Take My Word for It by John Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

were doing that was so awful. Oh, it’s so complicated.
    A PRIL 22
    Well, that was a scorcher. We got a stinking start—we were side-on when the starter gave the word. I think Tash was rattled by one of the officials yelling at us as we came up the river for the start—he thought we were going to get in the way of a crew that was racing down the course. Tash had it under control, but he didn’t know that. So anyway, the gun went and by the time we got going we were very last. That was good in one way, ’cos University and MLC nearly crashed ahead of us. After a hundred metres the Fourths had the lead, or at least it looked that way from where I sat. Then came Muirfield, then University and MLC abusing each other as they tried to steer a decent course, then the legendary Warrington Thirds. Mr Bostock must have been wetting himself. We were starting to panic, Tash was yelling, ‘Keep your heads up girls, get it together,’ but we weren’t making much progress. The others all caught the Fourths easily, but we still weren’t functioning. Then Muirfield suddenly ploughed to a halt—we found out later their gate broke—and so we passed them, and even though that wasn’t a great achievement it helped us settle down somehow, and we set out after the Fourths. I know it’s wrong but I wanted to beat them more than anyone else in the race, and beat them by a good margin, too. I thought it’d be my fault if we didn’t. And I know how badly they wanted to beat us.
    Coming round the bend we hit the headwind, but Tash found us some dead water and we went for twenty hard. I was trying too much I think and I couldn’t go with the flow, not using my head, not catching the run of the boat. Tash said, ‘Hey Lisa, get with it.’ We reached the Fourths; they were sweating and gnashing their teeth and both of us were catching MLC. But gradually we started getting away from the Fourths: out of the corner of my eye I could see Kizzy slipping backwards. ‘Keep the pressure on,’ Tash said. In the other boat I could hear Myra yelling, ‘Shut up, shut up’, and I gave a little grin inside. That was typical Fourths, fighting when things went wrong. ‘Two hundred metres,’ Tash said. ‘come on Thirds, last effort.’ I was level with the MLC bow but University looked out of reach. We settled down to grunt it out with MLC. Tash was red in the face, gripping the side of the boat and urging us on. I heard the bell as University crossed the line. But we had to beat MLC. ‘Come on, come on,’ Tash screamed. We were flying, together at last, their green singlets and red faces were so bright—I remember that more than anything—but the line was too close. A metre past the line we were ahead of them, but that was no use.
    I was so disappointed. I thought I’d let them down. That was our last race against University and now they’d think they were better than us. And we’d wanted to test ourselves properly against Muirfield. We still think we can beat MLC, but then we’d thought that yesterday too. All in all it was a hopeless effort. I think I’ll take up free-fall bungy jumping.
    A PRIL 24
    I’m going to write more about the weekend, seeing nothing much happened today. The Regatta was such a mess—hope we’ve used up all our bad luck before the big one on Saturday. Mr Bostock was calm about it but Miss Warren gave us a big lecture about our starts and our steering (Tash was not impressed).
    The Fourths came last, not counting Muirfield.
    Saturday night I was absolutely stuffed. I skipped the movie and went upstairs to the Year 11 cubes and talked to Skye and Stevie for an hour or so. That’s one good thing about being in the Thirds—I get to talk to the Seniors much more. But I was in bed by nine o’clock.
    Sunday Chapel was even more boring than usual. Halfway through the Responses Dr Whiteley stopped