Blue Water High Read online

  Fly blinked hard at her reflection in the dormitory window. She was angry at herself for letting her fear come up uninvited. When it got really bad, Fly imagined that she had a big old milk can from the farm. She would reach out and grab hold of the fear and jam it into the can, shoving the lid on tight. When it was really, really bad, she would imagine herself sitting on top of the lid just to be sure.

  She flopped down onto the bed and pulled the scratchy, brown blanket up around her neck. This was Heath’s fault. Heath and his ‘Are you desperate?’ questions. He’d hassled her onto a wave which had punched out her tooth and now he was shooting his pinball questions spinning around her brain. She would stay away from him tomorrow. Maybe that was exactly the kind of preparation she needed to do …

  And yet, as she let herself drift towards sleep, she had a disturbing new thought. Maybe, just maybe, Heath hadn’t been totally responsible for hassling her onto that wave. Maybe, if she were being completely honest, she’d paddled her way onto it because she wanted to show off – in front of Heath.

  Chapter 6

  There were huge fluffy clouds snuggling around the sun as it came up the next day. But Fly knew they’d be burned away within an hour. And she was right. If Heath had the tilt monitor, Fly was a weather forecaster extraordinaire. Her dad trusted her completely about all things meteorological. He called her his personal weatherman. Not that she was a man. But it didn’t bother her.

  Really, in spite of last night’s terror session, not much usually bothered Fly at all. She was unflappable, according to her mum. She was even-keeled, according to her teachers. She was the person you could ring up in the middle of the night with your worst drama and be sure Fly could find some light at the end of the tunnel, according to her friends. She cruised at school, she actually really liked her family. She was excellent at weather forecasting.

  And it was this list of positive things Fly focused on as the dentist wrestled and wriggled her new temporary tooth into that big black gap in her mouth. It was a teaching hospital Deb had brought her to this morning and six young dental students all peered into Fly’s mouth as the dentist pointed out the finer details of his work. She wished he’d hurry it up a bit. The clock on the wall behind him told her she was meant to be in the water in twenty minutes. She drew in a breath and told her impatience to take a seat – at least these people were learning something from her misfortune. Something good came out of it after all … See! Miss Positivity to the end.

  Fly and Deb pulled into the car park with six minutes to spare. There was a much smaller crew of people gathered on the beach today. Just the judges, a handful of spectators and the guys who’d already earned their place at the academy – the winners from yesterday. Fly let her eyes linger on the group of three girls and three guys, all of them wearing that unmistakable air of achievement. Fly was sure they’d all had something on their wheaties that she’d failed to add. But there wasn’t time to ponder too long. Deb was hustling her down towards the tent where Simmo waited with Stacey.

  Fly couldn’t block out a brief flash of the tilt sign on the pinball machine as she greeted Stacey, but she pushed it out of her mind and tried to concentrate on what Simmo was saying, which was basically that they’d be operating under the same rules as yesterday: best waves from two ten-minute heats added together then averaged, and one of them got the spot, the other one got the fast train home (or bus, if it happened to be Fly).

  As Stacey headed off to get her gear ready, Heath came up with another guy. Matt Leyland was from King Island. He was handsome and friendly, and he had a brain the size of Antarctica.

  ‘Did you organise another board?’ Heath asked. ‘As generous as I am, there are only so many boards I can afford to lose.’

  Fly nodded. ‘Simmo’s lending me one of the academy boards. It’s out the back of the tent.’

  Matt piped up at this point. ‘I’ll get it.’

  He walked off, leaving Fly alone with Heath. So much for her grand preparation plan to stay away from him.

  ‘How’d you sleep?’ Heath asked.

  ‘Like a rock,’ said Fly. Because there was no way she was sharing her night-time dramas with Heath, thank you very much.

  The conditions were messier than yesterday. No question. There was a stiff onshore breeze and it pushed the waves forward faster than nature’s recipe had planned. They crumbled and foamed and fell all over themselves. Fly sat out the back waiting for something rideable to appear. Stacey paddled back out from a sloppy ride. She didn’t meet Fly’s eye.

  ‘You’re game coming in this water with only a temp tooth,’ Stacey said. ‘The amount of pollution in here – you could get hepatitis or anything.’

  Fly smiled – thanks for that. She wasn’t fully prepared to buy Heath’s theory, but she was starting to think maybe Stacey wasn’t the world’s loveliest human being.

  And maybe the thought about Heath made Fly look to the beach. She could see the crew now standing on the shore. What she didn’t want to see was that Heath’s head was starting to tilt at a bad angle. It was the last thing she needed and so she turned and paddled hard for the first wave instead.

  Even though the waves were messy, there was still some grunt in them. Fly managed to get on board, but as she started hurtling down the face, something was clearly wrong. She was wobbling. Wobbling like a plate of jelly sitting on top of the washing machine. The wobble she was cooking up was truly awesome and there’s only one thing that delivers such a bone-jarring wobble – a missing fin.

  Somehow, Fly managed to pull off the wave without a complete wipeout. She reached back around to where the fin should be. Nope, nothing there. It just didn’t seem fair that, after all the mishaps, she should lose a fin right when it counted most. But she could either have a good old complain about it or, with eight minutes of the heat remaining, she could paddle hard for the shore and try to sort something out.

  Fly’s lungs were on fire by the time she pushed her way through the white water. She always piked on soft-sand running. She knew it was good for her, she knew how much it improved lung capacity, but it just seemed so painful. She was completely out of breath by the time she reached the shore, and just stood there panting at Heath and the rest of the Solar Blue crew.

  ‘Lost my fin,’ she finally managed. ‘Need a new one.’

  One of the others, a supremely pretty girl called Perri, took off, calling back over her shoulder, ‘I’ll see if we can borrow Bec’s board.’ She sprinted off down the beach to where another girl sat on her own, her board at her feet.

  Fly looked back to Heath, whose head was leaning over at a funny angle.

  ‘Please,’ she puffed, ‘don’t tilt at me.’

  ‘It’s not my fault, it’s the tilt monitor – I’m driven to fight acts of evil wherever they occur.’

  Fly had had enough of Heath’s conspiracies for one day, and she was about to tell him exactly that when Matt stepped in.

  ‘I reckon he’s got every reason to tilt. When I went around to get your board, Stacey was messing around in your bag. She reckoned she thought it was hers, but it didn’t seem right. I reckon she was giving the screw on your fin a loosen.’

  Fly stood there, dumbfounded. Could Heath be right after all?

  As Fly pushed back out into the take-off zone, she couldn’t help thinking about why this group of strangers, people she’d basically never met, would go so far out of their way to help her get in. Was she meant to be here? Some kind of destiny thing? Whatever it was, with four minutes left, Fly decided to make it count.

  For those last four minutes she gave everything she had. Somehow she got into the zone without the fear popping its great ugly head out of the milk can. She surfed like she had at the trials. She surfed like she had before that terrible day at Cowaramup. There was no saying that the fear wouldn’t take the reins again, but for now, she was flying.

  Stacey surfed hard too. Fly caught sight of her pelting across a churning five-footer as the hooter blasted the e
nd of the round and she found herself wondering why a girl with so much talent needed to resort to dirty tricks.

  But maybe Stacey knew something Fly did not. Maybe she knew she would need more than ability to stop the name that Simmo read out over the microphone when the heat was over being … Fiona Watson.

  Fly could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was her name.

  And it was her tiny body that the Solar Blue crew hoisted onto their shoulders. These six other people, whose names she didn’t know yet. These people who couldn’t smile any harder at her luck if they tried. Fly’s life was about to change forever.

  Chapter 7

  Elite athletes are big on visualisation. Fly had read all about it. They imagine being crouched on the starting line. They play the whole race out in their heads and they see themselves crossing the finish line first. They imagine the feel of the trophy, cool and shiny in their hands. They imagine lying back enjoying all the spoils of victory … So Fly wasn’t an elite athlete. She couldn’t be, because she’d failed to imagine the spoils of victory could be this good.

  One of the spoils of getting into the Solar Blue Surf Academy was that you boarded for the whole year in the Solar Blue boarding house. Fly had never seen a house like it in her life. Well she had, on tellie. On one of those programs about the stupidly rich and famous.

  The boarding house was right on the beach. It was like it had been thought up by someone whose only purpose in life was relaxing. There was a pool, a pool table, hammocks and lush green gardens sprawling right into the sand. She felt embarrassed just looking at it. It was so different to her own house. Life on the farm wasn’t about relaxing at all. It was about work. And it was about being practical. But the truth was, for the next twelve months she wouldn’t walk those practical floors again. This was home now.

  She stood there on the lush lawn, sucking it all in.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’

  Fly turned and saw a woman holding out her hand.

  ‘You must be Fly. I’m Jilly. And it is my unenviable job to try and keep some kind of order in the boarding house. Officially I’m the House Mother, but that makes me feel old.’

  Jilly didn’t look old. She had a beautiful smile. Warm and full of sunshine. Fly liked her immediately.

  ‘I’m going to get supplies to feed the hungry hordes. Go on in. Make yourself at home.’

  Fly watched Jilly head off towards a battered minivan. She crunched the gears horribly and bunny-hopped back out of the driveway. When Fly turned around, Heath was standing in the doorway, arms wide in welcome.

  ‘Are you coming in or what?’

  By the time Heath had helped her bring her bags into the kitchen there was a scene going on. A fairly tense scene. Matt, who she’d met yesterday, sat at the table munching toast with a fair girl, Anna. Another girl, Bec, the girl whose board she’d borrowed, had just come in from the shower.

  ‘Bec,’ Anna said, ‘Matt told me your brother missed out on the spot because of me.’ Anna spoke word perfect English but there was no disguising the blackbread and sauerkraut accent.

  Bec steamed. She reefed her wet, shoulder-length brown hair back into an elastic. ‘Mornings aren’t my best time. Maybe we can talk about it later.’

  Even though Fly had no idea of the details, you didn’t need a university degree to work out that whatever had gone down was making Bec’s insides boil. Everyone stared at her.

  ‘What?’ said Bec. Defensive.

  ‘It’s not Anna’s fault,’ said Matt.

  ‘It’s not about Anna at all. It’s the system that sucks.’

  ‘Yeah, well the system doesn’t have to share a house with you,’ said Heath.

  Fly watched Bec boil some more. The sense of attack from all sides was clearly too much for her. Bec pushed her chair back hard and stared at Heath.

  ‘You didn’t take long to get your knickers in a twist over Fly and whether what happened to her was fair or not. You were in Deb and Simmo’s face in twenty seconds.’

  Fly blinked. Heath had gone in to bat for her?

  ‘But now you come on all defensive when I stand up for someone I care about.’

  Bec turned and marched away. A terrible silence hung in the air.

  ‘Did I mention there was a bit of drama yesterday?’ Heath asked.

  As he gave Fly the grand tour of the house, he filled Fly in on exactly what had happened. There were seven spots at the academy every year. One year it was four boys and three girls, the next it was three boys and four girls. Until yesterday. The extra place this year was meant to be for a boy. And if you listened to Bec, that place had had her brother Joe’s name written all over it since he was in nappies. Bec and Joe were born only ten months apart, so they were in the same year at school. Even though Bec was a brilliant surfer, everyone said Joe was the one to watch. But yesterday there was a last-minute change of plan.

  Heath pointed into the lounge room. ‘So we’ve got the standard semi-comfortable couch, circa 1999. Slightly damaged but still very functional pool table. Good tellie, but no cable – too much of a distraction, apparently. And of course, no lounge room would be complete without a custom-built Dean Edgley. Edge to us mere mortals.’

  Edge looked up from his surfing magazine, gave Fly a wave. Edge was scruffy, in a handsome kind of way. He was fit and brown and intense-looking. He returned to the mag, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

  Heath led Fly up the stairs, returning to his story. There’d been a stuff-up. Deb had sent Simmo an email telling him there was a change of plan, but Simmo thought computers were only good for stacking piles of paper on, and so he didn’t know that Solar Blue had decided to give one of this year’s places to a girl from Germany. Anna never even had to surf in the trials. And what was worse, according to Bec, Anna wasn’t really even a surfer. She was a world-class kiteboarder, but surfing was more of a hobby. So, on paper, Bec had every reason to be cheesed. She was just taking it out on the wrong people, as far as Heath was concerned.

  They crossed with Perri in the hallway. Perri flashed her toothpaste commercial smile.

  ‘You already met Perri, our Gold Coast fairy princess,’ said Heath.

  Fly nodded, smiled back. She hoped she’d given her teeth a decent brush that morning.

  They kept on moving, arriving at the last doorway in the hall. This was the room Fly would be sharing with Anna. Fly wondered if it was the underdog in her, but what had happened to Anna made Fly like her immediately. It didn’t make her dislike Bec – she could understand why she was upset – but she was happy to be sharing her room with Anna.

  She plonked her stuff down and headed to the window. This was the first time in her life she would wake up and be able to see the ocean. And she had Heath to thank for it. She didn’t want to thank him, but her good manners won out. She stayed staring at the twinkling waves.

  ‘Thank you … for whatever you did to get me in,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t get you in,’ said Heath.

  Fly turned. She was confused.

  ‘I thought, downstairs they said … you talked to Deb and Simmo or something?’

  ‘I did. I told them what Stacey did wasn’t fair. But that’s not what got you in.’ He headed for the door, holding his hand up in farewell. ‘You did that yourself, so don’t come complaining to me.’

  Fly sat on the window sill for a very long time trying to work out why every time she saw Heath she ended up feeling like a total nong. She was going to be seeing him every day, which could mean she had a whole year of nongdom to look forward to. The sun stroked her face and the ocean breeze played cheekily with the loose strands of her hair and it was just too nice to stay worried about anything.

  They spent the first night talking and playing pool and getting to know each other. Everyone told the story of how they got in. When it came to Fly’s turn, she gave them the brief version. The one without the fear.

  At nine o’clock Jilly stuck her head into the room. ‘I only have one thing
to say to you lot: go to bed.’

  Edge sat up on the floor. ‘Tell me we don’t seriously have a nine o’clock curfew?’

  Jilly shook her head. ‘It’s not an order, it’s advice. Training starts tomorrow, and I promise you, once you’ve tasted the training menu, you’ll be begging for bed.’

  They were too excited to hear Jilly’s words of warning. They sat up gossiping until close to midnight. She couldn’t be sure about the others, but Fly couldn’t sleep once her head hit the pillow anyway. She lay awake, on her new bed, in her new room, buzzing like a dung beetle until 4.52 … exactly eight minutes before Simmo charged along the corridor banging on the doors.

  ‘Rise and shine, my little jelly babies. Rise and shine!’ he hollered.

  Fly rolled over and put the pillow over her head – some people were just way too happy in the morning.

  Chapter 8

  At ten past five they were underwater. They were heaving 10-kilo rocks across the bottom of the ocean baths. Through the shimmering green water Fly could see Deb standing on the edge of the pool, a stopwatch in her hand. Underwater rock runs were designed to strengthen your lung capacity. They were one of the ways surfers learned to survive when five tonnes of boiling ocean was holding you down until it finished its demolition work on the surface. Fly tried not to think about the real reason she was doing this. She tried to ignore the fire screaming in her lungs and just stay down. But try as she might, she was the first to drop her rock and spear to the top. Deb clicked her stopwatch.