Silverstone Part One: Through Dark Waters

by J.J. Moody



  SILVERSTONE

  Part One: Through Dark Waters

  J.J.Moody

  All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  First published July 2016 by James Moody

  Copyright © James Moody 2016

  ISBN 978-0-9946112-0-8 (EPUB)

  www.silverstonestory.com

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  The Strange Swimming Pool

  Chapter Two

  A Perilous Welcome

  Chapter Three

  The Birthday Party

  From the author

  Q&A

  Chapter One

  The Strange Swimming Pool

  That day was not a happy one for Ben Silverstone.

  For his parents Jackie and Steven, buying an old, crumbling little cottage on the edge of Hulstead Village, in South East London, was a dream they had been talking about for years, and for which he knew they had worked extremely hard in their jobs as accountants for a company whose name was a collection of four letters he could never remember. Not only that, but moving from their small flat in Fulham would save them lots of money as it had been far more expensive. He had watched them at the dining table sometimes, while he quietly pretended to watch television nearby, as they talked with worried frowns about the bills, and was at least pleased that they seemed to be in a safer financial position now. He could see a weight had lifted from their shoulders, and hadn’t seen them stop smiling since they had bought the house four months ago, even in spite of all the mountain of paperwork he had seen them working through.

  For his little brother Toby, the house would be a treasure trove to explore and play in, especially the little patch of garden at the back of the property, sandwiched between the enormous castle-like properties on either side of them. Once it had some grass in it that was. Right now it needed all the rubbish cleaned away, and probably also to have an exterminator come to get rid of any rats likely to be hiding in it, Ben thought. But Toby was more amused by all the brown cardboard packing boxes than anything else at the moment anyway.

  As for Paddy, Ben’s grey and white whippet, he sat directly in front of Ben, head tilting to one side, and then to the other, as if looking at Ben from a different angle would enable him to find a smile somewhere within his gloomy expression. That was his default pose for trying to cheer Ben up, and usually worked wonders. They had found Paddy in Battersea Dogs Home when Ben had been about Toby’s age, and Paddy had been attached to Ben ever since. The staff had said he’d been found in the river at night by a police boat, somehow managing to keep his head above water long enough for them to drag him out and dry him off. Ben could understand his dislike of being washed in water. He obliged him with a scratch behind the ear and watched the skinny little dog tremble with delight.

  For Ben though, there was a lot of change happening all at the same time. Not only had he just moved from where he’d spent almost all of his eleven years of life so far in to a dilapidated old house, he was starting at the even older secondary school in the village in a few weeks time. His parents had reassured him things would be absolutely fine once he had settled in, but he was used to the way things had been back in Fulham, and quite comfortable there, and also much preferred modern things anyway. He liked things that were clean, and worked reliably and easily. He didn’t know very much about oddly shaped, disintegrating things with dark holes and strange smells, and they made him a bit uncomfortable. As he stared blankly at Paddy he felt a dull ache in his chest forming, which he thought must have been all of the feelings he had about these changes compressed tightly into one spot. Maybe he was just hungry.

  His mother called him for dinner. They ate fish fingers and peas from the local supermarket that Ben’s mother had cooked on a camping stove, on a table of boxes, by candlelight.

  “We’ll get the electricity and gas turned on tomorrow hopefully,” his father said, as he walked in from what was going to be their bedroom, putting his phone down on another of the boxes. The truck his parents had hired to move was still half full outside, and Ben wondered if there was enough room in the tiny house for all their contents or whether they might end up having to just pile up all of the things they didn’t have space for into one of the rooms all the way to the ceiling, and squeeze the door closed behind.

  “That’s good Dad. But I actually quite like the candlelight,” Ben lied, trying to put on a brave face. His father patted him on the back.

  That night his parents stayed up very late unpacking in the candlelight, while Ben sat in his new bedroom, wrapped in his own thoughts, with Paddy dosing on his lap, and Toby sleeping next to them on a makeshift bed of boxes and what his mother had managed to find of the bedding. Toby would have happily slept inside a box that first night, surrounded in a nest of neatly packed towels and sheets, Ben mused, with a smile. Unwilling to make a start on his unpacking, he lay down, and finally drifted off.

  The next morning was a rush. Ben’s parents had fallen asleep underneath an old photo album they had uncovered, and had slept through several alarms. The tour of Ben’s new school was scheduled to begin at 9am sharp, and Ben’s parents did not want to be tardy and upset Ms Villeneuve, the school headmistress. There was a whirlwind of bread and peanut butter for breakfast, and Toby and Paddy were hastily handed over to Ben’s Auntie Maggie to look after, before Ben and his parents jumped into their rusty VW Polo and raced over the speed bumps towards the school.

  As soon as they had found a parking spot in the school car park, Ben and his parents joined a small group of other parents and children lined up in a neat row before the steps to the main school building, waiting for Ms Villeneuve, who was to escort them on the tour herself. The main building was an enormous old structure three times the size of Ben’s primary school, and he imagined that it and the other buildings in the grounds could probably hold thousands of children like him, in classes of hundreds, sitting at rows and rows of old wooden desks like little learning machines, in front of scary white haired men who probably still dressed like the teachers used to a hundred years ago and taught them nothing but ancient Latin. This was not going to be a fun place to go to school, he decided, as he looked around. Still, he did his best to look enthusiastic as his parents grinned at him excitedly.

  He glanced up at the clock tower that rose above the left side of the main building. The tower had been one of the most ancient parts of the school, his parents had said after they had done the first school tour a few months ago, and it looked like it was leaning dangerously to one side, ready to collapse on top of some unfortunate students at any minute. To the right of the clock tower above what looked like the main doors, there were the remains of a crest containing a book and some kind of winged animal, and below them something written in a language Ben didn’t understand.

  There were several large stone arched windows along the front of the building, with odd diamond shaped pieces of glass that shimmered in the morning sun like the scales of an enormous snake that had squeezed its way inside to lie in wait for them. Around the top just before the roof began there perched the ruins of a row of gargoyles, which were probably more likely to squash anyone walking below who had managed to get past the treacherous clock tower than scare off any evil spirits in their crumbling condition, Ben thought.

  On the sharply pointed slate-tiled rooftop directly above the main doors he caught sight of
a man painting one of the chimneys, while sitting very precariously on the pinnacle of the roof. For a moment the man paused to look down at the tour group, and Ben wondered how on earth he had got up there, with no scaffolding or ladders in sight, and nowhere near a window. Then the man turned his attention back to the painting, and Ben turned his attention to the other families joining the Silverstones on the tour.

  There were now three other families in the tour with them. The first was dressed so immaculately it appeared as though their clothes had been sewed and ironed while they stood there. They must have arrived first, and were waiting patiently for Ms Villeneuve without saying a word, and keeping very still at the far right of the line. Their boy was about the same size as Ben, and seemed very experienced at keeping still and quiet.

  The next family was dressed in very bright colours that reminded Ben of the colourful birds in the Amazon rainforest that he had seen on David Attenborough wildlife documentaries. The father jangled his keys in the air as he paced up and down talking loudly into his gold mobile phone, while the mother carefully styled her son’s blond hair.

  “Keep still Jordan lovely,” she said to him as she licked her fingers and styled his hair into a sharp, gravity-defying point.

  Jordan tapped on his matching gold phone with a blank expression, ignoring everything else.

  The Silverstones had arrived next and stood beside Jordan and his family, and to their left had just arrived a very tall, skinny family with twin girls, who talked to each other much too fast for Ben to interpret, while their parents did the same. He thought they might have been foreign.

  After a few moments further waiting as more families arrived, the clock struck 9am, and the enormous doors at the top of the steps to the main building made a groaning noise as they creaked open, precisely on cue. Ms Villeneuve stepped out.

  Ben had been half expecting a headmistress like old Mrs Bumblebottom at his little primary school in Parsons Green. But Ms Villeneuve was very different. She wore a pensive expression as if she was constantly considering a problem she hadn’t yet been able to solve, and actually looked no older than his parents. Her clothes were similar to those worn by the first family in the line, but a touch sharper and more modern, and helped reinforce the air of superiority she exuded as she calmly glided along toward them. Her glasses were rimless, and magnified her sharp green eyes to at least twice their normal size as she observed them. Her light brown hair was contained in a perfect bun, positioned very carefully in the very centre of her head.

  She paused at the top of the stairs for a moment to survey the group, measured out a small smile, and then descended and introduced the tour.

  “Welcome back to Hulstead College and thank you for coming. Parents, your previous tour covered most of the grounds and buildings, so today is simply a formality to make your children more comfortable prior to the commencement of the school term in three weeks time.”

  Ms Villeneuve talked in perfect English, but with a subtle French accent. Jordan’s father was clearly impressed.

  “Great. Yeah. Fantastic,” he commented, as his wife concluded a final flourish to Jordan’s quiff.

  “We will begin with the Great Hall behind me,” she said with a dramatic gesture, without removing her gaze from the group. The parents and children looked up at the grand features of the building. Ben’s parents seemed to love it, and he heard them oohing and ahhing a great deal as they pointed towards different parts of it.

  The crisp morning sun gradually gave way to a few grey wisps of cloud, and a cool breeze rustled the early autumn leaves from the trees behind them as Ms Villeneuve recited a perfectly rehearsed history of the school, and in particular the Great Hall. The boy from the smartly dressed family posed a question, and she dealt with it swiftly before returning effortlessly to the narration. To Ben, the building was just old.

  Finally she reached a precise pause. “Now, let us go inside.”

  Ben’s chest ached again. He drifted back behind the parents like the other children, and exchanged a few pleasantries with his fellow students. Ilse and Lotte were from Holland, and had moved over to London so that they could grow up speaking more English. George didn’t say much at all besides his name, and was eager to pay attention to everything that Ms Villeneuve had to say. Jordan showed Ben an amusing picture of a cat on his phone while Ms Villeneuve talked about the stained glass windows.

  But Ben remained largely quiet, anxiously eyeing the old wooden beams of the Great Hall that towered above them, the rickety old staircases leading up into forgotten corners of the school, and the deep, rich colours everywhere that felt so unwelcoming. It smelled damp and cold. The floors were hard stone and polished wood, with the exception of the patterned carpet on the raised platform at the far end of the hall, from where the school assemblies were delivered.

  They moved on to some other buildings after the Great Hall, and towards the end of the tour they came to the school gymnasium. It was a large brick building set in a lonely spot near the edge of the grounds, housing an exercise hall and a swimming pool. As they approached a light rain began to fall, and the group hurried as much as they could behind Ms Villeneuve, who produced a large black and grey umbrella from somewhere, but refused to compromise her steady pace.

  It was a relief to Ben to step inside, and the bright lights of the exercise hall seemed reassuringly modern to him. He enjoyed playing most sports – he thought he was fairly good at them – and the hall brought a feeling of safety after the creaking stairs and crumbling walls of the other buildings. Ben’s mother squeezed his shoulders reassuringly as they entered.

  “The gymnasium is well equipped as you can see, and our boys and girls are required to participate in three exercise classes every week. We pride ourselves on an excellent performance record within the Greater London leagues and our boys and girls participate at county and national levels as well.” She made a sweeping gesture around the room, ending at a small door in a corner on the far side.

  “The original building was destroyed in a fire in the 1920’s but was originally constructed around 1750 at the same time as the Great Hall where we began the tour. At the time of the fire it was little more than the swimming pool, which we will visit in a moment, and a tennis court where you are now standing.”

  “There you go Jord, you like tennis,” Jordan’s father declared.

  Ms Villeneuve glided toward the small door.

  They passed through the door, and then into the boys changing rooms. The twin girls held their noses tightly, afraid of any residual smells of boys that had changed there previously. Then the group hurried through the long, open boys shower room, whose faucets looked unlikely to be capable of providing anything except icy cold water, before finally coming into the pool room.

  The room was very dark despite the lights, but Ben slowly looked around. It was a large pool, probably Olympic sized, he thought, with a spring diving board at one end, and lanes marked out with the usual dividers. There was the normal chlorine smell coming from it, but the water must not be well heated at all, as it was still fairly cold in the room and several of the group had wrapped their coats a little closer after they had come in. On the other side of the pool there were a few spectator stands, and Ben noticed a man dozing on them under his cap; a mop and bucket propped up nearby.

  Ms Villeneuve led the tour around the pool in the direction of the stands. “As you can see, the pool itself has been around for some time.” She smiled as if this was expected to draw a laugh, and a few of the parents obliged.

  “Is there a school swimming team?” Ilse asked.

  “Yes of course. The teams practice after school with Mr Taylor on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the school year, beginning with the initial team selection trials during the first week of term, and they compete in the Greater London Swimming League, with an excellent record.”

  The girls nodded.

  “And always a lifeguard?” their father said, with a frown.


  Some of the parents muttered quietly.

  “Some kid drowned here once,” Jordan’s father explained to Ben’s dad in a mock whisper, whilst patting him repeatedly on the back as if trying to help him with a ticklish cough. “In the middle of a swimming class too. Big mystery. But that was a hundred bloody years ago when they didn’t mind about losing one or two of the students!” He burst into loud laughter and moved away.

  Ben’s father smiled gratefully for the information.

  Ms Villeneuve stepped in to answer the question. “Yes there is always a lifeguard present during swimming classes and competitions. I assure you the pool is quite safe.”

  Ben looked around again. There were extravagant mosaic patterns around the pool and under the water. It reminded him of the Roman baths he had seen in Bath, when his family had visited. Not your typical school swimming pool, he thought. He wondered why they hadn’t updated it. It was probably one of the protected historic buildings he was learning more and more about.

  But the water was the most peculiar thing about it. The shallow end directly in front of where the group stood seemed brightly lit and still, except for the churn of the chlorine pumps. But as they walked around toward the bleachers side and the deeper end the water became unnaturally dark. So much so that Ben couldn’t even make out the bottom. The light cast by the bulbs beneath the surface seemed barely to be escaping. Just how deep was it? he wondered, looking for depth markings. He couldn’t see any. Was it his imagination or could he spot movement down there?

  Even the surface of the water seemed to move with a heaviness more like the open sea, with powerful rises and troughs like the deep water far away from the safety of land. He was glad to be standing on the side, but still felt as though he was at the unstable edge of a great yawning ocean trench.

  He edged away back to the group, which was pretending not to look at Ms Villeneuve as she addressed the man who had been lying on the seats.

  “Mr Evren please, I have asked you before. You are not to sleep here on the bleachers like a” – she paused momentarily – “beggar”. Her perfect composure and posture cracked just a little.

  The man had turned and sat up, but did not look directly at Ms Villeneuve. Instead he gazed at the pool. Ben noticed it was the same man who had been painting the chimney earlier.

  “Yes Ms Villeneuve,” he said, with a low, musical accent that sounded quite at home in the old school.

  Then he stood up, taking his mop and bucket, and turned to Ms Villeneuve. He appeared about the same age as the headmistress, but there was something very much older about him. Perhaps it was his beaten clothes and cap, or his craggy face and paint-dappled hands. He smiled softly, disarmingly, but his eyes were sharper even than Ms Villeneuve’s.

  The headmistress seemed to lose her composure once again.

  “Yes,” she said. Her eyes dropped away, and she turned back to the group, which was watching Mr Evren intently.

  “Let’s move on,” Ms Villeneuve said, and they began to walk back toward the changing rooms.

  As they left, Ben glanced back at the pool quickly, and then at the strange man. He was motionless, watching the pool. But just at that moment, he turned to look straight at Ben.

  That evening Ben eagerly took Toby and Paddy to the little park just up the road and played in the late summer sun that had burst through the drizzle as they arrived home. The aching in his chest all but disappeared as he chased after Toby, rolled on the wet grass with Paddy, and laughed till he was too tired to move. Toby rode on his back, and they pretended to be warriors on horseback valiantly fending off Paddy the terrible dragon, and for a brief while all the coming changes were packed away out of his mind.

  Three weeks later, Ben started at Hulstead College.

  Before they left home, his parents took almost half an hour posing him for photographs in his new school blazer on the front doorstep. He noticed several other children being put through a similar ritual as he glanced up and down the road.

  When they were finally satisfied, his parents delivered him to the stone steps of the Great Hall, and hugged him vigorously. He felt the ache in his chest returning as he waved goodbye to them. Finally, after they were out of sight, he joined the herd of other uniformed children trudging off towards their classrooms.

  Ben’s heart pounded above the chatter of children as he climbed the stairs to the second floor of the Newton Building, and walked down the long, gloomy corridor to room 2D. He walked through the open door into a small classroom, which contained about thirty wooden desks, arranged in six columns. There were a handful of other students who had already claimed the desks at the back of the room, and were playing on their phones, relaxing into their new territory. At the head of the class was a large table, and an enormous blackboard covered the front wall behind it. He carefully selected a seat in the first column against a wall, and in the middle row, hoping that this would avoid the prominence of a front row seat, but also the appearance of mischief from proximity to the back row, and therefore maintain a balance of anonymity as far as possible. There was also a large boy seated directly in the line of sight from this desk to the teacher’s, which would further advance his strategy.

  Room 2D gradually filled up as it drew closer to 8.45am, and Ben met some of his new classmates. A girl called Lucy Day walked in soon after he did, and smiled at everyone, before sitting directly in front of him. She had a little white streak in her dark brown hair, and earring studs in the shape of tiny pineapples and strawberries.

  “Hi I’m Lucy Day,” she said with a beaming smile that was as white as a toothpaste advert. “What’s your name?”

  “Ben Silverstone,” Ben replied, trying to remember if he had brushed his teeth in the hurry that morning.

  “Do you live in the village?”

  “Yes we just moved to Pickall road a few weeks ago, to the little cottage on the corner.”

  “Oh wow that’s a beautiful house I’ve always dreamed of living there!” She was still beaming.

  “It’s a bit old, but my parents really like it I suppose. Where do you live then?”

  “I live over in East Hulstead near the East Hulstead Tavern, so it was really easy to walk here up the hill.”

  Ben wasn’t sure exactly where East Hulstead or the East Hulstead Tavern were. He talked to Lucy for a while before the other students seated near him arrived. She didn’t seem to have any of the first day nerves that Ben and some of the other students did, and helped relax all of her neighbours.

  Behind Ben sat Jordan Knight, who Ben had met on the school tour with Ms Villeneuve. They exchanged a few pleasantries, but Jordan seemed more interested in shouting over Ben towards Lucy than talking to him.

  Ben had the wall to his right, but to his left, a tall, lean and tanned boy called Freddy sat, whom Ben thought looked far too old to be in his year. Freddy and Jordan seemed to know each other already and quickly became absorbed in discussing their summer holidays and sporting achievements.

  Sylvie arrived with Lucy and sat next to her. She was a French exchange student spending a term at Hulstead College and staying with Lucy.

  “I.... do not speak se good English, I ‘ope se teachers will be nice to me, do you think?” she said.

  “I’m sure they will be,” Ben responded. They talked for a while about her school in Paris, which sounded even older than Hulstead College.

  Behind Freddy was a boy called Hidashi, who had grown up in London and was now boarding at Hulstead College because his parents had moved back to Tokyo. He laughed a lot at everything Ben and anyone else said to him and seemed very happy to be there.

  Room 2D finally reached its full capacity, and the noise of the children inside it reached an almost deafening intensity. Then, just after the school bell rang for the beginning of classes, the students began to discern a soft thudding noise, and slowly quietened to listen more closely. The thudding was causing puffs of dust to fly off the blackboard and up from the table at the
front of the room, and it was even making some of their pencil cases rattle towards the edges of the desks as it grew louder and louder. Finally the thudding stopped, and the door swung open. The most massive, muscular man Ben had ever set eyes on stooped through the doorway, and thudded towards his table. The children coughed and shielded themselves from little pieces of the ceiling falling onto them. After a moment of rearranging the papers at his desk while the dust settled, the man took up a single sheet and a pen, and introduced himself.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mr Lomonosovsky,” he pronounced in a thick accent.

  Jordan and Freddy sniggered loudly, but Mr Lomonosovsky was unphased. He probably could have squeezed the life out of each of them at the same time without much effort at all if he had chosen, Ben thought.

  He quickly took the roll call, and then began. “We start this first day with Science, of Physics. So what is Physics, for you?” He waited.

  “It’s a type of science,” Hidashi shouted eagerly, “to do with movement, and things like that”.

  Mr Lomonosovsky was pleased. “Yes good. Very good. This class is obvious to be one of strong ones.” He seemed to flex an enormous bicep, and Ben worried his shirt would tear.

  “Physics is movement yes, and power and energy.” He paced across the room towards the blackboard as if to demonstrate. “Physics teaches us about concepts of matter” - he crushed the chalk to the blackboard, leaving a powder trail falling from the words as he wrote - “and energy, and how these interact to give us things like heat, light, sound, electricity, magnetism, and so on.” He waved his hands as if collecting all of these things in a mighty ball.

  Mr Lomonosovsky continued to thud around as he discussed the concepts and structure of the curriculum. Ben started to wonder how much food he ate to become so enormous, and imagined whole farms of cows and chickens awaiting slaughter for his meals at his home. The floor seemed strained with each step.

  “I have the strongest record of examination results in this year group, and I must retain that. The formula for perfect results is” - he turned back on the blackboard and, finding his previous chalk destroyed, pulled out a new piece - “hard work + attention.” He paused, turning back to them. “You must study hard, complete your homework on schedule, and ensure you train your minds to reach potential. You must pay attention to everything – every detail – I teach you in this classroom. If you fail, I will notice. I carefully monitor performance statistics for this class, and you will be punished.”

  There was a collective gulp.

  Ben was not surprised to see Mr Lomonosovsky walking towards the gymnasium building after the class.

  Towards the end of his first day, Ben went back to the gymnasium himself, for the first of the week’s exercise sessions, which was a swimming class. He changed into his Hulstead College swimming shorts beside Freddy, who had brought with him an expensive looking pair of swimming goggles. Ben tried to laugh at his jokes about how many girls from the years above them he had managed to kiss in the school holidays.

  Inside the pool room, Ben shivered, recalling how cold it had been on his previous visit. The gym teacher was Mr Taylor, who separated them into groups and instructed them on the way the class would proceed. Ben was disappointed to be put into a lane group with Jordan and Freddy, but he tried to mimic some of their confident gestures and avoid shivering as best he could. He noticed Mr Evren dozing on the bleachers again, and wondered how anyone could ever fall asleep in this cold, damp, dark place.

  The class began, and Ben began swimming laps up and down the pool. He felt his heart quicken as he glided over the dark deep end the first few times, and tried not to look downward. He was glad to find nothing rising up and attacking him, and felt more and more confident as he swam, easily overtaking Freddy, and drawing up towards Jordan.

  The session ended with a whistle just as Ben cruised up beside Jordan.

  “Great session Taylor!” Jordan shouted. He turned to Ben as he removed his goggles. “Not bad Silverstone, you thrashed Freddy!”

  Freddy’s head emerged slowly from the water with a glum expression unconcealed by his expensive goggles. “Rubbish pool,” he muttered. “No wonder someone got drowned in it. And can’t they afford heating?”

  “Don’t be such a wuss Rothburg,” Jordan laughed. “They keep it cold on purpose to keep the blood pumping faster or something.”

  Mr Taylor had finished the class and was instructing people to get changed, and get going to their next classes as he moved towards the exit.

  “Silverstone, shall we just get in a couple extra?” Jordan asked casually.

  Ben felt a surge of panic. “What, now?”

  “Yeah.” Jordan was already putting his goggles back on.

  Ben looked at Freddy, who stared back at him blankly. He was caught, fearful of disappointing Freddy and Jordan, but worried about being late for his next class. He attempted to hide his concern, and pulled his goggles back down over his eyes to set off.

  Ben’s heart beat faster now, but not because of the pool. He accelerated hard, catching sight of Jordan’s splashes ahead of him. Jordan swam back past in the other direction, and Ben estimated he was ten or so strokes behind him. He barely noticed the depths of the pool as he turned, following Jordan back to the shallows.

  How long would Jordan swim for? Ben thought. When would they stop, and go to the next class? Perhaps Jordan didn’t have to go to one for some reason – maybe he had a free period? He tried to catch sight of the clock in between breaths. His heart beat hard.

  Ben turned again. How many more lengths had past? Was he heading back to the shallow end, or towards the deep one? He looked up ahead of him, and saw the building darkness. His heart fell. Suddenly he was more aware than ever of where he was in this strange pool, and swimming towards the deep dark waters. And where was Jordan now? He should have seen him go past in the opposite direction by now. Come to think of it, had he seen him go past in the previous lap, or the one before?

  He swam hard. He felt cold, in spite of the all the strain of his swimming. The water seemed to be heavier, and rougher. His limbs began to ache. Despite his renewed efforts he seemed to be going slower. He must be near the end by now. Where was it?

  He tried not to look down, but the more he tried, the more he began to glimpse dark shadows beneath him. He imagined things watching him from below as they circled, and he started to feel like he was being held, and tugged downwards.

  He pushed hard again, and with relief, his fingertips hit the edge. He seized it quickly with both hands, and pulled his weary body out of the pool, rolling away from the edge. He drew deep breaths, and finally rose onto his knees, looking back at the pool.

  “Lesson is over. You best be on your way.” The musical voice of Mr Evren came from a few steps away. He tilted his head slightly and squinted as he rubbed his stubbled chin, appraising Ben.

  Ben stared back at Mr Evren, and then at the pool. He gasped for air. He didn’t know what to say, even if he had breath to say it.

  “You are a good swimmer” - Evren turned his eyes to the pool - “but it’s dangerous to swim in the pool by yourself.”

  Ben coughed. After a moment he nodded, and jogged towards the changing rooms.

  He quickly showered, and dressed for the next class. He knew he was late.

  His chest ached again as he reluctantly knocked at the next classroom, and entered. The teacher and other students stared at him as he apologised for being tardy and hurried his way to the last remaining desk, which was directly in front of the teacher. She waited for him to open his bag and take out his pencil case, and then continued writing on the blackboard. Ben stared into space for most of the class.

  At the end of the final class of Ben’s first day at Hulstead College, the cold early evening had already begun to set in, and by the time Ben had walked home through the village it was almost dark. The streetlights struggled to illuminate Pickall road, as he made his way to his new home. He wa
s glad to receive the hugs from his mother, and to be welcomed back into the warm glow of the kitchen. Paddy emerged with Toby to greet him, and whimpered until he was patted to satisfaction. But even the laughter and warmth could not completely dispel the ache in Ben’s chest.

  A few days later, Ben had his first English lesson. Mrs Greenleaf’s voice was like a soft lullaby, and he needed to concentrate very hard to avoid drifting off to sleep as she introduced the Greek play ‘Oedipus The King’, as their first study. Lucy had read it already, and turned and smiled at Ben excitedly.

  Mrs Greenleaf called upon certain students to play the characters through each section, as they read through together during the class. Mrs Greenleaf asked Ben to play the hero Oedipus during one scene, and chose Lucy to play his wife Jocasta. Ben blushed as he read the loving words in front of the class, and predictably, Jordan couldn’t resist making fun.

  “Try not to drool on your desk ‘Salivastone’!”

  Ben didn’t dare turn around, and tried to ignore the laughter.

  Mrs Greenleaf talked a lot, but later must have noticed the yawns from around the room, and decided to wake everyone up.

  “What do we think is underlying these words – what is Oedipus thinking?” She looked around the room. Her eyes rested for a split second on Ben’s, and he felt the blood rushing to his face in horror. He quickly looked downward, and pretended to be re-reading the section. He held his breath and hid, only releasing it with a stifled gasp when Mrs Greenleaf had settled on Lucy again.

  “He’s worried that the prophecy might be true,” Lucy said excitedly. “He is worried that he might not be who he thinks he is. And that is beginning to shake his foundations a bit.”

  “Yes, perfectly perceptive as always Miss Day,” Mrs Greenleaf responded with a pleased smile.

  “What a pile of rubbish,” Freddy and Jordan laughed to each other at the end of the class, as they rushed out to the playground for break.

  Lucy turned towards Ben, and grinned with her white smile again. “So do you like the play Ben?”

  Ben flushed, a million interpretations rushing into his head. What was going on here? Had he done something amusing? Was Lucy mocking him? Was this a trick? He finally managed to smile back, but at his own desk. He didn’t dare look up at her reaction. “Not bad,” he muttered to his pencil case, and immediately wondered what had possessed him to say such a thing. He frantically searched for something better to say about the words or the story, but by the time he had finished packing his bag and looked up, Lucy had gone.

  He replayed the moment in his mind endlessly in a search for the perfect response as he walked home later that day.

  “So how was your day today love?” Ben’s mother asked, as they ate dinner. His parents both looked at him eagerly. Toby munched on his soggy pasta beside them, a thin tomato and pesto moustache framing his mouth.

  “It was alright I guess.” Ben decided not to mention anything of the excitement with Lucy although that was all he could think about. “We did English today, and started reading a play called ‘Oedipus The King’.”

  “Oh that’s great I think I did that one when I was at school!” Ben’s father said. “Isn’t that the one about a hippopotamus called Eddy?”

  Ben’s mother sighed as his father chuckled at his own joke. “Don’t be silly Steven! I’m so proud of you Ben, getting into that posh school and reading Greek plays in your first week!”

  They both grinned at Ben widely.

  The end of the week was in sight, and Ben was feeling great relief, by the time Tim Wisecroft arrived in his class. Ben didn’t notice him that day until English, when Mrs Greenleaf asked a question about the reading of Oedipus they had just been through.

  “What do we think the author Sophocles is trying to do here, with this section?”

  Just as she had before, Mrs Greenleaf searched the room for a volunteer, or a victim. “Come on Lucy and Jack, let’s let some other people contribute this time.” She paused and Lucy lowered her hand.

  Ben shrunk behind Thomas.

  Mrs Greenleaf consulted her class listing. “Tim. Tim Wisecroft. Where are you?” She scanned the class over her half frame glasses.

  “There’s no Wisecroft in this class Miss,” Jordan quickly jumped in; eager to respond to something he knew the answer to.

  Mrs Greenleaf consulted her register again, and frowned. The tension began forming in Ben’s chest. At last a stuttering noise came from one of the desks near the back, and Ben joined the rest of the class in turning slowly towards it.

  “He…here Miss”. A small hand extended upwards.

  Mrs Greenleaf rose slightly from her seat, straining to see the boy. “Ah Mr Wisecroft, thank you.” She consulted the register again. “And I believe this is actually your first day, so welcome to our little class. The other students should make you very welcome.”

  Ben could feel the boy’s anguish.

  “School started on Monday mate!” Freddy joked. The class giggled.

  Mrs Greenleaf continued. “Well Tim, what do you think the author is trying to achieve here, with this segment?”

  Poor Tim, Ben thought. He was thankful for not being called upon himself, but felt desperately for him. He willed the other boy to say something brilliant, intelligent and strong, announcing himself to the class and silencing Jordan and Freddy forever, but as the moments passed by, he knew it would not come. He sensed the clock ticking, feeling as though something in him was tearing with every slice of the red second hand.

  “I don’t…. know Miss,” Tim said at last, looking down at the text. “Maybe th….at” - Freddy looked at his watch - “that Oedipus is caugh…caught…. between two things?”

  “Yes yes exactly Tim.” Mrs Greenleaf patiently waited for the class to return their gazes to her. “Sophocles is doing exactly that. He wants us to realise that Oedipus is very conflicted. On one hand he wants desperately for the truth, and that is understandable wouldn’t you say Freddy?”

  Freddy bumbled something, but she didn’t wait for him.

  “But on the other hand he suspects that the terrible prophecy about himself might somehow have fact in it, and is afraid of what that would mean about who he really is. That great conflict will continue throughout the rest of the play and the author will bring it out at different points. We will keep an eye out for it. Thank you Tim.”

  At lunch that day, Ben noticed Tim sitting alone, at the end of a table full of giggling girls. He walked over to him. “Hi I’m Ben, I’m in your class.”

  Tim smiled up at him.

  Ben sat opposite on the bench. “How come you were late to join school then?”

  “My parents, th…ought we were going to stay in Australia for a bit longer. I…w…as in the middle of a school year there.”

  Tim’s stammer seemed to dissipate as he talked and became more relaxed. Ben was glad he felt comfortable with him already. “So what happened?” he asked.

  “They had to move back here as D….Dad got a new job unexpectedly.” Tim took another mouthful of his steak and kidney pie, while Ben waited. “So it was a bit sudden for us really.”

  They sat and talked for a while. Ben told Tim about his own change of scenery and the classes Tim had missed. After a while he decided to mention the swimming pool. “So have you heard about the weird swimming pool here?”

  “The old one, where someone drowned ages ago?”

  “Yeah.” Ben paused, considering how to go on. “There’s definitely something strange about it. I had to swim on the first day of term. It sounds strange but it felt like there were some strong currents in it. Just like you might find out at sea.”

  Tim didn’t look up from his bowl of rice pudding. He ate like a boy twice his tiny size. Ben sensed he was listening intently as he scraped the sides.

  “I could feel something pulling me under in the class last time, and then I managed to get out, and the janitor was standing there like he knew what was going on. He’s a bit odd
too I think.”

  Tim looked up, his bowl so clean it could have been put straight away. “Hmmm, could be a drain that’s got some strange pressure on it I suppose? I think we have a class there tomorrow don’t we, so we could test it together then? I’m not a very good swimmer though. I don’t exercise much really.” He smiled.

  Ben felt much better having confided in him, and lighter getting the story off his chest.

  They packed up their trays, deposited them at the cleanup point, and walked out together into the playground.

  The next day, all Ben could think about was the afternoon swimming lesson.

  He missed his lines a few times during English, and Lucy giggled as he tried to catch up.

  He survived a surprise test from Mr Lomonosovsky on forces.

  Finally, the clock struck 3, and he walked with Tim over to the looming brick gymnasium. The lights from the exercise hall beamed out into the cold grey afternoon as they trampled over a few soggy autumn leaves towards it. Ben’s heart was already beating hard, and his chest hurt again.

  After they had changed, Ben and Tim were put with Paul and Mary in one lane. Ben was relieved to be nowhere near Jordan or Freddy this time, but barely heard Mr Taylor barking instructions for the lesson as he stood on the side shivering with his group.

  Mr Evren was there again in the stands, only this time he was awake, watching them.

  They started by swimming four lengths of breaststroke. Ben swam as fast as he could do without overtaking Tim, and offered some words of encouragement to keep the smaller boy going. Mary and Paul sped past them.

  Then they moved on to backstroke, and Ben found his hands hitting his friend’s feet. He didn’t mind though as it kept him focussing on something besides the darkness below him. So far, so good, he thought.

  The class paused at the shallow end while Mr Taylor shouted some further orders at them. This time they were to race in freestyle, and Ben was pitted against Mary in the first race of their lane, with Tim to race Paul second.

  Mr Taylor gave them a few minutes to line up at the edge.

  Ben’s teeth chattered hard as he moved towards the start beside Mary. He glanced at Tim behind him at the lane edge, who nodded and gave a sympathetic smile. In the bleachers Mr Evren sat watching.

  Ben stood in position, ready to dive in. He stared down at the shallow water and the strange mosaics decorating its bottom. Swirling shapes and intricate patterns. Nothing he recognised. His eyes followed them away into the distance; to the dark waters he was about to swim straight into.

  The whistle blew.

  Ben burst away, nervous energy coursing through him. He was already a full body length ahead of Mary. He could hear the shouts from the side, and the splashes of swimmers in the other lanes as he took his first breath. He knew he was way ahead of them, but didn’t care. His adversary was the pool itself.

  As he surged ahead, he watched the slope of bright mosaics fade away beneath him, until he could see nothing but shadow. He looked ahead for the end of the pool, but couldn’t make anything out. To his left, he could still see a section of the lane marker. He just had to stay close to it.

  He swam hard. All he could hear now was his own heart, beating so powerfully in his ears he thought it might just burst. But there was also an energy unlike anything he’d ever felt pumping through his arms and legs and powering him on.

  He knew he must be approaching the turn.

  Suddenly though, he began to feel something. A surge of panic hit him as he felt the swirling drag of the water below him.

  He took another stroke, and pulled his head out for a breath. Where was the lane marker? The water was swelling around him like waves. His head turned back down, but all around him was dark.

  He swam still harder, but he could feel the water building in strength, determined to catch him and suck him down into the blackness. It almost had him in its grasp.

  He fought on, but could feel the energy in him beginning to wane. In desperation he considered stopping to call for help, but knew the water would gain an even stronger hold around him if he did.

  He realised he was going to go underwater.

  The pool pulled him down relentlessly, and as his strokes slowed, his arms and legs no longer broke the surface.

  Ben sunk.

  His heart beat in his ears as he stopped swimming, and turned to watch the fading light of the pool surface above him. He caught sight of Mary and a few of the swimmers from lanes near theirs. Soon they would come down too, he thought, and then Mr Taylor would realise and pull everyone out somehow. He just had to hold on. He held his breath, and tried to save his energy and stay calm, but knew he only had a minute at most.

  The other swimmers passed overhead, and the surface quickly darkened.

  He didn’t understand. Was it just a drain problem under his lane? That was impossible. A pull this strong would definitely catch other swimmers in the lanes beside his. And why had it not affected Mary for that matter? His mind raced as fast as his heart as he tried to think. Maybe if he waited till he reached the bottom he might be able to get out through a pipe? The air was running out though, and his confusion was not helping.

  Still further down he went. The water was thick and heavy around him, and he could barely see his hands. His ears popped.

  He curled into a ball and imagined the things that might be waiting for him down there.

  The water swirled and he spun in all directions.

  Ben knew he was running out of breath. Hopefully his parents wouldn’t cry too much, he thought. He wanted them to be happy in their new, old house. An overwhelming sadness mixed with anger inside him, and he sobbed into his goggles.

  But then, all of a sudden, there were flickers of light.

  Light above him.

  The water seemed to have relaxed its icy grip, if only for a moment, and he thought he might actually be floating upwards now.

  He pulled away towards the light, swimming desperately upwards. It was close now; he just needed to reach it to see his family again. He didn’t understand, but nothing else mattered.

  He was reaching the very limit of his breath when at last he broke the surface, and gasped a deep, desperate mouthful of cold air.

  He opened his eyes, but his goggles had steamed up. He felt a cold droplet land on his forehead. Then another.

  He lifted his goggles and looked around for the rest of the swimming class.

  But the other students were nowhere to be seen, and Ben was not in the swimming pool anymore.

  Chapter Two

  A Perilous Welcome