Blue Water High (6 page)

Fly looked back to Heath, whose head was leaning over at a funny angle.

‘Please,' she puffed, ‘don't tilt at me.'

‘It's not my fault, it's the tilt monitor – I'm driven to fight acts of evil wherever they occur.'

Fly had had enough of Heath's conspiracies for one day, and she was about to tell him exactly that when Matt stepped in.

‘I reckon he's got every reason to tilt. When I went around to get your board, Stacey was messing around in your bag. She reckoned she thought it was hers, but it didn't seem right. I reckon she was giving the screw on your fin a loosen.'

Fly stood there, dumbfounded. Could Heath be right after all?

As Fly pushed back out into the take-off zone, she couldn't help thinking about why this group of strangers, people she'd basically never met, would go so far out of their way to help her get in. Was she meant to be here? Some kind of destiny thing? Whatever it was, with four minutes left, Fly decided to make it count.

For those last four minutes she gave everything she had. Somehow she got into the zone without the fear popping its great ugly head out of the milk can. She surfed like she had at the trials. She surfed like she had before that terrible day at Cowaramup. There was no saying that the fear wouldn't take the reins again, but for now, she was flying.

Stacey surfed hard too. Fly caught sight of her pelting across a churning five-footer as the hooter blasted the end of the round and she found herself wondering why a girl with so much talent needed to resort to dirty tricks.

But maybe Stacey knew something Fly did not. Maybe
she knew she would need more than ability to stop the name that Simmo read out over the microphone when the heat was over being … Fiona Watson.

Fly could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was her name.

And it was her tiny body that the Solar Blue crew hoisted onto their shoulders. These six other people, whose names she didn't know yet. These people who couldn't smile any harder at her luck if they tried. Fly's life was about to change forever.

Elite athletes are big on visualisation. Fly had read all about it. They imagine being crouched on the starting line. They play the whole race out in their heads and they see themselves crossing the finish line first. They imagine the feel of the trophy, cool and shiny in their hands. They imagine lying back enjoying all the spoils of victory … So Fly wasn't an elite athlete. She couldn't be, because she'd failed to imagine the spoils of victory could be this good.

One of the spoils of getting into the Solar Blue Surf Academy was that you boarded for the whole year in the Solar Blue boarding house. Fly had never seen a house like it in her life. Well she had, on tellie. On one of those programs about the stupidly rich and famous.

The boarding house was right on the beach. It was like it had been thought up by someone whose only purpose in life was relaxing. There was a pool, a pool table, hammocks and lush green gardens sprawling right into the sand. She felt embarrassed just looking at it. It was so different to her own house. Life on the farm wasn't about relaxing at all. It was about work. And it was about being practical. But the
truth was, for the next twelve months she wouldn't walk those practical floors again. This was home now.

She stood there on the lush lawn, sucking it all in.

‘Nice, isn't it?'

Fly turned and saw a woman holding out her hand.

‘You must be Fly. I'm Jilly. And it is my unenviable job to try and keep some kind of order in the boarding house. Officially I'm the House Mother, but that makes me feel old.'

Jilly didn't look old. She had a beautiful smile. Warm and full of sunshine. Fly liked her immediately.

‘I'm going to get supplies to feed the hungry hordes. Go on in. Make yourself at home.'

Fly watched Jilly head off towards a battered minivan. She crunched the gears horribly and bunny-hopped back out of the driveway. When Fly turned around, Heath was standing in the doorway, arms wide in welcome.

‘Are you coming in or what?'

By the time Heath had helped her bring her bags into the kitchen there was a scene going on. A fairly tense scene. Matt, who she'd met yesterday, sat at the table munching toast with a fair girl, Anna. Another girl, Bec, the girl whose board she'd borrowed, had just come in from the shower.

‘Bec,' Anna said, ‘Matt told me your brother missed out on the spot because of me.' Anna spoke word perfect English but there was no disguising the blackbread and sauerkraut accent.

Bec steamed. She reefed her wet, shoulder-length brown hair back into an elastic. ‘Mornings aren't my best time. Maybe we can talk about it later.'

Even though Fly had no idea of the details, you didn't need a university degree to work out that whatever had
gone down was making Bec's insides boil. Everyone stared at her.

‘What?' said Bec. Defensive.

‘It's not Anna's fault,' said Matt.

‘It's not about Anna at all. It's the system that sucks.'

‘Yeah, well the system doesn't have to share a house with you,' said Heath.

Fly watched Bec boil some more. The sense of attack from all sides was clearly too much for her. Bec pushed her chair back hard and stared at Heath.

‘You didn't take long to get your knickers in a twist over Fly and whether what happened to her was fair or not. You were in Deb and Simmo's face in twenty seconds.'

Fly blinked. Heath had gone in to bat for her?

‘But now you come on all defensive when I stand up for someone I care about.'

Bec turned and marched away. A terrible silence hung in the air.

‘Did I mention there was a bit of drama yesterday?' Heath asked.

As he gave Fly the grand tour of the house, he filled Fly in on exactly what had happened. There were seven spots at the academy every year. One year it was four boys and three girls, the next it was three boys and four girls. Until yesterday. The extra place this year was meant to be for a boy. And if you listened to Bec, that place had had her brother Joe's name written all over it since he was in nappies. Bec and Joe were born only ten months apart, so they were in the same year at school. Even though Bec was a brilliant surfer, everyone said Joe was the one to watch. But yesterday there was a last-minute change of plan.

Heath pointed into the lounge room. ‘So we've got the standard semi-comfortable couch, circa 1999. Slightly damaged but still very functional pool table. Good tellie, but no cable – too much of a distraction, apparently. And of course, no lounge room would be complete without a custom-built Dean Edgley. Edge to us mere mortals.'

Edge looked up from his surfing magazine, gave Fly a wave. Edge was scruffy, in a handsome kind of way. He was fit and brown and intense-looking. He returned to the mag, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

Heath led Fly up the stairs, returning to his story. There'd been a stuff-up. Deb had sent Simmo an email telling him there was a change of plan, but Simmo thought computers were only good for stacking piles of paper on, and so he didn't know that Solar Blue had decided to give one of this year's places to a girl from Germany. Anna never even had to surf in the trials. And what was worse, according to Bec, Anna wasn't really even a surfer. She was a world-class kiteboarder, but surfing was more of a hobby. So, on paper, Bec had every reason to be cheesed. She was just taking it out on the wrong people, as far as Heath was concerned.

They crossed with Perri in the hallway. Perri flashed her toothpaste commercial smile.

‘You already met Perri, our Gold Coast fairy princess,' said Heath.

Fly nodded, smiled back. She hoped she'd given her teeth a decent brush that morning.

They kept on moving, arriving at the last doorway in the hall. This was the room Fly would be sharing with Anna. Fly wondered if it was the underdog in her, but what had happened to Anna made Fly like her immediately. It didn't
make her dislike Bec – she could understand why she was upset – but she was happy to be sharing her room with Anna.

She plonked her stuff down and headed to the window. This was the first time in her life she would wake up and be able to see the ocean. And she had Heath to thank for it. She didn't want to thank him, but her good manners won out. She stayed staring at the twinkling waves.

‘Thank you … for whatever you did to get me in,' she said.

‘I didn't get you in,' said Heath.

Fly turned. She was confused.

‘I thought, downstairs they said … you talked to Deb and Simmo or something?'

‘I did. I told them what Stacey did wasn't fair. But that's not what got you in.' He headed for the door, holding his hand up in farewell. ‘You did that yourself, so don't come complaining to me.'

Fly sat on the window sill for a very long time trying to work out why every time she saw Heath she ended up feeling like a total nong. She was going to be seeing him every day, which could mean she had a whole year of nongdom to look forward to. The sun stroked her face and the ocean breeze played cheekily with the loose strands of her hair and it was just too nice to stay worried about anything.

They spent the first night talking and playing pool and getting to know each other. Everyone told the story of how
they got in. When it came to Fly's turn, she gave them the brief version. The one without the fear.

At nine o'clock Jilly stuck her head into the room. ‘I only have one thing to say to you lot: go to bed.'

Edge sat up on the floor. ‘Tell me we don't seriously have a nine o'clock curfew?'

Jilly shook her head. ‘It's not an order, it's advice. Training starts tomorrow, and I promise you, once you've tasted the training menu, you'll be begging for bed.'

They were too excited to hear Jilly's words of warning. They sat up gossiping until close to midnight. She couldn't be sure about the others, but Fly couldn't sleep once her head hit the pillow anyway. She lay awake, on her new bed, in her new room, buzzing like a dung beetle until 4.52 … exactly eight minutes before Simmo charged along the corridor banging on the doors.

‘Rise and shine, my little jelly babies. Rise and shine!' he hollered.

Fly rolled over and put the pillow over her head – some people were just way too happy in the morning.

At ten past five they were underwater. They were heaving 10-kilo rocks across the bottom of the ocean baths. Through the shimmering green water Fly could see Deb standing on the edge of the pool, a stopwatch in her hand. Underwater rock runs were designed to strengthen your lung capacity. They were one of the ways surfers learned to survive when five tonnes of boiling ocean was holding you down until it finished its demolition work on the surface. Fly tried not to think about the real reason she was doing this. She tried to ignore the fire screaming in her lungs and just stay down. But try as she might, she was the first to drop her rock and spear to the top. Deb clicked her stopwatch.

‘Gonna have to do better than that, Fly.'

The others gradually joined her, popping through the surface like a club of seal pups. Fly had come last, but she didn't let it get her down. There were going to be plenty of opportunities for her to show what she was made of, she told herself.

That's what she told herself during the soft-sand jog – good for lactic acid tolerance in your large muscle groups:
the quads, hams and the glute max. Helps you hold it steady down the tube. And that's what she told herself during the short sprints on the hard sand – excellent for promoting fast-twitch muscle fibres. Speeds up reflexes and response times. Gets you up on your board faster. She gave up telling herself anything halfway through the kneeboard paddle – which was brilliant for burning off excess hamburgers. She was only halfway out to the buoy while the others were already on their way back to shore.

As they sat on the grass up near the house recovering, Simmo wheeled out a large whiteboard. It was ruled into forty columns across, with all their names written down one side. While they caught their breath, Simmo established the rules of the game. They would be in competition with each other throughout the year. At the end of the year there would be a final comp and whoever won on that day would get the prize. One girl and one guy would get wildcard entry into the World Championship Tour. They would be sponsored for an entire year, surfing the world with the pros. You could feel a ripple of excitement run through the group as they took in the enormity of the reward. It was almost too good to think about.

Simmo returned to the whiteboard.

‘But,' he said, ‘you don't automatically get to compete in that final event. You have to earn it. And that's where our friend Mr Whiteboard comes in.'

Simmo explained that the whiteboard would be the guide to how they were going. In order to qualify to surf in the finals, they needed a minimum of sixty points. You got points from regular comps, for training exercises, for generally doing everything Simmo said. You lost points if you didn't do enough of your schoolwork to pass, if you
failed to pitch in with the cooking and cleaning, and if you gave Jilly grief.