The Swim series - Book One

Chapter 4

At my old school we didn't have a lot of meetings. If our teachers needed us to know something they'd simply send an email home. Scotts was different because Scotts was a boarding school and we were expected to take care of ourselves. I'd attended at least ten meetings in the span of a single week, with the promise of many more.

The teachers organised most of them, but tonight Christina Cook had placed herself in charge. She'd spent all afternoon in the common room dragging all of the furniture around, so that every couch and armchair faced two desks that she'd positioned at the front. When I walked in I saw Brett Beattie sitting up on the first desk with his swim bag draped down below him. He stunk of chlorine and a strongly scented type of shampoo, that seemed to be trying to cover up the smell of the swimming pool, but was failing, miserably.

"Why can't I sit at the back?" he asked Christina, who was fussing through a stack of folders.

She looked up to roll her eyes at him, but then returned her attention back to her notes.

I had a little bit of history with Christina Cook. On the first night in the girls house I'd been showering, shyly, when she whipped back the shower curtain that was barely offering me privacy, to ask me if I wanted to donate money to the people of Somalia, so that I could help save their kids from preventable illnesses and death.

"I don't have any money on me..." I said, trying to cover the more private parts of myself, with equally naked body parts.

"Oh that's okay" she smiled. "At this point. I'm just looking for a verbal commitment"

She was always acting like a teacher and trying to tell the girls in our house what to do. "Jasmine. Jasmine wake up!" She roused her roommate. "I've just been down to the laundry, and I've noticed that none of your uniforms are ironed"

"Okay, are we all here? We're not waiting on anybody?" Christina performed a quick glance around the room. "Perfect. Now before I begin today's meeting, I'd like to take a moment to honour the traditional land owners of the Scotts Bradley School, the Darramuragal people, and to pay our respects to their elders past and present"

For some reason she said all of this while staring at boy named Huffie, who also happened to be the darkest boy in the room.

"Huffie's not aboriginal" Brett said.

"Yeah, I'm from New Zealand?"

"Oh..." Christina frowned a little. "Well, regardless. Welcome to Year Seven! And a special hello to our new students who have transferred in from outside schools. I'm Christina Cook, the co-captain of the Year Seven Grade, and this is Brett Beattie, our Year Level Leader!"

Brett's eyebrows knit together, like this was brand new news to him.

"For those of you who don't know, Year Level meetings are a chance for us to get together in a calm, teacher-free environment. We'll be using these meetings to discuss our various Charity projects, as well as to address any issues that we might be facing as a Grade!"

A boy named Connor raised his hand. "Yeah, um. Are these things still compulsory?"

"They most certainly are" Christina said, "And yes, I will be taking roll call"

"It's pizza night tonight..." Frasier looked up at the clock. "If we don't get out of here soon, all of the good toppings are gonna be gone"

Gemma heard the word pizza and stood up from her chair, dismissing herself from the common room without a single word of explanation.

"Alright, yeah, screw this" Brett said, sliding down from his desk and attempting to do the same thing.

"Set an example!" Christina shouted at him, catching him by the back of his swim jacket, and reefing him back into position.