The Swim series - Book One

Chapter 5

I arrived at breakfast the next morning with a splitting headache. Gemma had been up all night screaming and begging for the housemothers to let her go home. I'd gotten maybe two hours of continual sleep and half an hour of dozing. That wasn't enough to survive a normal day, let alone an entire day of camping.

In a much smaller way i'd lucked out. I'd rushed down to the dining hall expecting to find it packed with students, but found it almost completely empty instead. The Grade Eight students had already left for camp already and most of my own Grade were down at the bus bay waiting. For the first time since I'd arrived at the school, I was able to choose a table in peace.

Mum. Mum. Mum. My brain automatically started replaying Gemma's singsong. "I want my mummy! Call my mummy! Tell my mummy i'm ready to come home!" I felt sorry for her but I was mostly bothered by her. Her constant moans for home were very annoying reminders, that I wasn't missing anyone.

My dad had sent me three text messages since I'd been at Scotts, and I'd replied to every single one of them with "I'm okay" I knew if I needed help that my dad would give me help, but we really didn't have that sort of a relationship.

"This is daddy" I remember the social worker saying, when my dad arrived to collect me after Guilford. He bought me a blanket and a new Barbie doll, as well as a photo album full of images of Queensland.

I didn't know who he was. And that was understandable, seeing as I hadn't come into contact with the man since I was six-months old and teething. I wouldn't take the Barbie, and I didn't want the blanket. I took the photo album only because he told me it was pictures of home, and I automatically assumed he was taking me back to Jamesy.

"I want Jamesy" I told the social worker. And "I want Jamesy" I cried for him on the plane ride home. Jamesy, Jamesy, Jamesy. I viewed anyone who tried to take his place, as an enemy I needed to avoid.

It was my dad who found out when the Scotts Bradley scholarship exams were. Just like it was my dad, who flew me to Sydney and made sure that I sat for them. Then when I received only a fifty-percent scholarship, he swallowed his pride and asked my mothers parents for help. He wasn't a bad person, and I think that's what made our lack of a relationship so much harder to accept.

Mum.

Mum.

Call my mum.

I started to zone out to Gemma's sing-song again.

Go home. Go home. Go home. And then I was thinking about how nice that would be, when I noticed a dark shadow fall down over the side of my table.

I looked up and saw Brett Beattie, standing there with his swim bag draped over his shoulder. The confused look on his face was easily matched by mine.

"Hey..." he said, studying my much smaller existence.

"Hi..." I replied back, wondering why on earth he was attempting to talk to me?

Was I late? Had the bus left already? Had a teacher sent Brett over here to look for me? For a second or two I pictured my entire Grade, sitting around and waiting for me to get on the bus.

It wasn't until Brett let his swim bag slide down to the floor, that I looked a large lead-light window behind him and quickly realised my mistake. Because no, Brett Beattie wasn't standing by my the side of my table. I'd pulled up a tray and invited myself to sit down behind his.

"Oh!" I leapt up in such a fright, that I almost threw the dregs of my tea at him. Brett's table. The popular kids table. The place that no rational new girl would ever attempt to go.

I blurted out so many different apologies at once that there was no way for him to possibly hear me.

"Wait..." he said, before I darted away. I almost fell over the back of the chair in an effort to get away from him more quickly.