Page 2 of Second Song

I do it again now, only with seagulls and my lamb watching instead of the phoenix I pictured with its wings spread. “I am going to score a fresh start.” That’s what the school I was on my way to promises all of its students and staff. A clean slate. A do-over. “Because fucking up once or twice doesn’t have to define a whole lifetime.” Except for my bad language, I’m paraphrasing the school ethos, even if its website is headed with a photo of a stern headmaster that initially made me pause. The wording underneath it had convinced me to risk making an application.

Welcome to Your Second Chance School.

The only second chance I need right now will take a miracle. Or a hero. But like the first time I fell with the whole world watching, there’s no one here to catch me. All I can do is hug my squirming armful, because even if someone does spot my car above us in a coast road lay-by, the odds are they’ll assume it belongs to a tourist enjoying Cornwall in early April.

“Or they’ll think I’m down on that beach.”

I don’t know why I speak to the lamb. I’d be better off talking to the Coast Guard or Cliff Rescue Service, and I would if my phone wasn’t still in the holder on my dashboard. Now I push my glasses higher to study rock pools between patches of sand and jagged boulders at the base of the cliff.

Would we survive if I jumped for one of those pools?

“Not without me hitting those rocks on the way down and bashing my brains out.”

This little lamb’s brains too. And it is little. Tiny. Newborn, maybe. It can’t be more than days old, yet its life is already as good as over.

I can’t let that happen.

The lamb struggles again as I feel with my free hand for something—anything—that might stop that outcome. The ledge only crumbles some more, and my heart again lurches like it used to whenever I stood in front of contest judges. Apart from the lamb, my only audience today are those seagulls and two surfers in wetsuits who paddle far below us.

My chest locks before I can shout for help. That’s so familiar. I’m voiceless all over again while in trouble, which is on-brand for me, but I’m not the only one in danger, am I?

This little lamb means I find the strength to risk everything by waving one arm wildly at those surfers.

Neither of them spots that I’m in trouble.

That’s all too familiar as well, and time stands still like it used to between each performance on a stage I thought would set me free but turned into a prison.

I’m frozen while waves still crash and seagulls still cry, and I’d join them by wailing like a baby if I wasn’t so sick of letting life happen at me. Or sick of doing what I’m ordered, especially when it feels wrong. My inner phoenix won’t let me give up. It has ashes to rise from, dammit, so I wave again while the lamb struggles like it knows I’m a fool for even trying.

One of the surfers must notice.

He points in my direction, and I almost can’t believe it, but he paddles for shore, water foaming with each strong kick, until he pops upright on his board and a wave carries him out of my field of vision.

The other surfer doesn’t follow. He paddles closer to the base of the cliff where he sits on his board with his hands cupped around his mouth. Shouting at me, I guess. I can’t hear him over the crash of the waves and this lamb’s panicked bleating, or over the hitch of my breathing. My chest locks. My voice too. I fight those feelings. I have to because I’ll be damned if I’ll be silent like the last time I was helpless.

Let the worst happen to this wriggling, woolly baby?

“No fucking way,” I croak out. Not even when it craps all over my interview suit. I’d crap myself too if I wasn’t busy finding more of my voice, which kicks in the moment I hear a vehicle that, unlike all the others, doesn’t pass by without stopping. It screeches to a halt, thank fuck, followed by the slam of a door. A shout carries a Yorkshire accent to me along with a gruff order.

“Stay still.”

I don’t mean to yelp, “No shit, Sherlock.” My brand of fear is an unhelpful dick right when help is what I need the most. My mouth dries as soon as help actually does appear—a rope dangles just out of reach. I struggle to hold the lamb and grab for it only to hear another order.

“Stop.”

I do.

“Throw the lamb.”

I don’t.

“What?” Here’s an example of what else fear always gifts me—I’m an actual fuckwit like the kids at my last school called me. A space cadet. Away with the fucking fairies, like now for blurting, “This lamb?”

“Yes.” He’s come to the same fuckwit conclusion. I hear it. “Of course, that lamb. Throw it as far as you can.”

“Up?”

How? The overhang of the cliff means I can barely see who is yelling. And what if hurling the lamb up sets off another mini landslip like the one that dumped us on this ledge in the first place?

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