Chasing the Break Read online

  Timing was everything. Should I hold back, duck-dive through, or ride up the wave itself and hope it wouldn’t crash on top of me? It was the indecision that got me. A three-metre giant crashed down on me and my board. I was underneath the water being forced down and around like I was in a washing machine. My lungs were bursting, and for a moment I thought I would never break the surface for air. But just when I thought I’d breathed my last, my head broke clear and I gulped down air while spluttering salt water. My chest was heaving and my ribs were aching. I decided to quit. But I needed one more neat ride to get me in.

  After a few minutes, another set loomed. I had my eye on the fifth wave. I was in the zone and ready to join it for the ride home. It took only a few strokes for me to get on top of it.

  I jumped to my feet and pushed down to stay clear in front. I took the drop down the face and, as my speed slackened, I swung the board around to face the wave. The move felt smooth. In a moment, I was back in the pocket of the wave, where all the power was.

  I bent low in the white water and pushed on across the face. A huge arc of water hooded over me. For one fantastic moment I was in the green room, surrounded by a round wall of glass. I stuck my hand up into the sheet above me and yelled in delight. The wave broke and I rode the white water in to shore.

  A rush of adrenaline was surging through my body. It was the most awesome feeling. I was tingling with excitement. Matty had seen the ride.

  ‘Hey, you were smoking out there, man!’ he said.

  ‘Matty, that was my first barrel! It was brilliant!’

  ‘You keep going like this and you’ll get plenty of tubes, Mitchell.’

  I couldn’t get the grin off my face. I looked further up the sand towards the dunes.

  ‘She’s gone back to the bus, but don’t worry, she saw your last run,’ said Matty with a grin. ‘Here’s your towel.’ He wandered off. It wasn’t mine though. The little white tag in the corner told me who it belonged to: L. Rankin.

  After breakfast, Mr Spears called me and Bryce over for a little chat.

  ‘Now, boys, I have received an email. An email that I first thought had been sent by Mrs Waite. But I have found out since that this is not the case. Bryce, I’m going to be direct. You, perhaps more than anyone, have the ability to do this, and, more significantly, you have a laptop computer with you here this week. Did you send the email?’

  ‘I did not send the email, Mr Spears, no.’

  ‘What do you know about all of this, Mitchell?’ Mr Spears asked me.

  ‘Mr Spears, where is my laptop?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt, Bryce. Now–’

  ‘No, it’s just that my database of sea shells–’

  ‘Bryce!’ Mr Spears’ face was getting redder.

  I don’t know whether Bryce would have told him or not, but as he was about to speak there was a hair-raising scream from our room. We all jumped up and raced in.

  A gigantic spider was scuttling across the wall right next to Bubba’s bed. Bubba was freaked. He couldn’t move. He was lying rigid on his bed and his fingers were gripping his sleeping bag so hard that his knuckles were white. There was a look of terror on his face. The spider stopped about a metre from his nose. Bubba started to moan.

  ‘Would you look at that, it’s a huntsman,’ said Bryce, stepping towards the bed, fascinated.

  ‘Um, right, best we just leave it alone then. Come along, Bubba,’ said Mr Spears.

  Mr Spears sounded tense. I looked at him and noticed sweat on his forehead. Actually, he was looking spooked – like Bubba. He was backing away. Bubba hadn’t moved. It was like an invisible force had him pinned down to the bed.

  Bryce stepped closer to Bubba. Mr Spears was standing near the door.

  ‘You deal with it, Bryce, I’ll be back shortly,’ he stammered, and was gone.

  ‘C’mon, Bubba. Just move over here and then climb down. He looks gross, but he’s relatively harmless.’

  Bryce was talking slowly and calmly. He took Bubba’s hand and urged him to the end of the bed where the ladder was. The spider hadn’t moved but you got the feeling that it could take off suddenly and go anywhere.

  The spell on Bubba was broken and he crawled like a commando backwards towards the ladder. He made his way down and then raced out of the room.

  He reappeared at the doorway about fifteen seconds later, looking better.

  ‘Actually, I probably could have just stopped at the door, hey, Mitch?’

  ‘It’s cool, Bubba. Anyway, nice work, you saved the day.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Yep. Go and find Mr Spears and tell him how Bryce totally rescued you, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So, Bryce – tell me you don’t keep them as pets.’

  ‘Spiders? No way. Yuck,’ he said, smiling.

  We didn’t hear any more about the email. I think Mr Spears was freaked by the spider. His room was next to ours. Bryce had caught the huntsman in a plastic lunch box, and, after having a good look at it with a magnifying glass he had brought along, let it go.

  He’d got his laptop back from Mr Spears and was setting up a new database for spiders, but Mr Spears didn’t need to know that part – yet!

  It was Thursday and there was going to be an all-morning beach session with teachers at different activities and kids working their way around the stations. There was sandcastle building, beach cricket and volleyball for any kids who had had enough of the swimming, board paddling, beach flags practice and surfing.

  Apart from Fisk, this had been the best school camp I’d ever been to. Bubba was looking much happier playing beach cricket, standing there with his toes in the water, waiting for a catch. He was wearing skimpy bathers and a legionnaire’s hat, with his shoulders, arms and face covered in white zinc. He was shouting orders to the other players but no one was paying attention. And Bubba didn’t care.

  Beach cricket would have been fun, but I was keen to make a big impression with the ironman. I felt I had a chance. I was an okay runner and a pretty strong swimmer. I also wanted to nail Fisk and I knew he was going to be tough to beat.

  I had a plan for the beach flags race and I was working out the details. It must have looked like I was deep in thought because Bryce came up to me during lunch (which was also at the beach) and asked what I was thinking about.

  ‘Beating Fisk to the flag.’

  ‘Where’s the flag?’

  For all his brains, Bryce was pretty vague really.

  ‘You know, the flag. You have to grab it to win the beach flags.’

  ‘What do you want to win grotty old beach flags for, Mitch?’

  ‘You don’t win the flags, Bryce, you win the race.’

  ‘Right. And what’s your plan?’

  ‘Well, I think he’s faster than me, and he’s certainly bigger than me, so my plan is to get up faster and take off quicker and just guts it out to the end.’

  ‘What’s bigger got to do with it?’

  ‘Well, if it’s a close race, you can sort of bump the other person off-balance near the end so they can’t reach the flag.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bryce, a frown on his face. I think he enjoyed a challenge. He was never going to run the race with his feet though – just his brains.

  ‘Well, it seems to me that there are two parts of the race we can work on here. Your start and your finish. You’re not going to get any faster between now and tomorrow, so we won’t bother about the middle, even though it represents approximately 95 per cent of the race.’

  I was liking his logic.

  ‘Now for the start, all we need is a stopwatch and a patch of sand. For the end, we need something – or should I say, someone – else.’

  For a moment I thought he was planning for Bubba to try shouting the word ‘dive’ for me, like Paisley had been doing for Fisk.

  I followed his gaze over to an enormous mound of sand. The back of a head and a legionnaire’s cap were poking out at the top: Bubba. Buried. He’d given up on
the cricket and gone in for a bit of beach burial. The only moving parts were on his face.

  ‘Bubbaman!’ we both yelled at the same time. He looked round at us with his usual stupid grin.

  ‘Get over here, you crazy guy!’

  I knew what Bryce had in mind.

  We got Bubba to stand a couple of metres short of the flag. He had only one instruction – stop me from getting to it. From Bubba’s point of view, the first trial was spectacular. I was racing towards him, eyes focused on the little flag sticking up out of the sand, when suddenly there was a shadow in front of me. It quickly turned into live Bubba flesh. The combination of my speed and Bubba’s bulk sent me flying at right angles away from the target. I ended up in a heap, spitting sand.

  ‘Geez, Mitchell, sorry. You okay?’

  ‘Fine, Bubbaman. That’s just what I wanted you to do, but maybe . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Each time I charged at the stick, Bubba was there to greet me with a big grin and even bigger guts. But I was getting better at holding my balance and staying on my feet. I think maybe Bubba was getting tired, too.

  ‘Last one, Bubba!’

  I ran the ten-metre sprint to build up speed, but this time I threw my weight on my left side and dug my feet in to slow me down ready for the impact. I rode the bump from Bubba with my body hunched, then pressed on to grab the flag.

  I looked over at Bryce. He was nodding in approval. Bubba was lying on his back in the sand, that melon-split grin still on his face.

  During lunch, Mr Spears made an announcement.

  ‘Now, there’s been a little confusion over this surfing competition,’ he said. ‘The competition will go ahead and I want you to assume that both the surfing and the iron events will not only go towards determining the Legend of Surf, but also go towards the Sandhurst Legend of Sport.’

  I had my head down, but I sensed that Mr Spears was looking at me, or Bryce, wherever he was.

  One kid who wasn’t looking pleased was Fisk. Unfortunately, I caught his eye. He was shaking his head slowly and sneering at me. I tried to put on an innocent sort of puzzled look. Tried.

  Plenty of kids had decided to enter the surfing event. Matty explained that there would be six heats and that the best from each heat would go through to the final. He said he had ranked us all and then put us in our correct groups so that the better surfers were split up.

  I was pretty surprised to find out that Fisk was in the last group with me. We had to sit together on the beach as a group and wait while the first groups went out to catch their waves. This gave Fisk plenty of opportunities to get at me.

  ‘Pity I had to wreck your little game, Grady. You, Flavel and the Fatboy are in real trouble now. Mr Spears knows everything.’

  I went for the ignorant approach.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, Fisk.’

  ‘Of course you do, idiot. I heard you talking in your room the other night. Bloody Fatboy was lucky I didn’t snot him then. What does he know about my father and anything, hey? He won’t know what’s hit him after I get to him.’

  ‘Travis, it was just a joke. It’s nothing.’ Fisk was losing it. I turned away and looked out to where the first group of surfers was riding waves in. There was a girl out there doing really well. She’d already had two pretty good rides, and was racing out to get a few more before the whistle blew.

  ‘Who’s the girl?’ I asked. A kid behind me looked up.

  ‘Penny Watson. Her dad runs a surf shop,’ he said.

  I was amazed I hadn’t noticed her earlier.

  The waves were much smaller now, but she was working them really well, pushing down on the front of the board and pulling back just at the right moment to get the absolute max out of the wave.

  I zipped up my wettie, slapped on the ankle strap, grabbed my board and jogged down to the water. I’d decided to keep well clear of Fisk, thinking that he might try to ram me again or do something equally stupid.

  I paddled out behind the breaking waves and waited for a set to come in. There wasn’t going to be anything huge like this morning; the surf had really settled. I’d paddled out further than the others, hoping to catch the waves as they swelled to their full height. At last a set appeared. I turned my board, but kept looking back. I waited. I had my eye on the fifth in the set. Suddenly there was Fisk, right next to me.

  ‘Which one are you taking?’ he called.

  ‘The third,’ I called back.

  As the third wave approached, I started to paddle. So did Fisk. I eased to the left and let Fisk go. I checked back. The fourth passed beneath me and the fifth, easily the strongest looking wave of the set, approached.

  Paddling steadily, then quicker as I felt the power beneath me, I jumped onto my feet quickly, flinging my arms out for balance. I spread my feet and started to angle the board across the wave. I was going to have to do something fancy, and quick. I could already sense the power of the wave fading. I flung the board back so I was facing across the wave, then rode up a little so I could fly back down it with as much force as the wave could give me. The move worked well. I pumped the wave to show that I was still in control of it, as it faded away to bubbling white water.

  ‘What happened to you?’ said Fisk.

  ‘I couldn’t get onto it,’ I said.

  Fisk was looking smug. He obviously hadn’t seen my ride. I doubted he could do much more than ride a straight line for shore.

  I caught two more waves, but they were both smaller than that first one.

  When we got back in, we were told our scores. Matty gave me eight out of ten and Lisa, the other instructor, gave me seven and a half. It was enough to get me into the final. Fisk, I found out later, had scored a pair of sixes.

  By now there were quite a few kids on the beach watching.

  ‘Guess what Penny scored?’ Jack teased.

  ‘Dunno, what?’

  ‘Eighteen and a half!’

  ‘How come I haven’t seen her all week?’ I asked Jack.

  ‘This’ll make you laugh. She’s been up at a surfing comp in Sydney. She only got down at lunchtime today,’ said Jack. ‘Chaz Green did okay, too. He’s really good at sports.’

  The final turned out to be a one-horse, or I should say, a one-girl, race. Penny was brilliant. She was smooth and balanced and just did what she wanted on the board. I wished I could have seen her with this morning’s waves. I sort of wish she’d seen me, too. I came second, and Chaz Green came third.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d get any competition down here,’ she said to me after Mr Spears had announced the winner.

  That night back at camp was our last. It was the camp concert. Jack and Bubba teamed up with a couple of other kids and got a few laughs, but I pretty much stayed in the background. I’d decided not to tell Bubba about Fisk’s threat from earlier on the beach. I’d just keep an eye out for him.

  No one complained too much when we were told to go to bed after the concert, and for once the rooms were quiet. Well, except ours of course.

  ‘Mitchell?’

  ‘Yeah, Bubba?’

  ‘Good luck for tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks, Bubba.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’m going to give the ironman a go tomorrow, Mitch,’ said Jack.

  ‘Good idea, Jack. I reckon you’ll do brilliantly in the beach flags.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hey, Mitch, you reckon we’re okay with Mr Spears now?’ asked Jordie.

  ‘Yeah, I think that’s all over now.’

  Silence.

  And then, about fifteen minutes later, when I was as close to sleep as I could be without being asleep, Bryce appeared from behind his book or whatever it was he was reading by torchlight.

  ‘What?’ I hissed, maybe a bit harshly.

  ‘Well, it’s just that I’ve been calculating Mr Spears’ average time for, you know, starting t
he beach flags and it would appear that–’

  ‘Bryce?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you tell me about it in the morning?’

  ‘Oh sure. Right. Well, goodnight.’

  ‘Yeah, ’night.’

  And of course I lay there awake for another ten minutes feeling bad about Bryce.

  ‘Bryce, you still awake?’ I whispered across the darkness of our room.

  ‘Yep,’ he replied, like he’d been waiting for me to ask.

  ‘Just give me a quick summary, okay?’

  I could imagine his smile. ‘Okay, Mitch. There are three instructions that Mr . . .’

  I don’t know that I remembered much more.

  Friday. The last day of camp. The day of the ironman and ironwoman events. I was nervous: I wanted to do well. I wanted to make a good start at this new school and with this new group of kids – and to impress my new friends. Bubba was excited and even Bryce was more chatty than usual, talking about the sporting activities coming up, instead of the koala crisis or the likelihood of the Earth being blown up by an asteroid. Jack was quietly confident about his chances, too. He was a pretty sporty kid. Okay, he hadn’t had much surfing experience, but he was fast and competitive.

  Of course, there was Fisk, too. I was really keen to beat him. I didn’t know what he was like at other sports. This might be my only chance to nail him.

  And then there was Luci Rankin who had come down for the early morning surfing session. I’m sure she watched me. Well, she watched someone.

  The beach had been set up as if there was a proper ironman competition about to happen. Orange flag tape stretched out at each venue. All the boards were laid out neatly near the water’s edge ready for the paddle. A patch of beach had been raked for the beach flags race. And there was a wide viewing area in the middle so the spectators could see everything. There were big eskies full of cold drinks. The ten dollars we each had had to hand in to the teachers at the start of the week could now be spent on ice-creams, drinks and snacks.