The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock

kind of weird, don’t you think?’
    I smiled encouragingly but also silently.
    Michael held my gaze for a few seconds, then walked to the other side of the tower. He kept glancing out through the tiny windows at the rain, like he was willing it to stop. It made me think of the flea-bitten tiger trapped in its tiny cage at the Guernsey Zoo.
    â€˜If you want,’ I said, ‘I can lend you some of Dad’s books. He knew everything about the German Occupation. It’s hard to imagine now what it was like for the islanders back then, to be cut off from the outside world and to have no weapons or way of fighting back.’
    Michael smiled. ‘There’s always a way of fighting back.’
    He’d stopped in front of the ladder that was bolted to the tower wall. I walked over to stand beside him and we were so close I could smell the leather of his jacket. Well, I think it was leather.
    He was looking up. ‘You know what you see when you climb up there? Everything .’
    I nodded and said things like ‘Wow’ and ‘Amazing.’
    Michael sighed. ‘No it’s not. It’s fucking depressing.’
    â€˜Oh,’ I tried to smile, ‘so I’m not missing anything? What a relief, because I’d be way too scared to ever climb up there. I’d be afraid of falling.’
    Michael turned and narrowed his eyes enticingly. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
    It was like he hadn’t been listening! He jammed the can of paint back into his jacket and started up the ladder. Of course I went straight after him. We climbed and climbed. The ladder was so rusty it scratched my hands. I was definitely scared but I didn’t look down or up, I just followed Michael as quickly as I could and thought about how relieved I’d be to get to the top.
    I don’t know how long it took but when I reached the ledge where the ladder stopped I was flushed. Michael turned to face me and there we were – stranded on this narrow ridge of cement that runs all around the tower. It felt very precarious.
    â€˜Be careful.’ He pushed me back against the wall. I tried to look as appealing as possible, like he could kiss me if he wanted to.
    â€˜Go on. Turn around.’
    I slowly turned and looked out of one of the square windows. It was terrifying to be so high up and to see so far, and I tried to grab Michael’s arm for comfort, but he was busy re-lighting his large-ish not-a-cigarette. After a minute he offered it to me, glancing out of the window.
    â€˜So there you have it. That’s all there is.’
    I couldn’t focus too well but I stared down at the craggy slopes of Pleinmont. It didn’t feel as vast or impressive as I thought it would, and there was a bank of fog rolling in off the empty sea. I suddenly understood what Michael had meant. Everything was too small. I looked back at him and tried to pout like Nic, but it was difficult because I’d singed my lips on one of Jason’s B&H. Michael’s smoke blew in my face and I vaguely wanted to kiss it.
    â€˜You know,’ Michael gazed out at the view, ‘when you get up high like this you’re not really afraid of falling – you’re more afraid of wanting to jump. There’s a pull.’
    I asked if he meant gravity, which we’d learned about in Second Form, but he shook his head.
    â€˜Nah, this is different. It’s psychological, not physical, more the brain than the body. There’s this town in Europe, it has even less taxes than here, 26 and it’s built in a valley, and there’s this road around it with lots of bridges, and people are always jumping off the bridges and killing themselves.’
    I told Michael how Dad had always liked to dive off the top steps of the Moorings, even though it was dangerous. Michael said diving was a lot like falling, and that falling was like being free.
    â€˜I want some of that, me. I’m going to travel the