You’re going to have trouble imagining the level of mayhem we’ve caused unless you’ve ever been in a large, echoing room with twenty splashing and screaming old people, a bewildered aqua aerobics instructor and a duck dressed up as a shark.
Duck zooms across the pool, head down beneath the surface, kicking his webbed feet. Only his shark fin glides along above the water. The old people are water-dancing to a song about stayin’ alive (which I think is a rather insensitive song selection, but that’s beside the point).
The oldies have just got to the chorus when one of them spots the fin. The singing goes something like this:
The fin is just meant to be a bit of fun, but the whole of Redhill Pool goes ballistic! The old people start swimming for the edge. It turns out that one woman was secretly wearing flippers, because she goes tearing off towards the other side of the pool!
It suddenly occurs to me that this might work. I mean, forget the plug idea! If Redhill Pool has a shark sighting then surely they’ll have to shut down the whole centre while they investigate. That might be all we need to cancel the swimming carnival!
Just then, Chaz bursts through a door right where we’re positioned on the grandstand. Clearly he heard all the screams.
‘What on Earth is going on out here?’ he demands.
I can answer that one!
‘There’s a shark in the pool!’ I yell and point. Duck is now circling the old people, who haven’t managed to get out of the water yet. He’s looking for the plug hole, but as far as the elderly are concerned, he’s closing in on dinner!
Pip decides to join in.
Chaz’s eyes go wide and, if he wasn’t so tanned, I think he would have gone white with horror.
That’s when I remember that shark movie everyone was talking about last summer. The one with the really enormous shark in it. Yes, let’s step it up a notch.
‘I think it might be a megalodon, Chaz,’ I say. ‘Yep. It’s definitely a megalodon!’
Chaz puts his hands on his cheeks, squeezing his face together like it’s stuck in the doors of a bus. Then he points to the scrambling elderly.
‘Stay calm! And get out of the pool!’ Chaz calls from the grandstand. There are a couple of lifeguards down there helping people out.
‘Except for the shark!’ Pip calls. ‘You stay in the pool!’
It turns out, Duck didn’t hear her. That’s not surprising given all the screaming. Oblivious to the drama he’s caused and maybe frustrated that he’s not been able to find a plug, Duck hops out of the pool.
Everybody gasps. A hush settles over the entire centre. It’s so quiet, in fact, that we can hear the wet flip-flop of Duck’s webbed feet on the tiles as he heads off towards the change rooms. He’s probably going to blow-dry himself under the hand-dryer, I reckon.
‘Is . . . is that a duck with a shark fin?’ Chaz asks.
Time to play it cool. I turn to the swimming instructor.
Chaz turns and looks at us suspiciously. I think we may have pushed our luck too far.
‘What’s going on here?’ Chaz asks. ‘Is this your doing? Did you put a duck in my pool?!’
I turn to Pip. ‘This is the part where we run!’
We fling our backpacks over our shoulders and sprint down the grandstand.
‘Hey!’ Chaz yells, hot on our tails.
We run towards the exit. To get to the doors, though, we’re going to need to run through the entire aqua aerobics class, who are all looking quite befuddled.
‘Get back here!’ Chaz calls as he chases us. Then I hear him say to an old lady, ‘No, it’s okay, Doris. It’s not a real shark.’
I’ve never seen so many wrinkles in my life! So many old people with hardly any clothes on! There should be a law against this.
‘You mess with my pool, I mess with you, you little punks!’ I can hear Chaz yelling as we make it to the door. Then his voices turns kind again: ‘No, those aren’t shark teeth, Francine. I’m pretty sure they belong to Harold.’
We bolt through the doorway and out into the fresh air.
‘What about Duck?’ Pip asks.
I shake my head. ‘Duck always finds a way. We don’t have to worry about him. We have to worry about us! Keep running!’
Chaz appears behind us in the doorway.
