AN: Heya all! I'm supposed to be revising for those good ol' end of term exams they're so keen on in Britain, so this is my "stress relief". Right now it's raining cats and dogs outside (not literally, of course - oh wait, - no, that's just next door's chihuahua flying past the window) and quite windy.

For Taking a Dip

Alice Grey

16, intellectual, dumped

She could just see those horrifyingly real words now, inscribed on her gravestone. That was, if she didn't look out more for the cars speeding through a residential area of the English town on a hot and sticky Friday evening. She'd only just now narrowly escaped impact with a beefy-looking Mercedes, which had been consequently thrown the entirety of Alice's swearing vocabulary, fairly extensive for a girl with a religious family, in one glorious moment of passionate fury. Earlier that day, break time at 10:38 to be more precise, when chance had dealt her quite the worst blow imaginable - she had meant to use her friend's phone for sending a message home, only to find a text in the inbox, sent from Alice's boyfriend to Alice's friend – she had felt like seeking out revenge. Now she felt like seeking out chocolate.

"What's wrong about a little texting?" Jemima had huffed, crossing her arms.

"Umm, maybe the fact that your version of 'a little texting' involves a lot of graphic intimacy?" Alice asked, barely containing her anger at her supposed friend's indifference.

"What are you talking about? Are you even speaking English?" Jemima replied, examining the nails on one hand.

"My God, how much more blatant do I have to make myself, Jemmy? Do you want me to quote, so you can check I got every sordid detail?! You two have been engaged in - you've been having - Thank the heavens I didn't let him kiss me! Contact with you has probably lowered his IQ into the minuses. You practically deserve each other now."

It had been a bloody awful insult, but cussing in a Catholic school was more than just frowned upon, it was taken away for ten minutes to meet the schoolmasters' trustworthy cane, Learn-To-RESPECT-Your-God. The whole affair left her, a girl who prided herself on her witty retorts, along with her carefree attitude, feeling dissatisfied with the performance.

Her anger had stemmed, contrary to popular belief – for spectators of the scene included the entire student body of St Winefride's school for girls, all six of the Governesses, whose virtues were outraged by such a display of unbridled vulgarity, and of course the local peeping tom, who was never far from any action – from the frustration at being so blindingly taken in by a boy from that school, when she had always promised herself to never, ever give them the time of day, let alone her number and her father's permission for them to date her.

Crossing the Frankwell Bridge and stopping to peer down into the murky brown water of the river below, Alice realised she was unconsciously trudging into a rather shady area of the town. But still, she didn't feel she could make the walk back to school, now several miles away, in time for Mass, and if she was going to get punished anyway, today's antics duly noted by just about everybody and their mothers, she may as well go the whole hog and stay out until well after curfew. So she continued to lean nonchalantly against the wrought iron bridge and get lost in her own thoughts.

The aforementioned River Septal split the town of Pegwern in two parts in a rather curious way. It separated the rich people from the poor people, with the council houses of Monkton one side and mansions of The Hill on the other; it separated the good from the bad, since the churches stood only on one side of the river; and it separated the boys from the girls. Pengwern School was a famous boys' public school, which boasted an incredible number of famous alumni, and it sat directly opposite and across the river from St Winefride's. The fees to attend were extortionate, and Alice still couldn't believe her parents had forked out an incredible sum of money just to have her older brother come out a prat.

And if Edward's going to learn how to be a rich idiot, Alice thought bitterly, where else was a better place to send their daughter than the girls'-school across the river? Where I can learn how to be a good wife to those rich idiots...

It made her sick, or at the very least nauseous – perhaps queasy was the best word – to think how narrowly she'd escaped actually having to be near a Pengwern boy. Although sometimes when she was in town with her friends she saw a pack of those boys, strutting their stuff along the pavement, she would feel an undeniable urge to pull up their annoyingly low-riding jeans from around their backsides and sew them to their Ralph Lauren polo shirts so that their stupid boxers may never offend her eyes again. Alice mostly kept this thought to herself; apparently the idiot look was in.

So why was she so smitten with Luke? It could have been the fact that he adhered to the basic rules of English grammar, but most of her friends, acquaintances and even random girls on the street would bet their entire make-up collection that it was his dazzlingly good looks that caught Alice's attention.

He was so handsome... No! Bad Alice! Don't let your carnal instincts take over, think reasonably, you'd barely been going out two weeks and he was trying to get it on with your (supposed) friend! If you were all tigers, you would have ripped out both their jugulars for his infidelity! But, then again, I hardly think male tigers are monogamous creatures, what with all that roaming and territory spraying... Perhaps we'll take the examples of penguins, they mate for life don't they? Oooohh cold... I could really do with a tub of ice cream right now, Ben and Jerry's, preferably Cookie Dough... Focus!

As the inner workings of Alice's mind whiled away the time, several things were happening around her.

First of all, the sun was beginning to set, casting long, dusky shadows across the roads and pavement, and making it more difficult to see. Second of all, in the distance the sound of the screeching Mercedes Benz – turning the many corners of the Frankwell district of Pengwern – was gradually becoming louder. And, third of all Duo Maxwell was running swiftly over the bridge, his brown plait swinging side to side hit her square in the face as he sprinted past, and pulling out a gun from the pocket of his black coat

It took a few seconds for Alice to engage brain cells, but by that time Duo had already thrown himself off the bridge, taking her with him into the ice cold water below.

He surfaced first, pinning his feet firmly into the silt bed below to prevent himself from being carried down the Septal; there was no way that he was going to experience half a mile of what could only be described as a germ bath again. He remembered the gun in his hand and pulled it out of the water, muttering quietly as he pulled himself onto the bank and gingerly began to take it apart. After about thirty seconds of sitting with his legs crossed, tongue peeking out and brows furrowed in ferocious concentration, he lifted his head abruptly and swore loudly.

"Shit!"

He jumped into the water for a second time, searching frantically for the girl he'd pulled in with him, but he couldn't see her anywhere. Coming up for air, he was quite surprised to see Alice crawling ungraciously onto the opposite bank, struggling to deal with a particularly tenacious weed which her foot had been caught in. He was even more surprised when – having swum over, courteously freed her from the weed, sat himself down on the bank next to her and introduced himself – she then punched him on the nose.

Wrong day pal...