Swimming (34 page)
Authors: Nicola Keegan
Tags: #Family Life, #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Fiction - General, #Coming of Age, #Teenage girls, #Irish Novel And Short Story, #Swimmers, #Bildungsromans, #House & Home, #Outdoor & Recreational Areas
A Note About the Author
Nicola Keegan divides her time between Ireland and France with her husband and three children.
This Is a Borzoi Book
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
Copyright © 2009 by Nicola Keegan
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Keegan, Nicola.
Swimming / Nicola Keegan.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-27195-2
I. Swimmers—Fiction. 2. Teenage girls—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6111.E344S95 2009 823′.92—dc22 2009014051
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
v3.0
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - In Water I Float
Chapter 2 - Life’s Most Beautiful Day
Chapter 3 - I-da-ho Po-ta-toes: Arizona Cac——tus: The Dolphins Gonna Swim You: Just for Prac——tice
Chapter 4 - Downhill
Chapter 5 - Christ’s Mass
Chapter 6 - Next Time Up
Chapter 7 - Six Feet High and Rising
Chapter 8 - A is for airway, make sure it is free: B is for breathing if life is to be,: C is for circulation to make your heart thump: D is for death to avoid like a chump
Chapter 9 - Paris Is as Paris Does
Chapter 10 - Thee Thou Thine
Chapter 11 - Without Gravity
Chapter 12 - Hark How the Bells
Chapter 13 - We Fall Because That’s What We Do
Chapter 14 - Wondrous and Wonderful, Amazing
Chapter 15 - Bye Now
Chapter 16 - Dark Angel Laugh and Dance
Chapter 17 - Climb Ev’ry Mountain
Chapter 18 - Press On
Chapter 19 - National Velvet
Chapter 20 - Super Superior There Is But One
Chapter 21 - The Peggys
Chapter 22 - Change the H to a P and You Have Porny
Chapter 23 - “O Lo and Behold” Sang the Angels,: Rising from Their Mucky Torpor with: Clay-Covered Wings
Chapter 24 - O Misery O Philosophy O Jargon
Chapter 25 - Up the Downhill
Chapter 26 - Trials and Tribulations
Chapter 27 - Cold War II: XXIII Olympiad: Los Angeles, 1984
Part 2 - California Catholics: Wear Dark Shades
Chapter 28 - The Complicated Coast
Chapter 29 - And Lo We Offered Our Thanks to the: Savage Shawnees Before Stabbing Them: Repeatedly in the Heart
Chapter 30 - Secret Message Shush
Chapter 31 - Hey Sister, Seoul Sister
Chapter 32 - Swimming in America
Chapter 33 - Babe Takes a Bow
Chapter 34 - Sperm Girl
Chapter 35 - Roxanne
Chapter 36 - And I’m Hungry Like a Wolf
Chapter 37 - How Each and Every Thing Will Unfold
Chapter 38 - Gigantic Gargantuan Fantastic
Chapter 39 - It Can’t Be Done: XXV Olympiad: Barcelona, 1992
Chapter 40 - Eight Is a Power of Two
Chapter 41 - From Here to There and Back Again
Chapter 42 - Down the Uphill
Chapter 43 - Press Off
Chapter 44 - A Man Without a Smiling Face: Must Not Open Shop
Chapter 45 - Destination Destiny
Chapter 46 - Cosmic Drama
Chapter 47 - The Secret Glenwood Recovery Plan
Chapter 48 - Disappointing Atlanta
Chapter 49 - We Fall Because That’s What We Do
Part 3 - Just Tell Me What I Am: and I’ll Be It
Chapter 50 - O Eiffel Tower, Splendid Haze, O Falter
Chapter 51 - Press Mute
Chapter 52 - Dawdle, Loiter, Stroll
Chapter 53 - The Wonders of the World Are Many, But None So Much as Man
Chapter 54 - First to the Wall
Chapter 55 - Press Stop
Chapter 56 - Chopped Up, Universal, Strictly Personal
Chapter 57 - Slippery When Wet
Chapter 58 - Stop! I Bid Thee
Chapter 59 - Sing Noël Sing We Joyously
Chapter 60 - Nature Is as Nature Does
Chapter 61 - O Father, O Father, Resurrection
Chapter 62 - Float
Chapter 63 - O Everlasting Death, You Bastard, Vile Yucker
Chapter 64 - Small and Smaller: Until One Day You’re Gone
Chapter 65 - O Joy, O Sunshine
Chapter 66 - Now, Now