Chapter 1
Fat Boy Fat
“Oi, boobsy. Move your fat butt! We’re under pressure here.”
One rasp from Maddo McCormack in goal was enough to set Jimmy stumbling up the pitch, as though someone had given him a wedgie up the backside.
He only shuffled half a dozen steps, each one making his thick flesh judder. The impact of his foot hitting the ground had him wheezing like an old accordion.
It was hopeless. Pointless. Jimmy halted. Leaned forward, hands on knees.
Gasping.
Knackered.
Somewhere to his left he could hear the flat clack of hockey sticks as the girls played their interschool final. Voices rose through the heat and drifted across to the field where Jimmy panted.
Summer sounds.
He hated them.
This summer was off to a bad start. For Jimmy anyway.
Unlike most years it hadn’t crept in: one wee glimpse of sun in April, followed by three weeks of rain and back on with the winter clothes, bit of snow in May, then a disappointing June.
First of May this year, a furnace blast of sunshine had scorched the west of Scotland. Day after day after day of stifling heat. Night after sleepless stuffy night. Even the ice cream vans struggled to chime through the thick air.
After two months of weather like this, Jimmy felt he was suffocating under his own sticky weight. Made worse because it was serious school sports season. No getting out of it.
At least today’s match was the payoff for eight weeks of peace.
Blow the whistle, Jimmy willed Hamblin, the ref. It had to be game over, otherwise he’d never have been forced from the sanctuary of the subs’ bench. Although St. Jude’s insisted that every pupil had a stint on the field, it was unspoken policy that Jimmy Kelly was only played in the dying moments of a game, and only then if St. Jude’s were winning.
They’d been up 2—1 when Jimmy went on.
Blow the whistle. Jimmy panted, lungs struggling to inhale enough air to let him straighten up, let alone move.
“Jimmy!”
“Jimmy!
J-i-i-i-m-m-y!”
His name came hurtling toward him, screeched at maximum volume. A primitive chant. Carrying the threat–no, the
promise–that he’d be ripped apart if he didn’t snap to it.
He had to look up. Wasn’t going to get away with playing the invisible hulk.
“Never mind them, moron. Get your eye on that ball! Kick it back up the pitch, Kelly. It’s at your feet, man!”
GI Joe was level with Jimmy on the sideline, eyeballing him. His proximity didn’t make him lower his voice any. He bawled as though his lungs would burst.
“Come on, big man. Chase that ball. Boot it up the field. He’s on your back. Aaach! What you playing at?”
Jimmy’s head went down. But that didn’t matter. He could see what GI Joe was doing without looking. Swinging his whole body round from left to right in utter despair. Like he always did when he tried to get Jimmy to shift. Shaking his head in dismay was never enough. Every bit of him had to join in.
Jimmy knew GI Joe’s face would be beet red, wriggly veins bulging from his temples under the line where his bristly crew cut began. His forehead would throb visibly from the effort of screeching down the field at Jimmy.
Later, when GI Joe tried to speak at normal volume, his voice would crack. If you didn’t know what kind of bloke Coach was you might think he’d been weeping.
Jimmy knew–again without having to look up–that even the charitable guys in defense were throwing him daggers over their shoulders as the play moved off up the field. Muttering curses under their breath. Wanting Jimmy taken off once and for all.
Others were more straightforward with their objections.
“What’s the balloon up to? Ball right at him and he lets it past.”
“Blinkin’ liability. Shouldn’t’ve let him on period.”
“Whales can’t play football.”
Jimmy stopped moving.
Might as well have been a universe away, the lot of them. He’d never catch up.
“Kick it back up.
Naw. Up the way!
Up the way!”
They were all at it now.
A dozen voices. Subs on the bench leaping up and down behind GI Joe. The rest of his side charging toward him. Circling like vultures.
“Here, Kelly.”
“Here, big man.”
“Straight back up to me.
Hurry.”
Flustered, Jimmy could barely tell one team from the other, the opposition just clones of his own side clad in different jerseys. All he knew was sweat on hungry faces, saliva stringing from open mouths as two thundering teams descended on him.
Nightmare.
“Kick it now, Kelly!”
Even Jimmy couldn’t ignore that voice scaling two octaves in his ear, or the clasped entreaty of GI Joe’s sausage fingers under his nostrils. He’d have to make contact with that football. After all, it was sauntering almost casually in his direction as though it was out for a wee stroll on the pitch.
All Jimmy had to do was . . .
He gulped. Straightened up, searching the panting faces in the closing semicircle before him.
There was Victor.
Star player.
Captain.
He’d aim for Victor.
Jimmy drew back his left foot, approximated a kick and–
oof–was felled like an oak. His own defense had surged as one to tackle the nifty mover from the opposition who had figured out it would be tomorrow before Jimmy’s cleat touched that football. But it was too late. A superb slide kick shunted the ball just enough toward Maddo’s goal, where the opposition striker was poised.
Bam.
On side.
* * *
“Game over. Good effort, lads. ’Way and congratulate the oppo now.”
Hamblin, ref duties over, spat his whistle at Jimmy. Almost reluctantly, he peeled back the knot of players champing menacingly over the clammy flesh-mound lying winded on the grass.
Extending his long arms, Hamblin corralled the mob away, steering it toward the middle of the pitch. Beyond lynching distance of Jimmy.
Not once, however, did Hamblin check any of the insults his pupils hurled like clods over his shoulders in Jimmy’s direction. Not even when Victor nipped round him and crowed, “Fat Boy Fat,” to an accompanying volley of spit gobs and laughter.
Hamblin was too busy scowling at Jimmy himself.
“Bloody cup lost. Useless butterball shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a pitch.”
From the Hardcover edition.Continues...
Excerpted from Fat Boy Swim by Catherine Forde Copyright © 2006 by Catherine Forde. Excerpted by permission.
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