Blue Water High (25 page)

Deb would scowl and concentrate and send the ball straight into the gutter. She was a good-natured loser, though. She would turn, her hands in the air in mock frustration. ‘What am I doing wrong?'

No-one knew where to start.

Now Fly picked herself up off the ground and stared back down the alley.

‘Come on, Fly – show us how to do it,' called Matt.

She brought the bowling ball up underneath her chin and looked intently at the pins. In her mind, the red stripes around the neck of the pins became the top of Heath's T-shirt, and suddenly his face appeared just above it.

‘Right, Heath,' she said softly to herself. ‘Cop this.'

Fly strode forward like a freight train and let the ball go with everything she had in her. There must've been something special about her take-off because even the serious bowlers in the next lane stopped to watch. Fly's ball was going so fast it almost set the floorboards alight. It curled out wide to the right, humming all the way, and then, just at the critical moment, it swung back towards the centre, lined itself up with the target and blew all ten pins to smithereens. The noise was astonishing. Every head in the place turned. There was a long silence. Even the jukebox seemed shocked into stillness, and then the oldest and fattest of the bowlers started a long, slow clap. His fellow bowlers picked up the pace until the whole of the bowling alley was drowning Fly in a round of applause.

She stood there dumbfounded. Fly didn't have much experience with ‘nasty behaviour' – it had never seemed like a good option to her. And somehow, getting a round of applause for it didn't make it seem any better.

They were still talking about Fly's killer strike when they pulled into the driveway. Fly was first through the door. Maybe she was feeling guilty about having had such a bad thought about Heath in the first place that made her want to check he was okay. Or maybe she just wanted to know
that he was home, that he had finished ‘studying' with Jane, that he was back with the crew. But Heath wasn't home.

The rest of them sat up till Deb and Simmo went to bed. They were waiting up for a reason. They'd given Fly till ten o'clock to make her decision about the judging session tomorrow. They couldn't wait any longer.

Matt looked at her. ‘You made a decision, Fly?'

Fly turned to the others. ‘Everyone else wants to do it, don't they?'

Matt nodded. Fly tried to snap her mind into gear. What did she think about them cheating? It just didn't seem cool, did it? But she couldn't manage to make the thought process go any further than that. Her brain just kept switching channels to a thought that ran something like: it was 10.30 and Heath still wasn't home. What had happened to Deb and Simmo? Why weren't they ringing him, telling him off for being out past curfew?

Matt was still waiting for an answer.

‘It just feels totally like cheating.'

‘It's to protect all of us
agains
t unfairness, Fly. It's the reverse of cheating.'

And so, because she didn't have the energy to argue with him, Fly nodded. ‘Okay. I'll do it.'

Fly hovered around in the kitchen long after the others had gone up to bed. She got a glass of water. She put the washing-up away. She got another glass of water. When she couldn't find any other reason to be in there, she finally turned the lights out and headed up the stairs. She was halfway up when she heard the glass door leading towards the kitchen slide open. She was back down the stairs in a flash.

Heath was standing at the door, gently gliding it shut,
trying not to wake anyone. He slunk quietly towards the stairs, starting to feel more confident that he'd made a stealthy enough entry, when Fly spoke out of the darkness.

‘How was the study?'

Heath jumped so high he nearly hit the roof. ‘Fly! You scared me half to death! What are you doing?'

‘Coming down to get a glass of water,' she lied. Heath was too jittery to notice she already held one in her hands.

‘Twelve-thirty – nearly six hours solid. You must know the book pretty well now.'

Even in the darkness Fly could see Heath fidgeting.

‘Yeah, well, it ah, it wasn't all study.'

‘I bet.'

‘I mean, I did take a break now and then.'

Fly could feel the glass of water trembling in her hands. She tried to remember what it was that Matt did to banish the shakes, but she couldn't think of it there and then.

‘It's okay. You don't have to explain. I'm not your mother.'

Heath was no idiot, he knew Fly was not in her usual state of mind. He wasn't at all sure how to play it.

‘I know that. I was just saying –'

Fly cut him off sharply. ‘Don't, Heath! Don't say anything more. There's no point.' She turned to the stairs, feeling out on a precipice with no idea how to finish this thing off. She hated confrontations, she just didn't know how to end them. ‘I don't know about you but I've got a competition tomorrow and I'm going back to sleep. Might be an idea if you got some too.'

She heard how strange and formal it sounded, almost as if the previous conversation hadn't happened. But it was out now, all she could do was scurry away.

Fly's blush was in full swing by the time she hit the top of the stairs, her words ringing in her ears. Who knew what Heath would be thinking? What she was certain of was that if he'd ever thought of her as a Hinemoa candidate, she'd just managed to blow that out of the water.

Anna was sitting up in their darkened bedroom as Fly crept in. She didn't say much, she just moved across and sat next to Fly on the bed.

‘Everything alright?' Anna asked the darkness.

‘Yeah … No – not really.'

‘Can I help?'

Fly thought about it. Could anyone help? ‘Wish you could, but no – this one's between me and …'

‘Heath?'

Fly nodded.

They sat in silence for a long time. Fly found herself watching the moonlight twinkling off the fine blonde hairs on her legs.

‘Should I shave my legs?' she suddenly asked.

‘I don't think it would make any difference.'

It wasn't what Fly had meant – had she? Shaving her legs to be more like the fillies … But Anna sensed it and she was right, it wouldn't make any difference. Fly could feel the tears threatening to spill. She knew if she spoke it would be an invitation for them to stream down her face. So she just nodded instead.

Anna didn't push it. They just sat there for a while, listening to the ferocious winter waves trying to dismantle the headland outside. That was all Fly needed: nine-foot swells to deal with tomorrow.

After a while she realised there was a warm gentle
pressure on her shoulder. It was Anna's arm, and Anna's head was asleep on top of it. Fly didn't think she'd liked anyone more in her life. Not even Heath.

The swell had managed to get over itself a little by sunrise, but the waves were still steely grey and messy as hell. The ocean seemed to have abandoned any sense of order and waves were coming left and right and any which way in between. So out of whack were its rhythms that every now and then a wave formed close to shore and headed back out to sea, only to smack into an oncoming wave like a head-on accident on the freeway. There had been a brief discussion about whether they should put the whole thing off until next weekend, but Deb was right; the pro circuit didn't seize up 'cause of winter.

The wind chill factor was enough to help them all choose steamers this morning. Simmo huddled on the beach waiting for them, a beanie pulled down low over his ears. A beanie and a pair of boardies – this was Simmo's response to winter. Deb, on the other hand, clearly spent many of her winters on the snowfields and had decided to raid the wardrobe early. She turned up ready for battle in a ski parka and thermal legs.

Simmo had set out judges' chairs for them all and a
table, but until they actually sat in the chairs, they kept blowing over, catapaulting down the beach like kids on red cordial. He yelled out against the wind, ‘Did you bring your manuals?'

No-one had. And they had the judging sheets in the back. Fly volunteered to race up and get them, as much to have a few seconds out of the wind as anything. As she bolted up towards the house, something in the park next door caught her eye.

Standing behind the open passenger door of a lemon Volkswagen was Jane. She couldn't see who was sitting in the driver's seat, but she could see who was standing next to Jane shooting the breeze. She could tell Heath's back a mile away. It didn't knock her for six this time; maybe she was getting used to the idea. She still hated it, but maybe that would pass in time too. Fly picked up the pace, concentrating on getting to the house, on finding those seven manuals, like it was the most important job on the planet.

Back on the beach, listening to Simmo reminding them of what needed to be done, she did everything she could not to watch Heath sloping down the beach. She didn't see his face, hard and set against the wind. She didn't want to see his face.

‘Now the girls will surf first,' Simmo shouted out above the roar, ‘and the boys will do the judging. Everyone clear on how to fill in the forms?'

They mumbled and nodded.

‘Excellent. Perri? I reckon you're up first.'

Perri was the first out there facing the washing machine. It was churning and turning and serving up a double dose of the spin cycle. Nature had dealt them a card they hadn't planned on. Getting onto three rideable waves at all, let
alone surfing in a way that might've scored between six and eight was going to push them all. Even if they managed to pull it off, they were going to have to work for it. After five solid minutes of floundering around, Perri finally managed to find a small left-hander she could stand up on and delivered what could only be described as a very average ride. As she flicked off the back of the crumpling wave she looked to the shore. Fly couldn't be sure whether her questioning look and hands in the air was a message to the rest of them that this might not come off at all, or whether she was looking to Simmo, asking for some serious rescheduling. Simmo didn't seem too worried. He just waved her on.

Fly watched the boys shooting nervous looks along the judging table as Perri hunted for her second and third wave. They too delivered distinctly average rides.

Bec was up next. Round two of the very ordinary surfing finals. Bec fought a bit harder than Perri but it didn't deliver different results. Maybe that was a good thing, since she wouldn't be given a very different score at the end of the day.

And let's have it one more time, for Anna. Same awful conditions, slightly more difficult to justify that average score. Anna was doing her best, but she was less experienced in the mess. She looked guiltily at the others as she headed in. No-one held it against her. No-one was sure they could do any better.

Fly was shivering with cold as she bashed her way through the white water. It was so rugged out there she thought she might spoil the whole plan by not even making a wave at all. She could feel the pressure of the team on the shore. What would Matt and his old ‘see what
you want' theory do now? Even as she was thinking it, she felt the wind drop. She knew it had dropped because the pressure on the back of her head gave way. Up until then it had felt like an effort just to stay upright on her board, like there was some giant hand pushing her forward, wanting her to lie down – and suddenly it was gone. The waves weren't drastically better, but at least she could see.

And what she saw was something almost like a rideable set sweeping around the headland. If she could get onto it, that was one down. And she did. She slid down the charcoal face like a speedskater, and then, remembering the kind of performances she needed to match, she made a deliberate bungle of the bottom turn, almost falling off, before she righted herself and surfed floppily to the end of the wave. Simmo would skin her alive if he knew what she was doing. It was a similar story for her second and third waves. She hated doing it, but she hadn't stood up for what she believed was right, so she couldn't really complain.

As Fly pushed in through the white water she saw Deb collect the score sheets from the guys and take them over to Simmo. She saw them talking quietly together.

‘Well if nothing else you were all pretty consistent. And while I'd quibble on a couple of points here and there, overall the scores seem pretty fair,' said Deb.

Fly saw Matt and Edge share a brief glance of triumph – this was going just as they'd planned.

‘Well done, girls. Nothing brilliant, but, given the conditions, all good, solid performances,' said Simmo.