‘I wish I was a fish,’ said Kenneth. ‘Nobody punishes them for taking rings they didn’t take.’
[p248]
And then suddenly he saw the ring itself, lying calm, and quiet, and round, and shining, on the smooth sand at the bottom of the moat.
He reached for the boat-hook and leaned over the edge of the boat trying to get up the ring on the boat-hook’s point. Then there was a splash.
‘Good gracious! I wonder what that is?’ said cook in the kitchen, and dropped the saucepan with the welsh rabbit in it which she had just made for kitchen supper.
Kenneth had leaned out too far over the edge of the boat, the boat had suddenly decided to go the other way, and Kenneth had fallen into the water.
The first thing he felt was delicious coolness, the second that his clothes had gone, and the next thing he noticed was that he was swimming quite easily and comfortably under water, and that he had no trouble with his breathing, such as people who tell you not to fall into water seem to expect you to have. Also he could see quite well, which he had never been able to do under water before.
‘I can’t think,’ he said to himself, ‘why people make so much fuss about your falling into the water. I sha’n’t be in a hurry to get out. I’ll swim right round the moat while I’m about it.’
There was a splash.