Girl Out of Water

by Nat Luurtsema

  “Wait, should I get changed?” I’m just in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “If you get changed I’ll know it is “like that”.”

  Fine. I won’t get changed. I follow her out to the car, reassuring her of the non-romantic nature of my trip.

  “Seriously, Mum, I could fit him in my pocket.”

  “He’ll grow.”

  “So will I!”

  We pass Dad driving back from dropping Lav off. Mum points at me with her thumb and gives him an exaggerated eye-roll. I grab the steering wheel so we don’t plough into a line of parked cars. Dad’s laughing as he drives off.

  I wait for Gabe outside the entrance to the shopping mall. I hope we have enough to talk about. We usually chat easily, maybe because he’s the only one who’s not scared that I fancy him. (For the record, I don’t fancy Roman and Pete, but I feel like I should and that makes me feel like they think I do and … oh shut up, it’s complicated being me.)

  But I only know Gabe through swimming training, not as someone to go shopping with. I hope it’s not weird, like going to the zoo with your dentist.

  I see him before he sees me – he’s dressed in khakis and a denim shirt, which are either designer or he’s so cool that everything looks designer on him. I tug at the hem of my old T-shirt self-consciously, realizing I probably smell of car cleaning fluid. I’m such a sophisticated lady.

  I have a sudden horrible thought: how do we say hello to each other? Kiss on both cheeks? That feels dangerously French. I picture a nightmare scenario in which I grab Gabe firmly by his shoulders and kiss him on both cheeks and afterwards he tells Pete and Roman that I’m a sex pervert.

  He’s getting closer and I still haven’t decided what to do. Argh! He’s right in front of me!

  “Hi,” he says and gives me a quick, friendly hug.

  I’m an idiot. I follow him into a cheap sports shop.

  “Will Roman and Pete wear something from here?”

  “We’ll cut the labels out and tell them it’s Armani.”

  We go from shop to shop trying to find something not too expensive but not too cheap, not too baggy but not too clingy. I blush so hard when Gabe holds up some tiny Speedos that I swear I feel the blood leave my feet.

  There’s like a foot height difference between us – the wrong way, obviously – so I know we must look daft together, but I genuinely don’t care. Until we walk past a big group of kids from Lavender and Gabe’s year. They start laughing.

  “Oi, Gabe, is that your girlfriend?” one guy yells. It’s like he’s being nasty to me but matey with Gabe. My heart starts beating hard.

  “My wife, actually, show some respect,” Gabe replies coolly.

  There’s a confused silence from the group.

  “She’s massive!” another one calls out and I look to Gabe, wondering how he’ll handle this.

  “I think the word you’re scrabbling for is ‘statuesque’.” He smiles back at them like he literally could not care less. And I guess he doesn’t, so I don’t either. As we walk away, I feel slightly shell-shocked. Judging from the silence behind us, I’m not the only one.

  After an hour of intensive swimwear shopping I’ve touched so much Lycra that my hair has gone static and I keep giving Gabe electric shocks (like a feeble X-Man). We decide to have a coffee and let the electrons dissipate.

  We chat about school and I skim over my social status, but…

  “That’s what I’d heard about you,” he says, spooning a mountain of sugar onto his coffee froth with a serious look on his face. It’s very sweet.

  His face, not the coffee. Though probably both.

  “What had you heard about me?” I’m astounded that he’d heard anything at all.

  “You don’t try to be like everyone else,” he shrugs, like it’s obvious. “You’re not bothered about being popular or dressing cool or having boys fancy you.”

  It’s a compliment; it just really doesn’t sound like one. I let it pass.

  “Who are your friends?” I ask, suddenly realizing I don’t know much about him.

  “People online, with similar illnesses. When I was off school, we’d chat all the time. It’s odd being back with people whose biggest problem is growing out a bad fringe.”

  “Um, your illness. What exactly…?” I trail off, wondering if I’m being nosy.

  “It comes and goes,” he says. “At its worst it’s like having flu all the time. You’re too exhausted to get out of bed but you can’t sleep, and your limbs ache and you can’t concentrate on anything. So it’s like one long, sleepless night.”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s OK really.”

  “Is it?”

  “No. I’m just being totally brave and cool about it.” He flips his hair back like Roman.

  I laugh. And I can see that gang from his year watching us, which makes me laugh even harder. They must be shocked by the sudden improvement in my life. I know I am.

  I stop laughing and we sit for a bit in a comfortable silence. Which goes on a little too long and it suddenly becomes awkward. Argh! Operation: Make Friends is a minefield – you can’t ever relax. I panic and say whatever falls into my head.

  “And is there more of you?”

  “You mean…?”

  “Sorry, I mean, have you got siblings?”

  “No, just Roman.” Gabe smiles as I wave my teaspoon around trying to finish this garbled question. I accidentally flick some milk froth over his shoulder.

  “Sorry!”

  “That’s OK. And you have a sister, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, she’s in your year. Lavender Brown. Dark hair, big eyes. Really, you don’t know her?”

  I thought all the boys in our school knew who she was.

  He’s still shaking his head.

  “She’s nice. A bit like your brother.” I think about Lav rubbing oil into my hair and I feel bad. “No, that’s not fair, she’s nicer than Roman.”

  I suddenly realize how rude that is.

  “Not that Roman isn’t nice, he’s just…” I’m waving my teaspoon again. Gabe holds his napkin up to shield himself from any more flicked froth and I smile and put it down.

  Wow, coffee really brings out the truth bombs.

  “Maybe,” says Gabe, choosing his words carefully, “he feels like he can’t be so good-looking and talented for no reason. His life feels smaller than he deserves.”

  “Poor guy,” I say fake-seriously.

  “And Pete’s always been grumpy.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “I’m just happy to be out of my pyjamas.”

  “Congratulations,” I say and we cheers coffees. “Now that you are, let’s get you into some Lycra.”

  That sounds sassy in my head, but once I say it … weirdly sexual.

  We sit in silence with my strange, accidental flirting hanging in the air.

  18

  Louise.

  I’ve told you this so many times, I’m worried you’ve got brain damage. But once again: STAY OUT OF MY HALF OF THE ROOM. I’m trying to live like a dignified human being over here and you are a slob. It’s bad enough that I have to look at it, but don’t let it spill over into my half. Anything of yours that I find on my side of the room I’ll throw out the window.

  Lavender.

  No kisses.

  Lav.

  WHY ARE YOU EMAILING ME, I AM THREE FEET AWAY FROM YOU?! I just watched you type that and you just watched me read it. Maybe you couldn’t see me properly over the one sock, one notepad and solitary pencil ALL OVER the floor. Aargh, the chaos!! It’s cool if you’re on your period, but you don’t have to advertise it.

  Lou.

  No kisses.

  She is right, my side of the room is a state. It looks like Sports Direct exploded. (God forbid it ever does: that’s where I get all my clothes.)

  I’ve spent the last three weeks training every lunchtime with the boys, trying to do as much homework as I can between classes, coming home, swallowing dinne
r, racing out to coach them, then falling into bed as soon as I get in. I am tired.com/pooped.

  You know when you walk into a room and you can’t remember what you went in for?

  I did that today, in the toilet.

  The night before the try-outs we have our usual training session. I’ve never seen the boys this nervous. Afterwards we stand around the pool, talking through the routine one more time. We only stop when I get a stern text from my dad telling me he’s been sitting in the car park for half an hour and if I don’t come out he’s going to come in and get me.

  I AM WEARING MY SHORTS PYJAMAS WITH THE VERY SHORT SHORTS, his message ends. I run to the car.

  Dad says I’m too late for dinner so I’ll have to go to bed hungry. I don’t believe him for a second and we get home to a lasagne in the oven. I hope he never moves out. Though I don’t know how Mum would feel about that. Surely one day she’ll have a successful date and end up with a boyfriend?

  Heading up to bed full of anxiety and pasta, I get a sudden urge to tell Hannah how I’m feeling. But every time we talk these days she’s just stressing about her training and her fitness and doesn’t seem interested in me. So, fine.

  Her last text was about how all the other girls at the camp have a thigh gap, and do I have one?

  Yes, I reply. If I stick my bum out like a constipated duck.

  I’d give my right leg for a thigh gap.

  If you lose a leg you’ll have all the thigh gap you want!

  No reply.

  The morning of the try-outs dawns bright and clear. Possibly. I wouldn’t know, I don’t wake up at dawn – I’m not a farmer.

  My alarm goes off at 5 a.m., which is still horrendous, and Lav has a slurred half-asleep tantrum at me.

  I try to get ready without waking anyone else up but the ancient plumbing in our house has other ideas. By the time it’s belched out my hot water for a shower and flushed the toilet with a load of grumbling complaints, everyone is awake. They’re all staggering and yawning, bumping into each other and getting tangled in their dressing gowns. No one in this family functions well in the mornings.

  I sit at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the boys to arrive. Pete said his dad would come by in the pick-up truck at 5.30 a.m. and can I please stop questioning him about how he’s getting the tank to the studio.

  “NO!!” I shout to Mum. “I am not eating my packed lunch already!” Jeez, some people.

  Oooh, cheese and pickle.

  Lav comes and sits two steps behind me.

  “Y’ellooo?” I greet her through a mouthful of cheese.

  “Are you going like that?” she asks.

  “Lav, I’m about to queue in the rain for a million hours then assemble a … sort of tank. I don’t think it’s a dressy day.”

  “No, that’s what I mean!” She jumps up again and heads upstairs. “Haven’t you ever queued for a gig?” she yells over her shoulder. She comes back with a sleeping bag in her arms and piles of jumpers. “You will freeze your bum off,” she informs me, “then you will bore it off.”

  “So either way,” I conclude, “I’m coming home without my bottom. The one part of my body that looks vaguely normal. That’s a real shame.”

  I take the sleeping bag off her and start putting one of the jumpers on, when there’s a terrifyingly loud hoot from outside.

  Lav and I freeze. You know when you hear a dog and just know from its bark that it’s a monster? Lav opens the front door and we peer out. There, blocking the whole road, is the biggest truck I’ve ever seen in my (admittedly, not truck-filled) life.

  It looks like the sort of thing you’d use to move a circus. Pete, Roman, Gabe and a man in a baseball cap are all sitting in the front. Gabe gives me a queenly wave out of the window. The man in the baseball cap looks like he’s tempted to stick him in the back with the tank.

  “So. I guess that’s my ride,” I say.

  “Please be careful!” Mum calls down. She’s peering out of an upstairs window.

  As if I’ve got control over anything that happens today! I shoulder my sleeping bag and stagger out into the street.

  Our neighbours are starting to open their front doors to stare at this monstrosity in their road. I give them all a little wave, feeling like a celebrity.

  The truck door opens three feet above my head and I look at it helplessly. I’ve never had to jump up into a vehicle before.

  This must be how short people live.

  Gabe reaches down for my stuff and then Roman reaches past him and pulls me up into the cab, where the boys are already squashed together. I land on the springy seat. It smells like an ashtray in here, and as Pete’s dad nods at me, then taps a cigarette delicately on to the floor, I see why.

  “Hello, Mr…” I say. Then realize I don’t actually know Pete’s last name, so it sounds like I just called his dad “mister”. He grips his cigarette between his teeth and simply says, “Pete,” while throwing the mega-truck into reverse.

  Pete’s dad is called Pete?

  Who gives their kid their own name and doesn’t think that might get confusing when yelled around the house? You only give your child the same name as you if you’re royalty or you don’t plan on living with them.

  Like I can talk – my parents are divorced and you know the saying: People in glass houses … go to slightly smaller glass houses every other weekend to see their dad.

  I sit back gingerly. The seat is sticky, but it’s probably for the best as there are no seatbelts. Gabe and I make big eyes at each other: half This is fun! and half Maybe today we’ll die!

  Pete’s dad slams on the brakes and we all lurch forward. Then he accelerates for about three inches and slams on the brakes again before going into reverse. We do this maybe ten times. It gets nauseating pretty quickly.

  My family have now all congregated at the front door and I wave at them with a big smile on my face. I might as well.

  If this is the last time they ever see me, let’s give them a happy memory.

  Gabe peeks around me and joins in. Mum makes a face like a ventriloquist’s dummy and says something out of the corner of her mouth to Lav.

  He’s nice-looking.

  Lav makes the same face. Short, though.

  Dad weighs in, with growth spurt mouthed nice and clearly. I can see him wrestling with a breeze up his dressing gown that threatens to embarrass us all. Thanks, family! And there I was thinking, He-ey, it’s almost 6 a.m. and my ears haven’t burnt with shame once today.

  Roman leans forward to give a friendly nod to my family, then Pete’s dad reverses into our neighbour’s front garden and takes that pesky bird bath off their hands. Roman leans back out of sight.

  Pete murmurs something in his ear.

  “Oh, go on,” I say. They turn to look at me.

  “What?”

  I sigh. “I know exactly what you’re thinking, just say it.”

  Roman says, “Your sister is gorgeous,” at the exact same moment as Gabe says, “Your dad does have great legs for his age… Oh wait, no, not that?” We all laugh, even Pete.

  I feel a bit bad laughing with my new friends at my family, but it’s not mean and I secretly feel very happy.

  Not friends. Did I say friends? I meant Sports Colleagues.

  “Sooo…” I say, to fill the silence as we jerk backwards and forwards on our forty-one-point turn. “What’s your surname, Pete?”

  “Who’s asking?” grunts his dad, fixing me with a stare. He couldn’t be dodgier if he had a bag marked “swag” over one shoulder.

  I can’t believe he works at the aquarium – I wouldn’t trust him with a fish finger.

  “So, the tank, is it…” I wait for someone to leap in and finish my question. But Roman and Gabe give me tiny shrugs – obviously they’ve no idea about fish tanks either – so I plough on alone. “Is it, like, flat-pack, or…?”

  Pete’s dad stares at me as if I’ve said something stupid, but I’m cool with not knowing anything about fish tanks. He chew
s his soggy cigarette over to the corner of his mouth and says, “I dismantled it to get it out the window. Gorra assemble it the other end.”

  Get it out the window? I concentrate on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth and try not to get stressed. While I’m doing that, Pete’s dad picks up a screwdriver and hands it to me.

  It’s a sort of friendly gesture, like: You and me, pal, we can build this huge, criminal tank.

  Gabriel leans over and we scrutinize it together with exaggerated care as if it’s a dug-up dinosaur bone. I’m about to get the giggles so I signal him to stop. Pete’s dad seems a bit unpredictable. Let’s not poke the beast.

  Driving in the mega-truck is so exciting. We’re kings of the road! (Kings in the old-fashioned sense, where you slaughter people left, right and centre.) Roman, Pete, Gabe and I spend most of the journey ducking down to look in the wing mirrors, praying that the cyclist we just drove past is still upright. Thankfully they all are, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many rude gestures in my life.

  I’m wishing someone from school could see me with the guys, but – just my luck – we’re too high up to be seen. Maybe I could take an “accidental” selfie…

  19

  Weezy, I’m so busy here, it’s manic. I feel like I barely have time to think. I just swim, swim, swim and I’m always nervous! Mum’s nagging me and I haven’t so much as SEEN a carb in days. I miss them, and you. Do you miss me?

  Hxxxxxxxx

  I’m trying to text Han back, but the truck’s bouncy suspension makes me feel sick. I’ll tell her the good news when we get through the try-outs. Eventually the mega-truck pulls up outside a massive modern building. It’s made almost entirely of windows. Must be a nightmare to clean, I tut to myself, sounding like Dad.

  There’s a queue of hundreds of people sheltering under umbrellas and here’s us pulling up in the mega-truck like total bosses. I have never felt more cool. I’m nearest to the window so I roll it down and lean out super-casually, like I own the truck. Mmm-hmm, yes, it’s a left-hand drive and I’ve got a young face.