Beautiful Monster Read Free Page A

‘See ya.’
    Without looking back she crosses the foreshore to her coach. He shakes his head. ‘Late again, Tess. We need you in the boat at five, not arriving then. C’mon, the other girls are waiting.’
    She gives an apologetic grin to hide how mortified she is at being late again, unzips her trackie and inhales deeply. It’s bitter this morning. But five minutes out there and she’ll feel like a slow cooker. Better to suffer the pain now than be trapped in the hellfire later.
    â€˜Sorry guys,’ she says airily, sliding into position, the shell hardly rocking. The others acknowledge her with a small smile, but for Debbie, the coxswain, who gives her mandatory grimace.
    â€˜Ten minutes into training Tessa,’ she snaps, as Tess grabs her oars. ‘This is why we always fall two seconds short.’
    Tess tries to block out the negativity and focus on her own rhythm—extend, bend, extend, bend, one, two, one, two. Within seconds they are gliding oilily across the river’s surface. They skim past the low, sweeping peppermint trees whose branches trace delicate patterns across the tannin-stained water. The air still puffs from their mouths like small clouds of white smoke, but Tess is already feeling the warmth in her bones. One, two, one, two. She tries to focus on the regulated motion and forget her morning house, her mourning house.
    It’s like meditation, nothing but the action of her arms against the water and her legs hauling her forwards and backwards. Their unison is perfect. It’s easy to drift off. The silence of the river, the stillness of the early morning punctuated only by the dip and splash of their oars and the occasional swoop and caw of a river bird. She looks straight ahead at Maddie’s back. Chloe, Maddie’s twin, sits in front and, as always, the girls’ movements are identical. Tess pulls hard on her oars, matching the twins’ actions. A memory of her mother, with her wide grin and swinging ponytail, picking the three of them up from primary school suddenly flashes before her eyes. She automatically stiffens at the vision. So different from the vague woman she left at home this morning. If it hadn’t been for the girls and Ned—especially Ned, always Ned—she wonders how she would have made it through the last two years.
    â€˜Tess!’—she is startled by Debbie’s sharp voice —‘you’re out. A half stroke. We’re about to pull sideways.’
    Tess straightens in her seat. The others have relaxed their oars and turn to look at her expectantly.
    â€˜Sorry guys,’ she says, smiling at them, ‘got lost for a sec.’
    Back on the shore, shivering slightly in their dampened lycra, they listen to their coach, Mr Mycock. It brings Tess no end of pleasure to know his first name is Paul. She can’t help but stifle her laughter every time someone says his full name.
    â€˜Regatta on Saturday,’ he says, referring to his clipboard. ‘Listen girls, we’ve got a fair crack at this one. And no matter what, you’ve all worked real hard.’
    â€˜Except one of us,’ someone mutters.
    Tess glances at Debbie, whose mouth sits in its usual downturn of disapproval. For a minute Tess wonders if she imagined it. But no, it’s definitely something Debbie would say.
    â€˜Training okay?’ her dad asks. His voice is the one he uses for her mother, the one that tries to coax her out of bed each morning, the one that implies everything will be all right. But, of course, nothing really is, underneath all this false jollity.
    â€˜Great,’ Tess says, staring directly at him. ‘I reckon we might win on Saturday.’
    â€˜Honey, that’d be lovely.’ Her dad reaches across and squeezes her shoulder. ‘You girls have worked so hard. It’s time.’
    It is time. They’ve been on a losing streak for so long now that it’s easy to pin the