Hit the Beach! (5 page)

But at
last
Bethany announced we could wade out and try some surfing for real.

The water was quite warm – thank goodness! But I didn’t wade far. As soon as I saw a wave coming, I turned my board round. The wave caught me all right, but I didn’t exactly shoot gracefully in to the beach – the wave flipped me straight over, and I ended up coughing and spluttering on the sand.

“Well done!” said Bethany. “At least you hung on to your board!”

On my next go I did manage to stay lying on my board. “Wheeeee!” I squealed as the wave raced in to the shore, taking me with it. This was more like it – this was
fun
!

Meanwhile, Bethany was standing in the shallow water shouting, “Go for it, Frankie!” and “That’s right, Alana!” When she said, “Wow, Rosie – that’s excellent!” I turned round and looked.

Coming in last of the group, Rosie had actually managed to kneel up on her board. Her mouth was wide open in astonishment – she looked like she was on a fairground ride.

“Brilliant!” Bethany said to her as she came out of the water. Rosie beamed.

“Well done!” squealed Lyndz. “You looked awesome!”

Even Miss Walsh – who was sitting on a towel further up the beach – gave her a round of applause.

That made me determined. I strode straight out into the waves again. I was so going to kneel up this time.

What actually happened was that I headed in to the beach bum first, with my board on top of me and a nose and mouth full of seawater.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get it soon too,” grinned Bethany, wading over to where I was lying like a beached whale. “It’s a knack – some people crack it quicker than others, that’s all.”

I didn’t say anything then, but I can admit it to you now: I was a bit miffed at that. I mean,
I’m
the sporty member of the Sleepover Club, right? I know Lyndz does loads of horse-riding, but for your general, all-round, kickabout, get-the-knack sport girl, you’d come to me first every time, wouldn’t you?

And yet here I was, clearly on a mission to drink a whole seaful of water, while Rosie was busy developing some serious skills.

I didn’t have long to feel sorry for myself, though. Just as I was picking myself up, I heard
a shriek. Out in the water, Fliss had fallen off her board and lost hold of it completely. Somehow, though, she’d managed to catch the wave just right and surf in lying on her tummy.

“That’s called body surfing,” Bethany called to her, laughing. “Fun, isn’t it? Don’t worry – your board didn’t hit anyone. Just come out of the water and it’ll follow.”

Fliss must have been kneeling in the shallows – she was still submerged up to her neck.

“Come on, Fliss, come out!” called Frankie, who was sitting on the sand beside me.

“I – I can’t!” said Fliss, looking panic-stricken. “I’ve lost my bikini bottoms! When the wave caught me they kind of swooshed off!”

Sure enough, a little way away, I could see something bright pink floating on the water. Frankie and I clutched each other, helpless with giggles.

“Just come out, don’t worry,” called Bethany.

“I’ll wrap you in my towel!” called Miss Walsh.

Fliss looked mortified. Not only did she have Bethany, Miss Walsh, Alana and the rest of the Sleepover Club for an audience, but also, not far away, there was the other group, including Jude and Ryan Scott, any of whom might turn to look her way just at the wrong moment. I could hardly bear to imagine it – Fliss would
die
of embarrassment.

Somebody had to do something. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I grabbed my board and yelled, “Don’t worry, Fliss! Kenny to the rescue!” and charged into the water as fast as I could.

Thinking back, I realised it could have been dangerous. Fliss’s pants could have bobbed away from me into seriously deep water. As Miss Walsh pointed out later, when she was ticking me off for being so rash, the pants might’ve caused a major incident, with the coastguard coming out and everything. Can you imagine
that
?

Luckily, though, after a couple of minutes
of paddling, I’d reached the pants. I grabbed them and set off back towards where Fliss was crouching.

“Thanks, Kenny,” she spluttered, taking them from me and wriggling into them underwater. “I really, really owe you for this one!”

When we both got out of the water, we found that Rosie had managed to do her kneeling thing again, and was grinning away, pleased as anything. Alana, on the other hand, was sitting slumped on the sand with a piece of seaweed stuck in her hair, looking as miserable and bedraggled as one of Lyndz’s cats when they’ve just been given a bath.

“Come on, Alana,” Bethany was saying, patting her on the shoulder. “You were doing really well that last time. You’ve so nearly got it.”

Alana shook her head. “It’s too hard,” she said. “I want to do volleyball.” I think she’d swallowed even more water than me, so I did feel quite sorry for her.

“Bethany – can’t you show us how it’s
really
done?” said Frankie. “I mean – it’s a bit hard for us to imagine when we’ve never seen any proper surfing.” The ‘real surfers’ down at the other end of the beach were too far away for us to see them except as blobs – with different coloured blobs for surfboards.

“Hey, yeah – please!” I said. “It’d be ace!”

Bethany didn’t look at all keen. But I think being surrounded by five pleading faces – no, make that six: even Alana Banana looked interested – was more than she could resist. She heaved her shoulders up in a big sigh. “Well, I guess it might be an idea…”

“Yeeeeesssss!”

Unfortunately, our shouting had got the attention of Rude Jude (as Frankie called him) and the other group, and as Bethany strode out into the water, her board under her arm, the whole lot of them turned and stared.

“Don’t look round, don’t look round,” I muttered to myself as I watched Bethany. I was pretty certain, having seen the tension earlier
between her and Jude, that if Bethany knew she had an audience, she would go off the whole idea quicker than you could say “wipe out”. (Which is the surfing term for falling off your board, by the way. Cool, huh?)

Luckily, Bethany didn’t look round.

Lying flat on her board, she paddled out so that she could get a longer run in to the beach than we’d had. Then she turned and let a wave catch her board just perfectly. In one graceful movement, she stood up and came surfing straight in towards us. It was awesome.

We whooped and cheered as Bethany came out of the water. As we clustered round her, Lyndz nudged me and whispered, “Hey – check out Rude Jude.” I turned. He was wading out into the water with his board under his arm.

“Copy cat,” I said.

Lyndz nodded. “Bet he’s going to do something really show-offy.” She snorted. “Typical
boy
.” And since Lyndz has four brothers, she should know!

Soon Bethany and the others saw that we were watching something and turned to look too. It would’ve been better if we’d all ignored Jude, of course, but I was
sooo
curious, and I bet the others felt the same. I was really hoping he’d fall in and make a complete fool of himself.

Jude paddled out much further than Bethany had. Then, at long last, just as a fairly big wave was building, he turned his board around.

What can I tell you? I have never seen anything like it. Jude didn’t ride straight into the beach like Bethany. He went
along
the wall of this wave, down the face of it and up again, like a skateboarder in one of those concrete rinks.

When he had finished, there was a short silence. None of us knew what to say – we were all looking at Bethany.

“Well, I think we’ve done enough for one day,” she said at last, smoothing her wet hair
back from her face. “And anyway – don’t you reckon it’s about time for lunch?”

We all agreed with
that
.

“What
is
the trouble between Bethany and Jude?” said Rosie the next morning as we hurried to get dressed. It was our turn on breakfast duty, so we were supposed to be up earlier than anyone else.

“Did you notice that Rude Jude’s group didn’t even cheer him when he came out of the water yesterday?” said Frankie, pulling her t-shirt over her head. “He must’ve been really grumpy with them.”

“He’s a
loser
,” said Lyndz fiercely. “He’s horrible to Bethany and Bethany is just the coolest person ever!”

Frankie nodded. “If he shows off again today, we should all laugh at him.”

“Uh! Ooooh!” puffed Fliss, trying to bend down to buckle her sandals. “Is anyone else
totally
stiff?”

“Me,” I said.

“Me too,” said Frankie, Lyndz and Rosie all at once.

“It’s weird, because I know I’m not unfit,” said Fliss, looking puzzled. “I go to aerobics
and
ballet.”

Downstairs, we found Aidan already in the kitchen. “Morning, team!” he said, grinning at us. “Got a few aches and pains?” He must’ve been able to tell from our faces. “Don’t worry about it,” he laughed, handing out aprons. “You’re just not accustomed to using your surfing muscles, that’s all. The more you do it, the less it’ll hurt.”

“Great,” whispered Fliss, not sounding at all convinced. “I think I’d rather sunbathe.”

It turned out that the breakfast menu was already decided: porridge, with side servings of yoghurt, honey and chopped fruit.

Fliss groaned at the idea of porridge, but I didn’t mind at all. We always have porridge when we go to see my gran and granddad in Glasgow and I really like it.

Aidan got Frankie, Lyndz and Fliss measuring out the milk and oats, and gave Rosie and me the fruit to chop. We had bananas, pears, apples and a few strawberries. Yum!

As he bent over the strawberries, picking out the bad ones, I noticed that Aidan’s hair was wet. “You look like you’ve been down to the beach already!” I said.

I meant it as a joke – this early in the morning, I thought Aidan wouldn’t have been further than the shower. But to my surprise he nodded. “That’s right. Bethany’s there now, as a matter of fact – you can often catch the
best waves first thing. It’s less crowded too.”

“D’you reckon Bethany’s a good surfer, Aidan?” said Frankie from the other side of the kitchen. “I mean – she looked really good to us yesterday, but we’re not exactly experts.”

“Oh, she’s top,” said Aidan, grinning.

“Is she as good as Jude?” asked Lyndz.

Immediately, I saw Aidan’s smile fade. “Yes,” he said firmly. “She’s every bit as good as Jude – in my opinion, she’s probably better. But there’s no way Jude will admit that.” He shook his head. “Jude Bailey is just one of those cavemen who can’t bear the idea that a girl might beat him.”

Yuck, I thought. What an idiot.

“I wish Bethany would surf for us properly,” said Rosie.

Aidan smiled again. “Bethany’s no show- off – unlike
some
people I could mention.” Suddenly, he turned and looked round at us all. “Hey – if you really want to see how good she is, you should come down to the Surfing
Display Day on Saturday. You’re still around then, right?”

We nodded. Saturday would be our last full day in Rawnston – we were due to head home on Sunday morning.

“Cool,” said Aidan. “We want loads of support. The idea of the Display Day is to raise money for this anti-pollution charity called ‘Surfers For Clean Water’. Believe me, there’s nothing like surfing in skunky water to teach you how important it is to keep our beaches clean.”

“What makes the water bad?” asked Lyndz. “Is it like when oil tankers leak and the birds all die? I’ve seen that on the telly.”

“It’s not just accidents like that,” said Aidan. “Lots of waste gets pumped into the sea the whole time – industrial chemicals, sewage…”

Sewage, I thought. Like – human waste? Imagine surfing in that. Gross!

“Anyway, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it while we’re cooking – it’ll put us all off breakfast,” said Aidan, as he went to help the
others light the gas on the cooker. “The
other
thing the Surfing Display Day is for is to improve our image with the locals round here. Lots of the older people think surfers are just scruffy layabouts. There’s going to be a couple of surfing competitions – one for adults and one for kids – and then stuff on the beach like face-painting and food stalls.”

“Sounds brilliant!” said Frankie.

“Are you going to enter the competition?” asked Fliss.

Aidan nodded. “Bethany too,” he said. “And Jude. It might just be his day for getting beaten!”

By this time, we could hear chattering and laughter as our classmates thundered down the stairs and into the dining room. I reckoned everyone would be majorly hungry after all that sea air yesterday – and it was a good job, because we seemed to be making enough porridge to feed an army.

An hour later, we were on our way to the beach. “Urgh, talk about a heavy breakfast,”
said Lyndz, rubbing her stomach. “Put me in the sea today and I’m going to sink like a stone!”

“So, girls, how are you getting on with your surfing?” said a voice behind us. It was Mrs Weaver, wearing a big floppy sunhat and sunglasses. Isn’t it dead weird seeing teachers in holiday gear? She said, “I hear from Miss Walsh that you had fun yesterday.”

Yes, if you can call swallowing seawater fun, I thought.

“It was brilliant,” said Rosie. “I want to do it all week!”

“Mrs Weaver, have you heard about the Surfing Display Day on Saturday?” I asked.

“No, Laura, what’s that?”

I repeated what Aidan had told us, including the bit about raising money for the anti-pollution charity – I thought Mrs Weaver would approve of that.

“Can we go?” I said at last. “Please? It would be so good to see some expert surfers after we’ve had all these lessons.”

“See how it’s really done!” added Frankie enthusiastically.

Mrs Weaver pursed her lips. “Well … I’m afraid I couldn’t let you five go on your own,” she said. “It would have to be an activity for the entire group.” She considered for a moment. Then she said, “Let me talk to Mrs Daniels and Miss Walsh, and find out more from Aidan and Bethany. We can see exactly what’s involved and have a think about it – OK?”

When we got down to the beach, Bethany was already there. It was clear she’d been in the water. She was wearing a really cool wetsuit, with short sleeves and cut-off legs. She’d rolled the upper half of it down to her hips, so you could see the waterproof version of a crop top she was wearing underneath. I could tell from the look on Fliss’s face that she was wondering where she could buy the entire outfit for herself.

“All right, guys,” said Bethany, “let’s carry on with what we were doing yesterday. Remember,
try to move smoothly from one position to another when you’re on your board.”

No problem. I was
very
good at moving smoothly from one position (lying on my board) to another (flailing around in the water). Somehow, though, I didn’t think that was what Bethany had in mind.

Still, at least I was getting better at catching waves just at the right moment. And the second time I caught one, I nearly managed to kneel up.
Really
nearly.

“Did you see me, did you see me?” I spluttered to Bethany when I got to the beach.

“Good effort!” she nodded, giving me a thumbs-up. “Next time you’ll do it!”

But the next time I had a go, Rosie completely upstaged me by standing up – that’s right
standing up
– on her board. Only for a nanosecond, apparently (I missed it – too busy flailing), but hey, who’s counting?

“Yeah!” she shouted, punching the air and jumping up and down at the edge of the
water. “It’s just
the
best feeling! You’ve
got
to do it, Kenny!”

I felt like tearing my hair out in frustration. When Bethany had given us her demonstration yesterday, she’d made standing on your board look like the easiest thing in the world. Today, “Keep practising” was all she could say to help. But what if I practised all week and never got the knack? What a miserable week of water swallowing that would be! Each time I fell in the water, I decided to throw in my surfing towel and go and join the volleyballers. And then each time I picked myself up and shook the seaweed out of my hair, I thought I’d give it just one more shot. Kenny’s no quitter, right? And besides, the next time might be the time I cracked it.

By lunchtime, everyone had knelt on their board at least once – everyone, that is, except me. It was really starting to get me down.

Today we’d all been given packed lunches in brown paper bags. Mrs Weaver insisted we find
some shade to sit in while we ate – “I don’t want anyone getting sunstroke!” she kept saying – so most of the surfers went with Miss Walsh to a picnic area behind a row of beach huts.

“Hey – over here, guys,” I said, beckoning the rest of the Sleepover Club to a scrubby patch of sandy grass away from the others. I wanted to take my mind off my surfing disaster, and I had a great idea for how to do it.

“Listen,” I said, “when are we having our midnight feast? How about tonight?”

“Yes – while the weather’s good,” said Fliss. “You never know when it might turn cold and rainy.” The others nodded.

“Is there anything in here we can save for it?” said Lyndz, peering into her lunch bag.

“I’ve got some chocolate back at the hostel,” said Rosie. “I hope it hasn’t melted.”

“How about these?” said Frankie, pulling a little packet of biscuits out of her lunch bag.

“Where’s it going to be, then?” asked Lyndz, looking round at the rest of us.

“On the beach – definitely,” I said. “Just imagine it – sitting under the stars, listening to the waves…”

“Eating chocolate biscuits,” put in Lyndz.

“Eating chocolate biscuits,” I nodded. “Come on, guys – wouldn’t it be the most amazing thing ever?”

“The beach in the moonlight – it’d be
so
romantic!” said Fliss.

“I’m not sure, Kenny,” said Rosie. “We’d get into major trouble if someone found out. Didn’t you hear what Mrs Daniels said yesterday? Anyone caught misbehaving has to spend the rest of the week at the hostel, cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms.”

“No one’ll find out,” I said breezily. “Just don’t talk about it in front of other people – especially nosy types with flappy ears, like the M&Ms.” I was pretty proud of myself – I’d ignored them totally so far this holiday.

Rosie still didn’t look too sure. But then, she
was getting a major kick out of her surfing success – I needed something else to cheer me up. And a midnight adventure sounded like just the thing.

No
way
did I suspect, though, just how adventurous it was going to be.