Longest Whale Song Read online

  I stand stock-still, staring at them. ‘Sally!’ I whisper.

  Sally wriggles, not quite looking me in the eye. ‘Dory saved the seat for me,’ she says.

  ‘But you always sit next to me!’

  ‘Yes, but Dory wanted to sit with me.’ Sally takes a deep breath. ‘Tell you what, you come and sit with us too.’

  ‘But there are three of us. The seat’s only for two.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We can squash up, can’t we, Dory?’ says Sally, smiling now she thinks she’s solved the problem. ‘There, we can all sit together now.’

  But Mr Hodgkins, the horrible strict Year Six teacher who comes swimming with us, barges up from the back of the coach.

  ‘What are you three silly little girls playing at? Come on, one of you get up and sit somewhere else.’

  I look round for Miss Anderson, but she’s busy talking to some girl who’s forgotten her costume.

  ‘We want to sit together, all three of us, Mr Hodgkins,’ says Sally. She says it very sweetly, with a smile. Sally usually gets round all the teachers because she’s got this soft little girly voice and she looks so pretty with her big eyes and blonde curly hair. But Mr Hodgkins doesn’t smile back at her.

  ‘You can’t possibly sit three on a double seat. You won’t be able to use your seat belts properly. Stop being so silly. One of you get up.’ He gives me a little prod. ‘Come on, you sit further down the coach.’

  ‘But Sally’s my best friend. I always sit with her.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, you’re not going on a day trip. It’s a ten-minute drive. Now move, this instant!’

  So I move, though it’s so not fair – and there isn’t anyone I can sit with. I look for Joseph, but he’s sitting with Toby, so there certainly isn’t room for another one on their seat – and anyway, the boys all sit together and the girls do too. There’s only one seat left now, and, oh horror, it’s the one next to Martha. I’m not not not sitting next to Martha. I’d sooner sit next to a rabid warthog. She clearly feels the same way too, spreading herself right over the seat and glaring at me.

  ‘You, girl!’ Mr Hodgkins bellows. ‘Sit down.’

  I sit right on the very edge of the seat.

  ‘Get off! This is my seat,’ says Martha, pushing me.

  ‘You shut up. I can’t help it. I don’t want to sit next to you, but I’ve got to.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering to come swimming anyway, seeing as you can’t swim, baby.’

  ‘I can so swim,’ I retort furiously.

  ‘No, you can’t! I’ve seen you puffing along with one foot on the bottom. You’re absolutely hopeless. Everyone looks at you and laughs.’

  ‘No they don’t! They laugh at you because you look so stupid.’ I try hard to think why she might look stupid. ‘Yeah, your bum sticks out, especially when you swim, wiggle waggle, wiggle waggle.’

  Bull’s eye! Martha looks outraged.

  ‘It does not stick out,’ she says, and she pulls up her feet and kicks at me with her sandals. ‘Get off my seat! Go on, get off!’

  ‘You get off it, waggle-bum,’ I say, and kick her back.

  Then suddenly Mr Hodgkins’s head is hovering over us, and his hands are pushing all our feet back on the floor.

  ‘Will you two behave!’ He glares at me in particular. ‘If I have to speak to you one more time today, I’m sending you to see Mrs Raynor the moment you get back to school.’

  I sit seething but silent until we get to the pool. Sally comes to find me in the changing rooms.

  ‘Your face is all red, Ella,’ she says. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No, I’m not OK. I had to sit with Martha because you sat with Dory,’ I sniff.

  ‘Oh dear. I’m sorry. But I did try to get you sitting with us,’ Sally says.

  ‘Will you sit with me on the way home?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Sally pauses. ‘I wish I could, but I’ve just promised Dory—’

  ‘Oh, see if I care. I don’t want to sit with you anyway,’ I say, and slam into a cubicle to get changed into my swimsuit.

  I tear my clothes off in a rage and finish changing much more quickly than usual. I pad past the closed cubicle in my bare feet. I hear Sally talking to Dory behind one of the doors. She’s whispering but I still hear.

  ‘She’s so moody now. She’s just no fun at all. I know it’s ever so sad about her mum – and my mum says I’ve got to be extra nice to her, and I am trying, but she gets so cross if I don’t do everything she wants,’ Sally whispers.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Dory whispers back. ‘Martha’s exactly the same.’

  It’s so unfair! I’m not a bit like Martha. I can’t bear it that Sally’s saying such awful things about me.

  I stomp off to the side of the baths. The boys are larking around, trying to push each other in. The girls are clustered in little groups, looking like boiled eggs in their swimming hats. Martha is standing with her back to the wall, her face screwed up. Maybe she thinks she’s really got a waggle-bottom. Well, good. She’s so mean to me it’s great to be mean back. Though she looks so sad staring at Dory and Sally as they saunter up, arm in arm. They start doing ridiculous stretching exercises, like they’re Olympic athletes. I turn my back on them and look at the boys instead.

  Joseph looks thinner without his clothes, his arms little sticks, his shoulders narrow, his neck too tiny to support his big head and unruly hair. He reminds me of Samson in a weird way. If there were just the two of us together I’d put my arm round him, he looks so little. Whereas Toby looks big – much bigger without his clothes – his belly huge, but he doesn’t seem to mind at all. He’s waddling around pretending to be a gorilla, thumping himself on his wobbly chest and growling.

  Mr Hodgkins comes stomping along and tells him to stop messing about – but he ruffles Toby’s hair. No one can be cross with Toby for long.

  We have to divide into our groups, and there am I, stuck with all the doggy-paddle splash-and-scream beginners – and I’m the worst of the lot. We have to stay in the shallow end and do silly stuff like blowing bubbles in the water and kicking our legs while holding onto the side. I do this obediently for a while, but this isn’t swimming. I want to see if my dream can come true, if I can glide through the water as easily and powerfully as a little whale. So while the swimming instructor is busy with silly Maddy, who breathes in instead of blowing out and is now having a choking fit, I suddenly duck right down in the water and push off from the side.

  I glide. Yes, I’m gliding, I’m really slipping through the water – I’m not moving my arms or legs but I’m still swimming, I really am. I can do it, so long as I don’t put my head up and start gasping. I must stay down down down, almost scraping my tummy on the pool mosaic floor. It’s so easy, so simple. My chest’s feeling tight now, but I don’t need to breathe just yet. I can manage much longer. Whales can wait a whole hour before they come up to breathe. I want to stay down here in the dim turquoise depths. My heart is banging and my hands are scrabbling in the water, but I’m not giving in, I’m staying right where I am, I’m—

  Something’s got me! I’m being savagely attacked, hauled along, up into the air. There’s sudden light and shouting and splashing, and then I’m thrown onto the hard tiles at the edge of the pool, and someone’s thump-thump-thumping on my chest until I cough and splutter and a little sick dribbles out of my mouth. Then I’m wrapped up in a towel and carried out, and everyone’s looking and pointing. I can’t work out exactly what’s happening, and I still feel sick. Where are my clothes? They’re taking me outside and into a car and I’m just in my soaking swimsuit. Are they mad?

  I struggle, and Miss Anderson holds me tightly and says, ‘There, there, you’re going to be fine, Ella, don’t worry. I’ve got you safe.’ I’m almost on her lap in the back of the car and she’s got her arms right round me! But where are we going? Where is she taking me? Some strange man is driving us, whizzing along the roads and rushing through amber lights. Are they kidnapp