[Primrose Bolger]

Sassy could see by the expression on his face that Sondo was expecting one of the boys to support him. Never mind that she had thought it a good idea to go home. She didn’t count. She hadn’t from the first and how stupid of her not to have learned her lesson by now. But none of the boys had stood by him. They were all for waiting til morning before they dared the river.

And now Sondo had come round to their way of thinking. She looked to where Falco was standing, talking seriously to her brother. Looked like they were patching up their friendship. Sassy shook her head, thinking about how things had started out between the two of them. And now look at them . . . the adventure at least had brought those two together.

‘I wish I coulda . . .’ she thought, then took a deep breath and shrugged it off. No point in wishing for what would never be. ‘Sassy,’ she muttered to herself in her mother’s voice, ‘I hope you learned your lesson. You never shoulda tried to tag along in the first place.’

The boys had trooped back to a drier place, away from the river. Some of them were setting up a little camp while others gathered firewood. Sassy hung back, knowing no one would pay attention to what she was doing. With all of them bent to their tasks, she made her way slowly back to the edge of the river.

There were willows that grew down to water, their thick roots dipping down into the Withywindle. She climbed out onto one of the bigger tree’s roots, hanging onto a slender sucker branch for support. In the gathering darkness, she thought she could see the small glow of old Rufus Burrows' little house that stood on the small rise just beyond the Hedge. It didn’t seem so very far away and the water that flowed past her toes seemed slow and easy going.

Sassy sat down on her bottom and slid into the river. Here near the tree’s roots it was shallow and sandy, coming only to mid calf. She walked out further. It was chilly, of course, against her legs, but she’d been colder than this during the spill in the Brandywine. Her cloak was weighing her down as it wicked up the water. She shrugged it off and watched it roll slowly on the river’s current, until it became too soggy and was pulled under.

Her eyes were fixed on the other shore, though it was harder and harder to see in the gathering dark. Her little arms came up, elbows held out to the side as she stepped carefully along on the rounded rocks that led into the middle of the channel. The water grew deeper coming up now to her armpits.

She wasn’t frightened though, as she kept her goal in sight. She was halfway across, she was sure. A noise from the bank behind her made her turn. Someone had called to her, she thought, but it was only the cry of a nighthawk hunting the fat, tasty moths that rose up with the moonlight. Caught off balance as she turned back, her feet slipping on the mossy rocks, she went under for a moment. Then righting herself in the water, she tried to find some traction for her feet. But the current had pushed her a little ways downstream and into the deepest part of the channel.

Sassy bobbed up and down, pushing as hard as she could to move toward a shallower section. But the water was too deep now, and she was cold, and growing tired. An eddying current turned her about so that in the distance she could see the little campfire the boys had built. And just as quickly it turned her again. The other bank was so far away she saw in an almost dreamy manner. She thought perhaps she should call out, but her lips were too numb to obey.

So cold, and so tired. Her desperate eyes closed against her will. With an ‘O’ of surprise, or perhaps welcome, she felt the night-dark waters of the old river roll over her.