A phrase had gone through her mind. Divide and conquer. Why were the Blakeneys so keen to separate her and Jude? Did they genuinely want to give the twins a first-class education, or was something more sinister at play?
Jess intended to get to the bottom of that mystery, and others. Until then, she’d been flying blind. Now she had Google. For the first time in a long time, she was in detective mode.
‘All done, Jess,’ said Adam Blakely, knees cracking as he stood and packed away his camera. ‘There’ll be a little piece on you in the Weekend edition of the Daily Gazette. For security reasons, we won’t identify the school, but those who know will know, if you know what I mean.’
Jess didn’t, and didn’t care to.
The photographer picked up his bag and tripod. ‘Good luck.’
‘Adam, are you going to Wales to photograph Jude? Will you take him a message?’
‘Sorry, Jess. We’ll be using a stock shot for that, or nothing at all. Dragon Ridge isn’t quite as photogenic as this school.’
The teacher who’d been supervising the photo session was deep in conversation with a colleague. Jess lingered forlornly on the step, unsure what to do next.
Mrs Atkins had told her that most girls started at Geraldine Rose aged five and continued there until they were eighteen. Clusters of them hung about in smart red uniforms nearby, chattering like starlings. They oozed contentment and poise. Jess couldn’t see anyone who looked as awkward and lonely as she felt.
As she scanned the happy groups, she noticed a woman in the leafy square staring in her direction. She seemed to be smiling at Jess. It was hard to be sure because the blue shadows and gold foliage of a sweet chestnut tree partially obscured her.
There was something familiar about the woman. According to the school brochure, Geraldine Rose was a favourite school with foreign royals, business moguls and celebrities. Maybe the woman was an actress, and Jess had seen her in a film or series. There’d always been some drama or show flickering on the staffroom TV at the Castaway Diner.
Before she could think about it further, a girl with madly curly hair and a smile gridlocked with old-fashioned steel braces tripped up the steps. She’d have fallen flat on her face had her small, spiky-haired friend – and Jess – not caught her.
‘I knew I shouldn’t have put in my contact lenses in the dark,’ the girl said, turning to Jess with a grin. ‘Thanks for the save. I heard you’re good at that – saving people.’
Jess flushed, but the girl was still smiling. ‘Hey, it was meant as a compliment. To be honest, you looked like you loathed having your photo taken, unlike some around here. They’d go into full supermodel mode even if a snapper from Lyme Regis Weekly showed up. Fame monsters. Urgh. But you’re not like that. Zia and I can tell.’
Jess giggled. ‘What was your first clue?’
‘I think it was your I-wish-I-was-on-a-desert-island expression,’ commented Zia, a sudden breeze lifting her long, black hair.
‘That obvious, huh? I need to get better at acting.’
‘Nah. Fakery’s overrated. Better to wear your heart on your sleeve, like us,’ said the girl with braces. ‘I’m Florence – Flo to my friends. This is Zia. We’re the school nerds and resident awkward squad. Scholarship kids from the wrong side of the tracks. Wrong teeth. Wrong hair. Wrong clothes. But brainy. Very brainy.’
‘Even if we say so ourselves,’ Zia chimed in. ‘Want to join our gang?’
Jess laughed. ‘I’d love to.’
As they moved inside, Jess glanced back over her shoulder.
The woman in the square had gone.
22
SWIMMING TRIALS
‘How’s it going, Stink Bomb?’
It was lunchtime on the first Friday of term. Jude was at the extra-curricular activities board trying to decide on the least-worst options. Every cadet had to choose two. It wasn’t easy with Garrick and his buddy Monty buzzing around him like bluebottles.
‘Don’t sign up for rugby, Stink Bomb,’ Garrick goaded. ‘Nobody will wanna tackle you. Not when you smell like week-old haddock left out in the sun.’
He and Monty went chortling off in the direction of the dining hall, slapping each other on the back like they’d won Joke of the Year at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
‘Want a tip?’ muttered the kid beside Jude. ‘Choose Library Duty or Theatre Club. Less chance of dealing with brain-dead losers like those two.’ Taking his own advice, he wrote ‘TEDDY HAMILL’ in neat capitals on the clipboards of each.
‘I don’t read and I can’t act,’ Jude told him.
‘Can’t or won’t?’
Before Jude could reply, the boy had melted away. Thomas and Sebastian took his place, jostling Jude. They were part of Garrick and Monty’s gang. Together, the four of them roamed the school like a pack of highly-strung Doberman dogs, bored and looking for something to chew.
Jude was their new favourite tug rope.
‘Hey, Juuude, don’t be afraid,’ sang Thomas, riffing on the Beatles hit to general hilarity as more boys came crowding round. ‘Jude, don’t be sad. Don’t feel bad. Why don’t you try out for the swim team next week? Dragon Ridge cleaned up at the National Championships last year.’
‘Poor little Jude can’t swim,’ Sebastian informed him. ‘When he crashed his yacht, he fell in the sea and had to be rescued by his sister. Don’t you remember, we read about it in the Daily Gazette?’
Something snapped inside Jude. He heard himself say, ‘No shame in that. My sister’s one of the best ocean swimmers anywhere. She could beat any one of you with her hands tied behind her back. So could I. Before I came here, I was captain of our swim squad in Florida.’
Sebastian scoffed. ‘I’d pay money to see you race Garrick. He’s one of the fastest swimmers in the UK. Coach says he’s a future Olympian.’
Very deliberately, Jude wrote his name on the clipboards for Swim Team trials and running. ‘I’ll see Garrick in the pool, then.’
He strolled off casually, hands in his pockets. His legs were trembling so much he could hardly walk. What had he done? What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking. That’s what.
It was true that he’d captained his class swim squad in Florida, but that had been when he was nine. Before he’d had a panic attack at an inter-school gala. Before he’d nearly drowned on Horseshoe Reef.
He couldn’t back out of the swim trial now, though. Not after telling Sebastian he could beat Garrick with his hands tied behind his back. He’d never live it down.
It was 12.36 a.m. on Friday the 15th of January. The trial was on Monday 25th. What could he do to change his destiny in ten days?
In his mind, he pictured his transformation into a future Olympian in record time in the manner of a movie montage. Rising at dawn to swim laps, pump iron, punch speedballs and do double-unders with a speed-skipping rope. Expanding his lungs with secret breathing techniques known only to Zen masters and opera singers.
‘Some folks have a saying, “Feel the fear and do it anyway,”’ Lucille, their diner waitress friend, had once told Jude. ‘I say: No – go with your gut. Sometimes, gut instinct’s the only thing standing between you and the sixteen-wheeler truck that’s about to roar around a blind bend and crush you flat.’
Jude’s gut had been telling him that Dragon Ridge was the sixteen-wheeler truck ready to crush him flat ever since he’d first learned of the school’s existence, but he was trapped here. There wasn’t a lot he could do about it. He’d have to feel the fear and face Garrick at the swim trial anyway.
What he needed was his very own Mr Miyagi, the Okinawan martial arts master who’d changed Daniel’s destiny in the Karate Kid.
As if by magic, Ms Flowers, the librarian who’d stuck up for him in assembly on his first day, emerged from the staffroom. Jude couldn’t help smiling. If there were a Zen mentor anywhere in this Alcatraz of a school, she’d be it.
He could totally picture her saying solemnly: ‘Never put pas
sion in front of principle, Jude. Even if you win, you lose.’
Seeing her reminded him that he’d been meaning to thank her for her support. He’d put it off for days out of shyness and laziness.
As she turned into the library, Jude decided to follow. He walked in a minute after her and stared around in mystification. Ms Flowers was nowhere to be seen. He even checked between the shelves. It was as if she’d slipped through a portal into another world.
He was halfway to the door when he noticed a shelf signposted ‘RECOMMENDED READS’ behind the librarian’s desk. In the top slot was Lone Wolf. Jess had bought him that exact novel at the Leverick Bay bookshop.
The coincidence of it was uncanny. It was as if his sister had wished it there for him to find. Jude’s legs carried him directly to it. He took it off the shelf and turned the book over in his hands.
The scent of it transported him instantly to Jess’s cabin on You Gotta Friend. The mysteries in her ‘book nook’ had been read so many times, they were all sea-water wrinkled and fragranced with sunblock and Jess’s favourite pineapple juice.
When Jess had gifted him Lone Wolf, Jude had been annoyed. He’d felt as though she was pressuring him to read. He’d tossed the book into a locker and forgotten about it.
Now he was struck by its cover image: a wolf standing on a snowy crag. The blue ripples in the snow reminded him of the sea.
Something about the wolf brought back the feeling that had come over him when he’d glimpsed snowy Blakeney Park from the helicopter. Below, the welcome-tea guests had spilt like ants from the candy-striped marquee. The more they’d jumped up and down and gestured, the more Jude had shrunk from them internally. He’d willed the helicopter to fly on past until he and Jess reached some remote island or wilderness.
‘Hello, Jude.’
Jude slapped the book crookedly on to the shelf. It teetered but stayed put. He kicked over the wastepaper basket in his hurry to escape from behind the desk. ‘Sorry. I was only . . . umm, sorry.’
He bent to stuff the rubbish back into the bin.
‘Jude, it’s no problem, really. The books are here to be discovered.’
When he stood up, Ms Flowers was smiling at him.
‘Nice to see you again. Do you like reading?’
‘My sister does,’ said Jude, side-stepping the question. ‘She’s crazy about mysteries and adventures. She used to read them to me at night, when we were at sea. Sometimes she’d read me stories she’d written too. A lot of times those were my favourites.’
Ms Flowers perched on the edge of her desk. She swung her cherry-red Doc Marten boots. Jude was amazed that Greville Wallingford allowed them.
‘What about you?’ she said. ‘How do you feel about books?’
‘I hate them,’ Jude admitted, startling himself.
‘Hate books or hate reading?’ Ms Flowers retied her laces, as tranquil as a gardener discussing peas and carrots.
‘I hate, hate, hate reading. Don’t mind books. They remind me of my sister. She had a novel nook on our boat. It made her mad that Gabe – he was our guardian – would only let her keep seven books. After he died, she got a load more. Now they’re on the bottom of the ocean.’
‘At least they’re biodegradable,’ remarked Ms Flowers.
Jude almost laughed but caught himself. What was wrong with him? It had been years since he’d talked so much to a stranger.
‘Would you like to choose a book?’ asked Ms Flowers, as though they hadn’t just had a whole conversation about him detesting reading.
‘Only if there’s one about how to become an Olympic-gold-medal-worthy swimmer in eight days.’
‘I have Michael Phelps’s autobiography if that helps.’
‘I was kidding. I just came by to say thanks for the other day. For supporting me in assembly.’
She smiled. ‘It was the greatest of pleasures.’
This time Jude did laugh. ‘Yeah, right. I saw you stuffing Vicks gel up your nose.’
‘Oh, the smell was stomach-churning. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. No, I’m talking about standing up to bullies. I saw what those boys did to you. Saw who did it too. Usual suspects. I can’t abide that sort of thing. I was bullied myself. Frankly, it’s why I became a librarian.’
‘How do you mean?’
Jude edged closer to the door to make it clear he was leaving. He had a bad feeling that Ms Flowers really was the Mr Miyagi of librarians. Before he knew it, she’d have him dusting shelves, filing books and, worse, reading them, just as Mr Miyagi had made Daniel sand his deck and wax his car in the name of karate training.
‘To my mind, books of all kinds – whether they’re adventures and mysteries, or books on space exploration, history, science or climbing Everest – remind us that while bullies, like mosquitoes, have always been with us, heroism is everywhere. Kind people, brave people and quietly extraordinary people are the ones you’ll remember as you go through life. They’re the ones we carry with us.’
Jude was almost at the exit but didn’t feel he could leave. Not with Ms Flowers in full flow. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, I—’
‘Belinda, I risked life and limb to save you the last three chocolate digestives,’ interrupted the geography teacher, entering the library through a connecting door from the next classroom. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s just that Wallingford’s on a staff health drive, so cakes and biscuits are off the menu.’
Ms Flowers laughed. ‘See what I mean, Jude. Kindness stays with you always, even if it’s only in the form of an extra kilogram on the scales!’
‘Cheer up, Gray. It might never happen.’
Jude stopped rummaging in his locker but didn’t trust himself to turn around. He stared fixedly at the shelf in front of him, grappling with the emotions that rose in him like steam.
He wanted to yell: Don’t you know it’s already happened? All the worst and most painful things in the world. Everything and everyone I love has been taken from me!
Controlling himself with difficulty, he pulled a towel from his locker and slung it around his neck, as if he’d been intending to do that all along.
‘So you think can beat me with your hands tied behind your back, Stink Bomb?’ teased Garrick.
In an ideal world, Jude would have responded with something clever, but he was focused on conserving oxygen. His chest was tight, making breathing difficult. ‘Sure. No problem,’ was all he could manage.
The Karate Kid montage hadn’t happened. No weight training or speed skipping. No chest-expanding lessons from opera singers. No Mr Miyagi advice from Ms Flowers. No laps. The pool had been closed to juniors all week for special training sessions. And now it was the day of the swim trials and Jude had nowhere to hide.
Ignoring Garrick’s taunts, he pushed through the swing doors of the locker room and entered the swimming pool area.
Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. The pool was Olympic-sized, with a deep section beneath a three-metre diving board. The atmosphere was charged with adrenalin and aggression.
Stream-lined, hard-muscled boys in Speedos launched themselves into the water. They cleaved furious lines along the lanes, did professional turns, and powered back. Friends and competitors cheered them on from the stands.
The coach was a tanned demi-god with a whistle.
‘Jude Gray? Four-hundred-metres freestyle? Lane six,’ he ordered without taking his eyes from the swimmers in the pool. ‘Garrick, you’re in lane five.’ He leaned over lane one. ‘PETERSON, GET YOUR LAZY BUTT INTO GEAR OR YOU’RE OFF THE TEAM.’
Had Jude been able to find the courage, he’d have pleaded cramps or illness. Nobody would have wanted him throwing up in the pool. But there wasn’t an ounce of bravery left in his body.
Meekly, he made his way to lane six, which was positioned directly below the high-diving board. As he took his mark, he had a flashback to Horseshoe Reef. He recalled the panic that had come over him when he’d realized he was tangled in fishing li
ne and being dragged beneath the surface.
The whistle blew. Jude hit churned-up deep water for the first time since the sea squall.
His arms were so weak, he could have been ploughing through porridge. A quarter of the way down the pool, he was gasping. By the end of the first lap, he thought he was having a cardiac arrest. Shooting pains cramped his heart.
The coach fished him out of the pool and made a show of crossing his name off the list on his clipboard. He was surprisingly tender.
‘Something you ate again, huh, cadet? Don’t worry. Happens to the best of us. You’re welcome to try again next term. For now, I’d advise something less physical. Art, maybe?’
That night, Jude cried into his thin pillow until the corner was soaking wet. He missed Jess and Sam so much it hurt. Missed the ocean. Missed feeling free.
Finally, the boy in the next bed spat, ‘Man up, Gray,’ causing Teddy Hamill to cross the dormitory to try to defend Jude.
Jude nearly bit both their heads off.
Jumping out of bed, he stalked off along the corridor barefoot and in pyjamas. On impulse, he continued down the stairs to the main part of the school. He had a splitting headache.
The nurse’s office was locked, but a light glowed in the library.
Jude went in. If Ms Flowers was still up and working, she’d be sure to have a paracetamol in her box of tricks.
Once again, the library was empty.
Jude searched between shelves, in case he’d missed her like last time, but there was nobody there. Probably comparing notes on kindness with Aslan in Narnia, he thought bitterly.
He was about to leave when he noticed Jess’s book Lone Wolf on Ms Flowers’ desk. Why did it just keep turning up? It was like it was taunting him.
Jude seized it and ripped it in half.
It felt wrong. But it also felt good.
He tore it into quarters. That felt even better.
With every tear, his hurt seemed to ease, so he carried on. He ripped up the pool disaster, the stink bomb, and everything he’d ever failed at. Ripped up missing Jess and Sam. Ripped up losing Gabe. Ripped up the Blakeneys and their strange, secret-filled mansion.
Wave Riders Page 15
