FISH

I don’t really like the uni pool because the water is always warm. Apparently, it has something to do with a guy called Luke, that’s what mum said, but I have no idea who that is. It’s really sunny and warm today, which makes me want to barf at the thought of getting in the pee-pool (mum said it was rude to call it that, but if old mate Luke had something to do with the water… I think you know what I’m getting at here).

My water therapist, Jo (who I don’t like), says that the water lets her stay in the pool all day long, so that she can work with the other kids who have to do the water therapy like me. I wish it was cold so she wouldn’t swim about in front of me, trying to get me to get in. She’s like a weird piece of seaweed—long arms that wave about in the water, even though it’s so shallows she could just stand up.

‘The water’s lovely!’ she croons at me like a weird, seaweed-crocodile, ‘you should hop in!’

Ugh. Mum sits in the benches behind me and is not allowed to talk while Jo tries to get me to do what she wants. Before I realised what water therapy was, I was actually pretty excited to go. I thought it would be like the swimming lessons I finally convinced mum to take me to before I had my accident. Learning freestyle and backstroke and stuff like that. No. Totally wrong there. Instead, I have to fall into the water and then Jo pushes me around and rubs my legs and says I’m doing great. Yuck. Boring. Who wants to do that? I’m meant to be paddling around in swimming lessons, having fun, not being spun in circles by some old skinny lady.

I cross my arms at make a face at her. She sighs and looks kind of sad, but I don’t care. She’s only doing it so I’ll feel bad for her and get in the water. Swimming over to the steps, she climbs out of the water, like a skeleton, and goes past me to talk to mum.

Mum comes up next to me and kneels so she can look at me in my eyes. I don’t look at her though.

‘Fish,’ she says, ‘You don’t have to go in the water, but these lessons are expensive…’

***

My real name is Charlie, but mum calls me ‘Fish’. It’s not super weird or anything, when I tell you why she calls me that. When I was teeny-tiny, I would have real big tantrums until I could have a go in the plastic baby-pool. The one that Nan got me from Kmart before she passed away. Mum says that it was the one thing that could make me shut up. Okay, not shut up, but just stop crying a bit so she could have some peace-and-quiet. She says that I was a real water-baby. That I didn’t need toys or anything to have fun; just some fresh H2O from the hose.

I was actually born in Bathurst, not Wollongong which is where we live now. When I was still small, me and mum moved away from there and to somewhere more beach-y since Bathurst is basically one flat piece of grass and cows. Or that’s what she says. Mum said she wanted me to have a childhood kind of like her one, with lots of swimming and stuff, since I liked the water so much. She says we moved at just the right time, because I got a spot basically straight-a-way at Fairy Meadow Public School, which was super lucky. Last year, when I was in year three, Miss said that we were all growing up super-fast after she showed us the element stuff and we understood it. Like, real big kids. I didn’t really like Miss that much; she wore funny clothes a lot. You know Miss Frizzle from that school bus book? Miss looked a bit like her but was way less fun and said that homework is important and didn’t even catch the bus.

At school my best friends are Mandy and Chloe, who are also identical twins. Their mum, Lorraine, works at the post office; so when mum and I go there, they chat for hours and hours about grown-up stuff that’s super boring. The only time it gets interesting is when they start talking about the swimming lessons that Mandy and Chloe go to at the uni. Ever since they got to go to them in year two, I’ve been asking and asking Mum to let me join. She always said it was too expensive, until the middle of last year when she said I could start in the Summer. It was meant to be amazing too, until I had my accident. Mum doesn’t like when I say ‘hit by a car’ because she says it sounds really scary and bad. But it’s not like she was the one who got in the accident. Mum is kind of right though, it was really scary and really sore and not nice at all.

Basically, in December last year, my swimming lessons started and me and mum were driving to the uni for my very first one. The uni is super big, by the way, and really green with lots of trees and ducks. Mum says she doesn’t like it that much because all the students make her feel kind of old. Anyway, what happened was that when we drove into the parking lot, I saw Mandy and Chloe walking with their mum, and I wanted to catch up to them. I was really bad and took my seatbelt off before mum even turned off the car. She shouted at me to wait, but I didn’t because I was too excited, and I ran across the road without checking twice, so I didn’t see the car until it was right up in my face, and then I was on the ground and my back was really hurting and I was crying. That’s basically it. Mum said that there was lots of shouting and the driver was pretty upset about what he did. He even came to visit me in hospital one time to say sorry. I told him no wukkas.

After that I missed out on the start of swimming lessons and meeting my teachers for year four and everything. I was in hospital for a really long time, and it was kinda bad and kinda good. Kinda good because I got lots of sweets and flowers and stuff from the nurses and random parents from school, and kinda bad because I had to pee in a bucket thing. I got cards with big fancy words that I haven’t learned, but mum read them out loud to me and told me what some of them meant. Most of the words are just saying ‘sorry’ with more syllables, like when Mandy and Chloe’s card said condolences. Lorraine totally wrote that for them.

At first, I thought I couldn’t feel my legs because of the needles and stuff that was in me. And then a couple days later, after the creepy doctor asked me to wiggle my toes and made an odd face, mum told me that I wouldn’t be able walk again. That because my back got hurt, my brain couldn’t find my legs anymore. Mum thinks that it’s her fault that my accident happened. She was on the phone a lot when we first got to be in hospital, telling people who called: ‘Yes, she’s fine, but lost her legs.’ The grown-ups say ‘lost’ a lot whenever they talk about this stuff. Like, the doctors and the nurses and Jo (who I don’t like). Doesn’t really make that much sense, because when something’s lost, it can’t get found. But I can look right down and find my legs straight-a-way.

After I got out of hospital, I wanted to go back to swimming lessons. Or start them, I wasn’t really sure what words to use. Mum said no, absolutely not, don’t even think about it. And then when the creepy hospital doctor recommended water therapy stuff, she said yes, and signed all the paperwork. The minds of grown-ups, what can I say.

***

Now, mum squats beside my wheelchair and breathes in my face about ‘getting better’ and ‘trying it for her’ and everything else she says when I don’t want to go in the water. I gave it a go last week and I didn’t like it. I told her so. She didn’t care.

The worst part about all this is that my therapy is on a Monday at the same time as Mandy and Chloe’s swimming lessons with a lady named Sue. Sue is really nice and lets them play games and stuff. Jo just wants to bend me around. Mum gives my shoulder a pat that says ‘you’ll be in big trouble if you don’t do what I say’ and goes to sit back on her bench with her book. Mandy and Chloe are learning how to do Butterfly. They’re laughing and shouting while they try to get it right. Pfft, water therapy but no swimming. What kind of logic behaviour is that?

‘Come on, Charlie! Don’t you want to swim?’ Jo’s eyes bulge at me, red from the chlorine.

‘Not with you.’ I grumble.

I wish I could join the other girls. My arms are totally strong, I’d be able to swim around just fine by myself if mum and Jo would let me. But mum doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’ll just sink and drown.

‘Charlieeee,’ Jo sings at me.

Eat dirt, Jo. I grab my wheels and roll break-neck speed toward Sue and Mandy and Chloe. Here comes the water!