called me through to start looking. To start with I removed his clothing one piece at a time, going through each item very carefully indeed, and when he was naked I turned my attention to his suitcase, once again checking every item of clothing, unrolling pairs of socks, checking every pocket of his shorts and spare jeans, and then going through his wash kit. I found nothing. By now I was starting to think I knew where it was, but I didn't think I'd be able to check there. Instead I combed my fingers through his hair, checked that there was nothing stuck to the soles of his feet and then spent much longer than necessary checking that there was nothing stuck to his balls or under his foreskin.

"Is it up your bum?" I asked at last, having exhausted every other possibility.

"You'll have to check," he said, grinning at me.

"Oh, come on!"

But he just smiled, so I sent through to the kitchen, grabbed one of the disposable rubber gloves my mother wears for cleaning and then went back and told him to bend over. He did so without comment.

And there was nothing there, or at least if there was it was too far up for me to reach.

"Okay, I give up," I said. "Where is it?"

"I'll show you when we get to my house. And… you don't have to suck me. I was only joking."

"No, I said I would and I will, even if I don't really know how."

"Nor do I, not really, but I've seen a couple of porn films… look, are you sure you don't mind?"

"I'm sure. Sit on the bed."

He told me what to do and I tried to do it, and despite what was probably a useless technique it worked and he spurted into my mouth. I spat it out into a tissue, even though he said it was safe to swallow it.

"Your turn," he said, kneeling in front of the bed.

"What?"

"I like it best when we share stuff, and I want to try," he explained. "Please?"

How could I say no? And it felt absolutely incredible.

We reached his house late the following afternoon. I was introduced to his parents (and he pronounced my surname – Jourdain – absolutely perfectly) and then to his brother Tom, who was almost the same height as me despite being three and a half years younger. Later I discovered that, as Jack had claimed, he was slightly bigger than me in other ways, too. And then Jack took me up to his room and opened his suitcase.

"Still haven't worked it where it is?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"Hope the weather stays warm, then, because you're going to be spending quite a lot of the next four weeks naked," he said. "Of course, probably I will, too, but that will be up to me, because…"

He picked up the snorkel, disconnected the tube from the mouthpiece and handed me the tube. And there, wedged a short distance into it, was the USB stick.

"Nice," I said.

"I thought so."

"I should have found it, though. Although I'm sort of glad I didn't. It meant we got to try out something special."

"Me, too. And maybe we can think of some more things to try over the next four weeks."

I hoped so, too. I thought this was turning out to be the best summer ever…

The End