Fifty-one by Tat Usher

  I am on number twenty-eight when I see him coming out of the trough where you're supposed to have a wash before you get in the pool but no one does because the showers are dribbly and almost cold and there are always festering plasters floating around in the water that doesn't drain away properly so everyone just gets in the pool dirty and it's Lofty Holloway from Eastenders and he hasn't had a shower either.  Not that I care.  The fiery feeling has begun in my belly and it's spreading up into my chest and that's good because it means the fat is burning up and I am disappearing.  Every second there is less of me and I've been pure for more than three days now since the apple after school on Thursday and this is the longest time I've ever managed it so I'm winning and I'm going to get to fifty-one and then as a prize for winning I will jump into the diving pool. 

  I lift my goggles up to check that it really is Lofty Holloway and it is and he's sprinting across to the lane swimming section because he's exactly as skinny and pathetic-looking in real life as he is on TV so he's desperate to hide himself in the water.  Running is against the Pool Rules which are clearly displayed on a big sign by the steps but the Walrus doesn't blow his whistle possibly because Lofty Holloway is on Eastenders.  Petting is also against the rules and there's a picture to show what petting is which is useful because I wouldn't have known otherwise.  Lofty Holloway is wearing a light blue rubber sock which means he has a verruca.  I also have a verruca but I'm not wearing a rubber sock because I love my verruca and I think everyone should have one. 

  I reach the end of twenty-eight and Lofty Holloway is clambering into the fast lane which I don't swim in because it's always full of men who thrash about causing tidal waves and they kick you and then swear at you for getting in their way and I start on twenty-nine without having a rest because I can only have a rest when I get to thirty-one.  Three girls who are in the year above me at school and have breasts are sitting on the steps not swimming and they've noticed that it's Lofty Holloway from Eastenders and they're giggling and pointing and Lofty Holloway is thrashing his way up the fast lane in a frenzy of froth.  I don't thrash I glide and I stay underwater as much as possible using my blue-tinted goggles that turn everything the colour of infinity.  I pass by Dolores and though I try not to look at the other bodies because they're all jerky and wrong I can't stop myself looking at Dolores who is always here in the slow lane swimming so slowly that it's almost imperceptible in her green frilly rubber hat and matching costume that's probably about a hundred years old.  I named her Dolores because it means heavy sorrow and while her head stays above the surface her huge pale legs are so heavy with sorrow that they hang down low and every few seconds she kicks like she's trying to free herself from her own body.  I swim faster and the water feels cool on my hot skin thirty and the fire is in my legs and arms and head now so I am almost invisible inhuman heat sliding through cold and it's beautiful.  I have never been so pure.  Thirty-one. 

  I lean my head against the tiles and breathe and it's gone abnormally quiet because everyone in the whole place has stopped swimming or not swimming and is staring at Lofty Holloway even the Walrus whose gigantic belly is so tightly squeezed into his bright yellow lifeguard T-shirt that he is not normally interested in anything except shouting at kids who break the Pool Rules and even Dolores has ground to a halt.  Lofty Holloway is coming towards me on the other side of the red rope swimming like there's a blood-crazed shark after him and you can see in his eyes that he's lost all hope of escape and any moment now he'll feel the shark's fangs closing over his spindly legs snapping them like dry spaghetti and dark clouds of blood will pump out of the stumps as he sinks helplessly down screaming bubbles into the water while everyone watches with empty faces.  I've only seen one horror film called Hallowe'en and this is much worse than that because it's real and I don't know what to do so I start on number thirty-two when I have only had one minute of the five minute rest period. 

  It's hard not to think about Lofty Holloway and the shark so to distract myself I think of my best friend Alison and the time last winter when we were practicing being dead in the shallow end by floating face down in the water and Alison held her breath for so long that the Walrus thought she had really drowned and came lumbering in all huge and hairy and psychotically yellow and when he realised Alison wasn't dead he bellowed Get out!  You're barred! So we got out and all week we were so proud that we were barred but we came back the next Thursday and the Walrus ignored us.  Thirty-three.  That was a long time ago during my childhood when I could still do things like swimming just for fun and eating chips. We always used to have chips after swimming especially on Thursday nights when it was winter and it'd be dark when we came out and the air felt so cold and clean on our warm faces and our wet hair as we crossed the road to the chip shop and then we'd put so much vinegar on our chips that the newspaper wrappers would be soggy and Alison would have a pickled onion and we'd walk slowly home swinging our swimming things in Budgen's bags. That's what happiness used to smell like - chlorine and vinegar and chips but not any more.  Thirty-four.  I haven't seen Alison for months because I don't have the time now and anyway she doesn't understand about calories and lengths and being pure.  It's Thursday night and it's December but it's impossible to imagine eating a chip and I feel dizzy and weak and I want to stop but I can't till forty-one it's the rules and I have to be strong.  I look for Lofty Holloway and see him down at the shallow end hauling himself out of the water with his legs still attached and the three girls with breasts are heading towards him giggling and nudging each other and one of them shouts Lofty!  She fancies ya! and he's trying to get past them head down trying to shove them out of the way and one of the girls shoves him back and the Walrus's whistle shrieks as Lofty Holloway loses his balance spidery arms grabbing at the air as he falls backwards into the pool with a smack that echoes like a gunshot.  I duck my head down under the surface and close my eyes and count to fifty-one.  I come up for air and I see Lofty Holloway running and slipping and skidding towards the trough and the entrance to the changing rooms and though his legs have not been bitten off he's bleeding to death. 

  I finish my length. Thirty-five.  Whereas I am going to stay alive.  Even though it's not forty-one yet I've stopped and now I'm pulling myself up onto the edge and I almost can't believe it's happening because I am sixteen away from fifty-one and yet I'm standing up and walking around the edge of the pool past the Walrus who doesn't look at me and my legs are trembling so much it's hard to keep a straight line but I make it to the diving pool and the steps that lead to the top board and I take my goggles off and hang them on the rail and I climb up.

  No one is on the platform so I can walk to the end of the white runway as slowly as I like and when I get there I look down into the blue.  I grip the edge of the board with my toes and my heart is racing because I have broken the rules.  I am here even though I haven't won staring into a square of perfect summer sky and in another moment I will rise feet-first like a fiery upside-down angel to meet it.