The Lost Secret

"Mom, why do I have to be so different from the others?" Leila whined, for the thousandth time. She wasn't more than fourteen years old, but tall for her age. She had spiky, blond hair that stood up on top of her head like a crown, and her nose was a little bent from the time where she bashed it into the glass wall of the kitchen in school. She had assured the teachers that it was an accident, but she knew it wasn't. Emelie had pushed her secretly from behind one of the cupboards, before quickly ducking behind it again so as not to be seen. But she DID see her. She just wasn't the kind of wimp who told on every tiny little thing that happened. Although if she was, she'd have a lot to talk about. Everybody hated her. They thought she was a boy when she first came into the class. Probably because of her hair, or the fact that she liked swimming. Or because of her clothes. She always put on old, ripped jeans with a tattered t-shirt and buckled boots. Or that she never put on make-up. She wasn't sure. But she was always alone. All of the girls thought she was just weird and wasn't from this planet, and when she tried at the boys, they gave her the simple excuse that she was a "girl".

Her mother sighed: "Oh honey, do you know what I think? I think that there is probably a planet somewhere, in another universe, where girls like you are considered "normal". And silly, giggly girls that put on a ton of make up and wear skirts so short, that you can see their underpants underneath are the ones that are "weird"" Leila knew that her mum was just trying to be nice, and she was ever so patient with her, but it just didn't help. She fell onto the duvet of the sofa and closed her eyes. She imagined a world with girls like her. "I wish I was already in a world like that, not just dream about one." she whimpered. She felt the sofa creak underneath her, as her mother sat down beside her. Don't worry Leila, once..." "Once WHAT?" Leila looked at her helplessly. "You'll meet the right person, and he or she'll help you get through your troubles." she replied. Leila didn't really believe in all of this, but she didn't want to disappoint her mom, after she'd tried so hard to make her feel better, so she just said; "Sure." and added "I'm going to swim a little." she grabbed her bag with her swimsuit in it and pulled it through the sand behind her, not even bothering to put it on her back. She walked down to the sunny beach, dragging her bag behind her, while wishing that they could stay on holiday forever, and never have to go back to school. They were only staying for two weeks, for they wanted to visit Leila's hometown too, and spend a week at her grandmother's place so there was a lot planned for the summer holidays. Next year, Leila would be going into 9th grade, and she really hoped that there would be someone new coming to her school, who would be happy to be her friend, although there wasn't much chance of that coming true, for every year, if a new girl comes into the class, she would immediately join the "girls' club" and not even give a second thought about Leila.

As she got down to the beach, she guickly pulled on her swimwear and dived into the water from the narrow pier, jutting out from the otherwise relatively even edge of the water like a single tooth. Immediately as she hit the water, she felt better. Water always helped. She was like a fish in the water, swimming rapidly through it, so that no net could catch her. Swimming was the only thing that could calm her down on days like this, it cleared her mind of all the troubles. She swam steadily through the water, stopping only for a second beside the buoy. Why stop there? It doesn't get much more dangerous beyond the buoys. It doesn't keep the danger away. It's not like if you passed the buoys by a meter, a shark will suddenly gobble you up. Leila squinted into the distance ahead. She saw something tiny far ahead of her. "It must be a buoy." She thought. "I'll mark that as my next resting place." So she started swimming toward the strange dot that came nearer and nearer. When she was only a few meters away, she saw that wasn't in fact a buoy, but a head. The head of a boy about her age, who was floating in the water. "Hey! Wait up!" she called over to him. The boy turned. He was muscly, and had a tiny face with button eyes and a thin mouth. He too had hair sticking up, but his was pitch black instead of blond. "Who are you?" Leila asked, cocking her head to one side, like she always does when she's curious. "Me? I'm Karl. But what are you doing out here? You're way outside the security border." he replied. Leila was irritated. How come everybody treated her like a baby? It wasn't fair! Just because she was a girl didn't mean that she couldn't take care of herself. "So? You are too!" she retorted. She thought he was going to say something like: "Yes, but you're a girl. You should be out in the shallow water playing ball with the other girls and screaming whenever someone throws the ball right in front of you and splashes you in the face." but he said nothing of the sort. "You're not like the other girls, are you?" he asked. Leila felt herself blushing. She didn't understand. She wasn't used to blushing. She almost never blushed. Not even when she once wet her pants in play school. Nor when she dropped the human skeleton model and it broke into a million tiny pieces, that took an eternity to put together again. "No, I'm very much NOT like the other girls! They all hate me..." Suddenly, she found herself telling this Karl everything. About the pranks that her schoolmates played on her, and about the way they used to joke with her mom, about the Leila-planet. She didn't understand why she was saying all of this, although Karl DID know a lot about her problems. And it felt good to share all of these secrets with someone else. Leila wondered if her mother was talking about a person like him. Karl listened to her ever so patiently, not interrupting once, and as she was finished, he gave a tiny nod as if to indicate that he understood. "Do you fancy a race? I saw you swimming from far off, and you're pretty good." "Sure." she said smiling. If there was one thing that she could never get bored of, it was swimming. "Ok, so we'll race until the buoys." Karl explained. "Ready... Set... GO!" He shouted and Leila shot off. She swam as fast as she could, and at half way, she looked back to see how far behind Karl was. She was indeed very surprised to see that he was almost up to her waist, and was gaining fast. She tried to swim even faster, giving all she got until she could finally stop at the buoy. Karl stopped at exactly the same time, but curiously, he wasn't even out of breath. Leila looked at him questioningly, while gulping down breaths of air and clutching her sides. "I live here, beside the sea and come down here every day to train. I would like to swim in the olympics, you see." He explained, as if it were perfectly normal to want to be in the olympics when you grow up. "Oh." Leila said, for she couldn't think of anything else to say. She was also a little jealous of Karl to be better than her in swimming, as well as admiring his skill. "If you want, I can teach you to swim really fast! How long are you staying for?" he asked, as if reading her mind "Two weeks." she replied. "Fine! You can meet me here every day at about this time, and I can give you proper lessons!" he said, proud of his idea. "Ok, that's fine by me." said Leila, quite happy that she'd made a friend.