“In third place, with a time of one minute and fourteen seconds representing Northlake’s is Natasha Rowland,” the presenter calls over the loudspeaker. A short brunette steps up onto the ‘3’ podium and collects her medal, shakings hands with the presenter. “In second place, with a time of one minute and twelve seconds representing the Blackstone Bee’s is Charlie Lyons,” she calls again, hence signaling time for me to collect my medal. As I step up, the rest of the squad to cheer as loud as they can for me. “And in first place, with a time of one minute and nine seconds representing Oakley Amateur is Ashlee Barton!”
We have reached the end of the meet and are at the presentations, where all of the competitors gather around the podium for the medals and awards ceremony. I just received second place for my hundred backstroke, which is an incredible achievement for me that I did not expect at all, especially since I haven’t raced in forever. I mean, after my heat I knew I had done a good time, but since I wasn’t racing the faster people, I had no idea how my time compared.
The rest of my races went swimmingly (no pun intended). I came third in the fifty back, fourth in the fifty free, fourth in the 100 free and third in the 200m individual medley. This morning when I woke up to come here, I never would have expected these results. I know this is only a smaller meet, but I’m going to keep working hard in preparation for the important ones which are quickly approaching.
The rest of the boys did fantastic. They have all been training and racing a lot longer than me so it’s no surprise that they did amazing. I would try to list out every single one of their awards but that would simply take all night.
As I take a seat next to Lachlan after receiving my medal for the 200IM, the lady wheels in a trolley full of trophies. “And now we are onto our age champions of the day,” she begins. She calls out the girls and boys 13 and 14 year olds. Jacob actually came runner up! Then she moves onto the fifteens and Dom and Alfie tie for the trophy, with a guy from Eastwinder named Paul taking runner up. In our age group, Amy wins and Jack and Brendan take first and second for the men’s.
“And now we move onto the men’s open division. These are the closest results of the day, everybody! Tying for runner up is Braydon Hamilton from Eastwinder College and Lachlan Jarvis from the Blackstone Bee’s. And the age champion of this age group is… Zander Hale, from the Blackstone Bee’s! Can we get a huge congratulations to all of our age champion winners and every single competitor that we have had today!” she finishes. I let out a huge applaud, along with the rest of the boys, for all of our age champions up there. The stats are in Mr Carmichael’s favour as we have very well out-numbered Eastwinder’s representatives on the podium. Let’s just hope that our boys can keep it together for the rest of the season.
~~
As we are leave the building to head off to Macca’s, I spot Braydon sitting alone on the curbside. “Hey guys, Mum’s parked over by the red house, I’ll be over in a second,” I call to Zander and Amy who I am taking home, before walking up to my best friend. “Braydon!”
“Charlie! You did amazing today girl! I have to say I’m very impressed!” he beams at me, pulling me into a hug.
“You didn’t do too bad yourself. You didn’t win though, not good enough,” I tease.
“Oh shut up, I got two gold’s, three silver and a bronze. Don’t give me that one missy,” he scolds.
“You know I’m only teasing,” I reply, hugging him again. “Now what are you doing standing out here all alone?”
“Um well Bailee was going to pick me up but he just called to say he ditched for his girlfriend. So I was about to look up a bus to get home,” Braydon replies.
“Don’t be silly, you can just come home with me. We are going to Macca’s first if that’s ok? We get staff discounts!”
Work has been a great distraction from swimming and not truly being able to have the life I’m accustomed too. However I’m still only a trainee which is why it hasn’t really become a significant aspect; yet. Lachlan and I have completely gone through everything together though and our hours will pick up in about a week as we finish the last few stages of training.
“But you know we aren’t supposed to associate with each other. What would we do if Darvad or Mr Carmichael saw the rivals going home in the car together? Especially since there are two more of your kind in the car.”
“Don’t speak about us as if we are some kind of disease! If you’re worried about being caught then walk faster to the car because I’m not letting you catch a bus, idiot. Let go!” I say sternly, pulling him along to the car. When we get there, I shove Braydon in the front seat, not wanting to stretch the rivalry too far. Having the Blackstone swim captain and his fiercest competitor from the rival school in a car together was probably not my best idea yet.
“Zander,” I begin. “This is my best friend Braydon.”
“Oh I know who he is,” Zander says slowly, giving him a very concentrated look.
“Urgh, boys. You’re all ridiculous. Why can’t you just keep what happens in the pool, at the pool? I swear to God you people are more difficult than girls. Now Zander, Braydon is a great guy, really caring and wonderful and blah, blah. Braydon, Zander is super chill and cool. Your personalities are a perfect match basically, so get over yourselves and become friends, man,” huffs Amy from the corner of the car.
“On that note, let’s go to Macca’s!” says mum, pulling out of the car park. After Amy’s little rant, the boys loosen up and after us girls straining to make conversation for a while, they become friendlier to each other. By the end of a meal, we have actually managed to get them to laugh with each other and joke around. The sight of my two world’s getting along really makes me happy.
Maybe, just maybe, I can really have both. Maybe I don’t have to sacrifice my old life back at Eastwinder and can have everybody get along.
But then again, once rivals, always rivals.
~~~~~~~~~~
Authors Note
OH MY GOD COOLEST THING HAPPENED TODAY! WE GOT A CALL FROM THE PEOPLE WE ENTERED A COMPETITION THROUGH AT WEETBIX AND WE WON A MASSIVE HOME ENTERTAINMENT PACKAGE
I MEAN WTH NOBODY EVER WINS THESE THINGS
MY FAMILY CANT EVEN WIN THE RAFFLE, LIKE EVER
soz that the chapter was a bit shitty :(
vote and comment plsssss i'll love you forever
xoxo Kataa
ps: this story is now number 588 in humour! so if you could just quickly press the vote button we may be able to get it even higher woohoo THANKYOU EVERYBODY ILY
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Rival Squad
Teen FictionA girl to guy ratio of about 2:70 in a swim team can be defined as both heaven and hell. Charlie Lyons had been a swimmer her entire life. Until three years ago, when everything changed. She took up athletics and soared to all new places, whilst st...
