Rivalry at Silver Spires (9 page)

The whole lesson was devoted to backstroke. I wasn't very good at it, because I kept on going off course like Evie had done in swimming squad. At one point I actually swung my arm back and hit someone by mistake.

“Oh sorry!” I said, before I'd seen who it was. “Are you all right?”

I got a shock to find it was Bibi, but surprisingly she didn't look cross. “It's okay. You only hit my shoulder.” I was on the point of carrying on swimming again when she said, “Grace…?”

“Yes.” I kept my face completely straight even though I was dreading her saying something horrible.

“Nothing…”

I couldn't stop thinking about that for the rest of the lesson, wondering what Bibi had been going to say. Then, as we trooped out to the changing room at the end, I heard someone ask Bibi what was the matter with Hannah.

“She's not feeling well,” Bibi replied.

I glanced at Hannah. She was sitting very still and just kind of staring into space. I'd never seen her looking like that before. Kind of…lost. Maybe my plan was working and she'd realized her nasty bullying was having no effect at all on me, so now she didn't know what to do. I hoped I was right. It made me feel strong.

That evening I e-mailed my family and when I'd finished I tried to make myself simply leave the computer room, but my curiosity was just too great and before I knew it I'd gone into the chat room and typed in Georgie's password.
Just this once
, I promised myself.
Just this one last time.

Immediately I took a sharp breath at the sight of the name
Torpedo Gal.
She wrote:
Hia babz. Missing you.
Then
Huggy Bear
wrote:
That's the missing link.
My heart turned over as I realized what was happening. First there were messages about holes and next thing a hole suddenly appeared in my swimsuit. Now there were messages about something missing. I felt myself trembling. That meant something was about to go missing. “Like what?” I asked the empty room.

I closed my eyes as I guessed the answer to that question. Then I opened them wide.

No, surely they wouldn't actually steal my swimming costume?

A minute later I was racing downstairs to the drying room in the basement. My whole body was shaking, and I couldn't help thinking about the time when my sweatshirt had gone missing. And now here I was again, but this time it felt worse. I was so sure I was going to find that my swimming costume had disappeared. We all hang our costumes in the drying room when we don't actually want to put them into the laundry, and when I got there I rushed to the far corner where I'd left mine earlier. I nearly cried with relief to see that it was still there. It wasn't quite dry but I didn't want to take any risks, so I grabbed it quickly and went up to the dorm.

Mia was reading on the bed. I was about to put my costume in the drawer where I always keep it when I realized I had to be more careful now, so when I was sure Mia was definitely absorbed in her book, I stuffed the costume in one of my big dressing-gown pockets. I was quite pleased with that hiding place. No one could ever think of looking for it there. Then I wondered whether it might be easier to just keep it in my school bag and walk round with it all through the day, but that wouldn't work because we have to leave our bags outside the dining hall when we go for meals.

The next day I nipped back to Hazeldean whenever I could get away from the others without drawing attention to myself. I would stick my hand inside my dressing-gown pocket with a racing heart, and breathe a huge sigh of relief as my fingers touched the costume. Then on Sunday morning I decided to go swimming before breakfast. I chose that time because I was pretty sure there'd be hardly anyone there.

Jess was still half asleep in bed. “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked me in her sleep-mumble, as I call it.

“No, it's okay,” I whispered. “See you at breakfast.”

One thumb appeared over the duvet, so I took that as a yes.

I was right about the swimming pool being practically empty. When I first got in, there were just four Year Nine girls swimming up and down. They'd spread right out and I felt like a bit of an intruder when I started swimming. They didn't say anything, just all shifted up a bit to give me most of a lane to myself. I really wanted to practise backstroke but I didn't dare in case I crashed into one of them, so I kept to front crawl and tried to breathe exactly how Mrs. Mellor had shown me. After a few lengths I felt myself get into a rhythm. There's something brilliant about swimming before breakfast. My dad and I used to do it all the time, and I always remember him saying, “Sets you up for the day, Grace, doesn't it? And the breakfast tastes ten times better afterwards!”

I think I'd done about ten lengths when Bibi got into the pool and Hannah went to sit in the spectator area again, looking fed up. My spirits instantly sank and I wished I hadn't bothered to come. I'd been just starting to enjoy my training and now it was all spoiled. Surprisingly they both gave me a half smile, but I didn't give one back because I couldn't trust that the smiles were genuine. Bibi got in the same lane as one of the Year Nines and started doing perfect backstroke without ever straying out of the lane. I so wished I could do that.

After a few minutes one of the Year Nines stopped swimming, then as soon as the other three finished their next length all four of them got out, breathing heavily and quietly saying, “Well done,” to each other. Which just left me and Bibi. I could feel her eyes on me as I carried on with my front crawl. I really wanted to change to backstroke, because it was the perfect time to practise it now the pool was so deserted, but I wasn't confident enough to do that in front of Bibi.

“Grace?” I turned to see her standing up at the shallow end, her shoulders rounded as though she was cold. My heart was beating faster than usual as I looked at her and waited. “I don't suppose you could show me how to do a tumble turn, could you? I can't seem to get the hang of it and I think Mrs. Mellor's fed up with explaining it to me.”

My first thought was that this was a trick, but I saw that she was sucking her lips in and looking really worried. “Er…yes…I suppose…”

I glanced at Hannah as I swam towards Bibi. She was looking down at her hands in her lap.

“You…you have to try not to break the rhythm of the stroke…”

Bibi nodded. I shot another quick look at Hannah, half expecting her to be smirking to herself, but she was leaning forwards now with an interested look on her face.

“So you work out which is your best arm to push yourself down into the somersault,” I carried on hesitantly, “and…” Bibi kept nodding and frowning. I couldn't believe she was listening to me so intently. “…and be ready with that arm when you're nearly at the side, but make sure you leave yourself enough turning time.”

“Shall I try it?” said Bibi.

“Yes. I'll watch you from the side.”

So I got out and sat with my knees drawn up. Bibi used her left arm to push down, but I noticed she held her nose with the other hand, and I realized instantly that that was the problem.

“You see, I'm rubbish,” she said, coming back to the surface and treading water.

“You're not,” I quickly said, forgetting all about messages and holes for a moment. “It's just that you've got to try to do it without holding your nose.”

She looked a bit shamefaced. “I know. Mrs. Mellor keeps telling me that. I tried it once, only the water went up my nose and really hurt, then afterwards I was spluttering so much I decided never to try it again.”

“It'll be all right as long as you breathe out through your nose all the time you're doing it.”

She looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, honestly. Imagine you're trying to blow bubbles through your nose. Just do a half turn at first to get used to it.”

So she did, and when she came up she looked much more confident. “Yes, you're right. It works. I'm going to try a full one now. Here goes!”

She swam from about halfway up the pool and did a perfect tumble turn without holding her nose, and came up grinning like mad. “I did it! Oh wow! I actually did it!”

I couldn't help laughing because she looked so happy, and from the spectator area Hannah broke into applause and did a whoop. Even the lifeguard looked impressed and gave Bibi a thumbs up.

“Oh thank you, Grace. You ought to be a swimming instructor, you know!”

My mind was reeling as I suddenly realized that here I was having a lovely time with Bibi and Hannah, and only a few minutes before I'd been totally scared of them. “I don't suppose you can give me any tips on how to do backstroke in a straight line, can you, Bibi?”

“Well…I'll try, but I'm not sure what to tell you really. I just seem to go straight…”

Hannah stood up. “I always look at some kind of mark on the wall,” she called out. “Then every four strokes I check I'm still in line with it. If you check more often than that it puts you off your stroke.” She pointed to the far wall. “You could use the window frame or whatever's right opposite you when you set off.”

“Oh thanks,” I called back. “I'll try that.”

So I did, and it worked, which got me another round of applause from Hannah and a big smile from Bibi.

I was totally certain now that I'd got it completely wrong about these girls and I couldn't help feeling guilty. They must have thought I was really stuck-up before, because whenever they'd looked at me, I'd looked away. I wanted this friendly time to carry on for longer so they could realize I was a nice person really.

“Are you still not feeling well, Hannah?” I asked. She glanced at the lifeguard, then shook her head, which I thought probably meant that she didn't want to say anything with grown-ups listening, so I swam to the spectator end and got out of the pool. “When do you think you'll be able to start swimming again?” I asked quietly.

She shrugged and looked down. Then Bibi got out and raised her eyebrows at Hannah. I knew what that look was saying. It was asking Hannah if it was okay to tell me something secret.

Hannah shrugged again and Bibi whispered, “The thing is, Hannah's costume has gone missing…”

My stomach yo-yoed. There it was. I saw it instantly this time.
The missing link.
Only it wasn't
my
costume that had gone missing. It was Hannah's.

“I just don't get it,” said Hannah. “I put it in the laundry and when I went to get my pile of stuff, my swimsuit wasn't there. I checked with our matron and she said she was sure it was there when she sorted through everything. She was going to ask around to see if one of the other girls took it by mistake, but it's obvious they wouldn't.”

“Why not?”

Hannah hung her head, which made me sorry I'd asked the question. “Because no one's as big as me. All the other costumes are miles smaller, so how could anyone get them mixed up?”

“Apart from me!” said Bibi, grinning. “But I obviously haven't got it.”

My head was spinning, but not with thoughts, with emotions. I felt so sad for Hannah, but I also felt the most enormous feeling of relief and happiness. Although there was still the tiniest feeling of uncertainty. What if Hannah and Bibi were incredibly good actors, and this whole conversation was fake, and they were really the bullies? No. They couldn't possibly be acting.
No one
could act this well.

I was suddenly really tempted to tell them everything about the messages and the hole in my swimsuit and the connection that I'd just made between the message with the word
missing
in it, and the fact that Hannah's costume was missing. But I tried to be sensible and not go blurting things out until I'd thought them through a bit more.

“So you don't have a…spare costume?” I asked carefully.

Hannah went red but didn't reply.

I waited.

“Tell Grace…” said Bibi quietly.

It took Hannah ages to speak. She seemed to be taking the biggest, slowest breath in the world.

“I don't have a spare one, no. So…I phoned Mum and she went mad and said it was the school's fault my costume has gone missing, and she refused to buy a new one because she thinks the school isn't making enough effort to find out what happened to it.”

Hannah bit her lip and looked down, so Bibi carried on with the story. “Mrs. Ansell – that's our housemistress – asked if anyone had a spare one that Hannah could borrow…and one of the Year Eights lent her one…”

“And I tried it on…” Hannah said in scarcely more than a whisper, “…only it's too small, which is so embarrassing.” I wondered if I ought to be saying something, but I couldn't think what to say. I just felt so sorry for Hannah. She seemed to be pulling the words from deep down inside her. “So…I'm like…pretending it's okay…but I've told Mrs. Ansell I can't swim because of stomach cramps, which is a lie.” Hannah's voice dropped and so did her eyes. “But I can't make the stomach cramps go on and on and on, so I just…don't know what to do.”