Any Fin Is Possible

by Mo O'Hara

The school track team took up the whole back row of the bus. They were playing ‘Laugh or Loser!’, a game that involved pulling faces at drivers behind us. If the drivers laughed, they got the thumbs-up. If they got angry, the whole track team made ‘L for Loser’ signs and stuck their tongues out.

  ‘I don’t really get the point of that game,’ Pradeep groaned, lining up a full sick bag on the floor with several others. ‘New bag!’

  ‘I think the point of the game is that it has no point,’ I replied. ‘I mean, if you got more points for getting a little old lady to shout at you than a lorry driver, then that might be more of a challenge . . .’ I noticed Pradeep’s green colour getting worse. ‘Sorry!’ I quickly handed him the first bag that came to hand. As he opened the top, a flash of orange burst out.

  ‘Mmmmmm?’ Pradeep squealed as Frankie, my pet zombie goldfish, clamped his mouth shut with his fins.

  ‘Whoops! That must have been the one I put Frankie in,’ I muttered. I handed Pradeep a fresh bag as Frankie plopped back into his water-filled one. ‘I guess he wanted to make sure that you weren’t going to heave on him,’ I added, placing Frankie on my lap while Pradeep was sick. Again.

  We were on our way to the Countywide Inter-Schools Intellectual Sports Day Challenge. On our coach were the netball team, the track team and the football team – who were going to take part in the sporty events. Plus the chess team, the poetry society, and the knitting, cooking and quilting clubs – who were going to compete in the intellectual and craft events.

  ‘What are we going to do with Frankie during the races?’ Pradeep asked.

  ‘It’s not like we’ll really be racing, Pradeep,’ I said. ‘I can look after him while you’re doing your chess-club stuff. And I’m just a reserve for the track team. They’ll never make me actually race.’

  ‘But are you sure it was a good idea to bring him?’ Pradeep went on.

  ‘I couldn’t risk leaving Frankie at home,’ I replied. ‘What if Mark gets home from school before we do? And what about Fang?’

  Ever since Mark, my Evil Scientist big brother, tried to poison Frankie with toxic gunge and flush him down the loo, they’ve been mortal enemies. It was hard enough having a pet and a big brother who were always trying to attack each other, but things got even worse when Mark got a cute, but totally evil, vampire-kitten sidekick called Fang.

  Pradeep nodded carefully. He looked a bit green again – probably from the nodding and from looking at the water sloshing about in Frankie’s bag. If you hadn’t guessed already, Pradeep and bus trips go together like snow and socks, or homework and weekends, or Mark (my Evil Scientist big brother) and Frankie (my pet undead zombie goldfish).

  In other words – they don’t go together at all.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon,’ I said to Pradeep. Really I had no idea if we were nearly there or if we were halfway to Timbuktu (not that I know where Timbuktu is, or Timbuk-one, but I’m pretty sure that it’s far away).

  I rolled up the top of Frankie’s bag, stood up and walked a few seats to the front of the bus. ‘Mr Thomas?’ I leaned over the back of our sports coach’s seat. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  ‘Hunh?’ His head jerked as he woke up. Instinctively he turned around to deal with the sound of uproar from the back of the bus. ‘Settle down back there,’ he bellowed. ‘You’re acting like a bunch of hooligans!’

  This was Mr Thomas’s stock telling-off for any occasion. If you were playing with the Velcro on your shoes during assembly you were ‘acting like a bunch of hooligans’. If you were messing around in the dinner line in the cafeteria, you were ‘acting like a bunch of hooligans’. If you were attaching rockets to the underbelly of the Earth so that it would shoot off into the sun and blow up into a million pieces and Mr Thomas caught you, he would probably say you were ‘acting like a bunch of hooligans’.

  I was just picturing what a hooligan might look like when Mr Thomas turned back to me.

  ‘Todd? Tim? Trevor?’ He squinted at me.

  ‘Tom,’ I replied.

  ‘I knew that,’ he said. ‘What do you want, kid?’ Then he looked over at Pradeep. ‘How’s the throwing-up boy?’

  ‘Still a bit green, sir,’ I explained. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  He looked out of the window. ‘We’re just arriving. The sports ground’s over there.’ He pointed to a big field up ahead. ‘We’ll park in the coach park and head over. Very exciting times for Parkside Primary!’ He looked proudly at the hooligans at the back of the bus. Then he looked at me again. ‘And you’re here because . . . ?’

  ‘I’m on the track team, sir,’ I answered. ‘I joined last term. I’ve come last in all the races I’ve run in so far.’ I paused. ‘You’re my coach, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. Then he frowned at Pradeep and the next couple of rows of kids behind him. There was Susan Church – general-knowledge-quiz champion and expert origami folder, Felix French – Rubik’s Cube county champion and winner of the Junior Nobel Prize for Science (for discovering a global cure for nits), Chin Li – multi-language-speaking chess demon and lead violinist in the school orchestra, and Kofi Johnson – mathletics record-holder and winner of Junior Chef Challenge. (His strawberry-and-pomegranate roulade was so good it made the judges cry, live on TV.)

  They were all playing with their calculators.

  ‘And they are here because . . . ?’ Mr Thomas went on.

  ‘They’re the chess team, sir.’ I paused again. ‘You don’t coach them.’

  ‘Right, athletes, listen up!’ Mr Thomas called out as I made my way back to my seat. ‘Today is your lucky day. You get to represent your school on the playing fields. Run fast, kick or throw that ball into the net, and . . .’ He paused and looked at the non-sporty kids. ‘. . . knit your little socks off, or whatever it is that you do. Let’s go out there and win, people!’

  The bus erupted into whoops and cheers, especially from the back. Then Mr Thomas added, ‘And TRY not to act like hooligans!’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think today is my lucky day,’ Pradeep mumbled as he heaved into his bag again.

  The coach finally came to a stop and we started to get our stuff together. Our school had made it into the Countywide Inter-Schools Intellectual Sports Day Challenge because we had an ace football team, a championship netball squad and a winning chess team, but all the Parkside Primary teams and clubs had been invited to participate. Other competing schools were coming from across the county and could be primary or secondary schools. In between being sick on the journey, Pradeep had explained that ‘the competitors’ ages are factored into the scoring system, so that the results accurately reflect the abilities of the kids relative to their age groups’.

  When he saw my blank look he’d added, ‘Younger kids competing in the same event as older kids will get more points for the same result.’

  Every school wanted to win because, besides the gold medals, the winning school would get a huge cash prize. If we won, our school was going to put the money towards building a swimming pool. Pradeep and I both thought it would be brilliant! Frankie would finally have somewhere safe to hang out at school. He’d just have to stay out of the way of the swimming team (that is, if we had a swimming team, which we will only have if we build a school pool).

  As we were getting off, what looked like a holiday coach pulled in next to us. The writing on the side said, St Agnes the Achiever Girls’ Preparatory School and then their school motto in Latin. Chin Li, who speaks seven languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German, Ancient Greek, Latin and Welsh – his mum’s from there) translated it for us. It said, ‘God wants us to win’.

  The St Agnes double-decker bus also had a satellite dish on top and what looked like a training room on the lower floor.

  ‘Is that an on-board gym?’ Susan Church asked, peering through the windows.

  ‘So they can train on the way?’ Pradeep said. ‘We’re doomed!’

  I think I saw Felix French actually wipe a tear fro
m his eye.

  ‘It’s OK, guys,’ I said. ‘None of us lot are even going to compete in the sporting events.’

  ‘Tom’s right,’ Kofi Johnson said. ‘We’ll win our chess matches hands down, and maybe even find time to work out a couple more decimal places for pi while we’re cheering on the other Parkside teams.’

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  Pradeep nudged me, ‘Hey, Tom, I think Mr Thomas is doing roll call for the track team. You’d better get over there.’

  ‘I’ll take Frankie, OK?’ I said, holding up the sick bag with Frankie inside. Then I noticed that all the chess-club kids were staring at me like I had just said something really weird.

  ‘Umm . . . I like to call the different bags names,’ I added. ‘This one is Frankie.’ I patted the bag. ‘Come on to the bin then, Frankie.’

  Before anyone could say anything, I grabbed my stuff and sped around to the back of the coach. A box of blue team water bottles had been unpacked, and while no one was looking I poured Frankie and the water from the sick bag into a bottle.

  ‘Time to get sporty, Frankie,’ I whispered. He looked up at me and then jumped out of the bottle and did a perfect somersault with a triple twist and a wave, before plopping back into the water with barely a splash.

  ‘OK, OK, you’re already sporty!’ I shook my head. ‘I guess it’s just me who doesn’t belong here.’ I screwed on the lid, put the bottle in my pocket and went to join the super-fit track-team kids for roll call. The fact that I am on the track team at all is totally down to my Evil Scientist big brother. One day after school, Mark had managed to kidnap Frankie and was racing home to flush him. Mr Thomas saw me chasing him and made me sign up for the track team right away. Unfortunately I’ve never run that fast ever again. Now I’m stuck on the team until the end of term, but Mr Thomas has pretty much given up on me. I’m just a reserve, with the job of getting drinks and oranges ready in the breaks.

  As soon as roll call was over I went back to the bus and was starting to unload the oranges when I heard a couple of girls from St Agnes talking.

  ‘Camille, make sure that the drinks are exactly three degrees above room temperature for the break. That’s the optimum level for mineral absorption.’ A girl with dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and wearing a ‘Head Girl’ T-shirt was giving orders to another girl with short blonde hair, who was writing it all down in a notepad.

  ‘Cut the oranges exactly five minutes before the break starts so that they are still fresh, refill the water bottles with imported mineral water, fold and warm the towels and prepare the motivational music.’

  ‘Check, check, check, check,’ notepad girl said, scribbling away. ‘Anything else?’

  The head girl looked over at me. ‘And NO fraternizing with the other teams!’ she huffed, glaring at me as she walked away.

  I lifted out some more bags of oranges and put them in a cooler to take to the sports ground.

  ‘What does she mean by “no fraternizing”?’ I asked.

  The blonde girl smiled. ‘She means I shouldn’t talk to you.’ Then she tried to do a glare like the head girl had done, but it just kind of fell off her face and turned into a smile again.

  ‘I’m Camille,’ she said.

  ‘I’m Tom,’ I replied. ‘Are you on orange duty too?’

  ‘Always,’ she answered.

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘But I don’t mind. I get to eat all the best ones!’

  ‘I want to be out there running,’ Camille said, her smile fading, ‘but they never give me the chance. I lost my first race at the beginning of term and they won’t risk me losing again.’

  ‘You can’t always win,’ I said as we picked up our boxes of oranges and drinks and walked to the sports ground.

  ‘Oh yes you can. And they do.’ She paused. ‘I don’t care about winning though, I just want to race.’

  We had just started setting up the break station when Pradeep and the chess team came running across the playing field towards us. That was something I never thought I’d see – the entire chess team breaking into a sweat all at once!

  ‘Tom!’ Pradeep panted. ‘The other school . . . it’s . . . it’s . . . Westfield High!’

  ‘Your brother’s school!’ Kofi Johnson jumped in.

  ‘The third school is Mark’s school!’ I cried. ‘No way!’

  ‘Way indeed,’ said Susan Church, rubbing a stitch in her side.

  ‘But . . . there’s no way that Mark would actually be on any of the teams,’ I went on.

  ‘I assure you he is,’ Felix French panted.

  As I spoke, an eerie ‘Mwhaaa haaaaa haaaa haaaaa!’ drifted across the playing field. As soon as Frankie heard Mark’s evil laugh he started thrashing around so hard in the water bottle that it fell out of my pocket and started rolling towards the sound. Frankie must have been in full-on zombie attack mode in there!

  ‘Mark can’t be here!’ I cried, dropping to the floor and scrambling after the bottle.

  ‘Oh yes he can!’ Pradeep replied.

  ‘Oh NO he can’t!’ Camille repeated. We both gave her a confused look. ‘Sorry, I thought it was a panto thing!’ She grinned apologetically.

  I finally managed to grab the thrashing water bottle and held on to it tightly to try to stop the shaking. When I looked up, Mark was jogging across the playing field towards us. He was moving really fast, not panting, not sweating and most weirdly of all . . . not complaining about having to do exercise! Normally, unless a sport involved throwing something heavy, he just wasn’t interested.

  ‘Hello, morons!’ Mark yelled as he got close to the break station. ‘Great day to win, huh?’ He smirked. ‘Actually, it’s a great day for me to win, and it’s a great day for you to lose!’

  Frankie’s water bottle was still shaking like mad, so I jumped up and pretended I was using it to do bicep curls. I tried my best to look casual and not to panic.

  ‘Mark!’ I forced myself to say. ‘What a surprise. Are you competing?’

  ‘That’s right, loser,’ he said with an evil smile. ‘I am representing my track team for the Inter-Schools Smart Arty Sporty Challenge thing.’

  ‘The Inter-Schools Intellectual Sports Day Challenge,’ Pradeep corrected him.

  Mark scowled. ‘Whatever! My school are definitely going to win the cash prize, and the person who wins the most events for Westfield High gets to decide what the school spends the money on. And that person will be ME! I’m going to have my own personal science lab built, and it won’t cost me a penny! Then no one can stop me from doing my . . . experiments.’ He glared at the chess team, Camille and me. ‘So is anyone here gonna put up a fight?’ He looked us up and down. ‘Nope. Didn’t think so.’ He grinned and looked across the playing field at the track, football and netball kids from Parkside Primary. ‘I’d better go shake hands with the real competition. See ya, losers!’ he yelled over his shoulder as he jogged off.

  I shot Pradeep a look that said, ‘When did Mark become sporty? Where are the rest of his team?’

  Pradeep shot me a look that said, ‘I don’t know, but I think we have to find out.’

  Then Camille shot me a look that said, ‘What was all that about? Why are you using a shaking water bottle to do pretend bicep curls? And why are you and your friend talking in secret looks?’

  I did a double take as I was not expecting a readable look from Camille.

  I took a deep breath and attempted a double look that would say to Camille, ‘Ummm, that’s my big brother, Mark, who happens to be an Evil Scientist and isn’t usually exactly sporty . . . and you’re not going to believe this but he and my pet goldfish are mortal enemies so I couldn’t let him know that my fish is in fact in this water bottle.’

  And to Pradeep, ‘Shoot! She understands our secret looks.’

  Camille smiled and said out loud, ‘What kind of fish do you have? I keep tropical fish in my spare time.’

  ‘Umm . . . ya know . . . just a goldfish,’ I gabbled. Luckily Prad
eep pulled me away towards the registration tent before I started trying to explain the whole ‘zombie goldfish’ thing to Camille and the rest of the chess team.

  ‘Yep. Just an ordinary goldfish,’ Pradeep shouted over his shoulder as we rushed away, which caused Frankie to thrash about even harder.

  ‘Don’t be mad, Frankie,’ I whispered to the water bottle. ‘Pradeep was just trying not to blow your cover.’

  ‘Right,’ Pradeep said. ‘We can’t go around telling people – hey, we have a pet zombie goldfish. You know – the kind with hypnotic powers?’

  When we got to the registration tent, the sports coach from Mark’s school was inside, explaining to the officials that most of his track team suddenly weren’t well enough to compete.

  Frankie seemed to have calmed down, so I unscrewed the lid of the bottle and whispered, ‘Are you OK?’

  Frankie turned his head away and held up a fin in a ‘Talk to the fin cos the fish ain’t listening’ kind of way.

  ‘Come on, Frankie,’ Pradeep said.

  ‘You’re anything but ordinary,’ I added. ‘You know we know that!’

  Frankie finally looked up at us and winked.

  I set his water bottle down on an unmanned desk and we walked over to the far side of the tent. Just outside were benches full of track athletes from Mark’s school. They were all just sitting there – knitting!

  ‘They must have picked up the needles and wool from the knitting tent,’ Pradeep said. ‘But why are they all just sitting about?’

  ‘It’s as if all their sportiness has been sucked out of them,’ I replied. ‘But how?’

  As we headed back to pick up Frankie, we suddenly noticed that Mark’s sports coach and all the officials were staring at the side of the tent with one eye and looking up the nostril of the person on their left with the other.