Grace

Chapter 10

After dinner and prayers we had to practice the song for the competition. I was asked to play the violin but to do it with the singers. Clara helped the girls with their vocals for about half an hour making sure it was bang on perfect whilst Rafa did the same for the boys. Then we ran through it all with me playing the music, Clara singing and Rafa conducting. It took a few runs through to get it sounding good and then Rafa picked up his violin and I swapped to trumpet so that they could practice with at least part of the brass section so that they wouldn't be confused by it when we put them together with the orchestra.

We had to stop when Master Wagnerite came in saying that it was time for F block to turn in for the night. The three of us told everyone that they did a good job and we prepared to disband for the night, but Master Clarke called us into the room with the orchestra to see where we stood for tomorrow.

We ran through once and then decided that we'd just go straight in there and practice together straight away.

The next day was pretty much the same as that until I got to the river where I was put in a boat. I was in old clothes, had my hair messily tied up and was sat in a boat with an oar in my hands. There were three other girls with me – Karen (blonde and pale but otherwise Amazonian), Narinda (Indian, curly hair, tall but slim) and Sally (Amazonian). I was between Karen and Narinda and both of them seemed to know what they were doing. Though I was closer to the water I was still an octopus out of it.

I did not belong here at all. What the hell had I been thinking when I signed up for this? The other sport option for this term (which, weirdly, were apparently called halves even though there were three of them) was hockey. I wasn't that good at it, but at least it was on dry land.

"Each boat," our instructor called across the water, "has two people in it who has done this before. The person in the back and the second in from the front. Can those people hold their hands up please?"

In front of me Narinda did. I glanced over my shoulder to see that Karen had her hand up as well.

"Thank you." The hands went down. "Now, those with experience you're going tell the person in front of you what they're doing right and wrong. Go for four strokes, stop, have a chat and then go again when everyone is ready. Keep a slow pace for now. On my whistle..."

A moment later the whistle blew.

We'd been though how to row on land in our boats, but it was completely different on the water. There was resistance and we moved. Even after just four strokes I was a little tired.

"Ok, you need to have less of an angle when you put the oar in the water," Karen said. "At the moment yours is here," she showed me with hers and then she rotated it a little. "It should be here." She showed me the difference a couple more times.

Then I had to show her a few strokes out of water and then we were off again and in a slightly straighter line than before. It was still hard work but apparently I was a bit better I just needed to shave a little more of the angle off and I'd be fine. Sally had it down already. We carried on like that for another half an hour and then we were free to go up and down the section of the Thames we were limited to as much as we liked. We kept it slow and steady for mine and Sally's benefit but not being able to see where we were going had its disadvantages.

It meant crashes were likely. Which happened to us and two other boats at the same time. I wasn't sure how it happened, but one moment we were happily minding our own business rowing away with soft instruction and coaching from Karen and Narinda, the next something bumped us and rocked the boat. Then there was a warning yelp and we were knocked again and that was how we capsized.

The water was cold, but not enough to be a danger to my health and I was only under for a few seconds before popping up again. I brushed my head against the side of the boat as I came up. As soon as I could I grabbed onto it so that I didn't have to tread water. I looked around and saw that my boat mates had all safely surfaced and were making their way over to the boat.