Adam Baron - Boy Underwater

‘Have we all got our togs?’

‘Togs, Miss?’ Lance asked.

‘Swimming things. Towel, goggles, costume.’

‘ Costume? ’

‘Trunks, in your case, Lance. Not sure a bikini would suit you. Well? Cymbeline, have you got yours? You look a little pale.’

‘Yes, Miss,’ I said, my voice sounding a bit funny.

‘Right then. It’s only a short walk. Keep up, everyone.’

And off we went. To the swimming pool.

This was last Monday , though before I fill you in on that I’d better take another step back to the week before, which I’m really sorry about but I’ve just started to realise that this telling-stories gig is HARD. Miss Phillips again, the Friday before last Monday:

‘Children, you’ll be dismayed to hear that we won’t be doing any more RE on Monday mornings.’

Once the cheering died down, Lance asked why not.

‘Because, Lance – finger out, please – we’ll be starting swimming lessons.’

‘ We? ’ Danny Jones asked, quite a lot of fear in his voice.

‘I mean you. I’ll be watching.’

The relief at not having to see Miss Phillips in a swimsuit was almost overwhelming. Everyone started chatting with excitement and Lance turned and grinned at me.

‘I wonder if we’ll be joint third best at swimming too.’

‘I …’

‘What is it, Cym? You look … Are you all right?’

‘Yes of course. But I don’t think we’ll be joint good any more. Not at swimming, Lance.’

‘What? Oh no. I bet you’re really great at it, aren’t you, Cym?’

‘Er,’ I said. ‘Well.’ And then I said, and I don’t know WHY I said it, ‘Yeah, I’m like really epic at swimming.’

‘I bet you’re not as good as me, Igloo,’ said Billy Lee, checking that Miss Phillips wasn’t looking before elbowing me in the stomach. Billy Lee does that. Always . He’s a super-horror is Billy, sort of like a purple Minion but there’s nothing you can do to make him go back yellow. ‘I can do butterfly,’ he went on. ‘Can you do butterfly?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Course.’

‘And what else?’

‘Er …’ I thought hard.

‘Well?’

‘Moth?’

‘ What? ’

‘I can do that. Moth. As well as … butterfly,’ I said.

Lance cracked up at that and slapped me on the back, though I don’t know why. Butterfly? I thought we were going swimming, not out in the park to wave nets about. I hid my ignorance, though, and stared at Billy Lee’s flat smirking face as he said, ‘Right, we’ll see about that. Monday morning, me and you, Igloo.’

‘What?’

‘A swimming race. Crawl.’

‘I thought you said “swimming”.’

‘The stroke crawl, dib-head.’

‘Of course,’ I said. And by the end of lunchtime it was all around the class. I, Cymbeline Igloo (likeable, friendly, supportive classmate to all), would be taking on Billy Lee (brash, snide, downright bully when he can get away with it) at a SWIMMING RACE at Lewisham Pool.

‘The loser’s a total dib-head,’ Billy Lee said, but I felt like one of those already.

Me, in a swimming race? When I had never, not once, EVER been swimming, and against someone a foot taller than me whose parents signed him up for every sport going ? What – bangheadondesk – was – bangheadondesk – I – bangheadondesk – thinking? I kept asking myself that all day, racking my brains for some way out of it, desperate until something amazing happened. It was home time. I was in the playground. Just standing there when …

Veronique does not come up to people. Not even Miss Phillips, whose grammar and spelling she is often known to correct. Miss Phillips thanks her when she does this but I don’t think she really means it. Veronique’s this rare unapproachable genius. She can spell words like ‘piculear’ and ‘sircumstanz’. Her mum’s French so she can speak that and her dad’s Chinese so she can also speak … Satsuma (I think that’s what it is). Or is it Tangerine? Never mind. She’s FIVE whole GRADES ahead of me at piano (she’s on Grade Five). And she’s … No one’s looking, right? I can say it …

REALLY PRETTY. She’s got this long black hair that’s so glossy you can almost see your own face in it and she smells like someone somewhere is eating candyfloss.

I was so psyched by Veronique just coming up like that, that I forgot how I’d managed to get myself into the worst situation of my entire life. Until, that is, she spoke, and my insides slopped over like a badly cooked pancake.

‘Cymbeline, I really hope you win.’

‘Sorry?’

‘On Monday. Against Billy. He lives near us and he’s such an idiot. I hope you smash him,’ she said, smiling at me.

When I didn’t answer, Veronique gave me an odd look and walked off, after which my mum appeared out of the crowd and started to interfere with my hair.

‘Did you have a good day, Champ?’

‘Yes, Mum,’ I answered. ‘Perfect. I spent it thinking about how you are, without doubt, the best mother in the entire world.’

‘Ah …’

‘NOT!’

‘Cymbeline? Cym? Is there something wrong?’

‘Nothing YOU can fix,’ I said, and stomped over to the gate, where Billy Lee was smirking at me.

‘See you on Monday,’ he said.

Google search: how to crawl.

Result: baby may spend time rocking forwards and backwards initially but by between eight and twelve months she should be crawling confidently and pulling herself upright.

What? A baby can do it and I can’t? No, wait, that’s not swimming crawling, is it?

Google search: how to swim crawl.

Right, here we go. That looks doable. Swimwell.org says you have to lie in the water face down and move your arms like two windmills. You tilt your head from side to side to breathe. Fine. How hard can it be?

Shut computer.

‘Mum!’ I called from the living room.

‘Yes, Cym?’

‘I need to have a bath!’

I heard a teacup smash on the kitchen floor before she came rushing through.

‘Cym, are you okay? Are you feeling all right?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘It’s just that, well, you asked to have a bath.’

‘I know, I, er … I just feel that being clean is very important.’

‘Of course. Well, I’m glad you’ve finally woken up to that. But won’t a shower do?’

‘Not on this occasion, no.’

Upstairs, I ran a bath and began. Head down, bottom up. I probably shouldn’t have added the bubble bath, though. Pretty soon I was rubbing my eyes and spitting out mouthfuls of foam. The problem was that it just wasn’t deep or long enough. Or wide enough. My arms hit the sides when I tried to windmill them and I kept banging my head on the end. Swimwell.org had mentioned something called tumble-turns, for swapping round and going the other way. But when I tried one of those I pulled the plug out with my big toe and kicked the bubble bath out of the window.

‘Have you gone mad?!’ Mum screamed, running in. There was more water out of the bath than in it.

‘At least I’m clean,’ I said. Whereupon Mum just shook her head and picked up the shampoo bottle.