Best Served Fake

thirty-three // swimming carnival

"Do you swim a lot?"

"Sure. I mean, I'm no Aurora Anderson, but I go okay."

Aurora was a girl in our year level, and so naturally blessed at everything it almost seemed unfair. She didn't often care enough to bother, but if someone asked her—usually her best friend, Cameron—she'd always give it a go and wipe everyone else out of the water. It was almost a blow to everyone's collective pride to be so soundly thumped by a girl who didn't seem to mind at all whether she won or not. But she was friendly enough that no one held it against her.

"You can borrow the wings, if you like," Kai offered.

"No way, Winx Club. You're not pawning your beautiful costume on me."

He chuckled, and his hand came up to rest on the curve of my lower back, guiding me through the clusters of our colourfully costumed classmates, sitting on the grass with various picnic spreads on blankets and pool floaties and noodles strewn around them.

"C'mon, the others are set up round the back," he said.

I liked the feel of Kai's hand on me, more than I probably should for such a casual gesture. Enough so that I was faintly disappointed when he moved his hand to point out Jamie, Will, Seb and Cora already sitting beneath the shade of a tree.

Cora had clearly organised our picnic, because the food was elaborate and laid-out in the kind of aesthetic perfection that only Cora could achieve. It was an Instagram-inspo worthy charcuterie type of thing.

"Hey, guys," I said, dropped into the spot beside Cora. "This looks amazing, Cor."

Cora blushed. "Thanks."

As with the food, and almost everything else in Cora's life, she had gone all-out with her costuming. Swimming Carnival never had the detailed costuming of Athletics Day—because the hard work would be ruined by the completely-submerged-in-water thing—but Cora had somehow managed to find a costume that made her look both stunning, on-theme, over-the-top and practical. She was in blue house, and had fashioned a mermaid tail out of a shimmering blue fabric that clung to her hips and parted in the middle of her legs to let her kick. She was wearing a blue Ariel-esque bikini top with intricate bead-work that made the cups look like two shells, and her hair was pinned into two braids woven with clips fashioned to look like seaweed. She looked like a mermaid princess, and even though it was totally extra, it was so Cora that I couldn't help but smile.

It made my own gold team attempt look pathetic, given I was just wearing a plain gold swimsuit with two glittering metallic streaks of waterproof paint on my cheekbones that Aurora Anderson had offered me on the bus when she was done applying her own. And given that I had no desire to prance around for the day wearing nothing but bathers, I was also sporting a white crochet dress that hid most of my gold memorabilia. Even Kai was more decked out than me, even if it was mostly against his will.

At least I'd done more than either Seb or Will; the former wearing plain black board shorts and a white t-shirt with RED TEAM hastily scrawled in Sharpie across the front and Cora's red scrunchy on his wrist, and the latter in multicoloured board shorts that didn't seem to signal allegiance to any particular house.

Jamie, in green house, had gone almost as all-out as Cora, though his effort was far less well put-together. But his green... fish boy?... outfit was mostly spoiled by his tense shoulders and the can of bug spray clutched tightly in his hands, as his eyes darted from left to right.

"They're really not that bad," said Seb, patting Jamie's shoulder. "I promise."

Jamie glared at his friend. "Ladybirds are the spawn of the devil and so is anyone who consorts with them."