Excerpt
Brad leapt back into the pool. For about half an hour he splashed about, blissfully unaware of just about everything.

Climbing tiredly from the water, he moved behind what appeared to be a large bush, opening a door secreted among its branches. The coolness of his secret cavern was welcoming. This was his favourite den. There was an oil lamp hanging from the branched roof, a large tree stump doubling as a table or a seat, a rusty kettle but clean on the inside, and tin mug. Brad scanned the interior, doing a kind of inventory.

He moved over to a camp bed covered with dead leaves from lack of recent use and flopped onto its canvas surface. He spotted a blue towel hanging in a darkened corner. He jumped to his feet, snatching the offensive object from the branch on which it hung. He didn’t own a blue towel!

Holding the soft cotton against his body, he discovered that he could hang it from his shoulders to his feet and that it would wrap around him at least twice. It also smelt fresh and unused when he rubbed it into his sunburned face.

Suddenly he was filled with a strange mixture of anger and excitement. Anger because someone had discovered this very special, almost sacred, place. But the excitement; he didn’t really know why, he just was.

Brad’s heart quickened in his chest; he hadn’t felt like that since climbing to the very tip of a pine tree, and on another occasion when Malc had him in a headlock, Malc’s thighs pulling his face into an expanding crotch.

As his anger and excitement mounted, he racked his brain as to who could possibly own the towel and how they had managed to discover this secret place. It definitely wasn’t his cousin’s, he hadn’t liked him enough to bring him here. But someone had discovered it for sure. But who?

He thought long and hard on this. A few years back, he would have set a trap to catch them. A deep hole covered with leaves, and they would break a leg. Or something heavy over the doorway to fall on them and knock them unconscious.

He suddenly remembered his safe - as he called it - and quickly moved the large stump, sliding it to one side. Scraping the leaf-mould soil from where the log stood, Brad lifted a foot square piece of wood, revealing a large OXO tin lying in the hollow.

Kneeling on the soft earth, he lifted the lid on his most personal treasures. To most they were nothing, but to him they were very special, each having its own story: his first catapult, several old, lead soldiers, a magnificent multicoloured marble, several Eye-spy books and a naked photo of himself taken by the pool with his Polaroid.

The treasures were endless and Brad checked each. Thankfully, none was missing. He replaced the lid and slid the log and leaf mould back over the wooden cover. He guessed they would remain safe. Anyway, he didn’t really want to take them home.

What should he do now? Should he destroy the towel, weight it down and throw it to the bottom of the pool? The whole thing required more thought but it was getting late. Disappointed that he had no immediate answers, he hung the towel exactly where he’d found it and headed home.