Read Online The Great Gatenby by John Marsden - Free Book Online Page B

quit before Stenning really got her just deserts. Then she lit up in the back seat, which didn’t help. When we got to Pelham College we had this amazing scene while the bus driver checked through the vehicle to make sure we hadn’t stolen the ashtrays and curtains. But we hadn’t, so finally we were allowed to get off. The first person I saw was the dreaded Phillip Savvas from St Jude’s. Hell, I knew him. I remembered him from the Talent Squad days. He was nothing, no problem. And he didn’t have a shaved head. God, he was ugly though. Talk about the Mean Machine — this guy was the Limp Wimp.
    The early events had already started. It was pretty evident that this was the big league compared to the other carnivals we’d had. The crowd was enormous. There was a big grandstand that was full, and it was standing room only on all four banks. There were banners and cheer squads and war-cries. I mean, it was a whole big scene there. I saw a guy I knew called Andrew Paltos, from Gleeson, who was a boarder at Pelham, but Melanie and I found a quiet corner near the hot dog stand and settled in there. You could hardly see the pool, but that was no concern.
    It was amazing, though. I mean, these were the rah-rah boys, the upper crust, and I was expecting them to sit there fanning themselves and uttering occasional cries of ‘Well done’ or ‘Jolly good’ or words to that effect. But they were animals. They didn’t seem to care what was good swimming, they just wanted to see their school get the points, no matter what. It was sick stuff. Actually, the Linley kids had a pretty good attitude, but the boys from St Jude’s and from Pelham College were frothing at the mouth. When a little Pelham kid ripped a muscle or got a cramp or something and had to be lifted from the pool in the middle of his race the St Jude’s kids went wild with joy. When a St Jude’s guy set a backstroke record the Pelham guys all started chanting: ‘Blood test! Blood test!’
    Melanie and I just looked at each other. This definitely wasn’t our scene. There was still a bit of time before I needed to start warming up, so we went for a walk.
    â€˜How come,’ I asked her, ‘we keep getting into green slime with teachers and being told that we’re the boils on the backside of life, when those guys can act like that and win prizes for being so brave and honest? Something’s wrong. When I dial it on the telephone I keep getting wrong numbers.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Melanie after quite a silence, ‘I dunno.’ She was good like that.
    My first event was once again the hundred metres. I went into it feeling cold somehow, not physically but mentally. To tell you the truth I didn’t care much about getting points for Linley or winning it for the ole school, or even winning it for myself. I don’t know what I was feeling. I wanted to win it, just to get it over and done with, and I also wanted to have these other guys eating my dust all the way down the pool and all the way back to the finish. Well, not dust. I wanted them to swallow so much water that they’d be dragged out by the hair and carried away on stretchers. Savvas was in the lane next to me. We had a moment’s conversation in the marshalling area and agreed that we remembered each other from the Juniors, but that was the end of that.
    I swam the race in a cold fury, I don’t even know why, or what I was angry about, but when, as usual, I looked for something at the turn to bring me home, it was teachers like Swenson and Gilligan who came to mind. I got mad enough about them to come down the pool like a flying avalanche. Somewhere on my way back I passed Savvas who was ploughing grimly towards the wall, but that was the only time I was conscious of him. He came third, in well over a minute. I clocked 56.8, CCS record and personal best. The crowd on the hill was pretty quiet, except for the Linley