Haze
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Copyright © 2012 Erin Thomas
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Thomas, E. L. (Erin L.)
Haze [electronic resource] / Erin Thomas.
(Orca sports)
Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-4598-0071-7
(PDF)
.--
ISBN
978-1-4598-0072-4
(EPUB)
I. Title. II. Series: Orca sports (Online)
PS
8639.
H
572
H
39 2012Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
JC
813'.6Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
C
2011-907784-1
First published in the United States, 2012
Library of Congress Control Number:
2011943721
Summary:
When trouble arises on Bram's swim team, he struggles to find out who hurt his friend and to protect his coach from blame.
Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has
printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
®
.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover photography by Getty Images
Author photo by Neil Kinnear and Lesley Chung
| ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS Â Â Â Â Â Â | ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS |
| PO B OX 5626, Stn. B | PO B OX 468 |
| Victoria, BC Canada | Custer, WA USA |
| V 8 R 6 S 4 | 98240-0468 |
www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
15  14  13  12  â¢Â  4  3  2  1
For Mike, the crusader of the family,
with love and apologies for years of
bad nicknames.
Contents
I curled the toes of my left foot around the cool concrete edge of the starting block. My right foot was behind me, ready to push.
I was trying out for the Strathmore Academy swim team along with a bunch of other kids. Most of them were ninth graders, a year younger than me. The Sharks called us “pond scum.”
I breathed deep, like I always did before a race, filling my nose with the smell of chlorine. The Sharks were about to see that this pond scum could swim.
I bent forward. My fingers skimmed the starting block. My lane was in front of me, blue water rippling. This was my world. I was focused. Ready.
“Go!”
The Sharks hadn't even finished shouting the word before I sliced the air in a dive. I broke water, not going too deep, dolphin-kicking up to the surface to keep my speed. My arms pulled me through the water, fighting the drag of the adult-sized diaper I wore over my swimsuit.
The diapers were for us pond scum. Just like the Vaseline-in-the-swim-cap joke. Or the time they stole our clothes out of the locker room and we had to walk across the grounds and back to the dorms in our Speedos.
Compared to the Speedo walk, wearing diapers for this race wasn't that bad. Mine was soaking up water fast, slowing me down. It didn't matter. I didn't have to beat my personal best. I only had to beat the other pond scum.
To make the team, I had to impress Coach. But to be
part
of the team, I had to impress the Sharks.
I was in the outside left lane, so I couldn't tell what the other swimmers were doing, except for Droid, my roommate. He had the lane beside mine. Droid was a strong swimmer, but faster on his back than on his front. Back crawl was his stroke. The front crawl was mine. I passed him.
I shot my arms out again and again. My shoulders burned because my body wasn't slicing through the water like it usually did.
Droid fell behind. The wall was in front of me. I forced my body down and around and dolphin-kicked up again, never breaking my stride. This was a short race, only four lengths.
The soggy diaper slid down over my hips, strangling my kick. My arms were churning water, not slicing through it. I sucked in a quick gulp of air and powered on to the end of the pool. Two more lengths.
By the time I finished, the diaper had slipped down almost to my knees.
I tagged the wall and surfaced in one motion, looking to the right to see the others finish. Droid was a few strokes back. One other guy, with a bright red swim cap, was already holding the wall. I didn't know his name. Most of these guys, even the ninth-grade freshmen, knew each other. They were all connected through Connecticut rich-boy clubs or whatever. Not me. I was the scholarship kid.
Red Cap pumped a fist in the air, letting me know he had won. Not surprising. His shoulders were about six feet wide. When it came down to a power race, like this one with the drag of the diapers, he had all of us beat.
Still, second wasn't bad.
“Out of the pool, pond scum,” one of the Sharks called. It was Steven, the one who always looked as if he had stepped out of a J.Crew ad. All the other swimmers had finished. We were never more than a few seconds apart from each other.
Coach Gordon leaned against the swim team office's large window. A row of trophies was lined up on a ledge behind him. His Olympic silver wasn't there though. That he kept at home.
He gave me a nod, letting me know he had been watching and that he liked what he had seen. I grinned, but ducked under the water to hide it. He wasn't even supposed to be here. It was traditionâhe usually disappeared for the last fifteen minutes of each tryout session and let the Sharks run things. That was where the diapers came in.
If he had stuck around to watch the hazing, he had a reason. We hauled ourselves onto the tiles and waited to hear what Coach had to say.
As I stood beside Droid, in line with the other pond scum, one of the Sharks, Jeremy Blackburn, gave me a thumbs-up. That was as close as he could come to saying “Good race, Bram.” My chest puffed up.
Jeremy was a senior-year swimmer from my hometown, Storrs. He was here on a scholarship too. I had grown up chasing his swimming records. Some I beat, some I never managed to. I'd never admit it to him, but when I was eight and he was ten, I told my mom I wanted to be Jeremy when I grew up.
I even dated his sister, Abby, back in grade eight. That kind of put a downer on the whole hero-worship thing. Before she decided we were better off as friends, Abby told me all of Jeremy's disgusting habits, like the fact that he picks his toes when he watches television.
What mattered more than the thumbs-up from Jeremy, though, was the nod from Coach Gordon. He was the reason I was here.
“Nice uniforms,” Coach Gordon joked, addressing the line of us standing on the pool deck with soppy diapers hanging around our hips. “Boys, I thought I told you not to be too hard on them.” This last bit was directed at the Sharks. Mostly at Steven.
Steven's face might as well have been molded from plastic. His best friend, Nate, poked him in the ribs. Nate wore a towel around his shoulders like a cape.
“You've all worked hard to be here,” Coach said. “Tomorrow's practice will be our last tryout. It'll be at the Yale pool, not here. Those of you who have been around the team will know Yale has an Olympic-length pool, so we practice there once a week. I want to see what you boys can do with a decent stretch of water in front of you. Sunday, you can check my office door for the team list. Before we go, I want you to know that it has been a privilege working with each and every one of you.”
He looked at each of us in turn. His eyes stayed on me for an extra second. What did that mean? Did it mean I made the team? Did it mean I was out? I had come to Strathmore on one of their swimming scholarships, but Coach made it clear from the start I had to earn my way to the team like everyone else.
But if I didn't make the team this year, no scholarship next year. My parents couldn't afford Strathmore tuition. And then there would be no chance to attract the attention of the college scouts, who always watched the Strathmore team. Swimming was my ticket to a good college. It was all I had.
Coach was still speaking. “They say swimming is an individual sport. But that's not the way we do it here at Strathmore, is it, boys?”
We knew our cue. “Go Sharks!”
Coach grinned. “I see good things ahead, team. Very good things.”
He headed out of the pool area, tugging his belt up over the slightest hint of a pot belly. I wondered what he meant. Good things? Did we have a shot at statewide this year? Nationals, even?
“Is that clear, pond scum?”
I jumped at Steven's shout. I had missed something. Coach was gone, and Steven was glaring at us. He wasn't officially in charge of the Sharks, but they let him take the lead. Maybe it had to do with his being head boy. At my old school, a title like that would have been social suicide. Here, it seemed to mean something.
“Psst. Dude.” Droid stepped on my foot.
I nodded and said, “Yes, Shark Steven,” with the others. Trying not to be obvious, I looked to see what the other pond scum were doing. One by one, they walked toward the sauna. Waddled might be a better word. Apparently it wasn't time to remove the diaper yet. Too bad, because it chafed.
This was a favorite game of the Sharks. Stick us in the sauna, lock it from outside until we half melted, and then make us run and jump into the water. The pool wasn't warm at the best of times, but after ten minutes in the sauna, it felt like a polar bear dip.