Authors: Naomi Fraser
Water streams into my mouth and
nose, tasting intensely salty and burning my sinuses. I lift my arms in the
accepted freestyle stroke, but it feels all wrong and I can hear the laughter
from the bleachers.
I gulp in water and sink. Deeper
and deeper, I go. The tiles at the bottom are white and uniform, though the
cold water feels divine against my skin. Suddenly, my back bows, and a scream
rips from my throat. Bubbles stream out all around me until the foam clouds my
vision. I hold my breath so I can see and won’t take in anymore water, but my
lungs shake in desperation. I think of getting out the pool to grab the puffer.
No.
No.
Everyone will see.
Oh, God.
Bones begin to realign in my
chest, and pain becomes my old friend.
Closer than breath.
Ribs crack, cave, and I’m sure
I’m going to die. Right here, right now. I curl up in a ball on the bottom of
the pool. Water undulates above me, revealing bright blue board shorts at the
edge.
Lakyn.
Waiting to rescue the
drowning girl.
Come on, Ellie,
Dad’s
voice shouts in my ear.
Fight.
I need to kick. Swim to the surface. But
I have no choice other than to go along with my body, even though I have no
idea where it will lead me. I must kick, kick, and then . . . my knees loosen,
as do my lungs. A popping sensation echoes
cap, cap, cap
in the back of
my neck and up behind my ears. A shuddering thrill races from my fingertips to
my toes and my spine sparks with fire.
I’m swimming.
Finally.
I turn to the white end of the pool. Wait, I tell my body. Where am I? I feel
as if I’ve just woken up in the middle of the day, thinking
it’s
morning.
The urge to swim overpowers me,
forcing my hips to shift from side to side, and I bring my head up to the
surface and suck in a lungful of sweet oxygen. My ribs hurt.
Again,
again.
Go back into the water.
I release the edge, wanting to
bathe in the depths.
Coach clicks the stopwatch around
his neck. “Twenty-nine seconds,” he says over the sound of the water lapping my
ears. “You’re behind everyone else for freestyle. Show me your backstroke.”
I grasp the metal bar on my side
and throw myself backward. I twist my hips from side to side and roll in the
water.
Blue sky smiles back me, and the
gliding water along my body is wonderful. I hum and hold down my arms by my
sides and kick, kick, kick. I don’t see any splashes, but pure tears of
happiness leak from my eyes. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. My lungs
flutter with excitement. I instinctively reach out and touch the block at the
other end of the pool, then turn around, treading water.
Lakyn reaches down, grasps my
hand and swiftly hauls me onto the cement in one powerful tug. A grin lights up
his face, and my stomach quivers.
That super smile of his,
complete with dimple.
The dark roots of his hair match his tan.
My knees wobble. “Thank you. But
what are you doing here? Making sure I don’t drown?”
“No, offering my congratulations.
Great work, Eloise.” Something touches his eyes, a hint of sadness maybe, like
there’s more he wants to say, but can’t.
I stand there, dripping wet, the
cement warming my feet, and he inches closer until a few centimetres separate
us. I can’t believe he’s still holding my hand. I smile uncertainly, loving the
heat radiating from his body. A red towel is slung around his neck, and his
skin glistens in the fierce sunlight.
His biceps look terrifically
strong, but it’s his eyes that hold me spellbound, and the tingling sensation
in my lips hurts after the cold water, stinging them to life.
His mouth parts again. “Have you
ever thought—?”
“The best time,” Coach says,
striding up. “I didn’t know you could swim like that. With a bit of work . . .”
My gaze swerves to the water, and
I turn, letting go of Lakyn’s hand. For some strange reason, I want to yank off
my cap, dive right back in there and wet my hair. Bathe my skin. But I hate
swimming. Hate it. Especially in competitions where I always feel like an
uncoordinated try-hard.
I can’t help the puzzlement in my
voice. “Why do I want to go swimming again?” I whisper. “That felt wonderful,
once I got past—”
“The pain,” Lakyn fills in and
then nods at Coach. I’m ushered off to one side with Lakyn’s hand pressed
against my lower back. “Others will begin in a second,” he murmurs in my ear.
“You need to move.”
Oh. OK.
But I realise I don’t say that.
My lungs allow me to breathe easily for the first time since I began using the
puffer. We weave past
Ashly’s
group, and I try to
ignore her catty remarks, the laughter and the taunts, “Pity she couldn’t do
that after she jumped off the cliff. She wouldn’t have ended up in hospital.”
Oath,
sista
.
I close my eyes and pull out my
towel from my bag to dry myself. I don’t care anymore how much anyone knows. I
want answers even if I have to wade through a few insults to get the truth.
“She’s faking it, of course.” The
accusations echo across the steel and concrete bleachers. “How convenient she
just learned to swim. Don’t you agree, Lakyn?”
Ashly
heads straight over to him and stands so close I swear her body rubs against
his.
Desperate much?
At her sudden frown, my heart
jolts. Snap. I actually said that one.
She turns her dark eyes on me
fully, and they’re little black pebbles. Luckily for her, I’m tired of all the
drama.
“Why don’t you go away, freak?”
she asks.
Lakyn frowns at her, his mouth
set in a thin line. “Don’t talk to Eloise like that.”
I take some consolation from the
fact he obviously doesn’t agree with her. But why does it matter what anyone
else thinks of me? If I always follow their opinion, then they own me. That
sudden spear of clarity shakes me awake.
“Whatever.” I swipe my fringe
from my eyes, grab my bag and then hurry to the change rooms before I call back
something that will start up an all-out fight. I don’t need to turn around,
because I feel the piercing glares on my back. And I just don’t need another
crisis.
Tears drip down my cheeks and
swell over my chin. They are hot after the chill of the water. I slam into the
shower stall, lock the door and then tear off my swimsuit. I can’t wait to get
the dratted thing off me. I drop the fabric to the bottom of the stall, but the
sight of the top of my hip has me gasping and lurching against the wall. No.
Nooo
.
Sores have spread out in a big,
flat cluster across my lower abdomen and hips. The wounds are hard and white
with a
tinge
of reddish-silver at the edges. I cover
my mouth, staring in horror. One sore
verges
at the
leg line of my swimsuit. Maybe I got some weird bacteria from the cuts on my
hands and feet? I only have the scars now, but the memory of my time in the
hospital is so sharp, I can smell the disinfectant.
I sink to the edge of the wooden
seat in the stall, letting my head fall into my hands, feeling every bit of the
freak
Ashly
calls me.
I’M STUCK IN maths class again, and the vinegar and burnt
rubber stink of Mr. Lawry’s sweat permeates the hot air in the room. No, he
doesn’t bother to turn on the fans. Maybe the smell is in the paint by now, and
the cleaners will have to scrape the walls to get rid of the stench. The
whiteness of the exam pages hurts my eyes, and my brain thinks rather
sluggishly. Truly, my best subjects are music and art, but I haven’t been able
to sing because of my lungs, even though I used to jam all the time with Dad
when he was alive.
Lunch break is next, and my
stomach digs into my spine in a rumbling reminder.
I don’t look across the room to
Lakyn, though it’s hard to appear nonchalant. Another girl sits on the other
side of me, so he has to take a seat somewhere else. He is most appealing guy
I’ve ever seen in my life, and I am rather ordinary.
My hair isn’t just blonde, it’s
white. The kind that turns green if you mix it with chlorine. It makes me turn
green when I look at in the mirror of a morning. There is no colour to the
strands, so my curls add zero
colour
to my face. But
everything shows up on my pale skin, so I’m not surprised at its sensitivity.
There’s vivacity in colour. In white, I get nothing except glare and paleness.
Pale skin, hair
and grey eyes.
Arctic whiteout, they call it. We came from Sydney,
Australia three months ago. Wynnum is Mum’s hometown, and she feels comfortable
here, but I am still settling in to the slow-moving atmosphere. At least, I was
until my accident.
Now, I don’t know if I’m safe in
my own mind. The danger of not knowing why I went over the cliff means it can
happen again. How do I stop myself and fight the fear when I don’t know what to
look out for?
I want to talk to my dad, ask him
questions and hug him. I am a little ticked off there is no physical sign I am
my father’s daughter. No dark hair or green eyes. My dad was an astronomer who
travelled the world going to conventions, and he taught at a prominent Sydney
university. That’s how my parents met. Dad needed a place to stay near the
university, and Mum just began her work as a real estate agent. She often says
they found their perfect place in each other. So cute and cheesy, but that’s
how they were together.
Sometimes, when I look up to the
stars with Dad’s telescope I wonder at the beauty of the night sky.
If he is up there with more wisdom to tell me.
I’d bring up
his memory, his brown hair, straight nose and white teeth. His laughter and
rapture with night sky. I miss him less when I peer through the telescope. I
see his smile again and hear his deep voice. What I wouldn’t give for him to
wrap me in his solid arms and then I could smell his comforting scent,
especially with everything falling apart in my life. When I’d have a rough day,
he’d sing for me on his guitar. I’d join in, smiling at his encouragement.
Tears squeeze out of my eyes and
splash on my exam pages. I swipe them away and sniffle.
The desk seems bare without my
pencil case and books, but the timer goes off, and I get to work until the bell
sounds.
At lunch time, Bethany pulls out
The
Financial Times
from her school bag as she has to do a report for her
economics class. She sucks on a blueberry lollipop and then flips through the
pages while I eat my meat pie with sauce. Best five bucks you can spend at the
cafeteria.
“Hey, where did you learn to swim
like that?” she asks casually.
“I don’t know.” I guess I have a
vacant expression on my face, because I have zero thoughts on the matter.
“But what swim school did you go
to?” She’s still flicking through the pages of the newspaper. “I haven’t seen
that stroke before.”
I shrug.
“Nowhere.”
I take another bite of pie, and the meat and gravy is too hot, but it tastes
wonderful. I blow on the filling. Personally, I’d rather think about failing my
maths exam than the weird way my body is behaving lately. A logical person
might list all the strange occurrences: sleepwalking, jumping into the sea,
swimming so easily, but I’d rather not. I’ll go mad.
A frown knits her eyebrows.
“What? You’re a natural?”
I laugh. “Me? How athletic am I?”
She blinks and sets aside the
newspaper and lollipop and then bites into a big, red apple. The crunch breaks
the silence. A stiff breeze ruffles through the leaves on the trees in the
school yard, and she slaps a hand on the newspaper pages to stop them flying
away. Students traipse into one of the little gardens filled with native trees
and square seats. Spindly branches sway, and birds take flight, tweeting.
“Don’t say it,” she speaks around
the apple in her mouth, juice on her lips. “Just don’t say it, El.”
“What?”
“That you
couldn’t swim like that before the fall.”
She gets up on her knees, her
eyes wide.
“Right?
Do you realise what you’re telling
me?”
“
Er
. .
.” I frown. “Maybe the others were bad. I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I was with you. We were not bad.
It just doesn’t make sense.” She takes another bite of her apple and rubs her
forehead. She chews thoughtfully. “I’ve had swimming lessons since I was seven.
What with being so close to the water and all. Not that I enjoyed it very much.
What stroke were you using to get to the end so fast? Ashley’s spreading a
rumour that Lakyn pulled you out of the pool and gave you his towel.”
“He helped me out.” I scrunch the
plastic wrapper in my hand, pastry flakes falling all over my skirt, but I
brush them away. “He didn’t give me his towel. I didn’t want to swim, you know,
but he convinced Coach Williams to make me.” I smooth my fringe back from my
face with my hand, because the wind is playing havoc with all my hard work
after I left the pool.
I am determined to look normal on
the outside, even if on the inside my body changes in ways I can’t imagine. I
might have some weird bacteria from the cuts, but no one else is ever going to
know.
No one.
A sudden idea occurs to me: change is
something I cannot stop. It will affect me no matter what I do. I cannot
control it.
My best option is to make the
right choices while in the flow.
Bethany chuckles. “He’s the star
swimmer. Coach has got his knickers in a twist about it. Lakyn and a few other
guys are all lined up for the nationals. First time this school has competed in
thirty years. You’ve seen him swim.”
I remember the carefree glide of
water across his sleek muscles. The sun heats my back, and my skin prickles
with discomfort. I’d love to go swimming right now. My skin feels too dry. I
can imagine that silken glove upon me, the cocoon of water. “He’s fast.”
I loved my hips rolling and legs
becoming liquid. Not like all the other times when I dunked my head underwater
and held my breath to become a human balloon. Full of hot air, treading water
and totally out of my element.
Instead, I feel happy at the
idea.
Powerful.
“It’s a good pool,” I say, thinking
Bethany’s expecting me to speak.
She finishes her apple and hooks
it over her head to the bin, but the core smashes against the metal can with a
wet
thunk
and then rolls away in the dirt. I
laugh, and she grumbles before she stands, then wanders to the bin.
Though she casts me a long look over her shoulder once she picks up
the apple core.
“There’s something different about you. I can’t figure
out what it is. Why
didn’t
you swim like that when you fell off the
cliff?”
Yeah, that is the million dollar
question. The swaying branches and rustling leaves hold my attention as I think
over
Ashly’s
gibes. I touch my hips and wince at the
tenderness. “I can’t remember getting
to
the cliff, let alone falling.
All I remember is a song.
Maybe seeing my father’s face.
And, I couldn’t swim like that before.” The confession feels silly coming out
of my mouth, even if Bethany knows, because she saw me win the backstroke
trial. I shake my head and glance away. “Look, I’ve
gotta
go. I’ll meet you at the gate after school.”
Before Bethany can reply, I’m practically
running away.