We got Bubba to stand a couple of metres short of the flag. He had only one instruction – stop me from getting to it. From Bubba’s point of view, the first trial was spectacular. I was racing towards him, eyes focused on the little flag sticking up out of the sand, when suddenly there was a shadow in front of me. It quickly turned into live Bubba flesh. The combination of my speed and Bubba’s bulk sent me flying at right angles away from the target. I ended up in a heap, spitting sand.

‘Geez, Mitchell, sorry. You okay?’

‘Fine, Bubbaman. That’s just what I wanted you to do, but maybe . . .’

‘Yeah?’

‘Never mind.’

Each time I charged at the stick, Bubba was there to greet me with a big grin and even bigger guts. But I was getting better at holding my balance and staying on my feet. I think maybe Bubba was getting tired, too.

‘Last one, Bubba!’

I ran the ten-metre sprint to build up speed, but this time I threw my weight on my left side and dug my feet in to slow me down ready for the impact. I rode the bump from Bubba with my body hunched, then pressed on to grab the flag.

I looked over at Bryce. He was nodding in approval. Bubba was lying on his back in the sand, that melon-split grin still on his face.

During lunch, Mr Spears made an announcement.

‘Now, there’s been a little confusion over this surfing competition,’ he said. ‘The competition will go ahead and I want you to assume that both the surfing and the iron events will not only go towards determining the Legend of Surf, but also go towards the Sandhurst Legend of Sport.’

I had my head down, but I sensed that Mr Spears was looking at me, or Bryce, wherever he was.

One kid who wasn’t looking pleased was Fisk. Unfortunately, I caught his eye. He was shaking his head slowly and sneering at me. I tried to put on an innocent sort of puzzled look. Tried.

Plenty of kids had decided to enter the surfing event. Matty explained that there would be six heats and that the best from each heat would go through to the final. He said he had ranked us all and then put us in our correct groups so that the better surfers were split up.

I was pretty surprised to find out that Fisk was in the last group with me. We had to sit together on the beach as a group and wait while the first groups went out to catch their waves. This gave Fisk plenty of opportunities to get at me.

‘Pity I had to wreck your little game, Grady. You, Flavel and the Fatboy are in real trouble now. Mr Spears knows everything.’

I went for the ignorant approach.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, Fisk.’

‘Of course you do, idiot. I heard you talking in your room the other night. Bloody Fatboy was lucky I didn’t snot him then. What does he know about my father and anything, hey? He won’t know what’s hit him after I get to him.’

‘Travis, it was just a joke. It’s nothing.’ Fisk was losing it. I turned away and looked out to where the first group of surfers was riding waves in. There was a girl out there doing really well. She’d already had two pretty good rides, and was racing out to get a few more before the whistle blew.

‘Who’s the girl?’ I asked. A kid behind me looked up.

‘Penny Watson. Her dad runs a surf shop,’ he said.

I was amazed I hadn’t noticed her earlier.

The waves were much smaller now, but she was working them really well, pushing down on the front of the board and pulling back just at the right moment to get the absolute max out of the wave.