I’m not going to confess to counting her freckles.
“Nothing,” I mumble. “Just trying not to embarrass myself whilst dancing.”
We continue to move in silence. The easy silence we’ve always had.
“I’m glad you had fun.” I release her as the song draws to a close. “Meet anyone you like?”
It’s too dark for me to decipher the look she gives me.
“Everyone I chatted to was nice,” she tells me. “I really liked some of the girls from St Hilda’s and it was fun dancing with Bobbie. He makes me laugh, and he’s really interesting.”
I try not to scowl as we go over to grab our coats. I don’t think Bobbie’s interesting, or funny. And he doesn’t know Kath the way I do. He doesn’t know the way she scrunches her nose when she laughs or how competitive she gets over card games. At least I’m still the only one who knows all the rules of the pirate’s code.
Chapter 7
Sixteen years old
Kath
The crowd erupts when Sam enters the arena. The roar reverberates through my chest and I feel like the noise might actually deafen me. I love how much they love him. It’s a brilliant story; he’s one of the youngest athletes at the Games, just sixteen, a school kid from London who’s getting his GCSE results next week.
He swears he’s terrible with the media, but he’s actually great at it. Two days ago, he spent an hour on the phone to me, picking apart everything he thought he did wrong in an interview, but all the coverage I saw called him charming and grounded.
The BBC even managed to track down our PE teachers. It was hilarious watching Mr Patrick tell stories about eleven-year-old Sam playing football, and how he ‘saved the team’ in every swimming gala. Yesterday, Claire sent me a photo of a London bus with Sam’s face on it.
I always hoped this would happen. But hoping it and living it are two completely different things.
He walks out, focussed, waving to the crowd briefly, before lowering his head. I think he’s talking to himself, but I can’t tell. He’s one of the only athletes without headphones. I wonder what the arena sounds like to him. Is the energy as electric down there as it feels up here?
I’m practically vibrating with excitement in the stands. I’ve been looking forward to this for over a year. My whole family flew out to watch Sam swim, scheduling it into our summer holiday. We spent the week before the Olympics in France, and Tom even came back early from backpacking around Europe with a friend. Yesterday, we were all in the stands, watching as Sam qualified for the final of the 400m individual medley. Tonight, I’m sitting between his parents and Josh, watching him swim in that final, before we have to fly home tomorrow.
The smell of chlorine in the air and the waving flags are intoxicating. Hopefully he’ll like the giant sign we made with his name on it. I even liberated some of his old swimming T-shirts from his drawers before I came to France, so I’m now fully decked out in his old junior British Swimming kit.
I texted him this morning—our good luck tradition since Junior Worlds.
Me:Rule 17: Pirates always wish other pirates good luck.
Me:You got this, Champ.
But it’s only now we’re in the arena that the reality is hitting. That this is the actual Olympics.
By the time they’ve taken off their deck coats and are up on the blocks the crowd has fallen silent. I’m gripping my hands together so hard it hurts. As I hear the loudspeaker say “Take your marks”, I forget how to breathe. The screams vibrate through the arena the moment they dive into the water. I keep wringing my hands, having somehow forgotten from yesterday to today how stressful watching races is. He’s coming second all the way up until the breaststroke leg, when he starts to flag. Physically, he’s so much smaller than the other swimmers. Sam’s always felt so tall to me, butwhen compared to a group of professional athletes in their twenties and thirties, he suddenly looks lanky rather than lean.
He’s fourth going into the final leg and I think I’ve already lost my voice from shouting. I know that freestyle is his strongest stroke, but I just don’t know if he has enough left in him to pull it back.
Angie’s holding my arm so tightly that I doubt I’ll have any blood supply left in my fingers tomorrow. I can’t work out whether to keep watching or look away as they turn onto the final length. He’s slowly beginning to gain ground, but there are only metres left of the race. I’ve heard Sam muse on the tactics of the medley far too many times, but now that I’m actually watching it at a professional level I’m going to need to start listening to his next monologue rather than zoning out like usual.
They hit the final stretch, and as they touch the wall I can’t tell who finishes second, third or fourth—it’s too close. My eyes are glued to the screen, waiting for the results, as I bounce nervously in my seat.
Third.
Sam came third.
I stare at the scoreboard, double-checking. Is that real? Did he actually just win a medal?
I feel like I’ve left my body as I watch him slap the water before grinning as other swimmers go to congratulate him. Josh is shouting beside me, something about knowing he could do it, but for once, I’m silent. Sam climbs out, scanning the crowd, before smiling when he spots my sign.
“PIRATE’S CODE RULE 22: TOUCH THE WALL FIRST!”
