By Lilia C.

The birds sang to the rhythm of the wind, the trees swayed side to side in synchrony, and the sun brightly shone above me.The white clouds were swimming in the blue sky having the time of their lives. 

That day was Tuesday, which only meant one thing: early morning training. Morning and training are two words that do not go well together. The two of them send chills down my spine. I woke up  at 4.30am in terror of being late to training and then I biked all the way to the pool.Yet, I still could not imagine a life without swimming. Everytime I thought of swimming, my heart skipped a beat. The pool is my second home. Sometimes, I even feel like I swim all year long.

Once I finished my training, I had to bike as fast as possible to school. As I was biking, I felt my short, brown hair flow behind me and the morning sun beat on my face. That was the feeling I enjoyed the most in my early mornings.

I finally arrived at school and parked my bike. I locked my bike briskly so that I wouldn’t be late to class. However, with my pitiful luck, almost immediately, it toppled over and tripped the twenty bikes parked beside it. “Nooooo!” I moaned as I bent down and began to pick up the bikes. To make matters even worse, I was now at least four minutes late and I had nineteen more bikes to put away. When I bent down, a petrifying sight awaited me. There was a piece of paper with my name on it.

It said, “Don’t you think that she is doing too much swimming? Even if she is my friend, I’m starting to hate her.”

I felt a lump in my throat. I hurriedly stuffed it into my pocket and started walking to class. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t me they were talking about. But there was something about that handwriting that I couldn’t put my finger on. I loved my friends just as much as I loved swimming, so surely they wouldn’t write that about me. I once even put them on my family tree school project. Relief swept over me as I saw Rebecca’s  bright face and glowing smile waving to me. 

“Hi,” Rebecca said with a wave. 

 Rebecca was my best friend. She had long, dark hair and many freckles. Her deep, blue eyes were always like daydreaming or glaring at a piece of paper. She adored drawing and she had just won an art competition at school that week.She was already heading to the classroom with her notebooks.I didn’t dare ask her about the note I found earlier. It was definitely not her, I said to myself. However, I was not sure if she was still mad at me for missing her birthday party held at the art gallery. I had told her that I had an important swimming competition to attend. And I did. I would never lie to my friends, but I was not sure if they would lie to me.

As soon as I stepped in the hallway, the smell of sweat filled my nostrils. I spent a minute or two sniffing the hallway from top to bottom, looking like a total maniac. Then, I figured out it was just me. All the biking must have caused me to smell like my brother’s tennis socks! I shivered just at the thought of his stinky socks lying on my bed. 

Soon enough, the whole school could smell the stinky stench wafting around the hallway. I felt my face turning pink in embarrassment. I decided to play cool with it and I headed to class. After all, “ Whoever smelt it, dealt it”.

 I dumped myself onto my chair and I suffered a whole double algebra until break started. I didn’t pay much attention to the class because of the note. But, I didn’t really care.  When the bell rang, everyone instantly got up and started filing out of the classroom. 

That’s what I was doing with my friends Rebecca, Mia and Violet.  However, the game soon reached an end because Violet had something to say. 

“I have invited all of you to my sleepover party on the 7th of June,”she said, handing out rainbow coloured invitations. They were pink and sparkly with all sorts of creatures like unicorns and cats. I did not like the invitation but loved Violet. She was my friend, right?

“Oh no!” I exclaimed, staring at the invitation. “I have a competition that day”! 

“Oh…,” Violet sighed, looking disappointed. 

“ We can have a separate sleepover  for only the two of us, do not worry,” added Violet. 

“Okay then,  thanks and…sorry for this,” I said.

I looked closely into Violet’s eyes. They glistened. Not with tears. It was almost as if she was happy. I shook my head vigorously. What are you thinking! Obviously she wouldn’t be happy that you are not going to her party. 

All was going fine until Rebecca pulled me aside to talk. 

I was puzzled and did know why she had pulled me aside. 

“Look,” she murmured in an angry tone. “It’s getting silly now, you and your swimming. First, you miss my party and now you are missing Violet’s party?! You are getting boring now. Just stop and enjoy life for goodness sake!!”. 

A wave of anger swept over me. I felt as if a knife had pierced through my heart. It made my blood boil. Half of me wanted to shout back, half of me was paralyzed in silence. I was afaid of shouting back. She was the Queen bee, I was just a regular classmate.If I shouted back, what would everybody think of me?I felt as if the whole world was watching me and waiting for me to respond. Time had stopped. I did not want to hurt her feelings even if she did hurt mine, so I decided to say nothing.

Weeks had passed and the day of the competition suddenly crept up on me. That day, I woke up super early because I wanted to get a good warmup swimming at the pool. I was swimming 50 backstroke, my favourite race. The sun was making the pool glittery, swimmers were cheering up other teammates and the music was flowing out of speakers to pump up the swimmers. 

 After what felt like years of waiting, it was my turn to swim. I was swimming against the best of my age group, and  I had a high chance to come last. Silence filled the building. This was my moment to shine, to prove to everyone that I could do it. I jumped into the water, ready to pounce. But then a little voice in my head said, Remember what Rebecca said. I remembered all and soon enough her mean words were echoing inside me. 

“It’s too late now, you’re in the water, and we all know that your heart belongs to the pool, so ignore your friend’s words, and continue on doing what you love,” said a little voice in my head.  

I stopped and focused.  As soon as I heard the buzzer, I leaped ahead and swam like I never swam before. My arms and legs were pushing and kicking, my mind was only focused on swimming and for once I didn’t care about what people said and thought about me. 

That day, I crushed it and won a gold medal. Standing on the highest podium was a dream I had always had, and it finally came true. It was a truly uplifting  moment and I felt a warm glowing feeling in my heart, one that I never felt before.                                                                           

The summer flew by, and I was in Year 8 in no time. Rebecca, Violet and Mia were placed in the other class after the summer so I used the opportunity to make new friends.I never found out who wrote the letter. But it didn’t bother me anymore.  

There was a new girl named Sofia who loved football as much as I loved swimming. Before long, we were best friends. She didn’t care about how many parties I missed or how many times my hair was wet after swimming.

 And most of all, she understood me. 

The End.

About the Author

Lilia C. is a ten-year-old girl who is passionate about swimming. She was born and grew up in Denmark and has Italian parents. Lilia has just moved to Italy where she is living near Milan. With four eager siblings, she has learned to follow her true passions of swimming and writing. In writing this story, she was inspired by her true struggles with swimming and friends.