Bad Dreams by Anne Fine Page A

one way to do it. Start from the shallower end, and, in a three-length race, you only get one tumble turn under the boards.
    Or – put it another way – only one chance.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    M iss Rorty held the whistle between her teeth and looked down the line.
    Eight of us on our starting blocks. And me already shivering because, to get the right one, I’d had to take my place ages before.
    â€˜Ready?’
    She raised an eyebrow because I wasn’t in my usual stance. But finally, after about a billion years, she blew the whistle.

    I lost the first two seconds then and there.
    You try it. Try a racing dive, flinging yourself out over the water, stretching so thin you cut air. Then try it with one hand clamped to your hip to stop a slinky, cunning gold chain wriggling out of your swimsuit and landing on the tiles to shriek ‘ Stolen! ’ at everyone and shame you for ever.
    You’d have played safe like I did, and done a bellyflop too.
    But in the huge, embarrassing splash of it, I did at least manage to hook out the chain. I couldn’t do my usual strong spading through the water with it grasped in my hand. So it took time even to pull ahead of four particular pairs of feet I’ve never seen in front of me in my life, and reach the deep end. By then, at least, I’d even managed to pass the slower of the twins. But Toby and Surina were well ahead. And even Josh Murphy was thundering along at a good pace.
    But I still had to do my stupid tumble turn. It might sound mad, but what was mostly in my mind was the thought of poor Miss Rorty who’d spent so much time training and encouraging me, and knew how important this race had become, and how much I wanted to win it. I knew she’d be standing at the edge, filled with dismay, wondering what on earth had happened to her best swimmer. First, that dreadfully clumsy starting dive; then the ham-fisted way I was ploughing through the water with one hand firmly clenched. And, now, coming up, the worst tumble turn she could imagine.
    But there was no way round it. Instead of tucking up my legs and twisting fast to kick off straight and hard the way I’d come, I was about to waste even more time swimming down to the bottom.
    To drop the necklace down the drain, where it would lie till, in the next water change, it would be swept into the sewers and out to sea.
    Out of our lives for ever. Just like in the books.
    And now the pool end was within my reach. Gathering myself into a ball, I tumbled perfectly, as I’ve been taught, and practised for so many hours. And, though it sounds crazy, even as I was doing it, I felt the necklace stir in my hand as if . . .
    I have to say it. As if it knew .

    And then the battle started. All round me there blew up that storm of bubbles I’d sensed before. At first, I thought they must be mine. I thought I must be letting out my breath – too fast, too soon.
    But it was nothing to do with me. It was the necklace. Even in all that cool water, the thing was scalding my fingers. Twisting and burning, trying to distract me, trying to make me let it go – anything rather than let itself be fed through one of the tiny squares of the drain grille and dropped out of sight for ever. That spiteful little chain of gold put up the worst fight. The water churned so fiercely I could barely see. My right hand burned so badly that, if I’d had breath to spare, I would have yelped.
    But I was suddenly furious. It was so unfair . I’d trained for months to win the Harries Cup. I didn’t ask Imogen Tate to come to our school. I didn’t ask Mr Hooper to put her next to me – in fact I as good as begged him not to!
    And just because I’d tried to fit in with what everyone wanted – be friendly, not hide in my books, get interested in real life for a change – everything had gone sour. And even swimming, the only other thing I liked and was good at, was being spoiled.
    You