Lula Does the Hula (40 page)

I blinked a drop of sweat from my lashes and concentrated on Dr Gordon, my gaze flicking back to Pen, then back to the umpire boat.

And that’s when I saw him.

Jack, his arms tightly round Jazz, balancing in the umpire’s boat and staring calmly downriver.

‘Frikking
frik
!’ I hissed. My eyes went crazed so suddenly that Pen dropped her arm and turned her head to see what I was looking at.

She whipped back round and met my eyes, switching off her microphone. ‘Now, Lula,’ she said, holding her hand out in a calming gesture. ‘Clearly Jack is filming this event, and Jazz is holding the sound boom, okay? Looks to me like they’re just hanging on to each other for, um, like,
balance
. Right? They’re
balancing
. We need you to stay in the zone here. We’ve just got our rhythm right. Against all the odds. We can win this race. If you focus.’

‘She looks like she’s enjoying the
balancing
,’ said Matilda.

I opened my mouth to get abusive, but Pen beat me to it. ‘Shut up, Matilda McCabe,’ she said. ‘That cow’s got nothing on my sister.’

Matilda’s shoulders tensed up, but she didn’t reply.

Pen glanced at me. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

I nodded. Pen clicked her mike back on and her arm went up again. I looked over at the umpire. He was lifting the loadhailer to his mouth. ‘Here we go,’ I murmured, and tension zinged through the boat.

‘On your marks,’ yelled Dr Gordon. ‘Get set! Go!’

And we were off. Our blades danced in and out of the water in a high-speed chase. Tap, tap, tap, pull, pullll, puuullll, till we were slamming down a whole slide-length, then whizzing back up at a massive rating to lift the boat up out of the water and away.

Suddenly the umpire boat was gone. Jack and Jazz were gone. The seagulls were gone. It was just Pen, Matilda and a world of wind and water, with six bodies behind us, following our every move. I barely heard what Pen was shouting. She was leaning forward, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, yelling in a hoarse voice that set goosebumps up all over my body and raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Up to the front of the slide I came, dashing the blade into the water at the exact instant Matilda did, bracing as she did, slamming down my legs as she did and leaning back at the finish at the perfect angle.

‘
More power, more power! Get ready for a squeeze. NOW!
’

And then the water rushed beneath the boat as eight legs thumped hard at the finish, floated up the slide, smacked in at the catch.

Smack, thump, glide. Smack, thump, glide.

‘
Take it up again!
’

‘
Squeeze!
’

‘
We’re a nose ahead, girls! Hold it! Hold it!
’

I came floating up for another catch, my body staying straight and true in the boat even though my arms were
reaching round for another dip of the blade. I saw Pen’s knuckles whiten as her fists gripped and pulled on the rudder wires.

‘
PSG is pushing us into the right bank!
’ she screamed. ‘I’m going to hold this line! Three, get ready to crash blades!’

I tensed and shunted down harder than ever as Siobhan’s blade cracked against PSG’s bow’s blade. The umpire roared disapproval and yelled at PSG to move across so our boat would have more room. My eyes flicked to the motor boat and suddenly I was locked in a gaze with Jazz. She was smiling triumphantly, as usual, and had her forearm over Jack’s, holding it against her ribs. Her left arm held the fuzzy sound boom in front of her. Jack’s face was hidden behind a huge news camera, the lens zoomed out at the PSG crew.

If he wants you, he can have you, Jazz Delaney
, I thought.
Just don’t expect me to be a loser either way
.

‘Another push!’ I yelled at Pen. Her eyes widened. We were pulling in tight round the bend now, and a surge of power could unbalance the boat. PSG were nipping at our strokeside blades, despite the red-faced outrage of the umpire, and a push might not allow us the coordination to keep our heads in the midst of all the crashing and bashing.

‘Do it!’ yelled Matilda.

Pen screamed the instruction, and our boat lifted and surged again.

‘We’ve got a foot!’ yelled Pen in triumph.

Slam!

Slam!

Slam!

‘Another foot!’ called Pen. ‘And they’re coming off our line! We need half a boat length to move over for the next corner!’

We kept at it, squeezing away at a race pace that had our quads and hamstrings burning, our calloused hands feeling ripped and torn, our throats raw as we sucked for air. All the while Pen was at us, encouraging, begging, pleading, yelling, screaming. We went into the next corner with less water on the PSG boat than we would have liked and then all hell broke loose. The high riverbanks that had sheltered us before dipped suddenly to low sandy flats, and suddenly the wind roared and rocketed at us. It buffeted the water into high choppy swells that slopped over the sides of the boat and against our bodies, slicking our blade handles till they were difficult to control.

‘Remember Friday night!’ yelled Pen. ‘Hold it together! Looking good!
We’ve got another foot!
Hold it!’

I snatched a glance across strokeside. Pen was right. We were pulling away from PSG, their boat beginning to flounder in the rough water.

‘
Eyes in the boat!
’ screamed Pen. ‘The burgundy sluts are gaining!’

I looked to the right. They were too. One of their blades
clipped Matilda’s, jolting the whole boat, and I held on like never before. The next stroke was going to be a clash for sure. I slammed my legs down for a hard finish and Pen yelled at the crew to ready themselves. My hands were clawed round my blade handle as I cruised up the slide. I cut my eyes over to the right again. The burgundy number two was looking across at Matilda, then at her blade and I watched as she jabbed at us, upsetting her crew’s rhythm. I held steady and I swear it was just coincidence that Matilda caught the edge of her spoon. It cracked as Matilda’s blade sliced through the air, and I heard her cry out at the impact. Another quick glance showed me that she was flat on her back in the boat, her blade fizzing out of control through the water.

We surged ahead, but it wasn’t the end of the drama.

Oh no.

Not at all.

Pen opened her mouth to call the next command, but before she could there was a strange sound, then a
thock thock
, and Matilda exclaimed in fright. ‘We’ve hit something!’ I heard her yell.

Pen’s forehead creased in confusion. She was looking down near the bottom of the boat, shaking her head in disbelief and pulling off her waterproof jacket and shoving it at the side of the boat.

She’s plugging a hole
, I thought.
What . . .?

Then a realisation hit, and her gaze shot up and over to the west bank. Before she could react there was a plume of spray from the water near me that didn’t fit with the crazy waves or the wind, then another and another, all of them
thock thock
ing closer and closer until finally –
thock!
– a ribbon of blood zipped across my forearm, and –
thock
– another across my right shoulder as I dipped into the next stroke.

No. Frikking. Way! Impossible!

Oh no you don’t
, I thought, searching the west bank for someone with a gun.
Oh no you don’t, you miserable little man. Not now.

‘
Go!
’ screamed Pen, her eyes wide and frantic and locked on to mine. Tears began streaming in that instant, the cords standing out in her neck, her face scarlet. ‘
Push for ten! Through the railway bridge! Now, now, NOW!
’

What? We were already at the railway bridge? We could do this. Just five hundred metres to go. Think about that. Don’t think about who’s out there. Don’t think about the burning grazes across your skin. Make this the
fastest
moving target ever.

Pen was no help at all. She was not counting down the strokes; she had turned round in the boat, gesturing wildly at the umpire boat behind us. The one with Jack and Jazz on it. Through snatched glances I saw Jack suddenly handing the camera to Jazz to answer a call on his mobile, his face dropping as he listened. One look back at me, then at the
west bank, and then it seemed as though he was about to dive into the water – but Jazz held him tight, holding on for all she was worth. He still had his mobile to his ear, then he stood tall, shading his eyes against the sun.

I tried to see what he was looking at . . . Was that a grey hat? A fedora? Someone sprinting through the bushes?

Looking back at Jack, I suddenly saw his arm fling up in a victory salute, a high thumb’s up to Pen. Phone back in pocket, camera back at eyeball.

Pen looked from him to the west bank then to all of us. Tears were still streaming down her face as she ignored Matilda’s yells for answers.

‘Pen? Pen? What is it?’

Breath rasped in my throat, as much from fear as the effort of rowing this far, this fast. But no time to think – PSG were fighting back now, and had gained two feet on us.

Pen glanced across at them, her eyes streaming in the gale. A gust hit us and the boat flopped hard to strokeside. She yelled at us to adjust the height of our blades to compensate and we pulled together to get the balance right. Then at last we were round the corner, and through the railway bridge. The wind was coming at Pen’s back, making it easier to balance. She yelled for the push, then to hold it, then screamed at us to up the rating.

I can’t!

I blinked. That voice in my head was not helpful. Not
helpful at all, even though it said what I was feeling, and echoed the smears of blood across my body, the sting of salt water in the raw flesh of my hands. The push through the railway bridge had got my nose bleeding again, and hot blood spattered on my left knee every time I came up at the catch.
Attractive
, I thought, and winced as the umpire boat surged close to us, Jack and Jazz staring hard at us all.

Okay, seriously. I just can’t
.

I caught a glimpse of Jazz. She was throwing her head back against Jack’s shoulder and laughing at something. Right, then. There were two minutes left of this torture and I was going to make them count. PSG were just to one side of us, the burgundy crew had dropped way back along with the others. Though the PSG crew looked scrappy and tired, they were still fighting back.

‘
We’ve lost another foot!
’ screamed Pen. ‘
Let’s push for home!
’

A two-minute push? Was my little sister
nuts
? A two-minute push may not sound like a lot, but two minutes rating thirty-four strokes per minute is sixty-eight back-breaking slams that could burn a tray of millefeuille calories in a nanosecond.

But, just for today, my little sister was boss.

Matilda eased up the slide and we began to work.

Slam!

Slam!

Slam!

The PSG crew did their best, Barbie’s voice growing more shrill with every stroke, but they were no match for our perfect rhythm, and the power it brought. I counted the strokes down, every surge of the boat bringing the sound of the finish line closer. Shouts from spectators on the riverbanks became more frequent, snatches of music from the hospitality tents were more audible now; out of the corner of my eye I saw three crazy figures on bicycles, pedalling madly along the river path to keep pace with our boat: Carrie, Tam and Alex, ringing their bells and shouting at the tops of their voices. I glimpsed the smug smile fade from Jazz’s face and saw Jack’s lens zoom for a shot of my friends.

I grinned. Three girls were better than one boy any day, even though my heart was not in the mood to agree at the minute.

‘Ten strokes to the finish, with everything you’ve got,
now
,’ came Pen’s voice over the speakers as the long shadow of the final high arched bridge came chopping across the water.

Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!

The noise from the banks was incredible. Shouting, chants, bicycle bells and hooters. I could see PSG pushing like never before. Were they gaining?

Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!

A commentator’s voice filtered through the roar of the
umpire’s motorboat: ‘
Hambledon Girls in the lead! They’re going to take it!
’

Slam! Slam!

The echoing honk of the hooter signalling the first boat over the line. A last glance at Jazz, the sound boom dropped down now, both her arms round Jack, laughing up at him again. Jack laughing too.

Hambledon Girls’ High had won the race.

And I had lost my boyfriend.