Success at Silver Spires (2 page)

“I was a bit rubbish at that maths prep,” said Emily with an over-the-top sigh, as she climbed the ladder to her cabin bed and lay down, hands behind her head. “I just don't get fractions.” Then she turned onto her side and looked at Nicole, who is definitely the brainiest one of us all. “Tell me again, does the nominator go on the top in fractions, or is it the denumerator?”

Nicole laughed as she went up to sit with Antonia on her bed. “Oh, Ems, it's the
numerator
on the top, and
denominator
on the bottom!”

“Never mind maths,” said Antonia, smiling round at us all. “What I want to know is which extra sports you have chosen. Nicole and I have signed in for tennis.”

“Signed
up
,” said Nicole straight away. Then she looked apologetic. “Sorry, Antonia! You must get sick of me correcting you all the time!”

Antonia shook her head. “I want to be just as good as all of you at English, so keep correcting me till I am!”

“You
are
as good as us!” I told Antonia, because I think it's brilliant the way she's learned English in only two terms. Last September, when we joined Silver Spires, she couldn't really speak it at all and had a strong Italian accent, but now she's great at it, and has practically lost her accent too.

“Well, anyway, Nicole and I are going to do extra tennis!” she told us happily.

“I don't think we'll exactly make Wimbledon, this year,” said Nicole. “But we're really looking forward to it all the same!” Then she turned to Bryony. “What are you going to do, Bry?”

“She's coming riding with me,” Emily answered. “Which is totally brave of her because…” Emily stopped suddenly and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Bry, is it a secret?”

Bryony shrugged. “Because I'm scared of horses,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice.

Izzy gasped. “I didn't think you were scared of
anything
, Bry!”

And I didn't either because Bryony has been on all sorts of outward-bound trips over the year, like abseiling and rock climbing, and you need tons of courage for those.

“I fell off a horse when I was little,” she told us quietly. “And I've never got back on one since, but now I'm going to give it a go.”

“We won't have time for anything else though, with gardening club and everything,” finished off Emily simply. Then she turned to me and Izzy. “What about you two?”

I suddenly felt a bit pathetic for having no idea. “I don't know. There are so many things…” I was trying to make it sound as though I was interested in everything and just couldn't choose, but the truth was I didn't think I'd be that good at any of the things on offer.

“We can't decide, can we, Sash?” Izzy added, pulling her hair out of its band and starting to brush it.

I was glad at that moment not to be the only one who wasn't really sporty. But immediately afterwards I felt miserable, because of course even though Izzy isn't sporty, she's always got ballet as her special thing in life, and I really admire her dedication to it. And all the others have something that's important to them too. Emily's big passion is the environment. Bryony is the adventurous one, Nicole got a scholarship to Silver Spires because she's so clever, and Antonia is a brilliant linguist and knows more about the world than any of us because she's travelled such a lot. Then there's me. I really feel like a nobody.

When my parents told me last summer that I was definitely coming to Silver Spires, the very first thing I thought was that I might find something here that I could shine at, or at least something I'd really enjoy. But that just hasn't happened.

It's not that I'm unhappy. I'm completely happy, because this is the best boarding school in the world, and I've got my five close friends, including my very best friend, and I'm quite good at all the different lessons, and quite good at everything in fact. It's just that I'm a
quite good
sort of person, who'd love to be a
very good
sort of person at
something
.

I sighed inside and tried to get back to thinking about extra sports, and there suddenly flashed through my mind the memory of that girl, Holly, talking about sculling with her brother. She sounded like she'd really had fun with him. I wished I had a big brother instead of baby twin brothers – someone who might teach me to be a
very
sort of person instead of a
quite
one.

“We could always try sculling,” I found myself saying to Izzy before I'd really thought it through.

“Y-yes…” said Izzy, looking doubtful. “Do you think it's hard?”

“Have you ever done sculling, Bry?” I asked her. “What's the difference between sculling and rowing?”

“Each person on a rowing team uses just one oar, but in sculling they use two,” said Bryony. “I only know that from watching the Olympic Games, by the way.”

“You ought to give it a go, Sash!” said Emily.

I turned to Izzy. “
Shall
we?” I asked, a bit nervously.

She hunched her shoulders up and pulled a face. “I'm not sure. I keep remembering what Mrs. Truman said about it being a commitment. I mean, what if we don't like it?”

“Or what if we're no good at it?” I added quietly, because that was what was worrying me.

“Stop worrying, Sasha, and go for it! You might turn out to be
fantastico
!” laughed Nicole, using one of the Italian words she'd learned from Antonia.

“
Shall
we?” This time it was Izzy asking me.

I suddenly pictured myself phoning home to tell Mum and Dad what brilliant fun sculling was, and Dad wanting to know every detail about it, then Mum trying to get the phone off him so she could hear too. In my heart I knew that wouldn't happen because Dad's always working and Mum's attention is totally taken up by the twins. Maybe if I tried out something new, though, she'd be really curious and ask me lots of questions about it. I liked that thought.

Izzy was looking at me, her head on one side, waiting for my answer. I made the decision in a flash.

“Yes, let's!” I said a bit breathlessly.

The very next day Izzy and I signed up for sculling, then, as Saturday drew nearer, I found myself getting more and more tense, because there was no going back. A very small part of me was excited, but most of me was nervous and anxious. Why was
I
, of all people, about to take up sculling, when I'd no real idea what it actually was? Izzy felt the same, thank goodness, and we would keep turning to each other during the school day – like in the dinner queue, in the middle of a lesson, walking out of assembly, or while we were cleaning our teeth – and saying, “What if we're useless at it?” and “What if we hate it?”

But then we always finished up reminding ourselves that Holly had talked about scull doubles, and that as long as we were together in a boat for two people, surely it would be good fun.

Then Saturday afternoon finally arrived, and I was more nervous than ever in the swimming pool changing room, with Izzy and the rest of the fifteen Year Sevens and Eights who'd signed up for sculling. Mrs. Truman had told us to put our costumes on underneath cycling shorts and a T-shirt. Someone had already asked her why we had to wear cycling shorts rather than any old shorts, and she'd said it was so they wouldn't get caught on any parts of the boat. That was the moment when it had all started to sound very real to me.

“You're going to get a bit of a shock when you see what's in the pool,” she said, wearing a kind of secretive smile. “Come on, girls, quick as you can.”

We knew there would be some kind of a boat in the pool because Mrs. Truman had already mentioned that, but when we walked through from the changing room, every single one of us gasped. There, floating in the middle of the pool, was a long, very, very slim, gleaming white boat. It looked as though the slightest breath of wind would tip it over.

Instantly I knew there was no way I was ever going to be able to manage this sport. I must have been mad even to consider it.

“Don't look so terrified!” came a man's voice. “Gather round, girls!”

It was hard dragging my eyes from the beautiful but scary-looking boat to the man who seemed to be in charge. He was wearing a dark blue polo shirt and a pair of combats that went down to just below the knee and his feet were bare. He seemed very young to be a teacher but I'm not very good at ages. Straight away he told us that his name was Ryan. That's all he told us, though, before he suddenly fell into the pool.

Another huge gasp filled the pool area and I snatched a glance at Mrs. Truman and the other two ladies who I noticed were also standing on the side. Not one of them moved at all – not even a twitch – which made me think that Ryan must have fallen in on purpose. But I could see quite a few girls who were still looking shocked and others who were laughing.

A moment later he heaved himself out of the pool, dripping wet but smiling all over his face. “There you are, girls. Falling in is nothing to worry about. That's the first lesson. So
what
if you've got all your clothes on? Yes, it might be a bit cold, but there's no need to dwell on that – you just need to think
safety
. So, let's get started. My name's Ryan, as I said, and I'm from the Pollington Water Sports Club. Here's our logo!” He tapped the red and pale blue picture on his shirt. It seemed to be of two trees growing towards each other on an island in the middle of a lake. But when I looked closely I saw that the trees were actually a pair of oars with a sail in the middle. “This is Celia, and this is Penny,” he went on, introducing the two ladies, who were also wearing dark blue polo shirts with the same logo, only they had shorts on rather than combats.

“Hi!” they said, giving us a little wave.

I thought they looked really nice and friendly, and a little of my nervousness dissolved – but only a little. We'd not started the session yet and I had no idea how on earth anyone was expected to balance in such a narrow boat that didn't even have a flat bottom. And worse, it looked like you had to sit
on
it, not
in
it.

“Right we're here today to learn what to do if ever you should happen to…fall in.” He gave a little chuckle. “Which is most unlikely, because the boats you learn in are sturdier than this. We call this the capsize drill. It's something we have to practise before we set out on the lake and start sculling properly. I'm going to choose five people to stay here and work with me and Celia on that, while the rest of you go off to the shallow end with Penny. Then we'll swap to another five and so on. Now, I've already checked with Mrs. Truman and I know you're all good, confident swimmers so it doesn't matter who I choose. Right…” He was looking over the heads of the people at the front to the ones at the back, like me and Izzy. I tried to shrink away from his gaze so he wouldn't pick me, but it didn't work. I was the first one he pointed to, and Izzy was the second. Then there were three Year Eights – Kerry, Rhianna and Poppy.

Penny gathered everyone else around her and they went off to the shallow end. Izzy and I exchanged scared looks and I think Ryan must have noticed, because he quickly told us there was nothing to worry about, and that the boats we were going to use at Pollington Water were called stable sculls. “That means it's pretty much impossible to fall in,” he grinned, “as they've got flat bottoms! We're only practising in this racing scull because it's so much easier to turn over.”

“So will we be in stable boats for the whole course?” asked Poppy.

“Probably, yes, because it's most unusual to progress to a racing boat in the short amount of training that you'll be having. Although some of you might move on from Virus singles to a double for two people, or quad scull for four. And in case you're wondering, ‘Virus' is just the make of the boat.”

Izzy and I exchanged an anxious look. We'd been so sure we'd be sculling together in a double boat. But we had to quickly put that thought out of our minds and concentrate on what Ryan was doing. He was back in the water, and a moment later, with what seemed like no effort at all, he'd got himself into the boat. At exactly the same time there came a loud splash, followed by a lot of laughter from the shallow end, and I was aware of everyone around me looking over to see what was happening. But I wasn't interested. I couldn't take my eyes off the oars that rested gently on the water at either side of the beautiful racing scull, like they were part of it.

“Right,” began Ryan, “I've got my feet in the special shoes which are attached to the boat, and I'm just going to throw away the blades – or oars, if that's what you prefer to call them – then immediately hold on tight to the riggers, which are the metal bits on the side of the boat. And once the boat has rolled over, I'll slip my feet out of the shoes. Here we go!” He did exactly as he'd said and we watched him go right under for just a couple of seconds, then quickly come up and loop his arm over the upturned boat.