Bad Dreams by Anne Fine

through please? . . . Sorry . . .’ Finally I made it past the busy cubicles back to the bench. I glanced round quickly, then slid my fingers inside Imogen’s tightly wrapped pile of clothes. And all I can say is that I hope she makes a better job of hiding the next piece of jewellery somebody gives her.
    The glittering loops of this one practically fell into my hand.
    And it was the weirdest thing. Suddenly I felt as if I were already underwater – way, way down, lost in a storm of bubbles.
    â€˜Oh!’
    I clawed at my throat. I couldn’t breathe and my knees were buckling beneath me.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ A little second year had heard me gasping. ‘Shall I go and get Miss Rankin for you?’
    I was so close to fainting that I dropped the necklace, which fell in a fold of towel. Only then did I manage to gather my senses.
    â€˜No, no. I’m fine,’ I said, even before the wave of panic passed, leaving me even more sure I had to get this horrid chain of Imogen’s out of our lives. Not even caring whose towel it was I was borrowing, I scrunched the necklace up in it as tightly as I could without touching, and pushed my way through all the second years rushing out of the cubicles, to hurry back the way I’d come, towards the footbaths.
    And how I thought I might intimidate a golden chain with my determination, I’ll never know. (I’m not in the habit of talking to jewellery.) But as I splashed through the arch, I found myself whispering to it, horribly fiercely:
    â€˜Don’t think you’re going to beat me . Because you’re not !’
    I heard a voice behind me. ‘Keep your hair on, Mel. Only a race.’
    I spun round. Stepping out of the footbaths on the boys’ side was Toby Harrison, who’d win the Harries Cup for sure if I weren’t swimming.
    â€˜I didn’t mean you,’ I said hastily.
    He looked offended. ‘I’m sure I don’t know who you do mean, then.’
    How can you try and explain you’re talking to a necklace? You can’t. So I shut up, except to say, ‘Well, good luck, anyway.’
    He grinned. ‘And good luck to you, Melly. See you at the finish – when I look back over my shoulder!’
    â€˜Keep dreaming, Toby!’
    He went off towards his friends, and I stuffed the towel under the heating pipe, and hurried back to join our relay queue. It had become so short that people were panicking.
    â€˜Mel, where have you been ?’
    â€˜We thought you’d vanished .’
    â€˜We still have nearly half a width to make up. You can do it, can’t you?’
    Can I save half a width? Can Granny knit? I did the fastest racing dive Miss Rorty says she’s ever seen in a school gala. I was across the pool so fast that poor Hugh Gregory had no idea his class had lost till he shook the hair from his eyes and saw my fingertips already on the ledge, and me turning, laughing.
    â€˜But I was—’

    I didn’t hear the end for cheers.
    â€˜Brilliant, Mel!’
    â€˜ Saved! ’
    I did a celebratory backwards flip in the water. I thought I might as well. I knew I wasn’t going to beat any speed records winning the Cup race – not with the tumble turn that I’d been practising up at the deep end. As soon as Miss Rorty saw that, she’d stop all her cheery nodding and waving. She’d be too busy wondering what on earth could have happened to turn a race that should have been a dead cert from the very start into a risky business with only three seconds to spare.
    But there was no way round it. And I would at least still win the Cup. In my last practice session I’d timed it over and over. Four extra seconds for the tumble turn, and two more to get up to speed.
    It could be done. And I’d do it.
    And the best thing was that I couldn’t possibly be tempted to fiddle with the plan. How could I? It was all worked out. Only