swam and swam,
seeing the sand and
stones of the bot-
tom slide past, and
the willow tree roots
on the far bank get
closer. When I came
panting to the sur-
face, Roger was miles
away, looking around
for me.
The other kids
saw where I’d got to
and yelled, “Hey, he’s
a fish!”
Roger said, “Nah, he’s a shrimp!”
So I said, “I’d sooner be a shrimp than a
big fat whale!”
When we were heading back toward the
bridge later, Roger grabbed me and put a wrist-
lock on me, till the other kids told him to stop.
Then something incredible happened. It
was summer, and all the farms in our district
had heaps of hay to be cut and stored. Some
of them had to hire trucks and drivers from
firms in town to carry the hay bales to their
barns.
We kids were heading for the river one
morning. I stayed on the far side of the group,
as usual, to keep away from Roger. We waited
for a tractor to cross the bridge, which was
still swinging and creaking when we stepped
onto it. “Whoa!” kids exclaimed.
Down at the river, I practiced my under-
water swimming, going right down till I
could scoop up a handful of sand from the
bottom. Roger was doing dives from the high-
est part of the bank, enormous dives that took
him way out into the water.
He saw me watching and yelled, “Hi,
shrimp!”
Usually I’d have yelled something sarcas-
tic back, even if I got picked on later. But I’d
been so busy watching him, I just called, “Hi,
flying fish.”
The other kids laughed and called, “He’s
flying, all right.”
Roger looked quite pleased.
As I floated in the water, I suddenly
realised. I could use being good at words to
stop Roger picking on me, instead of starting
him. I just had to say friendly things.
I thought about it while I did more
underwater swimming. I thought about it
some more when we got out and started along
the riverbank toward the path that led up to
the old bridge.41