Goldfish (3 page)

But despite my whining, I have resolved to make an effort. Today I'm launching Operation: Make Friends. I'm an idiot for having only one friend. I needed a spare!

I'm so used to having Hannah's arm slung round me as she makes me laugh with nine years' worth of stupid private jokes. I've got all my halves of those jokes and nothing to do with them.

I feel shy as I enter my homeroom, so I check my bag to make me look busy, not lonely. Classic move. I delve through it, looking at my books and pencils. Yup, all there. Hi, guys.

I get so carried away with my acting that I trip, my backpack swings around with surprising force, and eight small objects fall out. What eight small objects, you ask?

Eight tampons.

ARGH!

What is
wrong
with tampons? Seems like every time I open my bag, they leap out in a group suicide bid. I haven't even started my period yet; they're just in case. My face burns with a blush as I crouch and start shoveling them back into my bag, desperate for this moment to end. It couldn't get worse.

Yes, it could. I feel a light tap on my head—someone is “helping” by throwing an escaped tampon at me.

And
then
Mr. Peters races in late. Perfect—the nicest teacher in school (and not bad-looking, actually, if you like cardigans) begins his morning by falling over me as I scrabble on the floor, chasing tampons and trying not to cry.

The class falls silent as he comes over and helps me to my feet. I like Mr. Peters; he's one of the few people in school taller than me, and not in a stooped, have-to-get-my-shoes-specially-made sort of way.

I give him a “thank you and that never happened” smile and weave through to our desk at the back.
My
desk, now. Teachers always knew they could sit Hannah and me there. We weren't particularly
good
students, but we were quiet. You don't need to pass notes to someone you've known that long.

I sit down, face still burning, and hope everyone develops amnesia by lunch. I don't want to be Tampon Brown all semester.

“Did you see that video I posted on your wall?” The two boys in front of me chat, and I lean forward to join in. After a bad start, Operation: Make Friends begins
right now.

“Yeah! That guy looked so much like Hatsy it blew my mind.”

“That's why I put it up there!”

“Oh, right! But everyone looks like Hatsy.”

They collapse into quiet hysterics. For some reason.

I'm watching the conversation go back and forth, feeling the smile die on my face.

Who is Hatsy? Is it funny that everyone looks like him? Apparently. And what was that video? This conversation is like code; there's no way I can join in.

“Double history next, nightmare!” I say to the back of their heads in a friendly, eye-rolly sort of way. But too quietly, so they don't realize I'm talking to them. I look out the window and bite my nail. I'm not embarrassed, I'm busy! Busy biting this nail.

“Sorry, did you say something?” One of the boys turns around.

I nod, suddenly choking on a piece of nail. Now I'm coughing right in his face.
Right in his face.

“No talking in the back!” Mr. Peters calls over. The boys turn back, one of them frowning and wiping his face.

I sit, stunned by my own social idiocy, and wonder if I will ever stop blushing or if my family can use my head as a radiator and cut their heating bills.

Then I'll have to be homeschooled, right?

My phone vibrates (it's up my sleeve) and I slide it out for a peek. It's a text from Mom, a picture of a badly stuffed otter. She may be grumpy in the mornings (and some afternoons and evenings), but she gets me—bad taxidermy always makes me laugh.

There's a picture of an annoyed-looking stuffed fox holding a handbag that never stops being funny, no matter how many times I look at it (and I needed to look at that fox a lot this summer). I scroll around my phone and then tap my in-box.

I really should reply to Hannah's last message. We've been chatting every day, but she starts all the conversations and I feel like everything I write is fake—things like
I'm sooooooo happy for yoooooo! Xxxxx
.

I'm a very bad liar.

After the time trials, I did my best to seem OK. I sat at the front of the minibus instead of at the back with Hannah, because I had suddenly developed “car sickness.”

I kept staring up at the ceiling, because the fake car sickness was also making my eyes water. “Anyone else have wet eyes? I think it's the air-conditioning. Look, my eyes are so wet they're actually
leaking
!” (Sniff.)

Hannah had always been good, but I never realized she was much better than me. I think she swam one of her fastest times ever that day. I don't know my time; officials don't chase after the girls who come in last.

Hannah was so excited and I didn't want to spoil it. That night I texted her loads, things like:
I'm so proud of you my fish!!! Xxxxxxx.
Which is a bit fake and gushy, but
You stole my dreams
is not a cool thing to text your best friend, even if it's true.

And I am happy for her! I'm just sad for me.

“Louise?” I look up. Mr. Peters is staring, and the kids in the class are starting to turn and roll their eyes. What have I done
now
?

“Yee-urp?” I say stupidly, and he smiles at me, a little exasperated, and says, “Sasha Burrows?”

Oh. The attendance. Right.

*   *   *

The morning begins with a double block of history, where I learn a lot of really cool things, like how
I know nothing about history
and
I am basically as educated as a piece of toast
.

See,
this
is the problem with planning to be a professional swimmer for the rest of your life; you don't think that you might need an education. Basically, the moment I could read, I felt educated enough. After that I used school time to relax in. Can't believe I hadn't noticed how behind I'd got. Clearly, Han and I were oblivious in our bubble of idiot.

My history teacher corners me after class to say, “How exciting about Hannah. You must be so proud!”

“Yes, yes, I am, I really am!” I say back at her, nodding hard with big, fake eyes.

History is followed by chemistry, because this school believes in putting the
boring
in
educa-boring-tion
.

It's amazing how little I know on this subject too. I listen hard and take lots of notes. Maybe I'm an academic genius; perhaps
that's
my actual Thing, not swimming after all.

“Any ideas? Anyone?”

I shoot my hand in the air.

“Louise!”

“Potassium!”

“No. Pota … what? I haven't mentioned potassium once this lesson.”

“Oh, OK.”

People snigger. The teacher stares at me, baffled. “Did you mean
phosphorus
?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

“That's still wrong.”

Finally the morning's over and it's lunchtime. I follow the smell of cabbage until I'm at the cafeteria. (We hardly ever have cabbage; there's just this lingering smell. Mysterious.)

I look around. I knew this would happen. There's no one to sit with, and every table “belongs” to a friendship group, so I wouldn't just be eating there—I'd look like I was trying to join their group. I don't want to be ignored or, worse, told to get lost.

Can I bring my own little table into school every day?

I buy a sandwich, stick it in my backpack, and head outside, daydreaming about my new (unlikely) future as a chemistry genius. My first breakthrough would be to disprove its credibility as a subject, forcing thousands of unemployed chemistry teachers to rethink their snotty attitudes.

I walk in a circle around school, eating my sandwich. It's boring to have no one to talk to. I take out my phone. I'm tempted to call Hannah, but then we'll have to talk about training camp, and the thought of
that
makes my food stick in my throat.

As I'm choking and spluttering, eyes watering, phone in hand, Mr. Peters appears next to me. He raises his eyebrows at the phone, which I'm not allowed to have out during the school day. I wave it weakly and whisper, “Ambulance.” He gives a snort of laughter and keeps walking.

He stops and turns back.

“Lou, you
are
joking?”

I nod, putting my phone away. He makes a “phew!” gesture and keeps walking.

Great, I've found someone I can chat to—and they're paid to talk to me.

As I'm putting my phone away in my bag, I realize I've stopped in front of the one place that can help me.

The library.

Home of the introverted and people too quiet to say, “No, Lou, I don't want to be your friend. Leave me alone to read. Get that friendship bracelet
off
me. No,
you
shush!”

 

chapter 3

I settle down in one of the booths and feel myself relaxing for the first time all day. I quietly finish the last of my sandwich, eyes darting around for the librarian. She's a small, nervy, hissing woman, and if that makes her sound like a terrifying animal, then
good
.

I'm in the sports section. It's only about a shelf long, but there's a tattered old book there called
Swimming for Women and the Infirm
. Brilliant! I pull it down and start reading. It smells musty and is adorably nuts, focusing on “making elegant, ladylike shapes” rather than actually going anywhere. I'd love to see the look on Debs's face if I tried this. “Personal best? No, I'm making a star shape, wheee!”

I haven't seen Debs in weeks. After the time trials she suggested I “take a break” from swimming, which was a pretty unsubtle dumping. My team had been training before school, after school, sometimes during lunchtime and on weekends, and we'd all been working toward these time trials. Now that I'd flunked, there didn't seem to be much point in carrying on training—I clearly wasn't good enough. I'd just get in everyone's way, being slow, crying, trailing ribbons of snot behind me.… I thought of asking for another chance. I could always try out next year, but what if I came in last
again
?

I told Hannah this on our last sleepover of the summer. It was still warm out, so we were camping—our last chance before she'd be off to Dorset. As I babbled on about my worries, she looked uncomfortable. Of course, she's my best friend; she wasn't going to say, “Yeah, train for another year! I'm sure you won't choke
this
time!” But she also couldn't say, “Give up, pal, you're clearly awful.”

We sat, chewing in silence. I was eating cereal out of the box. Hannah was eating concentrated Jell-O, which is disgusting, but she thinks it stops her nails from splitting from all the chlorine in the pool. Plus side, she always smells fruity.

Thankfully for her, she was saved from giving me career advice.

“SLUG!”

There was a huge one shuffling its disgusting belly up the inside of our tent. Our screams brought Hannah's mom out to the yard. (Because, yes, of course we were camping in the backyard—we're not heroes.)

Barbra'd just got in from a shift at the hospital and she wasn't in the best of moods. When you work in the ER, two girls crying over a slug can seem dumb. She flicked it mercilessly into the hedge, ignoring our pleas to (a) be gentle and (b) escort it to a leaf ten or twenty miles away, please.

Babs (as I have
never
dared call her) then popped her head back into the tent and stared at me for a moment with a concerned look on her face.

“Lou, have you
done something
to your hair?”

She looked horrified. Classic Babs. She's got all the tact of a brick, as Mom said when she thought I wasn't listening.

“No,” I said honestly, trying to flatten it.

“
Bye, Mom!
” said Hannah pointedly. Babs made a face like “What have I done
now
?” and went back to the house.

It's not a competition, but I definitely win the moms.

After a quick debate about the chances of that slug sliming to the top of the tent and falling into one of our sleeping mouths—which we had to stop because Hannah was laughing and dry-retching so hard I thought she might choke—we returned to the all-important subject of
me
.

I told her I was going to stop swim training and how it was actually exciting because maybe I'd find something that I'd be really good at, something cooler than swimming, I said pettily, and immediately felt bad as she started trying to help.

“International supermodel?”

Yes, well, obviously, I said. That's plan B. But I'm scared of flying.

Hannah chewed thoughtfully on a cube of Jell-O. “The thing is,” she says, “you've been swimming since you were like eight…?”

“Seven,” I corrected her.

“Right. So there're so many options you haven't explored! Loads of things you could be amazing at!” She was so excited by how brilliant I'd be. It made me feel tired and irritable and not very brilliant.

Suddenly a shadow loomed against the side of the tent, and Hannah's dad, Damian, called our names. He unzipped the front flap.

“Are you girls smoking?” He looked at us narrowly.

“No!”

“Make sure you don't. It's a filthy habit.” He zipped us back up and left me and Hannah rolling our eyes at each other. Her parents are so weird. You can't just randomly bark at your daughter, “Don't do drugs! Don't smoke! Don't get pregnant!” and call it parenting.

I laugh out loud now, remembering how last month Dad thought Laverne was pregnant because she was so tearful and shifty. He very sweetly said we could cope with anything as a family.