by Ann Bryant
“Er…excuse me, Ryan,” I began quietly, once we were outside the boathouse and no one else but Izzy could hear what I was saying, “would it be okay for me to stay in a single scull instead of going in the quad?”
“What?” he said, pretending to be horrified. “No way! I want my students making progress not standing still! Keeping in time with other rowers is the next step, and you’re someone with big potential, Sasha! You’ll enjoy it, you know! It’s a great feeling when you’re part of a team all managing to keep together!”
So I just had to accept it. Izzy gave me a sympathetic smile as she stepped into a single with Celia’s help. I so envied Izzy at that moment but I was trying to hang on to what Ryan had said. Maybe I would enjoy it more than I thought. Maybe Holly would forget about being competitive with me once there were three other girls in the boat, but that seemed a little unlikely.
To start with we had to go to a room in the clubhouse where there was a rowing machine.
“Okay, girls,” Ryan began, when the five of us were gathered around him. “Now, as I started to explain at the end of the last session, the cox is the person who gives instructions to the rowers. She sits in the stern of the boat. And because she can see ahead and the scullers can’t, it’s the cox’s job to keep the crew rowing in time with each other, to steer them, and generally to encourage them. So let’s get used to that before we go down and try it for real.”
While we each took turns on the rowing machine, Ryan called out instructions as though he was the cox, then we all had a go at giving the commands. Because there was so much to remember, and I was concentrating as hard as I could, I didn’t have time to think about Holly. The only slightly awkward moment was when it was her turn on the machine and I had to shout commands to her. I couldn’t bring myself to shout, and Ryan said I had to be more assertive. I noticed as she got off the machine she exchanged a look with Mikki, which made me feel a bit hurt, because it was obvious the others saw it too.
After we got the hang of the basics Ryan explained that, if we were in a race, we’d have to start off with shorter strokes to get the boat moving. The technical names for them are “half” and “three quarters”, and they tell us how long a stroke to take. Then we’d change to longer strokes, which is called “striding”, otherwise we’d get exhausted.
Ryan led us down to the landing stage, where the quad was waiting for us.
“This is where the cox sits. You’ll notice it’s much lower down than the rowers’ seats. Now, in a quad scull, the cox steers by moving these toggles.” Ryan held one in each hand and showed us how the wires attached to them made the rudder turn, which turned the boat. This seat here –” Ryan pointed to the seat nearest to the cox’s seat – “is the number four position, and it’s generally the strongest and most rhythmical rower who takes this place. Another name for number four is stroke. Then there are positions three and two, and lastly the rower sitting at the front of the boat, who is furthest away from the cox, is number one or bow, same as the name of the front of the boat. You don’t have to be such a strong oarswoman to row at bow,” Ryan was saying, “but you should be nice and accurate and keep it level.”
“You ought to be bow, Sasha,” Holly suddenly said. “And I’ll be stroke as I’m probably the strongest, aren’t I?” She was looking at the other girls with her eyebrows raised.
They all nodded, but Charlotte said, “I don’t mind which position I’m in.”
“You can keep swapping round,” said Ryan, “so you all get a go in every position. I’ll cox first…” He looked round the five of us. “Tilly, do you mind just watching from here for a few minutes while I demonstrate the kind of thing we’ve just been practising with the rowing machine?”
Tilly said she didn’t mind at all, so we put the blades in and got in the boat carefully. Mikki was in the bow position, at the front of the boat, but behind the other rowers. Then I was in front of her at number two, Holly was in front of me, and finally Charlotte was facing Ryan, at stroke. Ryan sat in the cox’s seat and told each of us to shout out our position – “Bow” and “Two” and so on – once we’d got our gates done up and were ready.
“Now this is more difficult than single sculling, because you really have to work together and keep to the same rhythm, otherwise the oars will get all tangled up. Try not to look at your own oars, but keep watching stroke’s.”
After that Ryan called, “Whole crew come forward and square up!” He’d already told us that this meant we had to bend our legs, as we’d practised in the Viruses, and put our arms straight out, then make sure our blades were buried in the water, ready to row. “This is the ‘catch’ position,” Ryan explained. Next he told us to sit up tall, keep relaxed and start sculling when he gave the command. “Whole crew, paddling light, are you ready…? Go!”
And off we went. Once we were properly in the rhythm and going well he said, “Sit up and drive now! Legs now! Drive now!”
It was hard work and you had to concentrate like mad, but I absolutely loved it. Working in a team and being exactly in time with the others was the best feeling ever. And it was so brilliant to feel how much faster we could move along through the water with four of us rowing instead of just me. I didn’t even mind that I was right behind Holly, because I hardly gave it a thought and, anyway, Ryan was there.
After a few minutes, Tilly, who’d been watching and listening from the side, swapped places with Ryan, and the rest of us stayed in the same positions. I’d have been really nervous if I’d been Tilly, so I wasn’t really surprised that she kept breaking into nervous giggles when she first started directing us, as though she found it a bit embarrassing. But Holly told her off.
“Be serious, Tilly. It’s an important role. Do you want me to do it?”
“I’ll just try for a bit longer, then you can take over,” Tilly replied. But she couldn’t really remember what she had to say and a few minutes later we went back to the landing stage, where Ryan supervised us as we swapped over.
“Move round, girls,” he said. “Let’s try Sasha as stroke.”
This was exactly what I’d been dreading. It meant I had to be directly facing Holly while she gave the instructions.
“Are you okay?” mouthed Izzy from her scull just nearby, when she saw where I was sitting.
I nodded and tried to smile, because I didn’t want Izzy to worry about me. I thought she had enough anxieties with the actual rowing. But then I had a nice surprise because she gave me a big grin.
“Look! I can turn the scull round now!”
I didn’t have time to watch so I just called out, “Hey! Well done, Iz!” and thought about how great it would be if I could be in a double scull with Izzy. Maybe I’d ask Ryan about that.
As soon as we set off, with Holly coxing, I felt myself tensing up and knew I wasn’t sculling as well as before. She remembered all the commands and yelled them out as though we were deaf, but Ryan praised her and said, “That’s right. Take control, Holly. Show them who’s in charge!” Then he said he was going off to see how everyone else was getting on, and he’d be back shortly.
The moment he’d gone, Holly suddenly seemed to work us even harder. Her commands were getting faster and louder and she didn’t let up at all. “Now! Legs now! Drive now! Legs now!” We were heading towards the island and I found myself struggling to keep up with the speed and wondered if it was my fault for overdoing it on the rowing machine during the week. I wished I knew if the others also felt as though their arms and legs would drop off, but I was determined to keep going, because it would be so humiliating if Holly thought I wasn’t strong enough to be stroke, and said something to embarrass me in front of the others.
After a minute or two though, I realized that our oars were getting in a tangle, which meant that one of the others, or maybe more than one, hadn’t been able to keep up with the speed, which wasn’t surprising.
“Oh, guys! You’ve lost it!” said Holly, sitting up straight and pursing her lips, then
shrugging dramatically as though we were hopeless.
It wasn’t our fault, it was hers, and I wished I had the nerve to say so, but I didn’t. We just weren’t experienced or fit enough to scull as fast as she was trying to make us do it.
“What are you trying to do, kill us?” said Charlotte. “Wait till it’s my turn to cox, then I’ll show you what it’s like.”
When I turned round to look at Mikki and Tilly they seemed too exhausted to speak, but they were both nodding and rolling their eyes.
“The trouble was, Sasha lost the speed,” said Holly, not looking at me. “It’s up to stroke to lead the others, so that’s why you got in a mess.”
And then I saw that Ryan was right beside us and at the same time I felt my face flooding with colour. “How’s it going?” he asked. “Looked like you were doing brilliantly when I was watching you just then.”
“Holly was making us go too fast,” puffed Charlotte.
“We couldn’t keep up,” said Tilly. “Can someone else be cox now?”
“Ready for another change around?” said Ryan. “Okay, come back in, then try Sasha as cox and you go at stroke, Holly.”
My heart sank. This was going to be worse than ever. Ryan stayed alongside as we rowed back to the landing stage and it made me cross that Holly was on her best behaviour, coxing in a loud, encouraging voice and sticking to a much steadier speed so we could all manage to keep in time with each other.
As we changed places I looked round for Izzy and saw that she was in a quad scull with Penny coxing. It wasn’t going very well because the boat was weaving about all over the place and the oars seemed to be in loads of different positions. I could hear Penny calling out instructions but the girls didn’t look anxious or anything. In fact Izzy seemed to have broken into giggles with the girl behind her, and I thought how much more fun she was having than me.
“Okay, Sasha, do your stuff!” said Ryan. “Don’t be afraid to be bossy!”
I tried to smile at him but I think it must have come out looking a bit lopsided because I was remembering that look that Holly and Mikki had exchanged when we were practising on the rowing machine. Then when we set off my mind went blank. I was racking my brains to try to remember what Ryan had said, but it was no good, I’d forgotten, and he’d already gone off to help some others leaving only Ben near us. I couldn’t ask Ben what to say because I’d feel such an idiot. I had to say something though, so I tried to imagine that I was one of the rowers. What would I want to hear?
For a start I wouldn’t want someone yelling at me so much. I’d want to feel relaxed. That’s right. Ryan had started off by telling us to sit up and relax.
“Sit up and relax, everyone,” I began. And as soon as those words were out of my mouth, I just seemed to know what to say next, and in no time at all they were all pulling really well.
“Well done, Sasha!” called Ben, drawing nearer.
Holly had been wearing the same expression, her eyes dull and staring at a point way behind me, ever since I’d been cox. But when Ben spoke, she suddenly seemed to come alive. “We can go much faster than this, you know!”
“Better to take it steady and keep together,” said Ben, which pleased me. But still Holly’s words had made me lose a bit of confidence. What if she wasn’t the only one who wanted to go faster? No, I was sure the others liked this speed – after all, they’d said that Holly had made us go too fast. But even as I was thinking these thoughts I realized I was losing concentration. And then I lost more confidence as Mikki called out, “Speak up, Sasha! I can’t hear you.”
I tried my best. I really did, but it obviously didn’t work, because after only a few seconds everyone’s oars were out of time with each other and Holly looked totally hacked off. She turned round to Mikki, who was behind her and said something that I couldn’t hear, then Mikki said, “Yeah, okay.”
“Mikki’s going to be cox now,” Holly told me. And I felt cross that she’d made that decision herself, as though she was one of the coaches. But I didn’t have the confidence to question her, so I just nodded.
“Okay.”
“It’s not fair!” said Emily, putting her arm around me. “Holly’s spoiling the course for you, isn’t she, Sash?”
I nodded miserably.
The six of us were all crammed onto my bed in our dorm, because I’d called a truth talk. That’s a meeting we have when someone in the group isn’t happy about something and needs the support of her friends. This time it was my turn, and already I was feeling better. Less alone. It was Antonia who’d thought of calling these meetings “truth talks”, in the first term here at Silver Spires, when her English wasn’t so good. We all loved the name she’d come up with, so we’d kept using it, and now it had stuck.
“I saw you having fun in your boat, Iz, and I just wished I could have been with you instead of having to put up with Holly.”
“Well, actually, we’ve got a bit of a ‘Holly’ in our boat too,” said Izzy, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Caitlin.”
“Really? Caitlin?” Izzy had surprised me, because I thought her team was getting on so well together.
“She’s probably nowhere near as bad as Holly,” Izzy explained, “but she thinks she’s better than the rest of us. First she criticized Laura’s coxing, then she criticized the rest of us for not keeping in time. And then, when we were packing up, I heard her asking Ryan if she could go in your boat, Sash, next time.”
“What did Ryan say?”
“I didn’t hear.”
“Sounds like the perfect solution would be for you and Caitlin to swap with each other,” said Bryony in her usual straightforward way.
“Sasha won’t want to join our team,” said Izzy, shaking her head as though it was out of the question. “You’re way better than us lot, Sash,” she went on. “We all row miles more slowly than your team, and we keep getting it wrong too.”
But I was feeling a new excitement mounting inside me. What a brilliant challenge it would be to try and help Izzy’s team to build confidence and do well. And how different it would be to have Izzy’s lovely smiley face in front of me instead of Holly’s mean face.
“You know, I think you’ve got a really good idea there, Bryony,” I told her slowly. Then I turned to Izzy. “I’d love to swap with Caitlin. It’d be great to cox for your team. I actually enjoyed that role, apart from having to put up with Holly, of course. And Ben said I was doing well.”
“Penny said you were doing well, too!” said Izzy. “She made us all stop and watch your team when you were cox, and she said you were leading perfectly, because the scull was going along so smoothly. I felt really proud of you!”
I gave Izzy a hug for saying that. “Let’s ask Caitlin tomorrow if she wants to swap.”
“But are you sure, Sash?”
I actually felt more sure of this than anything since I’d started the rowing course. “Totally!”
“That’s settled then!” said Emily. “I declare this meeting closed!”
“It was Sasha who asked for the truth talk!” said Antonia, sticking to the rules. “So Sasha has to say when it’s finished.”
I smiled at her. “Okay, I now declare this meeting closed!”
And everyone laughed.
Chapter Seven
As soon as we were on the minibus on our way to Pollington Water the next day, I started to worry.
“What if Caitlin agrees to swap with me but Ryan says we’re not allowed?” I whispered to Izzy in what she calls my quivery voice.
“We’ll beg!” said Izzy. She was smiling confidently, as though she knew that begging wouldn’t really be necessary. But I wasn’t so sure.
I was dreading Ryan saying no, because I’d got it in my head I was going to be with Izzy. And it would be such a disappointment if I had to go back with Holly after all.
“Do you want to talk to Caitlin or shall I?” said Izzy.
I said I’d do it myself, so she’d see I was really keen on the swap, and as s
he was right in front of me I decided to get it over with straight away. If she said yes, it would feel like I’d won half the battle – well, maybe about a third of the battle.
“Hey, cool!” was what she actually said. But she looked totally happy. “Are you sure? Your team’s much better than mine, you know.” She was raising her eyebrows to check I really meant it, but she didn’t give me time to answer. “Oh, is it so you and Izzy can be together?”
It seemed simplest just to say yes, so I did.
“That’s a good omen,” whispered Izzy, when Caitlin had turned back to the front. “Now just Ryan to get round.”
Once we’d got off the minibus, I kept putting off speaking to Ryan, because I was so dreading what he would say. Caitlin must have been assuming he would easily agree, though, because I’d already heard her gleefully telling Charlotte and Holly that she was swapping places with me. I’d watched Holly’s face carefully at that moment, expecting her to break into a big smile of relief that she’d finally got rid of me, but she just shrugged as though she didn’t really care either way, and I was puzzled for a moment. I had got Holly right, hadn’t I?
“You’d better say something to Ryan, Sash,” said Izzy, beginning to look anxious, as we walked down to the landing stage. So I took the chance to run over to Caitlin while she was on her own, and ask her if she wanted to come with me to check it was okay with Ryan if we swapped.
“Yeah, sure!” she said. And off we went together.
It only took Ryan a few seconds of what Emily would call deep-frowning-thinking before he nodded. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
Caitlin and I both thanked him, then ran off happily. Well, at least Caitlin was happy, because she started shouting across to Charlotte that she was coming to join her in the top team, as she called it. And I was happy too, but not so I felt like shouting about it. I was pleased that I’d be with Izzy and wouldn’t have to suffer Holly any more, but there was still a small part of me wondering if I should have done what Mum used to talk about, and grown a thicker skin.