by Paul Collins
‘He came fourth,’ John adds.
‘Did he? Wow,’ I say. I should probably be impressed.
‘That’s right, the States,’ says Henry. ‘So, Billy boy, definitely not swimming then?’
I shake my head once more. ‘No.’
‘Well, those pies aren’t going to eat themselves, are they?’
‘Neither are the chips,’ says Matt, bending over and helping himself from the tube of Crimples. His hand disappears into the pack and comes out hold ing a wad of chips, which he stuffs into his mouth and crunches noisily. Then he sees Henry and John watching him and he laughs. Litde soggy fragments of cheese-and-onion chip land on my face.
‘Thanks so much for that,’ I say.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Come on,’ Henry says, and giggling like idiots, they wander off. I’m so happy to see the back of them.
‘You shouldn’t let them pick on you like that.’
I turn and look. It’s Susie Nugent. She’s in my grade, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say any thing. Ever. But now she’s sitting on her towel in the shade and talking to me.
‘Maybe you should mind your own business,’ I say, embarrassed.
‘Fair enough. Sorry. Urn ... you missed a bit, Billy,’ she says as I brush Matt’s chip-spatter off my face.
‘Thanks. And seriously, about what those guys said ... it’s okay. It’s fine.’
‘No, it’s not fine. They were making fun of you because . . . well . . .’ She suddenly looks the other way.
‘Because I’m fat. It’s okay - I do own a mirror.’
‘But, anyway, they’re not so great,’ she says. ‘I mean, sure, Henry’s good at swimming, and I guess we are at a swimming carnival, but what about those other two? Do you ever see them do anything apart from following Henry around like a pair of puppies?’
‘Not really,’ I answer. ‘But at least they’re not fat.’ Susie laughs. ‘They’re not smart, either. I was standing behindjohn at the kiosk before and he was trying to convince the lady that one dollar fifty and one dollar fifty was two dollars fifty.’
‘Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me,’ I say. ‘So what should I do? You saw them - they came all the way over here just to call me names.’
‘I know,’ Susie replies. ‘Maybe you should stand up to them.’
‘I’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work with the cool kids.’
‘Pfft. Cool? They’re not cool,’ Susie scoffs.
‘Yeah, well, they’re definitely cooler than me. Do you want some chips?’ I ask, holding out my pack of Crimples.
Susie shakes her head. ‘No, I can’t. I’m not allowed.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’re full of all these chemicals.’ She rubs her stomach. ‘Upset tummy. But I’ll have one of your frogs. Even though it’s the wrong colour for my team. You don’t have any green ones, do you?’
‘Nope, just red,’ I say, tossing her one.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Billy,’ she says.
‘You too? Why does everyone think I’m frightened of something?’
‘Because you are.’
‘No I’m not!’
‘How about drowning?’
I look at the pool. Fifty metres is a long way. But I have done it before. Just not in front of the whole school.
‘I wouldn’t drown,’ I say.
All right, then what? If you won’t go in a race, even though you know you won’t drown, what’s stop ping you?’
‘I’m not afraid of anything,’ I say, and I’m begin ning to get a little tired of hearing myself say it.
‘Except dogs.’
‘Dogs?’
‘Yeah. I got bitten once, when I was little,’ I tell her, pointing to a row of shiny, flat scars on my left calf. ‘Eight stitches.’
Susie whistles. ‘But there aren’t any dogs in the pool,’ she says.
I sigh. ‘You know what? Maybe you’re right.
Maybe I should go in just one race. I mean, I’ll defi nitely come last, but at least then no one can say that Free Billy just lay about in the shade eating lollies all day. Or that he’s scared of drowning.’
Susie nods while she twists off a bit of frog with her teeth. ‘Sounds like a good idea. I went in a race before and I didn’t win.’
‘Did you come last, though?’ I ask her.
‘I came fifth.’
‘That’s pretty good.’
‘Out of five.’
I smile. She’s making me feel relaxed, which is good of her. It’s more than she needed to do.
‘You know what? I am going to do it,’ I hear my self saying. ‘I’m going to enter the seniors freestyle. That’s the over-arm one, isn’t it?’
Susie nods. ‘Freestyle, yep.’
‘Good. Then that’s the one I’m going in. I’ve got to go and tell Mr Julius. Have another frog if you like.’
‘Good luck,’ says Susie with a smile.
I find Mr Julius, and tell him that I’ve decided to swim. ‘Good for you, Billy!’ he says, writing my name down on his sheet. ‘We’ll be calling for that one in about ten minutes, so you should go and get your swimmers on.’
That’s just great, I think. Just ten more minutes until I drown. Or die of embarrassment. As I head back over to my spot in the shade, I’m starting to think that this might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
‘Did you do it?’ Susie asks.
I nod. ‘He wrote my name down, so I guess I have to race. Can’t back out now!’
‘Good for you,’ Susie replies. ‘Do you have your goggles?’
‘Goggles?’ I say, frowning at her. ‘I didn’t bring any goggles. I wasn’t going to swim, remember?’ Susie leans over, takes her own pair of goggles from her bag, and hands them to me. ‘Here, use mine. At least you’lllook like you came prepared.’ I hold them at arm’s length. ‘They’re pink.’
‘Actually, they’re lavender. Which is closer to purple.’
I hesitate, before taking them. ‘They’re more pink than purple,’ I say, unconvinced.
I head into the boys’ toilets to get changed, and as I’m going in, I meet Henry andJohn coming out. They see my towel and swimmers hanging over my arm, and Henry chuckles.
‘Getting ready for the big event, huh?’ he says.
‘No, not really,’ I lie. ‘I’m just going to the lao.’
He points at Susie’s goggles, which are hanging from my finger. ‘Do you always take those into the toilet when you go? Come on,’ he says toJohn. ‘Let’s see if Matt’s feeling any better.’
I’m glad they’re gone. The last thing I wanted was for them to be in the room while I was getting changed. I’ve heard all the names, but I reckon after seeing me naked, they might come up with a few more.
I’m standing on the warm cement behind the tiled starting block at the end of lane two, with Susie’s gog gles on my forehead and my hands clasped in front of me. I look around. Luckily there aren’t too many people interested in this race. It’s close to lunchtime and it seems like most of the kids are lining up at the kiosk for their sausage rolls and chips rather than watching seven boys swim while one boy drowns.
Mr Francis has been starting all the races. He raises his megaphone. ‘Okay, boys, on your blocks,’ he says.
I take a step towards the block. I can almost hear the executioner’s drum. Biddy-boom, biddy boom . . . In my head I’m already composing the letter to my parents:
Dear Mr and Mrs Clarkson, we regret to inform you that by the time you read this letter, your son William will be bobbing face down in the Speers Point Public Pool. Interestingly, every person present saw fit to laugh and point rather than save his life. May he rest in peace.
I glance to my right. Henry Wakeman is there in lane five, swimming cap in place. Beside him is John Graham. I look around for Matt Hinkley and find him right next to me in lane one. He doesn’t seem very well. There’s a weird grey colour around his eyes, and his face has gone pale.
I forget the drums in my ears. ‘Matt, are you all right?’ I ask him.
‘Don’t talk to me, Tubby,’ he mutters. It’s almost a snarl.
Apart from Matt and me, the other swimmers on the blocks are swinging their arms around, stretch ing, looking like they know what they’re doing.
‘Are you ready?’ Mr Francis says.
No, I’m not ready, I want to say. I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.
‘On your marks.’
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Copying the others, I shuffie forward so my toes are dangling over the edge of the block. The water looks deep and cold. I have an awful thought: if I die today, it’s no one’s fault but mine. I agreed to do this. Me. I let the teasing get to me. The teasing from Henry and his mates, and the good-intentioned ‘encouragement’ from Susie. I’ve been such an idiot, and now I’m about to pay the pnce.
‘Get set,’ says Mr Francis.
Almost in automatic now, I copy the others, bend ing forward and reaching towards my toes. I can’t remember the last time I actually touched my toes, so I just dangle my arms and wiggle my fingers.
‘Billy, you might need the goggles over your eyes,’ the megaphone voice says. I hear a few tittering laughs around me as I pull Susie’s lavender goggles down off my forehead and into their proper spot. The band is a bit tight and it feels like my eyeballs are being squeezed and pinched right out of their sockets.
Crack! The starting pistol fires, and I glance across to see all the boys to my right dive gracefully into the water, their hands parting the surface for their bodies to slide in.
‘You can go, Billy,’ the megaphone voice says.
I half dive, half belly-flop into the pool, and I’m glad that I’m underwater, because I just know that if I wasn’t, all I’d be able to hear would be laughter from the sidelines.
I take a moment to get my bearings, and to make sure that I’m the right way up. By some stroke of good fortune I am, so I start flailing, with my eyes squeezed tightly shut. I can feel my arms going like a paddle steamer, over and over, making a lot of splashes, but without much forward movement.
Lifting my head above the water, I take a deep breath and go back to flailing, eyes still closed. Then I remember that I’m wearing goggles, and that I don’t have to keep my eyes shut, so I open them.
For a moment I’m not sure if I’m still the right way up, because I can see someone in front of me. But they aren’t swimming, or even floating. They’re just kind of ... well, they’re just kind of hanging. They’re just hovering there in the water, towards the bottom of the pool.
I stop flailing and have a better look, and I sud denly see who it is. It’s Matt Hinkley, near the bottom of the pool, and he’s not swimming. He’s not even flailing. He’s sinking and his limbs are completely motionless.
I lift my head above the water and look up the pool. The other boys are well on their way. In fact, Henry is almost finished and I’m still within a couple of metres of the starting blocks.
Looking back down towards Matt, I can see that he still isn’t moving.
‘Matt’s drowning!’ I shout, but my mouth isn’t completely above water, so it’s just a kind of burble.
‘Matt’s drowning!’ I shout again, more clearly this time.
‘Billy! That way!’ Mr Francis is calling to me, pointing up the pool.
‘No!’
‘If you don’t finish, you won’t get a point for your team,’ he shouts back.
‘Matt’s drowning! He’s down here!’
‘No, Matt’s nearly finished the race!’ Mr Francis replies.
I give up. There’s no time for argument. Sucking in a huge breath, I duck my head under and dive down towards Matt. He’s a fair way down, slouched in the corner where the side and the bottom of the pool meet, and with all the extra buoyancy around my middle, it takes a lot of kicking and struggling to reach him. I manage to get my hands under his arms and try to lift, but he’s like a dead weight. I grip again, and planting my feet against the bottom of the pool, I push up as hard as I can.
My hands slip, and Matt sinks back down, so I come back to the surface long enough to take another huge breath.
Diving all the way back down, I get hold of Matt again, and this time I somehow manage to hold on to him all the way to the top. As I reach the surface, I hear bodies hitting the water all around me as people finally realise that while Henry Wakeman has been winning a swimming race, I’ve been busily rescuing someone.
‘We’ve got him, Billy,’ says Mr Julius in my ear.
‘You can get out. We’ll take it from here.’
I climb out of the pool and someone brings a towel and throws it around my shoulders while others drag Matt out onto the concrete beside the pool. He’s not breathing.
I’m at home in my room, playing a game on my Xbox. Mum and Dad already asked me how the swimming carnival went and I told them that I went in a race. They seemed very happy, even proud.
‘So you got a point for your team!’ Mum said. ‘Do they still do that - give points for participation?’
‘Yes,’ I said, even though I’m not sure that you get a point if you don’t finish. Would they give you a point for getting helped to the side and up the lad der, even if that did happen after you helped save someone’s life?
So now I’m hiding out in my room, quietly killing some zombies.
There’s a knock at my door. It’s Mum. ‘Billy, honey?’ she says. ‘There’s someone out in the living room to see you.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Come and see.’
It’s a lady I recognise from somewhere, but I’m not sure who she is.
‘Billy?’ she says.
‘Yes?’
The lady steps forward and takes both of my hands in hers. ‘I’m Mrs Hinkley, Matthew’s mum,’ she says. ‘The school rang me, and told me what you did.’
Mum is nodding. She obviously knows the story.
‘It was nothing,’ I say.
‘Oh no, it’s not nothing!’ she replies. ‘You saved Matt’s life. He’ll be in hospital overnight, but he’s going to be all right, thanks to you. So it’s definitely not nothing.’
I shrug. ‘He would have done the same for me,’ I say, even though I’m not sure that’s true. ‘I just looked down and saw him on the bottom of the pool. How come he was down there, anyway?’
‘Matthew’s highly allergic to certain food addi tives. There are quite a few, but one of the biggies is MSG, like you get in some brands of snack foods, chips, that sort of thing.’
Without meaning to I wipe my face, remembering the light spattering of soggy Crimples.
‘He probably shouldn’t eat those, then,’ I say.
‘That’s what surprised me,’ Mrs Hinkley replies.
‘Matthew knows what he can and can’t eat.’
Mum smiles and rolls her eyes. ‘Boys,’ she says.
‘Anyway, Billy, I just wanted to come here and personally thank you for what you did. And I want you to have this.’ She hands me a gift-wrapped box.
‘Thanks,’ I say, tearing the crepe paper off. It’s a box of chocolates. ‘Thanks,’ I say again.
‘I bought them at the hospital gift shop,’ she ex plains, and I can’t work out why she’s looking embar rassed. Then I see her glance at me, up and down, and I understand. ‘I’m sorry, I should have . . . ‘ Then she mutters something about never having met me before, and something else about Matthew not mentioning something or other, and suddenly Mum is showing her out.
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br /> ‘Well, Vanessa, thanks so much for coming around
- that was very kind,’ Mum is saying, and I take my box of chocolates and head back to my room.
I’m standing out the front of assembly, holding a two hundred dollar voucher for Trentfield’s Bookshop. Mr Julius is telling everyone that Matt is still in hos pital, but that he’s going to be okay. He’s saying that Matt had an allergic reaction to some food additives which made him stop breathing. He’s also telling the school that I was incredibly brave, and that I gave up any chance I had to win that race to drag Matt to safety.
I smile quietly to myself. It looks as if I couldn’t even win the drowning event, but that’s okay. This time I’m happy to come second.
I knocked on the door three times, sucked in a breath, and turned the knob. ‘You want to see me, Coach?’
He nodded from behind his made-to-order desk. There are many advantages to being six-feet eight inches tall but there are plenty of disadvantages, too. Shop furniture rarely fits. You bang your head on light bulbs. You can never sleep on an airplane. You forever hear, ‘How’s the weather up there?’
I should know. I’m three inches taller.
‘Come in, Bill,’ he said.
I sat down in the large green leather chair and leant back out of habit. I’d been here hundreds of times, shooting the breeze about tactics, injuries, mental strength - heck, we’d even talked about love in this office.
‘Bill ...’ He looked away, lost for words.
I followed his gaze to the wall. There was a large framed photo of me slam-dunking in the last grand final series we’d won. Must have been three, no, four years ago.
‘Good times,’ he said.
I nodded, my face impassive but my stomach shrinking like it did in the moments before tip-off
‘I could rattle on about a lot of things.’ He folded his arms and his voice became more businesslike. ‘A decreasing salary cap, pressure from the board to get this team winning again, your four knee operations.’ My jaw tightened. I couldn’t believe he brought up the knee.
‘But I just want to say this.’ Coach looked at me with green eyes that could fill a team of men with fear, but there was none of that fire now. His look was as soft as his voice. ‘Your time’s up, Bill.’