Dallas O'Neil and the Baker Street Sports Club Series Collection by Jerry B. Jenkins

Author:Jerry B. Jenkins [Jenkins, Jerry B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry B. Jenkins
Published: 2013-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

The Dallas O’Neil and the Baker Street Sports Club Vol. 5

The Strange Swimming Coach

by

Jerry B. Jenkins

© 2012 by Jerry B. Jenkins

Originally Published in the US, 1986, by Moody Press

To Jim Ragont

Contents

Copyright

1. Trouble in the Water

2. The Mysterious Man

3. More Cryptic Symbols

4. Johnny Cloud

5. First Meeting

6. The Agreement

7. Real Training

8. Johnny’s Story

9. Evolving into a Team

10. Finally Getting Somewhere—Almost

11. The Last Message

1

Trouble in the Water

I never thought about getting the Baker Street Sports Club involved in swimming. In fact, it was the last thing on my mind. I liked swimming in the lake in the summertime, but I didn’t think I’d like it indoors in the wintertime.

Our school didn’t have a pool, so our gym teachers arranged to bus us to another school that did. We all took our little bags full of swimming trunks and towels, and some of the guys brought goggles and even nose plugs.

The ones with nose plugs got razzed by everyone else. “Did you bring your rubber ducky too? Or maybe a boat?”

We all nervously changed and felt strange, padding through a steamy locker room in a school where everyone else was a stranger. When we bunched up at the end of the pool, wondering where to put our towels and whether there was room in the crowded water, we just stood trying to sort of hide behind each other.

It was as if the rest of the swimmers and spectators had all seen us at once. Activity stopped. The echoing noises stopped. All we could see were new faces staring at us. All we could smell was that pungent chlorine and water mixture. And all we could hear was the muffled rush of the water through the filtering system.

Suddenly our coaches and the coaches at the school began barking orders. We were ordered into the water. “Just throw your towels on the benches!” And the swimmers were ordered out. “Make room for the new kids!”

I hadn’t had a lot of positive swimming experiences. I mean, I knew how to swim, and I’d spent a lot of hours splashing around in the local swimming hole, but the idea of jumping into one end of an olympic size pool with fifty or sixty other kids my age didn’t appeal to me.

I could picture myself bumping into someone or banging heads with someone or winding up beneath someone who wouldn’t have room to get out of the way and let me up.

Once, when I had been about seven or eight, I dived off a pier with another kid for a race. He landed right on top of me, and as I struggled to get to the surface, he just kept thrashing, as if trying to win the race.

He was fine. He was on top. He was above the water, breathing freely. I was panicking. I knew enough to hold my breath, but the struggle made it more difficult. I was working harder than I would have been otherwise, and I needed air.

At what seemed the last instant, I struggled free and gasped for breath.

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