Rivalry at Silver Spires (8 page)

And that was when the door opened behind me, so I had to sign out as fast as possible and pretend I was just leaving. Jess sat down beside me and I tried not to go red.

“Are you okay, Grace?” she asked. “You look all anxious.” Her eyes seemed to be searching my face for clues, but I somehow managed to smile and say I was just tired.

“What have you been doing?”

“Looking up stuff on the internet for science.”

In one way it was easy to lie to Jess because she wasn't in the same science group as me and she knew I was always looking up things on the internet, so it sounded totally truthful. But in another way it was terrible lying to my best friend and I hated myself for it.

Later, when I was reading in bed but not taking in a single thing, I went over and over those messages in my mind. In the end I decided that it didn't matter whether people wanted to have private jokes or not. It was stupid of me to have got involved and I made a new, stricter resolution never to go in the chat room again. Then I wouldn't have to lie to Jess any more either.

Mrs. Mellor was in a great mood at the beginning of our swimming squad session, when we were all getting changed. She told us she'd roughly worked out who would be swimming in all the various races in the gala, and she'd decide for definite by the end of the session.

I shivered, because this first half of term was racing away and the swimming gala was so near. Then, we all went back to our chatter as Mrs. Mellor went through to the pool. Felissia was wearing a different swimsuit from usual and I must have been staring, because she smiled brightly and said, “Want a photo, Grace?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I was just looking at your costume. It's really nice.”

“Thanks.” She stood in front of the mirror and started scooping her hair into a ponytail as I went through to the pool. It was true I didn't really like Felissia, because she obviously didn't particularly like me, but at least I wasn't worrying about her being the bully any more.

“Right, girls,” said Mrs. Mellor after we'd warmed up and done a bit of free swimming, “I'd like to practise the racing dive.” She reeled off twelve names, including mine and Rhianna's from Hazeldean, and she also included Felissia, Bibi and Hannah. Then she sent everyone else to the shallow end to work on kick-board and pull-buoy drills, which is where you split the strokes up into different parts so you're practising the arms and the legs separately.

Mrs. Mellor then lined us twelve up in threes behind the blocks. She put me at the front, with two girls from Elmhurst behind me. I didn't want to go first; it made me feel too much on show.

“Now, girls, when it's the gala I will say, ‘On the blocks, please.' So front four people, do that now, please.” I stepped onto the block, feeling a bit nervous as though this really was the gala. “I will then say, ‘Take your marks,' and that is when you move to the front of the block… Yes, that's right, knees bent…” She suddenly asked everyone to look at me. “See how Grace's body is coiled, ready to explode on the starting gun…” I felt an even bigger wave of nervousness roll over me. I'd been in quite a few swimming competitions back in Thailand, but there had always been a whistle, not a gun. This suddenly seemed really official.

“Excellent, Grace. Knees bent a little more…” And just as Mrs. Mellor said that I distinctly heard a giggle from behind me, but I deliberately didn't turn round. I felt a bit stupid standing in this position, but there was nothing I could do because Mrs. Mellor was carrying on. “Now, this next bit is when you fling your arms and body forwards in order to enter the water as far down the pool as possible.”

I wasn't sure whether Mrs. Mellor meant me to actually do the dive, so I just bent my knees slightly more, which meant sticking my bottom out a bit to make myself perfectly ready, and this time the giggle was so loud that I straightened back up instantly and turned round. The Elmhurst girls had gone a bit pink and were trying to keep their faces straight. I glanced at the girls waiting at the next-door block. It was Felissia and her friend Cassie and they were both smirking.

“What's amusing you, girls?” Mrs. Mellor asked impatiently.

Felissia's mouth instantly stopped grinning but you could still see a mocking amusement in her eyes. At least,
I
could. Cassie was looking down. The girls from Elmhurst looked embarrassed now and everyone else just looked puzzled, even Bibi and Hannah.

I demonstrated again and this time I had to actually dive in, but it wasn't my best because I definitely heard someone snigger and it put me off. Mrs. Mellor said my dive was absolutely fine, though, which made me feel a bit better. Still, I couldn't work out why people had been giggling. Did I look funny with my bottom sticking out? Surely we all looked the same in that position, but when the others tried it I noticed there wasn't any laughter. I tried to forget about it for the rest of the session, but didn't really succeed until the end when we were each given a pair of small flippers. It felt brilliant going so much faster than usual and, as Mrs. Mellor said, it really did help us with our strokes.

In the changing room Evie was a bit hyper telling me about the presents she'd received at Chinese New Year, but she suddenly stopped her excited flow and I wondered what was the matter. “Look, Grace! There's a hole in the back of your swimsuit. I've just spotted it in the mirror.”

I craned my neck round to look in the mirror and saw with horror that she was right. There in the middle of the bottom of my swimsuit was a definite hole. I moved to the far end of the changing room, quickly wrapped my towel around me, and pulled the costume off to have a proper look. My stomach turned over as I realized it wasn't just worn out, it had been cut with a pair of scissors.

“Let's see,” said Evie, coming over a moment later, but I'd already wrapped my costume up in my towel by then.

“Oh, it's nothing much,” I said as lightly as I could. “I caught it on the corner of my drawer and pulled it a bit violently!” I tried to force out a giggle. “My own stupid fault. Thank goodness Katy's good at sewing!”

Evie was only just smiling. “You seem pretty relaxed about it, Grace! I'd be going mad if that was me.”

I hoped my loud heartbeat wasn't giving away how I felt. “Well, I've had this swimsuit for ages, and I've got another one, so…”

She nodded and carried on rubbing her hair while I glanced across at Bibi, who was keeping herself to herself and not taking any notice of anything going on around her. I looked at the girls from Elmhurst who had giggled when I was demonstrating the diving technique. I could hear them talking to two other girls from their house about entering the programme design competition. My eyes moved round to Felissia, who was carefully folding her clothes, and I thought back to how she and Cassie had smirked at me. I was shivering by then.

Jess came to meet me after the squad session, and we walked towards Hazeldean with Evie. I found myself tensing up, worrying that Evie might mention the hole in my costume. I knew Jess would want to see it. And then she'd be sure to insist on marching me to Miss Carol to explain about the messages and everything.

At first it was easy to keep the conversation away from swimming squad because Jess wasn't in the mood for talking. She'd linked her arm through mine and was strolling along, staring at the sky.

“It looks like marble with veins of steel in it, doesn't it?” she said in her soft voice.

“Why don't you get your camera and take a picture, Jess?” I asked on a burst of inspiration.

“I don't think it'd work. The light's not good enough.” She suddenly seemed to snap out of her dreamy mood. “Anyway, how was swimming squad?”

“Brill!” said Evie. “We got to wear flippers. Not those great big things – little ones that feel like an extension of your legs. It was cool, wasn't it, Grace?”

“Yeah…great! What did you do in art, Jess?”

“I worked on my entry for the swimming gala programme, but I don't want to say what it is till it's finished.” Jess grinned at Evie and changed the conversation back to swimming squad. “Flippers? You lucky things. Why don't we get to wear flippers in ordinary swimming lessons?”

“You ought to ask,” said Evie.

I urgently wanted to get away from this swimming talk. “Can't I see your competition entry, Jess? I bet it's brill.”

“You can when it's finished,” said Jess. Then she stopped and smiled into the distance and I thought she'd be thinking about her design, but it turned out she was picturing us all in our flippers. “I bet you were like a shoal of little fishes gliding up and down!”

“Yes, and one fish had a hole in its swimsuit!” said Evie, pointing to the top of my head dramatically.

My heart sank as the smile dropped off Jess's face and she turned to me. “Oh no! How did that happen?”

I rolled my eyes as though I was cross with myself. “I think it was when I yanked it out of my drawer…”

“An actual hole, though?”

I nodded and shrugged. “Never mind, I've got my other costume.”

“Gotta go, folks!” said Evie, turning off down the little lane that led to Oakley House. “See you later!”

As soon as she'd gone, Jess wanted to see my swimming costume and wouldn't take no for an answer.

“I knew something was making you anxious, Grace,” she said, as she poked her finger through the hole. “I could feel you all tense as we were walking. And no wonder.” Her frown deepened. “Look, it's right in the very middle. Are you sure this happened when you pulled it out of your drawer? It looks to me like it's been cut with scissors.” Her eyes softened as she turned to me. “Did everyone see it?”

I gave up trying to pretend I wasn't bothered and started explaining about the girls from Elmhurst giggling, and Felissia and Cassie smirking when I'd had to demonstrate the racing dive. “It doesn't mean it was them who did it,” I quickly added. “They might have just been laughing because the hole looked funny.”

Jess looked furious. “Laughing's bad enough, but I can't believe that anyone could be so nasty that they'd actually ruin someone's costume,” she said in a hiss. “You've absolutely got to tell Mrs. Mellor or Miss Carol now, Grace.”

“I don't want to,” I blurted out. “I can't prove anything…”

“But it's not just a couple of messages any more…”

A horrible guilt swept over me. Jess would have been even more shocked if she'd known about my sweatshirt and the other messages that I'd seen in secret. My guilt mingled with big alarm. It worried me so much when there was talk of telling teachers. “But the messages might not have anything to do with this,” I pointed out.

Jess wasn't listening. “I've just thought of something,” she said in a breathless voice. “Someone's actually been in our dorm. How else could they have got hold of your swimsuit? Do you think it was during Chinese weekend?”

I shivered, hating the conversation. The more we talked about messages and holes, the worse it all seemed. But Jess was determined to get to the bottom of it.

“Come on. Let's see what the others think.”

She started to walk off, but I grabbed her arm and spoke really urgently. “No, Jess. I don't want the others to know.”

“Why not?” She was looking at me as though I was mad.

“Because they might tell…someone, thinking it's the best thing to do, even if I told them not to…”

Jess was silent, her whole expression set in a question mark, so I gabbled on, trying to convince her that it was best to keep it to ourselves. “There's no proof of who's been messaging and who's done this hole and whether it's the same person, and there's no way to find out. I don't want big announcements in assembly or anything like that. I'd feel stupid after the stuff about my stopwatch going missing. If I just ignore it all, maybe it'll just go away. Promise me you won't say anything, Jess.”

A look of major alarm had come over Jess's face as I'd been talking and I had to wait for ages before she eventually nodded and sighed. “Well, if you're sure…”

“Yes, I'm certain.”

“But what's going to happen next?”

“Nothing. I'll wear my spare costume and act normal. I don't want to give anyone the satisfaction of thinking they're upsetting me. I just want to find out for definite who it is who hates me so much…”

Jess suddenly looked at me with dark eyes. “It's
their
problem if they hate you, you know. And I think it's cool how sensible and strong you're being, Grace! And actually, thinking about it, sooner or later, the bully is sure to give themselves away. We just have to wait.”

We walked the rest of the way to Hazeldean in silence, each in our own little worlds.
Torpedo Gal
and
Huggy Bear
were on a mission to humiliate me and stop me from swimming. Jess thought I was sensible and strong, but right now I felt sick. How could I carry on pretending I wasn't bothered when inside I was hurting so much?

When it came to the swimming lesson on Friday, Katy and Naomi both asked why I wasn't wearing my other swimming costume and I just said I felt like a change. Then Katy said the turquoise colour really suited me, which was nice of her.

Going through to the pool I noticed Hannah was sitting in the spectators' area, talking to Mrs. Mellor, so she'd obviously been given permission not to swim. Katy and Naomi hardly gave her a second glance, just slithered into the water, doing over-the-top gasps about how cold it was. They seemed to have completely forgotten about the “skinny loser” message that Georgie had seen. I was glad. It helped me to kid myself that everything was normal. But as I swam to the deep end, I started to feel even more uncomfortable with Hannah watching me than when she was swimming too.