by Ann Bryant
There were twenty of us in the swimming squad and we got changed on our own while Mrs. Mellor sorted things out in the pool area. I was chatting to a girl called Evie from Oakley House, who’s really bubbly and reminds me a bit of Georgie. I made doubly sure I pushed my clothes deep into my bag this time and left the bag right at the very back of the bench. Then I wrapped myself in my towel and sat on the bench waiting for Evie, feeling strange and isolated even with all the chatter going on around me.
“Grace, you’re ready,” said Mrs. Mellor, appearing suddenly and bringing me out of my daydream. “Off you go.”
As soon as I got to the pool area I went straight down the steps, not even noticing whether the water was cold or not. I did backstroke to the other end, taking care to keep looking over my shoulder to check I wasn’t about to bash into anyone, then I did breaststroke back to the shallow end because by then Bibi and Hannah were in the pool, swimming back and forth across the deep end, and Felissia was lying on her back right in the middle with her eyes closed, getting her friend to pull her around. Cassie was laughing away.
After a few minutes of warm-up, Mrs. Mellor jumbled up all the different houses into five teams for a medley relay, and told us which lane to line up by at the deep end. I wasn’t put with Bibi or Hannah or Felissia, thank goodness, but I did have Evie in my team, so that felt like a good omen.
“Grace ought to go last if it’s a relay,” Evie said. “You’re always supposed to put your fastest swimmer last.”
“Well I’m not all that fast actually,” I quickly said, but no one seemed to be listening because the other three had already arranged themselves in front of me, so it went: Nicole, Evie, Holly, me.
Looking at the team in the next lane I noticed Felissia was also at the back, standing level with me, which meant that she and I would be competing against each other. But I didn’t mind that at all now I was pretty sure she wasn’t the one sending the messages. Bibi and Hannah were in lane one, which was the furthest away from my team, thank goodness, but my heart jittered when I saw that Hannah was also swimming last for her team.
“Everyone should swim two lengths. Those swimming first, you must do breaststroke, the girls in second place swim backstroke, those in third, freestyle, and the girls swimming last, front crawl. Got that?” said Mrs. Mellor. “Today you can choose whether you want to start in the water, or dive in from the block or just from the side. Next week we’ll do proper diving technique using the blocks, in preparation for the gala, but for now, whether or not you decide to dive in, you must make sure that the person before you in your team touches the rail before you set off, and if they’re doing breaststroke they must touch with both hands. Those of you in first position in your team who want to dive in, take care not to dive before my whistle, or it’s a false start. If I see anyone do a false start, I’ll blow the whistle repeatedly straight afterwards to tell you to start again. Right, everyone ready?” Mrs. Mellor waited for silence, then said, “On your marks…” and blew her whistle.
I was glad I wasn’t going first because I would have been so worried about doing a false start that I’d have probably dived in late, which would have put the team behind straight away. But the first four girls all dived in or set off from the side perfectly on the whistle, and straight away everyone started calling out, “Come on!” to their team members, until the pool area was full of shrill noise and echoes. All four teams stayed more or less level until the second people set off. Evie was doing backstroke, but kept going off course and having to wiggle her way back into the middle of the lane, so by the time it was Holly’s turn we were coming level last with Hannah’s team. Holly managed to get the tiniest bit ahead of the third girl on Hannah’s team so I dived in just before Hannah, but in no time at all she was ahead of me, beating her arms against the water and driving herself forwards. Half of me wanted to use every single atom of energy I possessed to try and catch up with her, but the other half of me was holding back, scared of what I might see on the computer later.
Hannah touched the side at the deep end before I went into my tumble turn, but I kicked hard off the wall and when I came up I found I’d managed to draw level with her, and that was when my competitive spirit suddenly flooded in and made me determined to beat her. Felissia had already finished so her team had won, and I knew from Mrs. Mellor’s whistles that the other teams had finished too, which just left my team and Hannah’s. I flung my arms out as hard as I could with every stroke and tried to get the breathing right, though it didn’t really work. Everyone was yelling out to us excitedly at the tops of their voices and even though it sounded strange and muffled with my head down, it made me try even harder. Two more strokes to go. Then one. My fingers touched the side and a single whistle sounded.
“Dead heat!” cried Mrs. Mellor. Her face was all shiny and smiling. “Well done, both of you!”
I looked across at Hannah and our eyes met. I would have definitely managed a smile if she’d given me one, but she instantly looked away and I felt the energy leaving my body. I tried to get out of the pool, but it was a struggle because my arms seemed to have totally lost their strength. Evie and the others laughed as they hauled me out, congratulating me at the same time, which made me feel better.
“Well done, Grace! You were great!”
“Like a torpedo!” said Evie, her voice raised in a high-pitched squeal.
Why did that word keep popping up? Immediately, some of my high spirits fizzled away. Mrs. Mellor snapped everyone back to attention with a shrill blast on her whistle, then made a few comments about how we’d got on. “It’s not long till the gala now, girls, so we need to spend some time working on weak areas. I’ll be coming round to give individual help, because every one of you here today will be swimming in the gala – some more than others. I haven’t decided yet exactly which races you’ll all be competing in but I’ll let you know in due course.”
That was just what I needed to pull myself out of my depression, because it was exciting to imagine which races I might be entered in and I wanted to sort out my breathing for front crawl. But thinking about the gala also filled me with butterflies, and I had to work hard on my breathing technique for the rest of the session to make my nervousness go away.
Later, I told the others that swimming squad had been fine and I’d even managed to keep up with Hannah in a race over two lengths. I didn’t mention the look that she and I had exchanged at the end, which should have been a smile but was actually no more than the briefest, emptiest stare.
Jess must have felt my unease. “Oh, by the way, I had the most obvious idea in the world during art club. If Georgie stops going online, then whoever it is won’t bother sending any messages. Simple!” She turned her palms up and smiled round at us all.
“I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before!” said Naomi, grinning back at Jess. “It’s true that Georgie’s only got to keep out of the chat room till after the swimming gala, and everything will be fine.”
I knew I should have been happy with this idea, but it was just making me worry all the more. Seeing those horrible messages had been really upsetting, but the thought of not seeing them and wondering whether or not I was being talked about seemed ten times worse. And the worst thing of all…what if then the chat-room messages turned into real live bullying?
“Just one small thing, guys…” said Georgie. “I hate to point it out to you all, but if I’m going to be banned from using the chat room, and as I don’t have a million and one things to do, like you lot, aren’t I going to get a teensy bit bored?”
“It’s true, it’s not fair on poor old Georgie!” I quickly said.
“I’ve got a good idea,” said Katy, in an excited gabble. “Why don’t you change your username, Georgie? Then no one will know whether you’re online or not.”
“Brilliant!” said Jess. “Let’s help Georgie invent a new username. What’s your old one?”
“Castles in the Air,” Georgie answered promptly, with a proud
look on her face. “I couldn’t resist having the name of last term’s play. And, get this, my clever username also helps me to remember my password, which is ‘bouncy castle’! How cool is that?” She suddenly looked a bit alarmed. “If I’ve got to change it, I really want something to do with drama, you know.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll think of something just as good,” said Katy encouragingly.
So the decision was made for us all to think of ideas till after prep had finished, then get together and see what we’d come up with. My five friends spent most of supper staring into space with frowns on their faces, and I knew they were concentrating on coming up with a great new username and password for Georgie, but personally I was in a state because Hannah and Bibi were at the next table and I could just feel their eyes on me, which made me shiver inside.
Walking over to Hazeldean after supper, I suddenly had a brainwave out of the blue and I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. It was lovely to be thinking of something that had nothing at all to do with messages or swimming for a change.
“Why don’t I ask Jan if it’s okay for you to spend the half-term week with me, Jess? I’m sure she won’t mind. Then you’d get to come to Thorpe Park and everything.”
“Wow, that would be brill!” said Jess. So I rushed off to e-mail Jan straight away before prep.
I usually quite enjoy prep because it gives me a lovely calm feeling being with all my friends, silently working away. It was maths this evening, which is one of my favourite subjects. Jess needed a bit of help so I did her first couple of questions for her, but then she got the hang of it and managed the rest on her own. If it had been Miss Fosbrook on duty she wouldn’t have minded my helping Jess so much, but Miss Carol is much stricter and makes us work completely on our own for the whole hour, so I had to take care not to let her notice what I was doing. Usually, I don’t like breaking rules like that. But some things are more important than rules. Like friendship.
As we were finishing the prep, Katy slid a piece of paper across the table to me with the words William Shakespeare on it. She raised her eyebrows as if to ask me what I thought of it, and I gave her a thumbs up, then went back to checking my maths. I couldn’t concentrate though. Those two little words had jolted me right back into that chat-room world. The world of my fears.
Afterwards on the way up to the dorm, Georgie wrinkled her nose. “William Shakespeare? It’s not very original, is it? Anyway, what would my password be?”
“Shake it!” said Katy.
“Brilliant, Katy!” said Naomi. “What’s wrong with that, Georgie?”
Georgie sighed a massive sigh. “I just really like my old username. Look, let’s go back to plan A. I’ll give up messaging for a while, okay?” She broke into a grin. “Now for important things. Who’s coming to flop onto a nice soft beanbag and watch TV with me?”
We were all laughing as we set off along to the common room, but once we were there and had sunk into the sofas and beanbags everyone fell quiet. I tried to concentrate on the programme, but my mind kept wandering because something was niggling away at me. What if Hannah and Bibi were busy typing horrible things about me right now? They probably weren’t, as Georgie wasn’t online. But what if they were? What if there were other people joining in their conversation, all dissing me as I lay here on this beanbag.
Suddenly I had to know. And I realized I could easily find out. After all, I knew Georgie’s password now. Bouncy castle. And I already knew her e-mail address because we’d all e-mailed each other over Christmas. I could go online and pretend to be her. I didn’t have to make it into a big deal and tell my friends. Once the idea had taken root in my mind I couldn’t let it go.
“Back in a minute,” I whispered to Jess.
She nodded without taking her eyes off the screen and I didn’t think the others even noticed that I was leaving the room, they were so into the programme. All the same, I knew I had to be quick in case one of them decided to come along to the computer room and e-mail their parents. We often e-mail at this time of evening leading up to bedtime.
My hands were shaking as I typed in Georgie’s password and saw the list of people who were online. There were five of them and I only recognized one of their usernames. Someone called x little emms x was probably Emma Horn from Forest Ash, because she’s very small. A moment after I’d signed in there came a message from Helen of Troy, who might have been Helen Banister from Willowhaven or Helen Sukra from Elmhurst or another Helen. She wrote, Any1 got any nail v remoo?
Someone called Dreads wrote, Soz babz. Then someone else wrote, Yo. Givit ya 2moz. The conversation went on to different nail varnish colours and shades and I noticed that after that quite a few usernames seemed to have colours in them, like Scarlet Pimpernel and Bluebell Woods, which made me realize how people sometimes changed their usernames according to the conversation they were having. I kept on thinking I ought to be writing something myself otherwise the other people who were online might think it a bit odd, but I couldn’t work out what Georgie would write. Instead, I clicked on Away, so then people would think I’d had to go away from the computer for a while. After that the conversation changed to swimming and I held my breath waiting for a nasty comment. Torpedo Gal wasn’t online, but of course Hannah or Bibi might have changed their usernames.
It was good at swimming squad, someone called Evita wrote, and I suddenly wondered whether it was Evie. I couldn’t understand why people liked messaging so much when half the time they didn’t even know who they were talking to. The next message to come up was from Razzle Tazzle. She wrote, Din u av nuff torture last Fri? Y turn up 4 more? Evita replied, Luv ya but ur a wimp. I was rubbish. My team came level last, but I still B it.
Now my heart was racing furiously because I was so sure that any minute I’d see a message about the show-off who did the tumble turn or the girl who couldn’t even get out of the pool on her own, or something like that, but nothing came, and the subject changed to a discussion about TV programmes. Then everyone started saying Bi and Nite to each other, and Watch the bugs don’t bite and Quik! Matron alert! which made me realize I had to sign out and get up to the dorm before someone found me. I’d been lucky to have the whole computer room to myself for so long, but it’s true that on Wednesday evenings there are good TV programmes on, so most people go to the common room after prep.
“Where did you get to?” asked Jess, looking confused, as soon as I went into the dorm.
I had my reply ready, although I didn’t like lying to Jess, even if it was only a small one.
“I went to see if Jan had replied to my e-mail, but she hadn’t, so then I e-mailed my sister.”
Thinking about my sister sent a pang of homesickness whizzing round my body, but only for a second, because I was so relieved that there hadn’t been any nasty messages and I could actually relax.
We have to hand in our phones every night to Matron’s office and we’d all picked a day of the week to be phone monitor, but on Sundays it was a free-for-all. Tonight was Mia’s turn, and I was just about to switch mine off and hand it over when it rang.
“Oh hi, Jan!” I said, which made Jess shush everyone so she could listen.
It was lovely to hear Jan’s voice. She always sounds so bright and bubbly. And it was even lovelier to hear what she was saying. “Of course I’d love to have your friend for the week, Grace. I just need to be sure that it’s all right with her parents.”
I didn’t think there’d be a problem with Jess’s parents but I wanted to give Jess a lovely surprise at the end of the call, so I kept my voice level and said, “I’m not sure. We were just asking you first.”
Jess opened her eyes wide and raised her open palms, as if to say, What’s happening? But I turned my back and carried on talking with Jan for another minute, being careful not to give anything away. After I’d said goodbye, I turned round slowly to see Jess bursting with curiosity. Then I smiled and spoke quietly. “Yes! You can come!”
“
Yay!” said Jess, giving me a hug. “Just my mum to ask, then we’ll be all sorted.”
I thought about that as I went off to the bathroom. Jess was right, things did gradually seem to be sorting themselves out. The messages seemed to have stopped, and I’d got the support of all my lovely friends. Not everyone thought I was a show-off. I was cross with myself for having used Georgie’s password like that without asking, though. All I’d done was make myself feel nervous at first and guilty afterwards. I wouldn’t do it again.
Good decision. And now I’d got lovely Chinese weekend to look forward to, and then half-term with Jess. Yesssss!
Chapter Five
The build-up to the Chinese New Year weekend was nearly as good as the weekend itself. We all had to be responsible for tidying and cleaning our own dorms and one other area of the boarding house, because apparently in China there’s a huge clean-up in the days before the New Year to sweep away bad luck. I liked that idea, and really threw myself into my main job, which was polishing our wooden floor in the dorm. I wanted to make quite sure there wasn’t a single trace of bad luck hanging around anywhere.
Maybe I didn’t do it thoroughly enough, or maybe Jess didn’t wipe the window sills very well, because we did get one piece of bad luck. Jess’s mum had said she wasn’t sure about Jess being away for the whole of half-term, but Jess had confidently told me that she could easily get her mum to change her mind. What actually happened, though, was that her mum phoned to explain that she was sorry but she’d thought about it and she was afraid she’d miss Jess too much, as she’d only get to see her during the main holidays then. Because of having to work during the week, she’d want to have Jess at home for both the weekends and she’d seen from the map that Jan and Peter lived too far away for Jess to travel back and forth. Jess and I were both really disappointed, but Jess did admit that she’d miss her mum and dad too if she didn’t get to see them till the Easter holidays, so in the end we had to forget about plans for half-term.
