Rivalry at Silver Spires

by Ann Bryant

  “It’ll be all right as long as you breathe out through your nose all the time you’re doing it.”

  She looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, honestly. Imagine you’re trying to blow bubbles through your nose. Just do a half turn at first to get used to it.”

  So she did, and when she came up she looked much more confident. “Yes, you’re right. It works. I’m going to try a full one now. Here goes!”

  She swam from about halfway up the pool and did a perfect tumble turn without holding her nose, and came up grinning like mad. “I did it! Oh wow! I actually did it!”

  I couldn’t help laughing because she looked so happy, and from the spectator area Hannah broke into applause and did a whoop. Even the lifeguard looked impressed and gave Bibi a thumbs up.

  “Oh thank you, Grace. You ought to be a swimming instructor, you know!”

  My mind was reeling as I suddenly realized that here I was having a lovely time with Bibi and Hannah, and only a few minutes before I’d been totally scared of them. “I don’t suppose you can give me any tips on how to do backstroke in a straight line, can you, Bibi?”

  “Well…I’ll try, but I’m not sure what to tell you really. I just seem to go straight…”

  Hannah stood up. “I always look at some kind of mark on the wall,” she called out. “Then every four strokes I check I’m still in line with it. If you check more often than that it puts you off your stroke.” She pointed to the far wall. “You could use the window frame or whatever’s right opposite you when you set off.”

  “Oh thanks,” I called back. “I’ll try that.”

  So I did, and it worked, which got me another round of applause from Hannah and a big smile from Bibi.

  I was totally certain now that I’d got it completely wrong about these girls and I couldn’t help feeling guilty. They must have thought I was really stuck-up before, because whenever they’d looked at me, I’d looked away. I wanted this friendly time to carry on for longer so they could realize I was a nice person really.

  “Are you still not feeling well, Hannah?” I asked. She glanced at the lifeguard, then shook her head, which I thought probably meant that she didn’t want to say anything with grown-ups listening, so I swam to the spectator end and got out of the pool. “When do you think you’ll be able to start swimming again?” I asked quietly.

  She shrugged and looked down. Then Bibi got out and raised her eyebrows at Hannah. I knew what that look was saying. It was asking Hannah if it was okay to tell me something secret.

  Hannah shrugged again and Bibi whispered, “The thing is, Hannah’s costume has gone missing…”

  My stomach yo-yoed. There it was. I saw it instantly this time. The missing link. Only it wasn’t my costume that had gone missing. It was Hannah’s.

  “I just don’t get it,” said Hannah. “I put it in the laundry and when I went to get my pile of stuff, my swimsuit wasn’t there. I checked with our matron and she said she was sure it was there when she sorted through everything. She was going to ask around to see if one of the other girls took it by mistake, but it’s obvious they wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Hannah hung her head, which made me sorry I’d asked the question. “Because no one’s as big as me. All the other costumes are miles smaller, so how could anyone get them mixed up?”

  “Apart from me!” said Bibi, grinning. “But I obviously haven’t got it.”

  My head was spinning, but not with thoughts, with emotions. I felt so sad for Hannah, but I also felt the most enormous feeling of relief and happiness. Although there was still the tiniest feeling of uncertainty. What if Hannah and Bibi were incredibly good actors, and this whole conversation was fake, and they were really the bullies? No. They couldn’t possibly be acting. No one could act this well.

  I was suddenly really tempted to tell them everything about the messages and the hole in my swimsuit and the connection that I’d just made between the message with the word missing in it, and the fact that Hannah’s costume was missing. But I tried to be sensible and not go blurting things out until I’d thought them through a bit more.

  “So you don’t have a…spare costume?” I asked carefully.

  Hannah went red but didn’t reply.

  I waited.

  “Tell Grace…” said Bibi quietly.

  It took Hannah ages to speak. She seemed to be taking the biggest, slowest breath in the world.

  “I don’t have a spare one, no. So…I phoned Mum and she went mad and said it was the school’s fault my costume has gone missing, and she refused to buy a new one because she thinks the school isn’t making enough effort to find out what happened to it.”

  Hannah bit her lip and looked down, so Bibi carried on with the story. “Mrs. Ansell – that’s our housemistress – asked if anyone had a spare one that Hannah could borrow…and one of the Year Eights lent her one…”

  “And I tried it on…” Hannah said in scarcely more than a whisper, “…only it’s too small, which is so embarrassing.” I wondered if I ought to be saying something, but I couldn’t think what to say. I just felt so sorry for Hannah. She seemed to be pulling the words from deep down inside her. “So…I’m like…pretending it’s okay…but I’ve told Mrs. Ansell I can’t swim because of stomach cramps, which is a lie.” Hannah’s voice dropped and so did her eyes. “But I can’t make the stomach cramps go on and on and on, so I just…don’t know what to do.”

  My heart was going out to Hannah. “I’m sure…your costume’ll turn up.” I was cross with myself for not being able to think of anything more comforting to say. I tried again. “Willowhaven would miss you like mad if you didn’t swim. You’re such a strong swimmer.”

  “I won’t stand a chance if I don’t even enter,” she said miserably.

  “But…what does Mrs. Mellor suggest?”

  “I’ve lied to her as well,” Hannah said in a thin voice.

  I was racking my brain for something reassuring to say, but still couldn’t think of anything so I just murmured, “Oh poor you.”

  Bibi glanced up at the clock. “We’d better go to breakfast.”

  “Yes…I’m really sorry about…everything, Hannah.” Then I decided to check something out. “You don’t think…anyone might have taken it on purpose?”

  Hannah shook her head. “Why would anyone want my swimming costume?” She turned sadly to Bibi. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

  Bibi and I were both wrapped up in our own thoughts and didn’t talk at all in the changing room until we were putting our socks and trainers on.

  “Hannah and I didn’t used to think you liked us, Grace.”

  A thousand thoughts about how to reply crowded into my head as I slowly turned to face her, but none of them seemed right, so I just said, “I…didn’t think you liked me either.”

  She looked genuinely shocked and hurt. “Why?”

  “I dunno…I thought you thought I was a show-off…”

  She was sitting still as a statue with one sock in her hand. “Why?”

  A squirmy feeling was taking me over. I looked down. “You seemed to be watching me, kind of…disapprovingly.”

  “Disapprovingly?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh sorry, Grace, we didn’t mean to stare or anything…” The words came tumbling out. “But Hannah and I always talk about you, how you’re really skinny, and how we wish we looked like you, and…everything.”

  My heart missed a beat, but I recovered quickly. Just because she’d used the word skinny, it didn’t mean anything. I was still double certain that Bibi and Hannah were being genuine. In fact, I felt totally awful for ever suspecting them. “Sorry, I didn’t realize…”

  “It’s okay.”

  When we went outside we found Hannah hovering a little distance away and Jess photographing the swimming pool window. She must have been aware of me out of the corner of her eye, but carried on looking through her lens as she spoke.

  “You wer
e right, Grace. The window looked great with the sun shining on it. I could see reflections from outside and just a smudgy trace of inside, but then the sun went in when I was just about to take the photo… Never mind.”

  I heard the click of the shot being taken, then Jess turned to me and her mouth actually made an “o” shape when she saw who I was with. I nearly laughed, she looked so funny, but instead I went over and asked if I could look through her lens. Then as I took the camera from her I quickly whispered that I trusted Bibi and Hannah now. Jess looked a bit confused at first, but she seemed to accept what I’d told her and the four of us set off walking together like old friends, chatting about Jess’s photography.

  “Why did you want to take that picture of the pool window?” asked Bibi, looking puzzled.

  “It was Grace’s idea actually,” said Jess. “Windows are my latest thing, you see! But I’m going to come back another time and take this one again when the sun’s shining and I can get the reflection of the trees.” She turned and eyed the windows of Beech House in the distance, then pointed to the very top one. It was open a couple of centimetres and the curtains were half closed. “Windows like that one are really interesting to me. I ask myself questions, like, are there people in there? What are they doing? Do they want to get out or are they safe inside?”

  “Hang on a sec,” I said. “That’s Felissia’s dorm, isn’t it?”

  Hannah shrugged and pulled a face. “I don’t like Felissia,” she said firmly, “because she doesn’t like me.”

  “H…how do you know?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Just do. The way she looks at me.”

  “And me,” said Bibi quietly.

  I didn’t say anything, but lots of thoughts were gathering in my mind. Perhaps Felissia was the person behind everything that had happened, after all. Anyway, I was sick of all this uncertainty and worry, and poor Hannah was in a terrible state. I was suddenly filled with determination to find out who was the bully. I didn’t know how on earth to go about it, but somehow I would. For Hannah’s sake, and for mine.

  Chapter Eight

  It’s usually netball practice after school on Mondays, but this Monday it was cancelled because the netball coach was ill, so I decided to go swimming instead. Bibi had texted me and asked if I was going swimming and she said she thought she’d come along too. She told me that Hannah didn’t want to, because she was fed up with watching and not being able to join in.

  “But what’s she going to do when it comes to Thursday?” I squeaked when I met her outside the pool. “It’s the swimming gala!”

  “I know. We’re both really worried about that. I think she’s just kind of hoping her costume’ll turn up by some miracle.”

  My mind was spinning. This was terrible. I had to think of a way of proving it was Felissia bullying me and Hannah, and I had to do it right now, because time was running out. It gave me a bit of a shock to go through to the foyer and find that who should be standing in front of the noticeboard with Stella and Cassie but Felissia. She was stabbing her finger down the list and counting. “One, two, three, four! Huh! That’s ridiculous!”

  Bibi rolled her eyes and scurried off into the changing room, but I stayed right where I was because of what I heard Felissia say next.

  “She’s in four races! That is so unfair!”

  “How many is Hannah in?” asked Cassie.

  “Three,” said Stella. “And so is Bibi.”

  And Felissia immediately came back, “And so am I! Mrs. Mellor must have made a mistake.” Stella and Cassie stayed quiet. But Felissia hadn’t finished. Her voice was cold and hard. “I bet I know what’s happened. I bet Grace went greasing up to Mrs. Mellor and asked for another one. That’s the kind of girl she is! One big show-off, who thinks she’s so wonderful at everything she does.”

  My hackles rose and before I had time to think, I blurted out, “I am not! How dare you make up things about me, Felissia Streeter? I never asked Mrs. Mellor anything.” Then I stood there, my shoulders tense and my body shaking with a mixture of anger and a kind of fear at my own boldness.

  Felissia swung round, eyes flashing. “I’m not making things up. Everyone thinks it. You train the whole time because you’re obsessed with winning…”

  “I do not train the whole time!”

  I saw her flick a sneering glance at my swimming bag. “Well that’s what you’re just about to do now!” And with that Felissia turned and stalked straight out of the building, but not before I heard her horrible voice ringing out, “See! She didn’t have an answer to that, did she?”

  My body felt like a lead weight as I looked at the noticeboard. Before that conversation had happened, I wouldn’t have minded finding out that I was the only one in Year Seven to have been picked for four races, but now I couldn’t feel enthusiastic at all. I just felt shaky and afraid. Mrs. Mellor had me down for the fifty metres front crawl, the fifty metres backstroke, the medley relay and the freestyle relay. I ran my finger down the list and saw that Felissia had been picked for three of the same races.

  I didn’t enjoy training that day one little bit because of being so mad about Felissia. And I stayed mad for the next two days, while my determination to prove that she was the bully grew stronger and stronger, even though I hadn’t managed to come up with any plan yet. But when it came to swimming squad my anger tipped over into a completely different feeling. You see, Hannah didn’t turn up at all and Bibi whispered to me that she was in bed, having to pretend that her stomach cramps had got much worse, and dreading admitting to Mrs. Ansell that the spare swimming costume she’d got from the Year Eight girl was too small.

  “She was crying when I saw her at lunchtime,” said Bibi, “because she’ll have to miss the swimming gala and she’s missing lessons and everything. But she’s still scared to tell the truth in case Mrs. Ansell makes her try on some other spare costumes and none of them fit.”

  I felt so sorry for Hannah and so powerless to help. “Couldn’t you just go and explain to Mrs. Ansell yourself?” I asked Bibi.

  “No, because Hannah’s made me swear I won’t.” Bibi was almost in tears herself by now. “She wants it kept secret, Grace. You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Promise me you won’t tell.”

  I’d been about to say that if I were her, I’d go ahead and tell Mrs. Ansell anyway, but then I remembered how I’d begged Jess and the others not to tell a teacher about the chat-room messages, and how upset I would have been if they’d ignored me and told Miss Carol behind my back.

  “I promise.”

  “I feel so helpless,” said Bibi.

  And that was the precise moment that the most brilliant plan popped into my head, making me tingle all over because it was so clever.

  I couldn’t concentrate properly in prep that evening, as my mind was spinning with thoughts of what I was going to do afterwards. As soon as it finished, I grabbed Jess and whispered, “Got something important to tell you. Come with me.”

  A minute later we were in the computer room.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jess, totally aghast as she watched me type in Georgie’s password.

  “I’ve done it before, it’s okay.”

  “What!”

  I didn’t even turn round at the sound of her breathless gasp. I was on a mission and nothing seemed to matter any more except getting Felissia found out. Then I’d tell Hannah, and she could tell Mrs. Ansell, and Mrs. Ansell could arrange for Felissia’s dorm to be searched. She absolutely must have got Hannah’s swimsuit hidden away somewhere.

  “The bully is definitely Felissia,” I gabbled. “I’ll explain how I know afterwards, but I really need your help, Jess.”

  Jess was silent, but she seemed totally caught up with what I was doing. Her eyes were glued to the screen. “Look!”

  The name Torpedo Gal had come up. I leaned forwards.

  “Is obsession good?” I read out loud.

  There were five
other people online and, one by one, four of them replied.

  No.

  Course not.

  Rubbish.

  Why?

  And then I typed in my own reply. Who’s obsessed?

  Finally Jess spoke. “What are you doing, Grace?” she asked anxiously. “They’ll think it’s Georgie.”

  “I know. I want them to.”

  Jess squashed beside me on the chair. “Why?”

  “So we can carry on with this conversation.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to catch Felissia out.”

  “Look, Torpedo Gal has replied,” said Jess in a whisper, as though Torpedo Gal might be able to hear us. She read the message out loud slowly. “RACE. Sorry. I mean GRACE.”

  I felt my face flooding with colour. I’d never realized how close my name is to the word “race”.

  You’re only jealous, I wrote.

  Jess stiffened beside me. “Georgie’s sure to find out you’ve been impersonating her, you know.”

  “I don’t think she’ll mind when she finds out why. This is important. Listen, Jess…”

  But there was a reply already. Ure joking! Jealous of HER? She’s a DISGrace.

  “Listen, Jess,” I tried again, as I stood up. “I absolutely know it’s Felissia because she actually said I was obsessed, to my face, this afternoon. She was counting up how many races I was going to be in at the swimming gala. She hates me, Jess, because I’m in more races than her, and swimming was always her thing. But I’ve still got to be totally sure it’s her before I tell anyone else. Can you carry on pretending to be Georgie and keep Felissia talking online?” I was at the door now.

  “Where are you going?” asked Jess, with panic in her eyes.

  “To Beech House.” There were butterflies in my stomach, but I had to be brave. For Hannah’s sake.

  “It’s twenty to nine. You know we’re not allowed out after half past eight!” said Jess. “Are you sure you’re thinking straight, Grace?”

  I nodded.

  “But what shall I write?”

  “Put, We’ve always known it was you sending pathetic messages but you don’t scare Grace so you needn’t have bothered…” Jess’s eyes were wide. She’d probably never heard me sounding so full of fight. “Yes, and you can say we also know it was her who ruined Grace’s swimsuit and she’s going to pay for it because we’re going to tell. I just need to see her writing with my own eyes, then she won’t be able to deny it. And then I will go and tell Miss Carol, honestly. And you can say that we know she took my sweatshirt too.”