500 word by Oscar Curtis

BEEP, I dived in to the pool. The water was freezing but that did not matter. I swam frantically towards the wall hoping that nobody was in front of me. I could hear my mum and my coach cheering me on, it was important to win because my brother was racing in the same race and he was in a different club. Then ‘flick’ the lights went out. The referee stopped the race and told us to climb out of the pool. So far fate was against us both.

Everyone was wondering what or who could have done this, and to make it even worse I was winning the race. I already knew that whoever did this was in big trouble. The officials went off to check the power supply and reported back that the main switch was broken so the whole gala would have to be cancelled, but they would have another gala in Hereford next week.

One week later

BEEP, I dived in to the pool. The water was freezing but that did not matter. I swam frantically towards the wall hoping that nobody was in front of me. This time there were five security guards guarding the power switch so nothing would go wrong. I got to the wall, quickly I tucked myself in to a ball, flipped over and pushed off the wall hoping that I would have taken the tumble turn to my full advantage. I looked slightly to the right I could not see anyone. I looked in front nobody was in front of me. I was winning and I was nearly at the end. I felt my hand touch the wall, I could hear screaming and I knew I had won.

But then I realised they were not screaming because I’d won, they were screaming because one of the swimmers had gone under, in fact they were at the bottom of the pool. I turned and swam as fast as I could hoping that I could save him. When I pulled him to the surface I realised that the boy was my brother’s best friend, he started to breath again, filled with relief I gave him to the life guards.

That’s when everybody started cheering for me and I felt like this was better than winning. My coach came over and said “well done, you are a hero” then he pulled a medal out of his pocket and told me he had won this here 36 years ago.

The next day my mum bought home the newspaper and on the front page there I was standing with the boy I saved, the medal around my neck and my whole team in the background. On the next page it said that our team had won and we were in the regional final, my brother was so proud he didn’t mind losing. The door bell rang, ‘Ding Dong’, it was a letter from the Olympic Junior swimming association. My smile could not get any bigger.