Hit the Beach! (9 page)

“Aidan and Bethany!” squealed Rosie and Fliss together.

Bethany was on crutches, which made getting over the rocks majorly tricky. She had a pretty hefty bandage on her right leg too.

“Want me to carry you again?” we heard Aidan say, as he waited for her to catch him up.

“Not likely,” laughed Bethany. “This is great training. I’m improving my balance, coordination, arm strength…”

The teachers hurried over to talk to
Bethany as she settled down to sit on a rock, and Aidan came to investigate whether we’d left them any food.

“All’s well,” he said to us as Frankie handed him a couple of fresh kebabs. “Just one thing: don’t cheer for Jude in the competition tomorrow, will you?”

He didn’t need to worry. There was no fear of
that
.

“What shall I wear? What shall I wear?”

In unison, four voices chorused, “
Anything
!!”

Can you believe we were going through this again?! Fliss had decided she had to wear something special to the Surfing Display Day, which meant – apparently – that she had to try on every single thing she had in her suitcase.

“Come on! We have to be downstairs in two minutes!” I waved my watch under Fliss’s nose and bounced off towards the window. I was so
excited, I had the jitters and keeping still was not an option.

“One cloud. Small. White,” reported Frankie, leaning out of the window. “Don’t forget your sunglasses, ladies! It’s going to be
hot, hot, hot
!”

I couldn’t believe this was our last day in Rawnston. And I couldn’t believe we were going to spend it on the beach, watching some seriously cool surfing, and cheering for Aidan till we lost our voices. I couldn’t
wait
.

As usual, the whole class walked down to the beach together. You could hear the beach before you could see it: someone had set up a sound system and happy, bouncy music was drifting on the warm, sea-salty breeze.

“Wow! A few people’ve turned out, then,” said Rosie as we turned the corner at the end of the road and the seafront came into view.

Understatement of the year. The beach was heaving. I reckon every single one of the teenagers we’d seen in those cafés and surf shops had come along, and half of them had brought a
crowd of mates too. Added to that, there were plenty of other people who didn’t look like surfers, plus quite a few kids running around. It seemed as if Aidan’s plan for getting the non-surfers of Rawnston interested had paid off.

“Bouncy castle!” exclaimed Lyndz, pointing. “My little brothers would love this!”

“Ice-cream van!” said Frankie, pointing too. “Never mind little brothers –
I
love this!”

Stalls were dotted about, selling all sorts of different things: hot pancakes, cool drinks, surfing magazines, clothes, even surf-themed jewellery – pendants and ear-rings in the shape of surfboards.

“You’d have to be, like, really
obsessed
to wear this stuff,” said Fliss, nosing through it.

A friendly girl called Kelly was offering to plait beads and little coloured ribbons into people’s hair. “Cool!” yelped Rosie and plumped herself down in front of Kelly’s mirror. “C’mon, Kenny, you too!”

“No fear,” I said backing away. Don’t ask me
why, but I can’t stand people fiddling with my hair. Instead, I hurried over to the Surfers For Clean Water petition and queued up to sign it.

When we were done, Frankie pulled out her camera. “I need someone to take a picture, so we can all be in it,” she said.

Suddenly, a voice behind us said, “Can I help?”

We spun round. It was Bethany, leaning on her crutches and grinning at us.

We nearly knocked her over by all trying to hug her at once. After yesterday’s drama, it felt like she was one of our best friends.

“Hey, careful, guys!” she laughed. “Sprained ankle, remember!”

She took several snaps of us striking silly poses. Then Rosie asked, “When does the surfing competition start?”

Bethany checked her watch. “Any minute now. Want to come and watch with me?”

You bet we did! Bethany led us to a good vantage point and we sat down near a crowd of her friends.

“How cool is this?” whispered Frankie to me. “I hope the M&Ms spot us!”

The kids’ competition came first. I’d thought the contestants might just do a few simple moves, like the ones we’d learnt this week. Boy, was I wrong. Every single one of them stood up on the board like it was the easiest thing in the world, and then twisted and turned along the wave like a skateboarder.

“That’s incredible,” said Lyndz, who’d been watching with her mouth open.

“But…they only look a bit older than us,” said Rosie.

Bethany nodded. “Remember, though – they live round here and they’ve been surfing for years already.” She nudged Rosie. “You could be like that if you practised hard.” Rosie beamed.

If the kids were that good, I wondered what the grown-up competition was going to be like. I could see Aidan standing ready with his board, and not far from him, in the middle of a huddle of friends, I spotted Jude.

“We’re supporting Aidan,” I told Bethany. “D’you reckon he’ll win?”

Bethany pursed her lips, thinking. “Aidan’s good,” she said. “But, to be honest, Jude is better.”

None of us spoke. We didn’t want to believe it.

“Always depends what happens on the day, though,” Bethany added. “Surfing can be so unpredictable – you’re affected by the wind, the waves, the guy you’re surfing against…”

“I wish
you
were surfing,” Fliss cut in. “We’d be cheering for you!”

“You’re my team!” Bethany held up her hand and did high-fives with each of us in turn. At this rate, I thought, we were going to have to make her an honorary member of the Sleepover Club!

Soon the adult competition started and that grabbed all our attention. The format was different from the kids’ competition. Then, the contestants had surfed in heats of four and the best from each heat had gone on to the grand
final. Now, the surfers were going out in pairs. One from each pair went on to the next round.

“It’s really tactical,” Bethany explained. “The waves aren’t all the same size, of course. And you can only take off – you know, get going on a new wave – ten times; after that you have to come out of the water. So everyone wants to get the best waves for themselves – the ones they’re going to be able to perform their favourite moves on.”

It was dead exciting seeing really good surfers trying to outdo one another. Before today, we hadn’t ever seen Aidan surfing, so when his turn came in the first round I was really interested to check out his skills. And he was majorly impressive. The water sprayed and swooshed as his board sliced across it, and at one point he even jumped into the air, taking his board with him!

“Yeeaahh! Go, Aidan!” we cheered. And when it was announced that he’d got through to the second round, we cheered even harder.

Next, though, he was going to be pitted against Jude.

“This’ll be a tough one,” said Bethany. “Jude is a mean competitor.”

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.

When the time came and they waded out into the water together, we all watched with bated breath. Aidan had won the toss, which meant that he had first pick of which wave to take off on. I was hoping that would give him a major advantage.

After paddling out and sitting up on his board for a while, waiting for the bigger waves, Aidan turned his board around. He was off!

From our vantage point on the sand, the six of us watched intently. Aidan rode the wave, turning at the bottom, swooshing up to the top and cutting back again. He looked so good – but I kept glancing at Bethany. I wanted to know how
she
thought it was going.

Bethany was biting her lip. A little later I saw her check her watch.

“They’ve got twenty minutes in total,” she explained. “Ade’s had the best waves so far, but Jude can pull out some radical moves under pressure. I should know – he’s beaten me that way.”

The crowd around us was whistling and cheering – I tried to judge by the noises they made which moves were the best. Everything looked impressive to me. At one point, Jude got right under the curl of a wave and leaned back into the wall of water, trailing his hand across it. It was
awesome
.

“Whoever wins this heat’s gonna win the whole competition, I reckon,” I heard someone say nearby. And it turned out that they were right.

So, who won? Shall I give you three guesses? Yep, it was Jude, I’m afraid. And however much we didn’t like him, we had to admit that his surfing had been pretty gobsmacking.

A man with a microphone did the presentation – the prize was a wad of vouchers for a surf
shop and a bottle of champagne. After that, we watched as Bethany went to congratulate Aidan. Jude spotted her and tried to talk to her, but she gave him the cold shoulder.

“Too right,” said Frankie, nodding approvingly. “I hope he’s feeling really guilty.”

“He should give her the vouchers he’s won,” said Rosie. “And the champagne.”

“One of us ought to go and tell him,” said Lyndz.

Silence. No one moved. We were all just staring at Jude and his smug-looking friends.

“Well, when someone’s that bigheaded, it’s probably better just to ignore them,” suggested Fliss.

“Absolutely.” Frankie, Lyndz and Rosie nodded quickly.

Slowly, I got to my feet. I had made it into that scary café the other day. After that, how could Kenny McKenzie, brave Leicester City supporter and founder member of the glorious Sleepover Club, be frightened of some weedy, puff-headed surf boy?

Never mind
how
. I could. I was.

But I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

Heels digging into the sand, I marched across to where Jude was crouching, putting something into his bag.

“Excuse me,” I said when I got there. Somehow, it came out a bit squeaky. I cleared my throat and repeated it, more loudly.

Jude looked up. “Yes? Who are you?” He frowned. “Oh, I know,” he said, “you’re one of those babies Bethany’s been teaching.”

I wasn’t going to let his sneering put me off. “We know the accident was your fault,” I said, staring him right in the eye. “You did it because you were scared of Bethany beating you. We think you’re a coward and you should give the prizes you won to Bethany.”

I stood there, breathing hard, my heart thumping so loudly I thought everyone must be able to hear it.

For a moment, Jude looked completely blank. Then he started to laugh. At that
moment, one of his friends came up. “Munchkin trouble, Jude?” he said, looking at me like I was a manky bit of seaweed that the tide had left behind.

Jude shrugged. “Oh, you know how I
love
the little darlings,” he said. And he reached out a hand and ruffled my hair.

He ruffled my hair
. I told you I couldn’t stand anyone fiddling with my barnet, didn’t I? Well, this was the last straw. I was just about to go for him,
really
go for him – practise my kung fu kick and my karate chop, when Frankie suddenly appeared at my side and said, “C’mon, Kenny. Forget these losers – Bethany said she’d buy us all pancakes!”

I would’ve got him. I would’ve had him begging for mercy. Honestly. But…pancakes? Hot pancakes with melted chocolate and vanilla ice cream inside? No contest! Giggling like crazy, I turned and raced with Frankie across the beach.

I wasn’t disappointed, either: the pancakes
were de
lish
. But the reaction of my friends was even better. Never mind that Jude wasn’t going to hand over his prizes to anyone in a million years, they still made me feel like I’d just saved an entire city from an evil super-villain.

“Wow, you were so brave!” said Rosie, looking at me with wide eyes. “The way you just went up to him – it was awesome!”

“You told him!” said Lyndz. “You didn’t let him get away with it! You gave him a piece of your mind!”

“It was heroic!” said Frankie, grinning a chocolatey grin and clapping me on the shoulder.

“Well, maybe just a bit,” I admitted modestly. “And you know what? Dealing with the M&Ms’ll feel like
nothing
after Rude Jude!”

I was right. We’ve been back in Cuddington for almost two weeks now and the M&Ms have barely registered on my radar. For one thing,
I’ve been too busy plotting how to get Mum and Dad to change their plans for our summer holiday. We just
have
to go somewhere where I can catch some surf. I’ve even threatened to start practising on the ironing board!

And it’s not just me. Every member of the Sleepover Club has been having serious withdrawal symptoms since we left Rawnston. Rosie’s determined that we’re going to be the first surf-dudes ever to be based in Leicestershire – but boy, do I wish that we could wave a magic wand and turn Cuddington into Cuddington-on-Sea! That’s why I invited everyone round to mine today, in fact, to hang out in the garden and pretend that all this grass is actually golden sand…

Oops – have you seen the time? I can’t believe we’ve been gassing so long! Listen, I’d better go and fix everyone some drinks in a sec or I’ll have a gang of parched sunbathers giving me a hard time. But I must just tell you one more thing: we got a postcard from
Bethany the other day. (She sent it to us at school, cos she didn’t have our home addresses.) She wanted to let us know that her leg had healed. And she mentioned – just dropped it in – that she and Jude are good friends now. I mean…how completely
weird
is that? Don’t you think? We’ve all talked about it loads, of course, and it’s Aidan we feel sorry for. Fliss thinks he’s in
lurve
with Bethany, but that’s Fliss for you – it’s all those soppy films she watches.