Free Fat Boy Swim by Catherine Forde Page B

pool’s surface smoothed to a millpond as swimmers froze.
    Even the music stopped.
    Then reaction began to ripple across the pool. There was laughter. There were sharp intakes of breath. There were kids pretending to make tidal waves.
    Jimmy shrivelled. Shrunk inside. Died a thousand deaths. But there was no escape.
    ‘Jim, pay attention.’
    GI Joe didn’t mess about. He positioned Jimmy at the shallow end of the pool, shuffling him forward until his toes were over the edge. Jimmy had to trust him. After all, he couldn’t see his own feet.
    ‘Step forward,’ GI Joe barked as though he were on a parade ground.
    ‘Don’t look down and you’ll land in the water standing up. It’ll be over your waist, but you’ll be fine.’
    GI Joe’s hands gripped Jimmy’s upper arms.
    ‘Don’t push me,’ Jimmy wheedled before he could stop himself, cursing his fear.
    ‘
Don’t PUSH me
!’
    Last time Jimmy had been near a pool; the one and only school swimming lesson the PE department would let Jimmy take, he’d uttered these same words. Victor had been at his back, mimicking: ‘
Don’t PUSH me
!’ About to dunt Jimmy into the pool where the water would come over his chin. Nearly choking him. Hissing words in Jimmy’s ear that sent him off balance even before he was pushed.
    ‘See your Auntie. My mum says she’s no’ really your auntie –’
    Jimmy was twisted round, mouthing a puzzled ‘Wha –?’ at Victor before he was felled.
    ‘Timb
errrr.
’
    ‘Don’t push me.’
    ‘I won’t,’ said GI Joe, releasing his grip on Jimmy’s arms. ‘You’ll do this all yourself.’
    Plumbline-straight Jimmy fell, feet touching the bottom of the pool much, much sooner than he would have believed. The water reached no further than his waist. Just as GI Joe had promised. He’d done it.
    From the corner of his eye, Jimmy watched Victor watching him. Keenly. Eyes narrowed. Arms folded. He stood shin deep in the kiddies splash pool ignoring Maddo and Dog Breath who lay on their backs before him frothing the water with their feet. He turned away slowly, as GI Joe slipped into the water beside Jimmy and with the sides of his fists, thumped Jimmy at the top of each shoulder. Coach was grinning from ear to ear.
    ‘That took guts, Jim,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

Chapter 17
    Swimming
    All that hassle, thought Jimmy, drifting off to sleep, and we didn’t even do any swimming. GI Joe wanted to leave that until the morning. ‘Seven thirty, when this place opens.’
    He’d made Jimmy kneel until only his head was above water. For one cringing moment, Jimmy feared he was going to get a blessing. But no danger. Coach just wanted Jimmy to hold his breath and sink s-l-o-w-l-y under the water breathing out, and then come up again s-l-o-w-l-y, still breathing. Made him do it about fifty times, and after Jimmy became used to the sensation of the water over his head and round his face, it was a doddle. He felt like a twat at first, right enough, but once Treesa’s trunks were underwater, people ignored him.
    Only Victor noised him up, repeatedly diving above him like a low-flying jet. Victor’s dives, long and streamlined – beautiful – flew him in an arc nearly a third of the way up the pool before his body cut the water. It would be another third of the pool later before he surfaced, ploughing to the deep end with one, two, three sleek strokes of front crawl.
    ‘Waster. Tries hard when it suits him,’ muttered GI Joe. Like Jimmy, he watched Victor give the finger to the pool attendant pointing out the NO DIVING notice.
    Several dives later, Victor was marched from the pool area by two attendants. ‘Looks like you’re having a ball there, Coach,’ Jimmy heard him say to GI Joe with a chummy click of his tongue as he swaggered towards the showers. ‘Away you home and grow up,’ GI Joe replied, turning away from Victor back to Jimmy.
    But Victor didn’t go home. Strange, thought Jimmy, breaking through the water for the