Maddo knuckled Jimmy in the solar plexus, the pain forcing him to wince and straighten up to his full height.
‘Vic’s talking to you, blubber-belly,’ Maddo hissed.
‘I . . . I’m getting a lesson.’
As one, the three boys closed in. ‘You’re no’ seriously showing yourself in public?’ said Victor, voice low and dangerous. He was wearing fancy goggles around his neck like an extra pair of eyes. ‘We canny let you do that,’ piped Maddo who, like Dog Breath, was changed for swimming. Jimmy reeled back from the sour sweat smell of Maddo’s armpit combined with Dog Breath’s dog breath, as with sudden force Victor slammed Jimmy against the lockers, piercing his shoulder blades with two protruding locker keys.
‘Ugh,’ Victor shoved Jimmy again, revolted at having touched the film of sweat covering Jimmy’s entire body.
‘You’re disgustin’.’ He stepped back, whipping Jimmy’s towel from under his arm.
With a flick he snapped the towel open, catching Jimmy hard on the cheek before he could flinch.
‘Fat-disgustin’-loser.’
‘Fat-disgustin’-loser.’ Maddo and Dog Breath automatically joined in the chant as Victor flicked the towel again. This time it glanced the side of Jimmy’s eye, drawing tears.
‘He’s greetin’. The blubber’s blubbering.’ Maddo guffawed as Jimmy curled instinctively, clutching his eye, leaving his back exposed to the next swipe of his towel.
They were all prancing around him now, in a mad dance. Skinny white bodies and bare feet. Maddo and Dog Breath poking Jimmy’s belly, slapping his backside, chucking his cheeks and making quick karate kicks at his legs while Victor drew the towel back for another swipe and another swipe. Welts rose over Jimmy’s torso as he swayed helplessly out of the firing line while Victor choreographed his moves to the relentless, concealing throb of the poolside music.
‘This – flick – would be a lot more – flick flick – fun if you – flick – fought back, you fat poof,’ said Victor, throwing in the towel at last. At last he made to drop the towel into the filthy wet gully that gathered slops from the changing areas.
But that was when GI Joe lunged from a changing cubicle right next to the lockers in time to catch Jimmy’s towel before it hit the ground.
‘A word, gents,’ he said shepherding Victor, Maddo and Dog Breath out of sight, leaving Jimmy slumped against the cool metal of the locker doors, his towel pressed hard against his eyes.
Chapter 16
Taking the plunge
‘They’re a shower of wasters, Jim,’ said GI Joe through clenched teeth when he returned to Jimmy. ‘You’re bigger than the lot of them put together when they behave like that. Now. Let’s do this.’
Meekly, Jimmy followed GI Joe down the row of lockers to the poolside.
He felt wobbly after Victor’s assault. Drained. Close to tears. Last thing in the world he wanted to do now was make another fool attempt at swimming. He’d never be like Victor in the water, needing all that impressive squad paraphernalia. Why on earth had he asked GI Joe to teach him swimming? Jimmy and water just didn’t mix.
How long had GI Joe been in there, anyway, Jimmy wondered? And why hadn’t he come out sooner? Why wait until Victor and his sidekicks were getting tore in before he intervened?
This wasn’t the time to ask. GI Joe was already at the shallow end, jerking his head impatiently for Jimmy to join him. Here was a moment Jimmy wished more than anything that he could be invisible.
No such luck.
There might as well have been an announcement over the PA system:
EYES LEFT EVERYBODY – FAT BOY ON THE MOVE
because any head that wasn’t underwater turned to get an eyeful.
There was total hiatus in the pitch and thrum of the pool, all eyes following Jimmy as he lumbered into view behind GI Joe. Silence echoed through the sticky, chlorinated air.
The pool’s surface smoothed to a millpond as swimmers froze.
Even the music stopped.
Then reaction began to ripple across the pool. There was laughter. There were sharp intakes of breath. There were kids pretending to make tidal waves.
Jimmy shrivelled. Shrunk inside. Died a thousand deaths. But there was no escape.
‘Jim, pay attention.’
GI Joe didn’t mess about. He positioned Jimmy at the shallow end of the pool, shuffling him forward until his toes were over the edge. Jimmy had to trust him. After all, he couldn’t see his own feet.
‘Step forward,’ GI Joe barked as though he were on a parade ground.
‘Don’t look down and you’ll land in the water standing up. It’ll be over your waist, but you’ll be fine.’
GI Joe’s hands gripped Jimmy’s upper arms.
‘Don’t push me,’ Jimmy wheedled before he could stop himself, cursing his fear.
‘Don’t PUSH me!’
Last time Jimmy had been near a pool; the one and only school swimming lesson the PE department would let Jimmy take, he’d uttered these same words. Victor had been at his back, mimicking: ‘Don’t PUSH me!’ About to dunt Jimmy into the pool where the water would come over his chin. Nearly choking him. Hissing words in Jimmy’s ear that sent him off balance even before he was pushed.
‘See your Auntie. My mum says she’s no’ really your auntie –’
Jimmy was twisted round, mouthing a puzzled ‘Wha –?’ at Victor before he was felled.
‘Timberrrr.’
‘Don’t push me.’
‘I won’t,’ said GI Joe, releasing his grip on Jimmy’s arms. ‘You’ll do this all yourself.’
Plumbline-straight Jimmy fell, feet touching the bottom of the pool much, much sooner than he would have believed. The water reached no further than his waist. Just as GI Joe had promised. He’d done it.
From the corner of his eye, Jimmy watched Victor watching him. Keenly. Eyes narrowed. Arms folded. He stood shin deep in the kiddies splash pool ignoring Maddo and Dog Breath who lay on their backs before him frothing the water with their feet. He turned away slowly, as GI Joe slipped into the water beside Jimmy and with the sides of his fists, thumped Jimmy at the top of each shoulder. Coach was grinning from ear to ear.
‘That took guts, Jim,’ he said. ‘Well done.’
Chapter 17
Swimming
All that hassle, thought Jimmy, drifting off to sleep, and we didn’t even do any swimming. GI Joe wanted to leave that until the morning. ‘Seven thirty, when this place opens.’
He’d made Jimmy kneel until only his head was above water. For one cringing moment, Jimmy feared he was going to get a blessing. But no danger. Coach just wanted Jimmy to hold his breath and sink s-l-o-w-l-y under the water breathing out, and then come up again s-l-o-w-l-y, still breathing. Made him do it about fifty times, and after Jimmy became used to the sensation of the water over his head and round his face, it was a doddle. He felt like a twat at first, right enough, but once Treesa’s trunks were underwater, people ignored him.
Only Victor noised him up, repeatedly diving above him like a low-flying jet. Victor’s dives, long and streamlined – beautiful – flew him in an arc nearly a third of the way up the pool before his body cut the water. It would be another third of the pool later before he surfaced, ploughing to the deep end with one, two, three sleek strokes of front crawl.
‘Waster. Tries hard when it suits him,’ muttered GI Joe. Like Jimmy, he watched Victor give the finger to the pool attendant pointing out the NO DIVING notice.
Several dives later, Victor was marched from the pool area by two attendants. ‘Looks like you’re having a ball there, Coach,’ Jimmy heard him say to GI Joe with a chummy click of his tongue as he swaggered towards the showers. ‘Away you home and grow up,’ GI Joe replied, turning away from Victor back to Jimmy.
But Victor didn’t go home. Strange, thought Jimmy, breaking through the water for the umpteenth time. Once changed, Victor sat alone in the spectators’ gallery, arms draped over the safety rail, frowning as he w
atched Jimmy with GI Joe.
When the lesson was over and Jimmy heaved himself up the pool steps, he sensed something other than Victor’s mockery in the eyes boring his wet torso and tracking his journey to the cubicles. It felt more like resentment.
Victor was in Jimmy’s dream tonight too, sitting where Aunt Pol usually sat. He wouldn’t budge when she arrived and asked him to give up his place. Instead, Victor pointed towards the deep end. Jabbed at the Shadow Shape. Whispering in Aunt Pol’s ear, eyes smirking all the time at Jimmy. But Jimmy couldn’t hear anything that was said because the music in the swimming pool dream was too loud. ‘Heroes’, his favourite Bowie track, blasted through his head on a loop.
GI Joe was standing over him in the shallow end wearing Jimmy’s hideous Hawaiian trunks. They were so big that GI Joe had cut arm holes in them and wore them as a baggy costume. Jimmy felt sorry for him, dressed like that. He felt relieved that he wore proper racing trunks like Victor’s now. And goggles. A real swimmer.
Trapped in dream paralysis, Jimmy watched as Victor leapt from the spectators’ gallery and dived expertly over Jimmy’s head. One dive propelled him all the way to the deep end, landing him just where the Shadow Shape hovered. His body, as he waved smugly back towards Jimmy, obliterated the Shadow Shape completely.
‘Wait,’ Jimmy’s dream voice called, body aching to push off from the side and reach for the deep end. He stretched out both arms, kicking off against the side of the pool with all his strength.
And he flew, cutting the water like a torpedo. Whoosh, whoosh whoosh. Ellie, a mermaid, wearing her specs instead of goggles, passed him underwater, hair floating around her head in a giant halo. She was blowing him bubble kisses.
In fast-forward, Jimmy passed Dad – who ignored him – in the armchair. He dodged kicks from Maddo and Dog Breath, circling him like sharks after meat. Ducked squares of tablet Father Patrick flicked at his head as he swam by.
Jimmy strained for the deep end. For the first time ever in all the years of his swimming pool dream, he could make out the tiles marked:
DEEP END DEPTH 2 METRES
He was going to meet the Shadow Shape at last.
Blood pounded his ears from the effort he was making. His lungs were bursting as, with one final lunge, Jimmy reached for the edge of the pool.
Was that a hand there? Fingers reaching towards him? Ready to pull him out? Ready to greet him?
Jimmy arms strained their sockets, stretching for tantalising dream fingers. He lifted up his head, gulping in air as he surfaced. He opened his eyes, groping the darkness of his bedroom for the hand of the Shadow Shape. And –
CRASH!
toppled to the floor with a humungous thump.
Chapter 18
Weightless
Jimmy couldn’t help it. Kept floating off all through English.
Whole body rising up out of the seat, hovering horizontal over the class. Like Superman.
What a feeling!
If only he could pluck Ellie from her chair. Tuck her in the crook of his arm, pointing his fist at the open window. Together they would fly out, off to enjoy a day exploring the stratosphere.
Up, up and awayyyyyy!
Late night supper on Krypton; coffee and tablet. Then home.
Jimmy was celebrating.
He could swim.
Three hours ago he had learned to swim. Nothing had ever felt so good.
Two lengths.
Skoosh-case.
Look! I can swim everybody, he shouted silently at the class. And it was all thanks to Ellie. Not that she knew that.
Jimmy had made such a clatter falling out of bed that the downstairs neighbours thumped their ceiling with a stick. That had woken Mum. When she saw the state of Jimmy – a big, dazed, sweaty, breathless heap on the carpet – she nearly had the emergency doctor out.
Refused point blank to let Jimmy go to school: ‘School? You’re going in an oxygen tent, never mind school.’
No school, thought Jimmy, would mean no more Ellie until fourth year, and the thought of that hurt more than the purple bruise on his shoulder sustained when he tumbled out of bed and landed on his inhaler.
So he kept his appointment with GI Joe. Lied to Mum to do it. Told her they were discussing the swimathon catering budget in the school gym.
‘Ouch!’
GI Joe had greeted Jimmy with a friendly punch on that sore shoulder. The pain reactivated last night’s dream, flashed up the highlights:
Victor watching through narrowed eyes.
GI Joe in that outfit.
Ellie, the kissing mermaid.
Jimmy losing the Shadow Shape. Again.
GI Joe threw Jimmy some goggles and a pair of big dusty brown trunks. ‘Wakey, wakey, Jim. Try these for size. Can’t have you showing me up in wallpaper today,’ he said.
The trunks smelt of tobacco and damp. The elastic around the waist was perished. Jimmy didn’t like to ask where they came from, in case GI Joe confirmed his suspicion: they’d crawled from Father Patrick’s underwear drawer.
The pool was eerily quiet, stretching awake for the new day. Jimmy had his pick of the changing cubicles. The floors were clean. No music played, so the only sound was the rhythmic, soothing thrash thrash thrash of early morning swimmers – heads down, caps on – putting in their lap-fix before breakfast.
When he analysed it later, staring at the back of Ellie’s head during English, trying to figure how many different shades of brown he could distinguish, Jimmy realised he knew he would swim today.
Last night’s dream had primed him. Trained him up. Had left him with the nearliness of reaching the Shadow Shape.
At such an early hour, the spectators’ gallery was dark, no one, especially no Victor, looking on. Judging. Criticising. Mocking. Even the pool attendants – who had watched Jimmy nervously last night – were ignoring him, swabbing the poolside like sleepwalkers.
‘Do what you did yesterday,’ Called GI Joe. ‘Put your face in the water and count to three. Then surface. This time though . . .’
. . . you’ve got to lie horizontally, like in the dream. An inner voice whispered through a secret earpiece in Jimmy’s head. Remember you pushed off from the side and stretched your arms out in front and you flew –?
‘. . . imagine you’re Superman, Jim. You won’t sink. Look I’ll show you.’
Jimmy twitched, impatient, as GI Joe waded alongside him and demonstrated what he wanted Jimmy to do. Legs against the side. Arms out. Face in the water. Kick off and –
Fly. You’ll fly, Jim. Try one stroke.
Jimmy didn’t need anyone to show him. He already knew.
Suddenly, like a light switching on inside him, he realised the ability to swim was there. Always was. Stored under layers of blubber and misery.
In the DNA.
Buried deep.
A secret.
That first stroke was the hardest. Not immediately, when the initial push-off carried Jimmy away from the side and out into the pool. That felt magic! Jimmy was weightless. Flying. Swimming. Then that momentum faded, and Jimmy began to sink towards the bottom of the pool. Game over. Wheech him out with the big hoop and call the paramedics.
Not today. Not after last night.
Through his goggles Jimmy could see GI Joe’s hands in the water ready to grab him. Ready to help him stand. Say, ‘Not bad, Jim. Let’s try it again.’
Not today. Not after last night.
Because Jimmy wasn’t ready to let his weight suck him to the bottom.
So he kicked. Not gracefully, but not disgracefully either. It was an instinctive frog-kick, strong enough to lift his legs into the horizontal position and keep him afloat. And so he kicked again, and again, and before he knew it, he was well past GI Joe. Kicking. Floating. Breathing. Swimming. All the way to the deep end.
His lungs were bursting as he grabbed the side, and hauled his head out of the water.
‘Yesss,’ he spluttered, imagining the Shadow Shape’s long fing
ers reaching down, shaking his hand.
Chapter 19
Sooks
‘Ten years on? Who knows where I’ll be, or what I’ll be doing. Maybe I don’t want to write down too much in case that limits me. After all, the world’s my oyster.’
Mrs Hughes surveyed the class over her reading glasses, and sighed. ‘Now that,’ she said, ‘had vision. Excellent!’
‘Who done it, miss?’
Maddo’s eyes slid suspiciously over the class.
‘Don’t worry, Matthew, it wasn’t you.’
Under cover of snorting Victor muttered, ‘That Skellie Sook,’ just loud enough to attract a glare from Mrs Hughes.
‘With a couple of exceptions, most of these essays were extremely disappointing,’ she went on over the dying laughter, fixing her eyes on Victor. ‘In style, and content. Most of you think you’ll be picked out to join some band who don’t write their own songs, and writhe around semi-naked on children’s television.’
‘Sounds a’ right to me,’ snuffled Dog Breath.
Mrs Hughes sighed. ‘Pack up, you nosey lot.’
Blink and you’d miss the imperceptible glance of approval that Mrs Hughes sent to the back of the class where Jimmy sat. Unless you were Victor. Paying attention when it really mattered.
‘Sook,’ Victor snarled under his breath, grinning like a hungry shark who’s just spotted lunch on the horizon.
‘Jimmy. Excellent. Well done.’
Mrs Hughes followed Jimmy out of the classroom. Behind the camouflage of his bulk, she rested the flat of her hand against his back.
‘You know that when people write down their goals they tend to achieve them. You stick in there. ’Bout time we saw what you were made of.’
In the corridor, Jimmy dodged Victor and moved to catch up with Ellie. Camouflaged by the interval throng he figured he could get away with being seen beside her. He needed to give her the mini-disc he’d made.
Well: that was the pretext. He really just needed to see her. Talk to her. Get closer. Breathe in the same air she breathed out.
There she was, up ahead, tight in the middle of an arm cleek with Senga and Chantal. Totally out of place flanked by that pair, Jimmy realised, watching the trio slam quickly through the interval seethe. Ellie, Jimmy sensed, was in trouble again, although there was no way he could reach her fast through the broil of bodies clogging the corridor.
Fat Boy Swim Page 7
