I grasped around, trying to find something to pull my tired body through the water yet again. So cold, so achy, such conflicting feelings as to whether it would be better to escape this hell or just die under the surface of this mud-churned lake.
And I’d paid to do this? In December? I would give anything to be a chestnut roasting by an open fire right now.
Yes, dying was definitely preferable. Goodbye, world. But then a pair of hands pushed into the squash of my butt cheeks and I was propelled through the sludge, hippo-style.
Then, finally, there was the wooden platform above me. I would live! My thigh muscles remembered they had a job to do and pushed me up out of the mud and into the wintery air, where the noise of a hundred other racers – grunts, groans, people cheering, people laughing, the odd person crying – filled my ears as the brown lake trickled out of them.
I wiped the mud from my eyes with an equally muddy arm, and stretched back to pull Kim out. She broke through the surface like Ariel the mermaid, whooping and pushing her dark curls out of her face. She slung a tiny bronzed arm around my shoulders and we trudged towards the riverbank.
‘How fun is this?’ she cried, just as I was about to say, ‘How awful is this?’
At that point an enormous fairy wing thwacked me in the back and I crumbled down towards the freezing water again. For a second my final ever thought was, I’m going to die . . . who’ll take my place on the stand in New York?, but Kim steadied me. The owner of the wing, a gigantic man who was also clad in a tinsel tutu, a headband and nothing else yelled, ‘SORRY, LOVE,’ as he picked up speed and ricocheted up the bank and off down the hill.
‘Olivia, what’s the rule?’ Kim warned.
‘No grumbling.’
‘What happens if you grumble?’
‘I have to sit by Jasmine at the Christmas party.’ I caught my breath, finally reaching the riverbank. ‘I’m not grumbling, I’m fine, this is great, I’m having the time of my life! Thank God Jasmine’s not here though. Hey, where’s Ian?’
Kim smirked. ‘Helping Dee, back at the monkey bars.’
How sweet. ‘Of course he is. And Scheana? I feel like I haven’t seen her since the start?’
‘Me neither.’
I peeped at Kim. ‘I do have one grumble. Keep your gym pants on, it’s not even really a grumble, think of it as a heartfelt request. Can I come with you to Antigua the week after next? Can I lie on the beach and be so warm I’m almost too warm? I want to feel sweat again. The type of trickly, sun-lotiony sweat that leaves an imprint on a sunlounger.’
We dug our fingertips in the mud-slide that was the riverbank and hauled ourselves up. I’d always fancied trying one of these Tough Muddy Survival events – they looked fun, like a challenge, like a whole day of camaraderie with friends. So when someone at work said they were interested in taking part in one too I leapt in, face-first. What a fantastic way to raise money for the youth centres we work with! I said. What a perfect excuse to up the company’s profile in matching running tops! I cried. Relentlessly. And before long I’d cajoled together a team to enter the Fearless Freeze 10k event on December the fifth. December the fifth? The ‘Fearless Freeze’? I was a colossal plonker, and now my colleagues were scowling at me every time our muddy paths crossed. But that didn’t matter, they’d get over it. The important thing was that the group of teenage girls who were waiting to cheer us across the finish line would see us complete the event in one piece, strong and capable.
I pictured them waiting for us at the end, all orange Girls of the World raincoats and tinsel scarves. They were the best, coming out here to support us at the weekend. Our protégées, they’d grouped together a few months ago to make YouTube videos for us about getting involved in sports even if you don’t feel good enough, and they’ve been big hits, driving a lot of traffic to our website. So I couldn’t let them see me acting like my body wasn’t capable of sliding through a few more mud patches and surviving a couple more bruises.
Urrrggghhh, I will not admit defeat, I told myself. No matter how much I secretly wanted to. I missed sitting down.
Kim clawed her way to the top of the riverbank, shaking her head, and we set off on a slow, tired jog. Just three kilometres and twelve obstacles to go. I was nearly there, ish. On we ran, towards our fate: a thirty-foot tiered wall, which we were expected to scale, that stood atop a hill in the distance. It was covered with people in brightly coloured, mud-soaked running tops, who were charging up and over, pulling up those behind and pushing on the bottoms of those in front. It looked like a scene from World War Z.
‘Hey.’ I slowed. ‘We should stop and wait for the others; we need to help them get to the end.’
‘I think if we stop now we might turn into ice sculptures. Besides, the finance arseholes have already gone on ahead. And no,’ Kim said, trudging onwards and bringing the conversation back around to Antigua, ‘you can’t come with me; you have to see New York for both of us.’
‘But New York is so cold—’
‘HEY,’ Kim scolded. ‘What did we say?’
‘No grumbling . . . ’
‘Besides, New York’s always so fun, you’re going to have the best time.’
‘I will miss you though, and I hate Steve for taking you from me,’ I said. ‘I’m not grumbling, I’m just saying. And I don’t hate Steve really, he’s brill.’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ Kim sighed. ‘This’ll be the first year since starting at Girls of the World that I won’t be doing New York.’
‘It won’t be the same without you.’
‘But I am kind of looking forward to three full weeks off.’
That I could understand. ‘This year has just been insane. As soon as I’m back from New York I’m not planning on talking to anyone for the whole of the Christmas break. Just me, TV and jammies.’
Girls of the World was a foundation created to promote women’s rights through educating and empowering schoolgirls to be creative, be themselves, and be heard. I was part of a team of six led by the founder, Scheana, a fiercely confident woman with the most appealingly gung-ho attitude. Everyone at the foundation, men and women, wanted to be Scheana when they grew up. I was a Creative Coach, which meant I worked directly with the people we were trying to mentor. We covered everything from the administrative, logistical side of Girls of the World being out there, you know, in the world, to being the faces of the company, and meeting as many people as possible – best of all, the girls themselves.
I couldn’t get enough of my job. I got to meet these young women – future CEOs, writers, scientists, artists, inventors, sports people – and learn from them, coach them on how to be who they wanted to be, not just in the future, but now as well. Encourage them, give them an outlet, celebrate them in all their weird and wonderful ways. And it was lucky that I couldn’t get enough because we hadn’t stopped all year. The company had grown threefold in the past twelve months thanks to sponsorship and lottery funding, and we’d been breaking our backs to keep up and make sure not a single girl, school, society or hope was left behind. Girls of the World began around six years ago, I was there from the start, when it was just a few of us visiting local schools and youth centres in London and Hertfordshire, offering mentoring and skills workshops. Now that we cast the net far wider – nationally, in fact – the resources are much vaster. We’d got apps and contributors and sponsors and now, after years of attending conferences to spread the word about Girls of the World, we were finally hoping to branch out internationally, starting with the USA.
A major, major, benefit of working at Girls of the World – aside from knowing without a doubt that you’re on an equal pay scale – was the annual conferences where similar organisations from around the world gathered to share thoughts, ideas, seminars and listen to amazing guest speakers. The rumour-mill had been on overdrive about the potential for Emma Watson or Amal Clooney to put in an appearance at this year’s New York do, the #IWasHereNYC event.
Kim was an executive in the marketing department and I loved spending conferences with her; she had such energy and enthusiasm. She could waltz into a school and convince a kid on the brink of ditching her biology exam for a smoke with the boy from the upper sixth, to not only take the exam but also to chuck the boy and become such a badass biologist that she would probably end up curing lung cancer. Kim was a miracle worker, our very own Derren Brown.
And now Evil Steve, who was actually really nice, was whisking my Kim away for a romantic Christmas break in the Caribbean. And she chose that over a work trip with me. Sigh.
We reached the wall and I (being the giant in our relationship) crouched so Kim could stand on me and pull herself up to the first ledge.
‘Remind me who’s going this year?’ she called back, reaching her arm down for me. I didn’t notice because I was too busy flailing my legs about in the air until some bloke got fed up with being kicked in the knees and helped me up.
‘Scheana, of course. Abigail . . . ’
‘The new girl?’ Kim asked.
‘Yep, she’s pretty nervous. Our fave: Jasmine . . . ’
‘Oh lord, that’ll be fun. How’s she being with you now?’
‘The same as she always is,’ I said, sighing. ‘I actually wish she was that cliché of a colleague who was after my job because at least there’d be some healthy competition to it, but she’s just a cow for no reason.’
‘Is she ever like that with anyone else? I feel like she barely comes across our radar down in marketing.’
‘I’ve seen her throw a strop if she doesn’t get her way, and go into a total huff, but I seem to be permanently on the receiving end of her stink-eye. It’s like having a third sister.’
‘True story.’
Jasmine was a similar level to me at Girls of the World, and had been there nearly as long. We’d just never gelled. Sometimes we’d have an interaction in which I’d think, OK, you’re not too bad, today you seem to like me, then the following day it would be back to cursory smiles and under-breath mutters.
Anyway. ‘And Dee and Ian are both going too,’ I finished.
‘Ahh, romantic!’
‘I know, I’m really curious if this’ll be the year they break and just admit they’re seeing each other.’
‘You never know,’ Kim grunted over the next ledge. ‘New York is pretty special around Christmas. The temptation of a snog on the Rockefeller ice rink could be just the nudge they need to come clean. Jon will be there to keep you company, won’t he?’ she asked, all innocent.
‘Subtle. Yes, he will be there, but nope, I’m still not in love with him. And as I’ve said a million times, if I haven’t fallen in love with him yet, it’s not going to suddenly happen now.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Kim agreed, blatantly disagreeing. ‘Have you seen much of him lately?’
‘Not since the Amsterdam conference in September.’ But I had dropped him an email this week to tell him I couldn’t wait for a catch-up, and to find out which flight he was on. And I really couldn’t wait – like Kim, Jon was a good friend. Unlike Kim, he had a penis, which meant everyone who knew us both couldn’t wrap their head around the ‘just friends’ part. Jon currently worked on the United Nations’ HeForShe campaign, and we met a few years ago on the conference circuit after I saved myself from tripping over a poster stand by smacking his coffee cup from his hand so I could grab it. Selfless. We try to catch up between work events by going for a drink or dinner. One time we even went on the Harry Potter studio tour together, but work has been so crazy this year that I’ve barely had a minute to myself, so I’ve been a crap friend and I haven’t seen him as much as usual.
We reached the top ledge of the wall (dear God it must be nearly over), and took a breather, gazing back at the obstacles. Dee and Ian’s heads bobbed about in the lake, and a couple of other colleagues were reaching the wall below us.
I looked up at the sky, which was heavy with bruised clouds and getting darker by the minute. ‘Do you think there’s a storm coming?’ I asked Kim, who was leaning over the other side of the wall, contemplating the best way down.
‘Shit-wise or weather-wise?’ she called back.
‘Weather-wise.’
‘As long as it doesn’t stop my flight to Antigua it can be a total white-out this Christmas for all I care.’
And with that, the heavens opened and a blizzard to rival an Arctic snowstorm swirled around us as we ran for our lives.
Just kidding, but it did start to pelt it down with rain. I could see the finish line of this godforsaken race in the distance, and squinting through the drops I could also see the orange raincoats of my girls.
No grumbling, I told myself, for the fortieth time that day.
It was over; we’d made it. We had survived. Kim and I were freezing, but my cheering group of girls made coming across the finish line an unexpected joy.
I made a bit of a show of staggering over the line, holding Kim’s hand and making sure the small graze on my elbow was dripping blood impressively. The girls, who ranged between fourteen and sixteen (though we often worked with girls as young as eight in some communities), screamed their heads off when we came through, their orange jackets flapping in the torrential rain.
‘You’re a superhero!’ cried Maya, flinging her arms around my muddy self. At fifteen, she was far taller than me, with a classic basketballer’s figure but a heart for athletics. Maya was a girl who’d contacted us a couple of years back because she had a passion for sports but it all felt so out of reach for her. She was painfully shy, and fear held her back from giving her all to her school’s limited sports programme – it was all P.E. lessons and netball teams, with a real lack of actually teaching kids new skills. We worked with the school to start up some beginner groups and when Maya’s confidence popped its head above water, we helped her pull herself up to the next level. She trained for and then secured a scholarship to a summer sports academy, and now that she’d honed her skills, she coached younger kids there during school holidays.
‘I’m a what?’ I asked, pretending there was mud in my ear.
‘A superhero!’ she yelled again, jumping up and down for me.
‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that . . . ?’
‘A superhero,’ she and the other girls bellowed at me, and I laughed.
The girls were drenched right through, nearly to the same extent as us runners, and so they zoomed home quickly afterwards. I was now thawing out under a heat lamp, cuddling a hot chocolate and wearing a Santa hat (whose Santa hat was this?). I was spending a lovely few moments thinking about how strong and brave I was, when my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone calling my name from outside the tent.
‘Olivia! Over here. Look down a bit.’
‘Scheana, what happened?’ I leapt up and hobbled outside the tent, shaking the remaining water from my ears. My manager was lying, damp and bedraggled, on a stretcher. Two paramedics moved aside and tended to a dislocated shoulder while I spoke with her. This place was a warzone. Sort of.
‘I think I might have broken my leg,’ said Scheana with a shrug. ‘No biggie, but I think I’ll be out of action for a while.’
‘Bloody hell, where?’
‘Lower leg, I think.’
‘But where on the course?’
‘On one of the big log things.’
‘Does it hurt?’ I asked.
‘Yep, loads, but I wanted to talk to you about work.’
‘Now?’ I shifted my weight and I’m sure I heard either my sodden T-shirt or my rib crack. Was I starting to freeze?
‘Just a quick thing. Well done on completing, by the way, you did brilliantly, I’m so proud of you all.’ Scheana reached out and squeezed my hand like a person on their deathbed. ‘Urgh, you’re glacial. I’ll keep this quick. New York is ten days today, and I’m not going to be able to go.’
I must still have had a lot of water in my ears, because I couldn’t be hearing this right. ‘You’re not going to what?’
‘I’m not going to go. To New York. My leg won’t be better in time. So I need someone to take over as head of Girls of the World. Temporarily. That person needs to represent the company in New York, and try to push us forward. They’ll need to be quick-thinking and a good problem solver, even with few resources. You have no idea how many little tasks befall a manager in the lead-up to a trip like this.’
‘I’LL DO IT!’ I yelled. ‘Let me do it, I won’t let you down. Can I do it?’ This was the break I’d been waiting for, for so long now. I wasn’t pleased that Scheana had broken her leg, and I wasn’t trying to squeeze her out, but with Girls of the World growing and expanding so quickly, I wanted to be part of it. One day I wanted to be a director in this company.
‘Are you sure? It’s a big responsibility. I’m not talking about you opening up our first US office or anything, but that’s where we want to be heading. I’d want you to get some balls rolling; it’s not just about publicity this year. I want Girls of the World to have its foot wedged in the door of Manhattan by the time I go out in the Spring.’
‘Consider me your go-to girl for wedging!’
Scheana hesitated ‘You’ve had a busy year. You aren’t feeling too burnt out?’
‘No.’ Yes.
‘Because you don’t know busy until you’ve been in charge of something like this.’
‘I can do it. I’ve been to New York four years in a row and I want to be more involved. You focus on your recovery and I’ll look after everything. I promise.’ Ohmygod, could I do this? Yes, of course I could. I had to now, thanks, big gob.
‘Good, I was hoping you’d say that. In that case, from now until the new year, you’re the boss.’
And with that, the paramedics returned and wheeled Scheana away. I stood motionless for a moment, partly because I was now an ice sculpture, partly because I had a million thoughts whizzing around my head. I was in charge of New York. Like Godzilla! Completing the Fearless Freeze had made me feel pretty invincible, like a poster girl for Nike, so I could definitely conquer running the New York trip. This was going to be easy.
I returned to the tent and squeezed my bum back onto the bench under the heat lamp, in between a snoring woman and a man who looked close to throwing up.
I was the boss . . .
Dee appeared, her long frame pink all over from the severest of workouts. ‘Um, did I just see Scheana on a stretcher?’
I nodded. ‘She thinks she’s broken her leg. She’s OK though, she’s gone off in an ambulance.’ I knew Scheana wouldn’t want her injury to overshadow our achievement so I added, ‘She says well done to everyone. Look what we just did! That was hard work but we slayed those muddy hills and slippery bloody monkey bars.’
‘What about those dangling electric wires?’ said Ian, staggering over to us and putting his hand on Dee’s back before quickly removing it. ‘I nearly gave up at that point.’
‘I welcomed that,’ I said, like I was some kind of Kray twin. Like a boss. ‘The electric shocks warmed me up.’
Dee and Ian had been into each other for so long it was sometimes hard to remember that they weren’t ‘public’. Ever since Ian joined marketing at Girls of the World several years ago they’d been close, but despite the lingering looks, the obvious chemistry and co-workers spotting them out together at least once a month, they’d never come clean about their relationship. They clearly wanted privacy, for whatever reason, so it was an unwritten Girls of the World rule that we all respected that.
‘Right, folks,’ Kim said, walking into the tent with a leaflet clutched in her hand. ‘It says the tear gas used under that polythene obstacle wasn’t real tear gas and it was totally safe. So you’re not going to go blind. Olivia.’
I blinked a few times to make sure. ‘OK thanks. All right.’ I took a deep breath. ‘So I have something to tell you guys about Scheana and New York . . . ’