is unlikely to have bought me any swimming trunks. Especially as, unlike Billy Lee’s parents, she is not ‘rolling in it’. On Friday, Miss Phillips had told us that if we forgot to bring trunks then we would have to wear the school spares, and the ones she held up brought howls of laughter: an ancient bodysuit, suitable, she said, for girls or boys. There was no way I was wearing that, but what could I do?
I got the idea on Saturday but it wasn’t until Sunday night that I could act. Mum goes to bed really early on Sundays, hardly any later than me. After she kissed me goodnight I lay awake as she watched a bit of telly downstairs and then listened to a few records. Old slow ones that she plays ALL THE TIME. I listened as she then sat in silence for a bit, until her phone rang. She chatted to someone and then I heard her lock the front door and the back door, before she went in the bathroom. When she went into her bedroom I waited a long time, listening. And there’s something about my mum that I would like you to keep to yourself. She snores, and when I heard her doing this I got out of bed, opened my door and tiptoed down the hall to the boxroom.
The boxroom is a small room near the bathroom. I don’t go in there much. It’s not that I’m not allowed; I just don’t. There’s nothing for me, just boring stuff that Mum stores. There’s a tennis racket that she never plays with and some old bottles of wine. She doesn’t drink. There’s a pair of weightlifting weights and bin bags full of clothes. Uncle Bill bought me a Scalextric on eBay and it’s a pain to keep putting up and down. The boxroom would be perfect for it but whenever I ask Mum why she doesn’t chuck that junk away she just smiles and interferes with my hair. She doesn’t answer, but I know why she keeps it all.
It’s my dad’s stuff.
Snore, snore, snore, whistle. Snore, SNORE. I glanced back at Mum’s door and then I turned the handle. It only took five minutes to find the swimming trunks. They were in the second bag I opened (the first had baby clothes in, a little odd as Mum normally sells all my old stuff on eBay). There were even some goggles. I snuck them into my schoolbag with a towel and went to bed.
‘Right, boys,’ Miss Phillips said, putting her head round the changing-room door. ‘Come on now.’
‘Yes, Miss,’ we all said, apart from Marcus Breen of course. Being Marcus Breen, he stuck his willy between his legs and told Miss Phillips he thought he was in the wrong changing room.
Have you got a Marcus Breen in your class?
We all filed out, a rushing noise getting louder as we made our way across these bumpy white tiles. We passed an old man having a shower who was completely covered in black and white hair, like a badger with a person’s head on, and then a group of big ladies approaching the water like some hippos I’d seen on the Discovery Channel. We stopped right by the edge of the pool and Miss Phillips chatted to a young man in shorts and a red polo shirt, with this big chin like a deck of cards. He looked down at us as she spoke to him, nodding all the time. Then he started to speak. He told us about safety things, the importance of swimming, how we had to listen to his whistle and do exactly what he said. He went on and on, while I looked at the pool. The smell was stronger now, biting into my nostrils. Our bit went from the deep end, where we were standing, towards the shallow end. The rest was portioned off by fat plastic rope things and was being used by the big ladies, who were jumping up and down to music. I began to think – yes! – this is going to be it for the first lesson, just talking. Until the man said, ‘Now then, which of you has never had any proper swimming lessons before?’
I fixed my eyes on him and took a big, deep breath. This was my chance. I could just raise my hand and admit it. I’d never been swimming. I could tell Billy Lee I’d been winding him up on Friday. I could join all the other beginners and finally learn to swim. I was pretty sure I’d be fairly good at it if I was shown how. I’m good at sport. I may not have told you, but I’m third-best footballer in Year 4 (joint). In a few weeks I’d be ready to take anyone on, including Billy Lee. But there was a problem. There were no other first-time learners. Not one other person put their hand up. Not even Marcus Breen.
‘Impressive,’ the man said. ‘Well, let’s start at the other end of things. If you’ve all had lessons, has anyone here passed Level Four?’
‘I have,’ shouted Lance, sticking his armpit in my face as he shoved his hand up. Belvedere Blatt said he had too, and so did Laura Pinter and Elizabeth Fisher (though she just needed a wee).
‘Great,’ the man said, nodding. ‘Well, you’ll be our demonstrators. If you could just slide into the pool please, and –’
‘But I’ve passed Level FIVE,’ barked a voice from right behind me.
It was of course Billy Lee. He strode to the front and put his hands on his hips, the jet-black goggles strapped on to his forehead making him look like a giant bug. Everyone else sort of shrank back from him – apart from the teacher that is, who nodded admiringly. He asked Billy if he could dive and Billy said of course. The man nodded again and I could tell something: Billy had forgotten about our race. He was so intent on showing off that he didn’t care about it. The man stepped to the side as Billy put his goggles over his eyes. He did this elaborate stretch with his arms, and then hooked his toes over the last tile near the edge. He would have dived in if Lance hadn’t called out,
‘Wait!’
My friend. My so-called BEST friend. Billy would have spent the entire lesson demonstrating his incredible skills. He’d have forgotten about me. I could have plonked about in the shallow end until it was time to go.
BUT NO!
‘Please, sir,’ Lance shouted, ‘Cymbeline’s got Level Five too!’
‘Cymbeline?’ the man said, looking around at all the girls. I get that A LOT.
‘Here,’ Lance said, pushing me forward. ‘He’s EPIC at swimming.’
A hush developed. Everyone looked at me. Most of the class looked at me with expectation. The swimming teacher looked at me as if he very much doubted what Lance had said and Billy Lee looked at me with what I can only describe as a hideous, terrible glee. Because he’d realised. He’d either found out somehow, or he could just tell by looking at me, but he knew: I was not epic at swimming. And not only that. He could tell that I’d never been swimming at all.
‘Yeah,’ he said, holding up his hands and stepping behind me. ‘Don’t ask me, sir. Ask Cym. He’s incredible. He can do butterfly. He can even do some other strokes I’ve never heard of. Moth, wasn’t it? You should demonstrate, shouldn’t you? Show us all how it’s done, Cym. GO ON!’
And I felt two hands on my back. Billy’s hands. And then I found myself moving.
Forward.
And then I felt myself
Swimwell.org has quite a bit to say about diving. It is, says Swimwell.org, the action of ‘leaping or springing into water’. I had not, however, paid much attention to this part of their website as I really hadn’t thought that, on our very first school lesson, we’d be doing that. So, when I entered the water below me, it wasn’t with a dive so much as a sort of tangled upside-down
