My butt is going to fall off.
Carbon fibre paddle tapping the water, my entire body wobbling in the slim, wooden kayak. The water around me ripples as I shake and tremble in my seat.
“Woah, damn, Haven. Going to capsize?” Liz zooms past me, flaunting her stability in the boat.
“Shut. Up.”
Liz laughs. “Aw, Haven’s being a little grumpy queen again!”
I wish to the heavens that they give her what she deserves and seconds later, they do. From her side, a junior fails to stop properly and crashes into her.
“K1 watch out!” She growls at the poor boy, and with good reason; crashing boats merits an individual hundred and fifty push ups and occasionally an extra hundred for the team.
Leisure kayaking is fun----if we had been doing it. But this is competitive kayaking, where the boats are thinner than the average chair, your ass gets squeezed to dust, balancing is akin to tight roping, and peeing in the reservoir is as common as seeing a loner in Starbucks.
I tap the water some more, then dig the paddle into the water and propel myself forward. The program today is thirteen kilometers in two hours. Half an hour has gone and I’m barely on my second kilometer. Liz tries to get me to capsize, teasing and joking and generally being an asshole--but she loses interest in me easy enough and moves on to finish the lap before she gets punished.
Today’s wind flies at 27 kilometers an hour. My hair is flying in my mouth and the wind is pushing me backward. Every stroke is pretty much futile.
There is a cry and a splash behind me and it takes all my willpower not to turn. Seeing someone capsize is as good as capsizing yourself.
But then there’s a loud, dreaded purring of an engine and I can’t help but curse my luck. The speedboat creates a radius of waves of not only water but capsizing boats.
“Please, please, don’t let me capsize.” I speed up, but before I know it the speedboat is next to me, the resulting waves literally jumping over my boat and sloshing into my seat as I swear and swear some more.
My kayak tilts; I smash my paddle onto the water, try to right myself, my entire body clenching from the rush of adrenaline.
Then I flip, the kayak flipping with me, and I’m plunged into the shit-and-pee infested, dark, murky waters of the reservoir.
I can recite the SOP of capsizing in my sleep:
Flip the boat. The longer it stays upside down, the more water streams in, the higher the chances you’re going to sink five grand.
Get everything that floated out of your boat. Water bottle, paddle, etc.
Assess the situation. How far are you from the nearest pontoon? The worst area to ever capsize in was the middle of the five hundred mark and one kilometer mark. That would be swimming while dragging a floating nine kg weight for two hundred and fifty meters either way.
I break the surface of the water, breathe deep to replace the lost air in my lungs. The boat floats idly beside me. Yes, human, dare ride me again?
I lash an arm around the bow, when a piercing pain shoots up my ankle. Pain like fire, like there are needles stabbing at my foot. My vision goes red for a second. I gasp in shock. In pain.
Get up on the boat. Come on, come on. I flip the boat, grab my paddle and bottle and chuck both into the boat. My hands are shaking. The pain has not receded. It throbs, crashing over me again and again like waves. It’s mind numbing and it makes me want to scream.
Something soft curls around my foot and starts to drag me down. I latch onto the boat, muscles straining against the unseen force. What the hell? Never, never, have I ever heard of this kind of thing happening in the reservoir; dozens of schools, thousands of students, and out of all the kayakers and canoeists, why is this happening only now?
The bow tips down into the water; the stern is rising. Whatever is pulling me is winning. My shirt rides up. My shorts billow with water.
I’m going to drown.
The water creeps up to my chin and tickles my jawline.
I’m going to die.
Water laps at my lips. If I don’t do something now, I’m as good as dead.
I take in a deep breath, and scream.
The first kayaker is here in seconds. He stops by me, jamming his paddle into the water. “Are you okay?”
“Help,” my voice comes out in a raw croak. “Something’s pulling me down.” As I say this, the force drags me down a little more and water enters my lips. I spit it out, purse my lips together. The boy’s eyes widen and he reaches for me. I reach out for him and our hands encircle each other’s wrists.
“Shit!” The boy gasps as he almost capsizes. “Help! Someone’s drowning!” He yells, knuckles white on my arm.
The next person who comes is Liz. “What’s happening?” I’m trembling all over. The boy sees this and explains the situation quickly to Liz.
“Haven, oh god, you’re so pale.” She grabs my other arm. “Coach! Coach! We need help!” Liz’s water voice carries across the entire reservoir.
The weight of whatever it is is becoming heavier on my legs, and the pain intensifies. I cry out. I think I’m crying but I don’t know. I’m going into a state of hysteria. It’s work, trying to get air into my lungs. I hear shouting, yelling, then a pair of large hands, sliding under my arms and pulling me out of the water.
The pressure on my leg eases and dissipates. “Breathe.” I hear Liz demand in my ear. Deep breath. Nice and slow.
I was definitely crying. My eyes are puffy. Coach has plopped me at the back of a double junior kayak, eliminating all chances that I’m going to capsize.
“Let me see your leg.” I stick my leg out of the boat, still too tired to look. Chances were, it was perfectly fine. Maybe I just had a panic attack, or there was a fish on my leg, or-
“Oh my god!” Liz gasps.
Or maybe not.
“Should I look?” I turn to Liz wearily, pointedly turning my gaze from my leg. Liz shakes her head firmly.
“Bring her back as fast as you can.” Coach tells the person sitting at the front of the kayak. “Haven, the moment you’re on shore I’ll carry you back to the shed. I don’t know what’s going to happen from there but I’m going to need you to calm down and keep a cool head.” To the boy who first helped me: “Get your coach to round up your entire school and inform the Canoe Federation. All water activities have to stop for now.”
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