How To Survive Summer Camp (ePub) Read online

  I wanted to yell no, but I wasn’t that stupid. I just stood there until she swept out of the room, then I sat down on the bench with a bump. Louise stood up. She came over to me and thumped me hard in the back.

  ‘You pig!’ she said furiously. ‘I’m going to get you for that.’

  I stood at the poolside in my borrowed swimming costume. It was an awful white puckered object with silly straps that tied at the back of the neck. I was scared the boys might try to undo them. But I was far more scared of the swimming pool.

  I’d thought it would be one of those turquoise rectangles, but it was worse. It was a real pool, like a big pond. The water was as brown and bubbly as beer and weed trailed all over the place in long green strands.

  ‘What are all them snakey things?’ Janie asked suspiciously. She clutched the child with the donkey. ‘We’re not going in there, are we? We don’t want snakey things nibbling our toes.’

  ‘How can we have races in this squitty little pond? It’s just a kiddies’ paddling pool,’ said Louise, scornfully.

  ‘Yes, and it looks dirty to me,’ said Karen. ‘They could at least have a proper swimming pool with clean blue water. This place is a real dump.’

  ‘Don’t let’s go in swimming then,’ I said quickly. ‘You’re right, Karen, it is dirty. Look at the colour. Maybe there aren’t

  any sewers at Evergreen. I think they just empty all the loos into the pool.’

  ‘Yuck! Shut up, Baldy. You are disgusting,’ said Karen. She looked at Louise. ‘She is joking, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s scared,’ said Louise hatefully. ‘She just wants to get out of swimming. She wants to make trouble and then the Emeralds will lose another team point. Don’t let’s take any notice of her. She’s just a snivelling little coward. In fact I vote we all stop talking to her altogether.’

  I felt sick but I stuck my chin in the air.

  ‘Goodie goodie,’ I said. ‘I’m fed up with your snobby whining drivel anyway.’

  I hoped I sounded as if I didn’t care. Some of the boys laughed and I was almost sure they were laughing at Louise and not me, so I felt a bit better. But then Uncle Ron finished with all the Jades.

  ‘Come on then, Emeralds. Your turn next. Let’s be having you. Into the pool—and use the steps, OK?’

  Alan wasn’t listening. He leapt up into the air like Superman. He tucked himself into a ball, whizzed round, and then shot out straight again and entered the pool with scarcely a ripple. We all stared at him when he surfaced, shaking the water out of his hair. Even Louise looked impressed. But Uncle Ron was furious.

  ‘I told you to use the steps, didn’t you hear me?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Alan, smiling. ‘I always dive in. Force of habit. I just forgot.’

  ‘Nonsense! You just wanted to show-off,’ Uncle Ron thundered. ‘Nobody but a fool dives into a strange pool like that. What if it was only a couple of feet deep? You’d have broken your neck, lad.’

  ‘I saw the other kids swimming,’ Alan argued, red in the face. ‘I knew how deep it was.’

  ‘Watch me! Watch!’ little Bilbo shouted from the steps.

  He tried to copy Alan, leaping like a little pink frog. He didn’t have time to tuck up but he did manage to bend forward. He hit the water with such a splatter that we were all soaked. Uncle Ron threw himself after him but Bilbo bobbed up again immediately.

  ‘I did it, didn’t I?’ he spluttered. ‘I dived just like Alan. Did you see? Wasn’t I clever? I dived, didn’t I, I dived.’

  ‘See what I mean?’ Uncle Ron roared at Alan, picking Bilbo up and struggling with him to the shallows by the steps. ‘Think you’re so clever, don’t you? But these little kids will follow your fat-headed example and drown themselves.’

  ‘I won’t drown. I can swim. Nearly,’ said Bilbo. ‘And I can dive now too, can’t I? Did you see me dive? Wow, I can dive! I can dive just as good as you, can’t I, Alan?’

  Alan didn’t reply. He was even redder. I felt all squirmy and sorry for him. Uncle Ron was smirking. I hated him, even though I knew he was right.

  ‘Come on, you ladies at the edge of the pool. Get in the water and get your pretty cossies wet,’ said Uncle Ron. He blew his nose noisily in the water with his hand. ‘Come on. All of you, in the pool and stand in line. Then one by one swim up to the first marker. Those of you who are good swimmers go as far as the second marker. But none of you go any further, even if you’ve been entered in the next Olympics. Understood, laddie?’

  Alan nodded. I waited, praying. Louise slid daintily into the water, sucking in her stomach to show off her pink and white bikini properly. She’d plaited her famous hair and coiled it up on top of her head so that it looked like a little crown. She was fairer than me but she had a lovely even tan. I couldn’t stand Louise.

  Karen looked very white and pimply beside her. She got into the water gingerly, shrieking as it lapped at her legs. Janie shrieked too. She held out her hand to the child with the donkey.

  ‘Come on in, I’ll look after you,’ she called.

  The child hesitated, then laid the donkey in the grass, covered him up with a towel until only his muzzle peeped out, and crept down the steps.

  I prayed harder.

  ‘It’s not very deep, Stella, honestly,’ Marzipan whispered. ‘It’ll only come up to your waist.’

  She took hold of me awkwardly by the wrist. She was just trying to be friendly but I was scared she might pull me in, so I snatched my arm away.

  ‘No. Leave go of me,’ I muttered fiercely.

  So Marzipan wobbled down the steps into the water. Her swimming costume was much too tight. The water came up to her thighs and she shifted uncomfortably as it rippled against her. She kept tugging at her costume at the back to try to make it cover more of her. The boys started making fun of her and sniggering. Marzipan pretended not to hear but I wasn’t very good at ignoring people.

  ‘Shut up, you lot. Take a look in the mirror if you want to see a really funny sight.’

  They just laughed and splashed me. Uncle Ron swam to the steps and bounded up to them. He stood beside me, dripping. Even when they were wet the ginger hairs on his chest were as thick and bristly as a doormat.

  ‘Stop mucking about, you lot. No splashing,’ he said. Then he bent his head down to my level. ‘I hear you’re not too fond of swimming, Stella. Not to worry. Bend down and put your hand in the pool. It’s a bit cold at first but you’ll warm up once you get in properly.’

  He went on making encouraging noises but I was too scared to listen. He was dripping on my bare toes, making me shiver. I felt so sick. That suddenly seemed the answer to my prayers. I jerked my tummy in and out, heaved, and thought very hard about the scrambled eggs I’d had at breakfast. I imagined them shooting into the water, lapping against Louise.

  ‘Come on, pet. One step at a time.’ Uncle Ron put his hand on my shoulder. The hand that had blown his nose.

  ‘I’m going to be sick,’ I whispered.

  He peered at me.

  ‘All right then. You do look a bit green. You’d better trot back to the house,’ he said, wonderfully, unbelievably.

  ‘Uncle Ron’s daft. She’s not feeling sick at all. She just wants to get out of swimming,’ said Louise.

  Uncle Ron peered at me again.

  ‘Hang on. Maybe you’d be better getting into the pool now, getting it over and done with. Come on.’

  His grip tightened. I was so scared he might throw me in that I rushed forward and slithered down the steps, losing my balance and falling into the frothy water. I didn’t go right under but I thought I might. I screamed and everyone laughed.

  I stood there, shivering, while everyone swam. Alan was easily the best swimmer. Bilbo couldn’t swim at all. He splashed and struggled but couldn’t get anywhere. He was put in the beginners class. So was Janie. She could swim a little but she kept fussing about the water weed and shrieking and spluttering and going under. The child with the donkey surprised everyone by swimm