Redhill Pool is not a particularly interesting building. It looks like a warehouse or a factory – a giant brick rectangle with one set of double doors and a carpark at the front. To be honest, I have no idea what happens here outside of swimming carnivals. Do people come here for fun?
‘Did we lose Abby?’ Pip asks when we get to the front doors.
I look around. I thought she was behind us too. Slacker.
‘We don’t need her,’ I say with a shrug.
Quack.
I look at Duck. He nods off to the right. I look to where he’s gesturing and see that Chaz has just come walking around the corner of the building and is heading in our direction.
‘Quick, Duck. Hide in Pip’s backpack!’ I whisper.
‘What?’ Pip’s eyes open wide.
I nod at her. He can’t go in my backpack; I’ve got too much stuff in it.
Sorry, what? Origami? I give her a look that says, ‘Get it together if you want to be the bad twin, Pip. No origami for you!’
She sighs. She gets it.
‘Okay, fine.’ She throws her backpack on the ground, opens up the zipper and nods to Duck. I’d better go deal with the swimming instructor. We’re going to need some distraction action.
‘Chaz! My man!’ I call out and stride towards him with as much Chaz-ish bluster as I can fit into my little body. Ugh. I feel dirty.
Chaz looks down at me in surprise. Someone is speaking his language!
‘Hey buddy!’ he says with a big grin. ‘Back to catch some bubbles before Friday?’
Catch some bubbles? Catch some bubbles? How am I going to keep this up? Who talks like this?
‘Uh-huh.’ That’s all I’ve got. Chaz doesn’t seem to notice. He’s in his own world.
He holds the door open with his hand up for a high five.
‘Hey!’ I yell. No high five for Chaz-man today. Not when he calls me that. Or ever, actually.
Inside, Chaz turns around and laughs, walking backwards ahead of us as we flash our school passes to the person on the front desk, who nods and lets us through.
‘I’m sorry! Couldn’t resist,’ Chaz yells as he heads off around the corner. ‘Go get ’em, buddy. Go get ’em.’
‘Ugh. I can’t stand that guy!’ I say to Pip as we find ourselves standing beside the pool. She has a huge smile on her face and her eyes are open wide.
‘Woah . . . this is such a thrill!’ she says. ‘Let’s do something else bad!’
It takes me a minute to work out what she’s so excited about. It’s the fact she’s smuggled Duck inside in her backpack! She’s got an adrenaline rush from that. Oh wow, we’ve got so much ground to cover.
She follows me up to the grandstand, where we can let Duck out of the backpack without anyone seeing us. Duck hops out and stretches his neck from side to side. I imagine it must have been very squashed in there.
There’s an aqua aerobics class going on in the pool. It’s a group of old ladies and men (from Redhill Nursing Home, I assume) bobbing in the water doing incredibly slow dances to music. They have swimming caps on, so they look like floating balloons with wrinkly arms.
Duck is about to run off in the direction of the pool when Pip says, ‘Wait! I have an idea!’
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a few pieces of coloured paper.
‘Origami? Now?’ I ask. She ignores me. Instead, she gets to work. There’s some grey and some brown and, in front of our eyes, she folds and twists and connects the two. What is she doing? She reaches down to Duck and wraps the paper band she’s created around his belly. Then she gets the grey piece to stick out like a large triangle.
Pip looks up at me and grins. As soon as she does, I can see it. I smile too.
She’s just given Duck a shark fin.
