Conversation 2

-Have you ever swum in a swimming pool?

-Obviously.

-Some people haven’t.

-Everyone has.

-No.

-Everyone has.

-What if you lived somewhere where there wasn’t a swimming pool?

-Everywhere has a swimming pool.

-Well, what if you were allergic to chlorine or something?

-Yeah but if you were allergic to chlorine you probably would have swum in a swimming pool at least once and that’s how you’d know you were allergic.

-What if you couldn’t afford to go to the swimming pool? Swimming is expensive.

-You probably would have gone with school.

-Have you ever nearly drowned in a swimming pool?

-Yes.

-Really?

-Yeah- this horrible girl I went to school with held me under the water and wouldn’t let me up.

-Why didn’t you just kick her?

-I did but she just kicked me back and carried on pushing my head down. She was much bigger than me.

-Why didn’t the lifeguard do anything?

-He did, eventually.

-How long were you under water?

-I don’t know. It probably wasn’t that long but it felt like forever.

-It sounds horrible.

-It was. My nose was running loads and I was crying and the lifeguard had to call my grandma to come and pick me up because my mum was at work.

-That’s embarrassing.

-I never wanted her to pick me up from anywhere because she had all these dogs and when you opened the car door all the dogs would jump out and run off. And the car was really old and falling apart and the doors were all different colours. And my grandma herself was really weird. She was a bit of a hippy- she always wore these patchwork trousers and these sandals made out of rope or something. And she dyed her hair orange. So she barged into the baths, calling my name and all the dogs ran in and the receptionist was going mental and shouting “Get those dogs out of here!” and my grandma came over to me and picked me up like a baby and walked out with me in her arms. Everyone was at the pool that day- everyone.

-Jeez.

-Yeah, pretty much. That was on a Friday afternoon. I spent the whole weekend with my head under a pillow, just remembering it and groaning and imagining school on Monday and groaning. I begged mum to let me stay at home but she said no. So I put on my uniform and pretended I was leaving for school but instead I ran to the park and hid in these bushes all day.

-What was it like when you did go back to school?

-It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. A few people said some stuff but after a while everyone just forgot about it.

-Apart from you.

-Yeah.