Mike (5 page)

17
JUMP!

Four weeks to go. It didn't seem like nearly enough time.

I had the racing turns down, and my stamina was at an all-time high, but I still had to work on my sprint. The race was a hundred metres. Two lengths of the Olympic pool. It would be won or lost in the final twenty-five; I had to get my speed up.

“You have to train your body to give that extra little bit when you think you have nothing else left.”

Riny was helping me with more than just the turns. She knew about this business, from her own experience and from training Ros. I noticed, though, how far back from the side of the pool she stood. Not like the pictures of the coaches you see on the sports shows, leaning right over the lane, shouting in the swimmer's ear. Of course, now I knew the reason why.

That extra little bit.

How did you find the energy? What was the secret to the explosive finish that made a good swimmer into a champion?

I asked her.

She thought about it for a moment, then she touched her finger to my forehead. “Here,” she said, and patted my arm with her other hand. “Not here.”

I waited for more. It came, slowly.

“You are training your body, but you must also train your mind. Your head must rule — not only your heart, but your emotions. Most importantly your emotions. From the moment you hit the water, you will be giving your best, and halfway down the second lap, when you think you have nothing left, your fears will begin to rise. Will I be able to do it? Where is he? How is he feeling? Stronger? Fitter? Does it really matter if I win? The small voices of your emotions; they will rob your arms and legs of strength. Keep control. Think. Believe.
Know.
”

I understood what she was saying. I'd watched “Karate Kid” — One, Two and Three.

At least, I thought I understood what she was saying.

I'd finished my hour in the water — I was gradually increasing my training time — and I was wrecked. I stood bent over, breathing deeply by the side of the pool.

“Jump,” she said.

“What?” I replied.

“How high can you jump? Right this minute?”

“Come on, Riny, I've just done an hour. I can't lift my leg.”

“You are sure?” I recognised that tone. I looked up, in time to see one of the plastic garden-chairs sliding across at me on its side — at shin level.

Just in time, I jumped over it. It bounced as it hit the tiles at the edge of the pool, and fell in with a splash. I landed, lost my balance, and followed it into the water; with a much bigger splash.

“What did you do
that
for?” I yelled at her, as soon as I surfaced.

She just smiled. “I thought you said you couldn't jump. It's amazing what the body can do. If it
has
to. Think about it.”

She turned back towards the house. “Now, while I'm making the chocolate, I'll have another twenty laps. And sprint the last five.” And she disappeared inside.

What could I do? I started swimming.

18
ANOTHER REASON

It happened suddenly.

Well, that's how it seemed to me. I know she was seventy-four or something, but she always seemed so … indestructible. Okay, she was diabetic; but as far as I was concerned, that just meant that she had to watch what she ate, and that she had to inject herself once a day with insulin.

Big deal!

It didn't mean that she was going to have a heart-attack and almost die on me.

When I walked into that hospital room, she looked … small. And weak. Propped up on those pillows, with the drip in her arm, for the first time I realised that she was old. I mean, I'd always known that anything over fifty was old, but she looked
old
.

She was in a two-bed ward, and the old woman in the bed next to her was sleeping — with her mouth half-open. Every time she breathed in, her lips would come together, and when she breathed out, they would come apart again with a tiny pop, like she was trying to blow something off her lips. It's strange what you notice when you're trying to raise the nerve to face something that scares you.

And Riny scared me.

She had her eyes closed, but I was sure she wasn't asleep. Sometimes, you just know.

I pasted on a smile, and walked over to her bed. Then I whispered her name. Twice.

The wrinkles parted and she looked at me.

“Michael.” Her voice was hoarse, and weak. She lifted her hand from the cover where it lay and held it out to me. When I took hold of it, it was cold. “It was good of you to come.”

I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

After a few days, she was much brighter. I took the bus to the hospital every day from school, and we talked. About school, about my training. Everything except how she felt. She didn't bring it up and I couldn't.

But she was getting stronger, and that was what counted.

“I went down to Miller pools yesterday.” I wasn't just making conversation. It was important to swim in the full-sized pool sometimes. Riny's pool was big, for a backyard job, but it wasn't Olympic. You couldn't get a run on with all the turns you had to make. In the real race, there was only one turn. And a lot of hard swimming.

“How did you do?” I could hear the old enthusiasm coming back into her voice. She might disapprove of why I was doing it, but she still wanted me to win. “For yourself,” she'd said.

“Not great. I was two seconds slower than Shane Thomas's time at the carnival in February. He might even have got faster since then.”

“Or slower.” Riny smiled. “The emotions, remember. Don't be negative.”

“Okay. I'm
positive
he'll have got faster.” Now I smiled. “Don't worry. I've still got two and a half weeks to go.”

“And I have three days.” She sounded eager.

“You mean …?”

“They're letting me go home. Bed rest and no excitement, but they'll send the nurse in three times a day. And I said I had a boy to run my errands for me. That means you'll have to make the chocolate in the morning.”

“That's a deal.” I looked up at her. She had her eyes closed, but she was still smiling.

Ten days later, Water Awareness started, but I still kept up the morning sessions. After all, I didn't want to give anything away in front of Shane the Pain, or anyone at the school. It was one time when being unknown paid off. I figured if no one knew anything about how I could swim, there would be less pressure, not only on me, but on Thomas or any of the other good swimmers. So they wouldn't be trying as hard as they might. Half a second here or there might make a big difference.

I coasted through the lessons and the tests, not pretending to drown myself, but just playing average.

Once, when no one was looking, a “mystery” hand pushed me into the diving pool, and earned me ten minutes picking up papers, but otherwise I was left alone.

I did notice Lisdalia looking at me in a funny way, though. At first, I pretended to myself that it was the way I looked in my swimmers. But it wasn't that sort of look. It was more … puzzled.

In the end, I raised the nerve to ask her about it.

“You swim much better in the mornings.” Her eyes were looking straight into mine. I had to look away.

“How do you know?” She'd caught me by surprise, and she knew it.

“I live just behind Mrs Vandermeer. The two-storey job with the columns on the back veranda, and all the concrete out the front.” She paused. “That's what my dad does. He's a concreter.”

I couldn't believe it. Right next door to Riny, and I'd never seen her!

“I get up early. To read. It's the best time of the day.” She sounded like she felt she needed to explain herself.

To me?

“I watch you sometimes.” There was an almost-smile on her face.

“It's the best time to swim, too.” I hadn't spoken this many words to a girl — to anyone my own age except, strangely enough, Shane Thomas — since I'd left Middleton. It seemed like years ago.

“You look like you're training,” she went on.

“I am … sort of.”

“Did you know that Mrs Vandermeer used to be a champion swimmer? When she was young.”

“She mentioned it. How did you know?”

“Tony … her husband told me. You never met him, did you?”

“No. Not really.”

I'd better explain something. I'm not usually shy around girls — at least I never used to be. But like I said, she'd taken me by surprise. Besides, we were standing right out in the open, and I felt everyone was looking at us. I said she wasn't the most popular girl in school, but it wasn't because she was ugly or anything like that — more than just her smile was cute. It was just that she was too smart. Not “put-you-down-and-make-a-lot-of-noise-in-public” smart, just
smart.
Like Einstein was smart. Like Shane Thomas wasn't. Like I'd like to be.

She scared people. But suddenly I realised. She didn't scare me. Even though she knew my secret.

She was speaking. “Tell me something.” I waited for her to go on, but she paused and looked around first.

“Yes?”

“How come you swim like a klutz here, when you swim so well in the mornings?”

No excuse came to mind. I tried to change the subject. “Do you watch me often?”

She refused to be embarrassed. I liked that. “Most mornings … I like to.”

There was a smile behind the words. Just a slight one. How could I lie? “I'm going to try and beat Shane Thomas in the challenge race.”

She smiled again. “I thought so.”

I told you she was smart. She turned and walked away down the pool, and I stood and watched her.

I'd just found another reason to win.

19
SUDDEN REVELATIONS

So, I became a library monitor.

Why not? I was spending most of my free time in there anyway.

Besides, as long as Lisdalia was talking to me, I figured I might as well give us something in common to talk about. She taught me how to sort, and what to stamp and when. It wasn't all that difficult, but it was fun learning. Miss Roberts, the librarian, said it was good to see boys taking an interest in the library. I had to agree. In the last few weeks, I'd taken quite an interest.

Lisdalia also offered to teach me how to make a high-energy drink. “It'll give you an extra burst when you need it,” she said. Apparently, she made it for both her older brothers. They were into weight-lifting; or “pumping iron” as they called it.

They weren't half as bright as their little sister.

I got home one afternoon, and there was a car parked in Riny's driveway. I knew it wasn't one of the community nurses; they all drive Lasers. This was a Falcon. An old one. And suddenly I realised where I'd seen it before.

It was hers.

Riny herself didn't drive, but I'd seen it in the garage every time I'd put the mower away. It just looked different in the daylight. What was it doing outside?

I went up to the door to let myself in. Since she'd been sick, she'd given me a key, so that she didn't have to get up to open the door for me.

This time, I didn't get the chance to use it. The door opened, and I stood facing a woman. She was about forty-two or three; much older than her photos, but I recognised her right away.

“Ros … Rosalind.” It just slipped out.

“That's right. And I'll bet you're the famous Michael.”

She stepped back and waited for me to go in. As I did so, Gretchen came up and nuzzled in my pocket, looking for a treat. I took out the usual: a mini-Milky Way that Mum always packed with my lunch and which I always hid from Bucket-Mouth. Sometimes, I was tempted to eat it myself, but dogs don't get too many thrills out of life, and I couldn't do that to poor old Gretchen.

I watched Ros as she went down the short passage. She was tall and she walked like an athlete, even though she was almost ten years older than my mother. And you could still see those early years of training in her strong shoulders.

I patted the dog on the head and followed her into the kitchen.

* * *

“And what then?”

I'd just explained about how I planned to win the race, and how the training was going, and Ros spoke up with her mouth full of choc-chip cookie. Riny might not eat them, but her daughter could put them away as quickly as I could. I was amazed she had such a good figure, but I decided she must work out.

“What do you mean, ‘what then'? I beat him, I'm a hero and he leaves me alone. And people actually talk to me.”

“No, I mean ‘what then' with your swimming. Mum tells me you did a minute nine for the hundred last week. That's not at all bad — for someone your age who hasn't been trained.”

“Riny's … Your Mum's been training me.”

She smiled. “Mum's been giving you advice. I mean
training.
I want to know if you're going to go further with it, once you beat the Incredible Hulk next week. Are you going on with it?”

“I hadn't really thought about it.”

It was true. I hadn't really thought about anything beyond the race itself. Even the race had taken on an unreal quality. I mean, when I'd started, I'd had nothing. No friends, no interests. Nothing. That wasn't true any more. Now, I could probably survive … hell, I knew I could survive, whether I swam in the race or not.

I don't know, maybe talking with Lisdalia every day, and with the other kids in the library — maybe the relationship I had with Riny — had given me a new attitude. I know I didn't think about Middleton half as much as I had a few weeks earlier. Shane Thomas was still Shane Thomas, but I wasn't alone any more. I could handle the crap.

I suddenly realised. It's all a matter of attitude; of what you expect. Of what things means to you.

And that was the point. The race had come to mean a lot to me. Winning. Proving I could.

It wasn't the Olympics. It wasn't even the school carnival. It was just a fun race that they put on at the end of a fun couple of weeks, and it probably didn't mean anything to anyone. Except maybe to Shane — and his mother. And to me. I
wanted
to win. For me.

I remembered what Riny said al those weeks before.

You win for you, not to bring the other guy down.

Suddenly, it wasn't about Shane the Pain or all those lost lunches. They didn't matter. And it wasn't about acceptance. I could get that without being a hero.

It was about
me
. And how I felt about myself.

I know I'm making it sound as if I sat there like a moron, while Ros waited for an answer to her question. But it wasn't like that.

That's the thing about sudden revelations. They're sudden.

What it takes ten minutes to explain took place in a fraction of a second. One moment I was sipping my coffee, wondering what I was going to say — how I was going to answer her — the next, I
knew
.

And I heard myself saying, “I want to go on with it. Whether I win or lose.” I looked at Riny and smiled.

“It'd be a shame for all that ‘advice' to go to waste.”

She smiled back.