We had PE that afternoon, and Old Sea Salt was in a particularly sadistic mood. Mrs Winters was away, so her class had been combined with Saltham’s which meant that Tupai White, Daniel Taylor and Fraser (Fizzer) Boyd were among the others sharing the gym. Jason Kirk would have been there too, except he had sprained his ankle the previous day and had a pass.
I was trying to concentrate on the exercises, but my mind kept going to the library and my meeting with Erica after school. Why did she want to meet? What did she want? Would it be good or was I going to regret it?
‘How are you doing?’ Tupai asked me with a grin, as we found ourselves at the bottom of a rope-climbing exercise together.
I just nodded.
‘Is he leaving you alone?’ Tupai flicked a glance over at Blocker, leaning against a wall, talking to Phil.
‘Yeah, it’s cool.’ I deliberately didn’t tell Tupai about the text messages. I didn’t want to make matters any worse than they already were.
Tupai started to say something else but Saltham shouted, ‘Go!’ and clicked a stopwatch hanging around his neck.
I grabbed my rope but by the time I was halfway up, Tupai had already reached the ground again. He had just hauled himself up the rope on those powerful arms, scarcely bothering about his feet, except to steady himself. He’d reached the top, slapped the wooden beam to show he’d made it, and slid easily back down.
Saltham seemed quite startled. ‘Good,’ he said and made some notes on his clipboard. He made another note when I finally made it to the top and slapped the beam, but didn’t say anything to me.
Blocker made even harder going of the rope exercise when it was his turn, which gave me a small inner smile of satisfaction. He was strong, but he had a lot of weight to haul up the rope. He was sweating like anything when he finally reached the top and just about slipped off the rope.
If he had fallen and broken his neck, would I have been sorry? Probably, but I couldn’t say for certain.
The next exercise was a new one, and I looked on it with utter dread. I never seemed to be much good at these things. I knew if I failed, Saltham would just make me keep trying and trying until I got it right or got detention, which made me twice as nervous and half as likely to succeed.
The exercise went like this. Two helpers would stand in front of you and grasp each others’ wrists. You had to run at them and do a kind of handstand in front of them, except that you would fall forward on to their joined arms and flip back over on to your feet again.
Then you would take the place of one of the helpers.
It sounds pretty straightforward, and most of the kids had no problem with it. They just ran into it, somersaulted through the air with the help of the other two guys, landed on their feet and went to take their place as a helper.
I ended up behind Fizzer Boyd. Tupai was in front of him.
Tupai sprang forward and vaulted over the outstretched arms easily, although there was a grunt from both of his helpers as they took the full brunt of his bulk. He took over from Stubby Forsyth.
Fizzer ran forward, and I swear I’ve never seen anything like it. He sprang into the handstand and flipped his body over the outstretched arms like an Olympic gymnast. The two helpers never touched him.
He landed cat-like on the other side and there was a spontaneous round of applause from the onlookers. Fizzer smiled and made a small bow, before taking the place of Mike Pinkington.
I can do this. I thought. I can do this.
I ran forward, placed my hands on the ground in exactly the right place … and my arms collapsed. I tumbled into a forward roll, breaking Fizzer and Tupai’s hands apart as my legs crashed through where my back ought to have been.
Fizzer rubbed his wrist, although Tupai didn’t seem bothered.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, wincing with embarrassment.
‘Again!’ Saltham called out from the far side of the hall.
Red-faced, I circled around back to the start. I stopped and took a deep breath.
I can do this.
I ran forward again, thrust my arms down in the same spot and, once again, they buckled, and I rolled forwards.
‘Little Jacob’s doing roly-polies,’ I heard a voice snigger at the back of the crowd and didn’t need to look to know it was Blocker.
Saltham called, ‘Again!’
Mortified, I went back to the start and took a deep breath, trying to visualize the exercise and what my arms were going to do.
Tupai winked at me and Fizzer gave me a warm smile. ‘You’ll do it this time,’ he said.
He was wrong. I managed to keep one arm straight, but the other buckled and threw me sideways, my feet smashing into Fizzer’s chest. Well, where Fizzer’s chest would have been if he hadn’t sprung out of the way with that amazing athletic grace of his.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered for the second time.
Old Sea Salt strode forward and stood right in front of me, glaring. I was about to get blasted out of the water by a Navy Destroyer.
I stared back at him, trying desperately to get out of any further embarrassment. I focused my full power on his brain.
He can’t do it, let him go. He can’t do it, let him go.
Saltham shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
He can’t do it, let him go. He can’t do it, let him go.
It didn’t work.
‘Again!’ he barked.
I grimaced and faced the ordeal.
And, as I looked and thought about it, I realised suddenly and with certainty, that I could do it. All I had to do was to keep my arms straight. Just focus on that one thing. Fizzer and Tupai would do the rest.
A feeling of confidence flooded over me. Of course I could do it. It was only nerves that had stopped me from succeeding before.
I flung myself forwards, dived on to the mat, my arms like rigid poles, sprang into the air, twisted perfectly over the outstretched arms of Fizzer and Tupai, and landed on my feet on the other side.
I almost expected applause, but there was none.
‘Next,’ said Saltham, and that was that. I just changed places with Tupai.
I did that exercise twice more, and had no further problems with it. It was funny, once I realised I could do it, it became easy.
In fact, I did it better than Blocker. He was OK, but he was so heavy that the other kids couldn’t hold his weight, and he always ended up on his bum on the gym mat. It wasn’t actually his fault, so Saltham didn’t make him repeat the exercise, but I still felt a warm glow every time I did it right and he picked himself up off the mat.
At the end of PE most of the other kids got changed and wandered off to their next class, but I had a quick shower.
I didn’t want to be sweaty and smelly after school when I met Erica in the library.
Her letter was zipped safely in an inside pocket of my schoolbag where I could touch it and bring it out to re-read in quiet moments, trying to read between the lines and work out what she was thinking from those few short words.
Meet me in the library after school on Friday. Erica.
The trouble was there wasn’t a lot you could read into that.
I changed into my uniform and trotted off through the gym, rather pleased with myself for having conquered the difficult exercise.
Saltham was still there, working away at something on his clipboard.
I was feeling so pleased with myself that I actually smiled at him as I walked past, but he just glowered at me. I was almost out of the door before he spoke.
‘Stay out of my head,’ he said quietly, but then I was outside and I didn’t turn back.