Free Fat Boy Swim by Catherine Forde

the surface yet squashy underneath. It was such a pleasant sensation that Jimmy almost delayed dropping his head when he realised that the figure doing star jumps, while GI Joe prowled a circle around him growling, ‘Faster,
faster
if you wanna be a pro,’ was Victor.
    Jimmy definitely didn’t want Victor to see him. Slag him. Spoil a perfect day. Well, perfect in the end.
    Nothing
should stop the cream of this day floating to the surface of his mind.
    Not only had he managed to bake undercover in school. Instead of doing gym.
    But he’d made a friend.
    And she was gorgeous.
    ‘AB-SO-
loot
-ely
DEE
-licious!’ Jimmy couldn’t help whispering to himself once he was home. He was making Ellie a mini-disc, because it turned out she liked nearly all the same music as he did, wondering if the Ronettes ‘Be My Baby’ (Aunt Pol’s all-time favourite song) was a bit too obvious. He had settled instead on Aretha doing ‘Respect’ when the phone rang.
    ‘Ree-ah-ree-ah-ree-ah-ree-ah-ree.
Just a little bit
. . .
’ Jimmy hollered into the receiver, expecting Aunt Pol to sing back to him, but there was silence when he stopped holding the receiver like a mike and put it to his ear.
    ‘Jim?’
    It wasn’t Aunt Pol. It was GI Joe. Deadpan.
    ‘Poolside. Seven. No armbands.’
    Jimmy had completely forgotten.

Chapter 15
    ‘To be continued’, continued
    Heat smacked Jimmy like a wall in the face as the swing doors opened into wet changing. Every noise was amplified. Music throbbing so loudly over the PA system that the tune was unrecognisable. Its beat made the floor vibrate under Jimmy’s feet. Babies cried in relay behind cubicle doors and from the pool itself, frenzied shrieking rose and echoed to the rafters over the splash splash splash of water.
    Chlorine and shampoo and sweat and nappies assailed Jimmy’s nostrils as he plodded across the scummy floor to the changing cubicles.
    A woman stared, nudging her daughter as Jimmy, unable to fit sideways into a single cubicle, reversed out again.
    She was still staring when Jimmy took a vacant family cubicle. As he locked the door both woman and daughter exploded with laughter outside.
    If there had been a mirror in the cubicle Jimmy would never, ever have ventured outside in the luminous orange, lotus-patterned XXX-large shorts Mum’s pal Treesa had brought Jimmy back from Hawaii two years ago. The label was still on them. They were too long and at least one size too tight, the waistband bisecting the swell of Jimmy’s stomach.
    ‘Cheery,’ Treesa had described them.
    Criminal, more like, Jimmy had thought as he thanked her enthusiastically at the time. I’ll never be seen dead in these.
    Steeling himself, Jimmy bundled up his clothes and crept from the cubicle to the lockers. With the rubber band that held his locker key disappearing into a cushion of flesh at his wrist, Jimmy looked nervously towards the pool.
    He hesitated, resting his damp forehead against the cool metal of the locker door. Could always say he turned up and GI Joe wasn’t there.
    Could say the heat of the place bothered his asthma. Could say –
    ‘Well whaddya know. It’s the pig in curtains.’
    Jimmy froze. Squeezing his eyes shut. Pressing his forehead harder against the locker door in the hope that he might pass through it by osmosis.
    ‘What you doin’ here, lardy boy?’ Maddo snarled, slapping Jimmy round to face him. Victor, behind Maddo, said nothing. Flushed, breathless, his sleek racing trunks already wet, he peeled his squad swimming cap from his head, sucking greedily from a sipping bottle. Opening a locker in the same row as Jimmy’s he threw in his cap, float, leg brick. All the time looking Jimmy up and down, up and down, from head to toe, assimilating every square millimetre of what he saw. His eyes lingered particularly long on the shorts; a thin, mean smile on his face.
    ‘You’re late, fat boy. Squad training’s over.’
    ‘Gunna empty the pool, are you?’ grunted Dog