Free Fat Boy Swim by Catherine Forde Page A

Breath Doig, face so close to Jimmy that there was no escaping his horrendous halitosis.
    Maddo knuckled Jimmy in the solar plexus, the pain forcing him to wince and straighten up to his full height.
    ‘Vic’s talking to you, blubber-belly,’ Maddo hissed.
    ‘I
. . .
I’m getting a lesson.’
    As one, the three boys closed in. ‘You’re no’ seriously showing yourself in public?’ said Victor, voice low and dangerous. He was wearing fancy goggles around his neck like an extra pair of eyes. ‘We canny let you do that,’ piped Maddo who, like Dog Breath, was changed for swimming. Jimmy reeled back from the sour sweat smell of Maddo’s armpit combined with Dog Breath’s dog breath, as with sudden force Victor slammed Jimmy against the lockers, piercing his shoulder blades with two protruding locker keys.
    ‘Ugh,’ Victor shoved Jimmy again, revolted at having touched the film of sweat covering Jimmy’s entire body.
    ‘You’re disgustin’.’ He stepped back, whipping Jimmy’s towel from under his arm.
    With a flick he snapped the towel open, catching Jimmy hard on the cheek before he could flinch.
    ‘Fat-disgustin’-loser.’
    ‘Fat-disgustin’-loser.’ Maddo and Dog Breath automatically joined in the chant as Victor flicked the towel again. This time it glanced the side of Jimmy’s eye, drawing tears.
    ‘He’s greetin’. The blubber’s blubbering.’ Maddo guffawed as Jimmy curled instinctively, clutching his eye, leaving his back exposed to the next swipe of his towel.
    They were all prancing around him now, in a mad dance. Skinny white bodies and bare feet. Maddo and Dog Breath poking Jimmy’s belly, slapping his backside, chucking his cheeks and making quick karate kicks at his legs while Victor drew the towel back for another swipe and another swipe. Welts rose over Jimmy’s torso as he swayed helplessly out of the firing line while Victor choreographed his moves to the relentless, concealing throb of the poolside music.
    ‘This –
flick
– would be a lot more –
flick flick
– fun if you –
flick
– fought back, you fat poof,’ said Victor, throwing in the towel at last. At last he made to drop the towel into the filthy wet gully that gathered slops from the changing areas.
    But that was when GI Joe lunged from a changing cubicle right next to the lockers in time to catch Jimmy’s towel before it hit the ground.
    ‘A word, gents,’ he said shepherding Victor, Maddo and Dog Breath out of sight, leaving Jimmy slumped against the cool metal of the locker doors, his towel pressed hard against his eyes.

Chapter 16
    Taking the plunge
    ‘They’re a shower of wasters, Jim,’ said GI Joe through clenched teeth when he returned to Jimmy. ‘You’re bigger than the lot of them put together when they behave like that. Now. Let’s do this.’
    Meekly, Jimmy followed GI Joe down the row of lockers to the poolside.
    He felt wobbly after Victor’s assault. Drained. Close to tears. Last thing in the world he wanted to do now was make another fool attempt at swimming. He’d never be like Victor in the water, needing all that impressive squad paraphernalia. Why on earth had he asked GI Joe to teach him swimming? Jimmy and water just didn’t mix.
    How long had GI Joe been in there, anyway, Jimmy wondered? And why hadn’t he come out sooner? Why wait until Victor and his sidekicks were getting tore in before he intervened?
    This wasn’t the time to ask. GI Joe was already at the shallow end, jerking his head impatiently for Jimmy to join him. Here was a moment Jimmy wished more than anything that he could be invisible.
    No such luck.
    There might as well have been an announcement over the PA system:
    EYES LEFT EVERYBODY – FAT BOY ON THE MOVE
    because any head that wasn’t underwater turned to get an eyeful.
    There was total hiatus in the pitch and thrum of the pool, all eyes following Jimmy as he lumbered into view behind GI Joe. Silence echoed through the sticky, chlorinated air.
    The