James.’
‘Hey!’ James yelled. ‘Mission controllers have to train. I’m not that unfit.’
‘I hate all of you,’ Kyle noted, as they rounded a line of trees and reached the edge of the pool.
‘Aww crap,’ James said, as soon as he saw what was about to happen. ‘I hate this game.’
The Olympic-size pool had been set up with a hundred coloured balls floating on the surface. A dumpster at either end would serve as a goal.
‘You’re two minutes late,’ Capstick said, glancing at his huge plastic diver’s watch. ‘Do that again and I’ll give you push-ups. Red balls are worth one point, yellow three, blue five and green ten. You’re only allowed to carry one ball at a time. Barging is allowed, but no holding, no hitting and instant disqualification if you hold anyone’s head under the water. Each round lasts twenty minutes, or until all the balls are cleared. The first team to win three rounds wins the match. The losing team has to run the twelve-kilometre circuit of the island before they get dinner.’
‘There’s five of them and four of us,’ Lauren pointed out. ‘That’s not fair.’
Capstick scoffed. ‘Blame your brother for his slack recruiting skills. Fair is for fairy tales. Now get to your end of the pool.’
The four Crustys and five Currents lined up, fifty metres apart at opposite ends of the pool. A training assistant with his legs dangling over the end of a high board blew a whistle and everyone dived in.
Although wind and currents had blown the balls around, most were clumped in the middle of the pool, close to where they’d been released. Everyone wanted the ten-point green balls first. Bruce and Ning were the fastest swimmers on their teams and each scooped a green.
Alfie tried using his bulk to stop Bruce, but Lauren was close behind. Bruce flipped the ball across, giving her a simple shot into the mouth of the blue dumpster.
‘Ten nil,’ Bruce shouted, as he quickly grabbed a three-point yellow and flung it at Lauren as Alfie locked arms around his waist.
‘Holding!’ Bruce protested.
Alfie was twenty centimetres taller than Bruce and fifteen kilos heavier. But Bruce was super strong. He ripped free, then drove Alfie hard into the poolside, leaving him badly winded. With Alfie temporarily disabled, Bruce and Lauren linked up, with Bruce throwing balls across and Lauren making the short final throw into the goal.
But while Team Crusty’s healthy duo racked up the points, things were going less well at the other end. With a man over, Ryan and Leon played a tactical game, lobbing dozens of balls down towards their goal, allowing Daniel and Ning to scoop and shoot.
Kyle threw balls back and batted Daniel’s throws with some success, but Ning was a fish and James couldn’t get within two metres as she rattled a stream of plastic balls into the dumpster. Rather than a losing battle with Ning, James decided to break along the edge of the pool. He scooped several balls and flipped them up to Bruce as he swam. But as he neared the middle, James found himself double-teamed by Ryan and Alfie.
As Alfie gave James a powerful shove, Ryan dived and whipped down his shorts.
‘Hey!’ James shouted, grabbing frantically as Ryan surfaced and resumed lobbing balls down towards Daniel and Ning.
Five minutes into the twenty, more than half the balls had been cleared. Those that remained tended to be low-value reds and yellows, scattered along the edges of the pool. Bruce and Ning were sharks amidst dolphins, scoring consistently with the opposition getting nowhere near. At the other extreme, Kyle was red-faced as he clambered out of the pool and lay flat on his back, breathing rapidly.
‘Are you hurt?’ James shouted, looking around after hitting the dumpster rim with the last five-point blue.
‘Stitch,’ Kyle gasped. ‘So painful.’
‘It’s the first round,’ James said. ‘And I thought I was unfit.’
With Kyle out it was five against three. The Currents made their numbers count, with their two fastest swimmers – Ning and Ryan – collecting balls and feeding them to Alfie’s long arms near the goal, while the twins did what they could to harass the opposition.
There were four and a half minutes on the countdown when the last single-point reds clattered into the dumpsters at either end. Kyle had made it to a sunlounger and was still clutching his side as the others climbed out of the pool and the training assistants tipped up the dumpsters and started tallying points.
‘You’re bright red,’ Lauren noted, as