Page 40 of Oar Than Friends

Coach’s head snapped back to his office, as though he couldn’t believe he’d missed them. ‘Are they now? Well, they can stay there. And whatever unlawfully copied key you have to my office better be left on my desk too.’

‘Yes, Coach,’ Brooks mumbled.

‘Clear up this mess, and go home. And you can expect extra drills in the morning.’

We all had the sense to hold in the groans, even as Coach stormed out. It wasn’t until we heard his car pull away that any of us dared speak.

‘Shit, do you think Coach’ll really report us to the rowing federation?’ whispered Charlie.

‘Yeah, he didn’t look like he was in a joking mood.’

‘What do you reckon they’ll do?’

I shrugged, ‘Dunno. Fine us, maybe? Even if we each forfeit a season race it’s not going to make any difference to us overall. Come on, let’s lock up and go home. Training will be hard enough.’

Five minutes later, we’d locked up, leaving Coach’s office keys on his desk. At least the set Brooks had brought with him; we weren’t about to hand in all the spare keys we had to his office.

The journey wasn’t far back to our house, though thankfully Brooks had driven his rusty old Jeep which we could all, somehow, manage to fit into. It was as we dropped off Joshi, Frank, Bitters and Drake – who all lived a few streets down from ours – that I felt my phone buzzing with a message.

I wish I hadn’t bothered checking it. Because just like that, the evening went from bad to worse.

Dad:

Why have I just received a call about a fight at the boathouse?

8. Kate

(Twenty-four hours in a day and I need more)

‘Do either of you have any idea what this meeting is about?’ I twisted my fork into my plate of spaghetti, trying to get the biggest serving that would fit into my mouth in one go. ‘It feels formal.’

Hannah shook her head with an indecipherable mumble because her mouth was also too full to speak.

We were shovelling down our food like it was our last meal because Coach Stephens had called a meeting. And the manner in which he’d called it made everyone raise a brow – stopping the crew as we’d left this afternoon’s land training session an hour ago, and ordering us to return again at eight p.m. This gave us roughly two hours to get back to our respective colleges to shower, change and eat; hence our current mission to induce indigestion.

Unfortunately, any study time would have to wait until later. I’d planned to dig into the large pile of reading material currently stacked by the side of my bed last week, but it was amazing how many nights I’d been working until ten p.m. before finally crashing, ready for my alarm to go off again six hours later for training.

Following the race last weekend, my first time starting as coxswain for Blondie, where we’d won by two lengths, I’d been put in the running as the official coxswain, andtherefore officially part of the gruelling training programme which would prepare us for the race in March.

I really needed to get better organized.

‘Imo? What about you? Surely you know something?’ I swallowed my mouthful and started on the next.

I couldn’t tell whether she genuinely looked ashamed at not being able to provide the information we were all looking for, or was just figuring out how to deliver what she knew in the most dramatic way possible. It was the latter.

‘I don’t, but …’ She forked an entire meatball into her mouth, while Hannah and I waited on tenterhooks for the Queen of Gossip to finish eating and continue with her sentence. She pushed her empty plate away and leaned forward. ‘Yesterday I was walking back from the library, and happened to pass by the path leading to Pembroke, and who did I see walking down it, but Brett Rogers?’

‘From the boys’ crew?’

She nodded. ‘Yep. And he was sporting a very impressive set of black eyes. He’d either had a nose job or someone had punched him, and his nose was not freshly sculpted.’

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