#irrelie

If John had paid better attention to the calendar he would have realised that his current Earthside rotation was likely to include a session with the Squid.  Sometimes that meant a dive in the caldera with the scuba kit, sometimes it meant being taken out into open water in Thunderbird Four and sometimes it was a gruelling session working on the core swimming and diving techniques.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.  We’re sticking to the pool so no wetsuits required.  Now go dig out your shorts and slap on the sunscreen, it’s time to get wet.”

John wasn’t quite sure he believed the assertion that it would be fun but it did at least look like they would be having a less than serious session.  He didn’t doubt that Gordon would work him hard though.  You never knew when you might be required to take a dip on a rescue and their resident aquanaut was a firm believer in keeping their swimming skills up to scratch.

Half an hour later all five brothers were gathered pool-side, wondering what fate awaited them.  John wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not that this had turned into a group session.  You never could tell with Gordon.  

The pool itself resembled an underwater obstacle course.  Hoops were suspended in the water at different heights tethered between weights and floats to keep them in place while objects littered the pool floor.  The aquanaut had evidently been busy.

If you could count on Gordon for one thing it was that he would only push you as hard as he pushed himself.  Unfortunately for his siblings, when it came to anything water based Gordon would push himself very hard indeed.

With a running jump that turned into a perfectly executed dive the aquanaut proceeded to show them just what was required for the first test.  He slipped through the course of hoops without touching them in one single lung-bursting breath, only resurfacing when he reached the far end of the pool.

He grinned at the assembled ranks in the same way a shark might grin at its prey and any last shred of hope that the session would be easy melted away.  

The brothers lined up to take their turn.  Might as well get it over with.  One by one they made their attempts to navigate the course under the watchful eye of Gordon.  None of them reached the end and more than one ring was knocked along the way but there were some valiant attempts and more than a little rivalry. 

Challenge after challenge was thrown at them, each designed to test a different water skill.  Some required teamwork such as lifting a large object from the bottom of the pool; others like casualty towing allowed Gordon to assess their individual skills.

By the end of the session the brothers were panting and gasping.  Lungs had been tested and lactic acid was building up.  It was with some relief that Gordon announced that all that was left was to clear all the remaining kit out of the pool and put it back in the box.  The poolside was soon littered with the collected equipment and Alan dragged out the crate from its locker to save carting all the pieces back individually.

As the crate was removed some brightly coloured bits of rubber were revealed that had evidently fallen down the back.

“Hey, I forgot we had these” Alan crawled into the back of the locker to pull out the shapes. 

“What have you found, Al?”

“The inflatables we got for Gordon’s pool party the first year we moved here.”

“I thought those were long gone.  Are they still ok?”

“Seem to be.”  He found a valve, brushed the dust off, and gave it an experimental blow.  The shape began to expand and take on the form of a dolphin, albeit a bright purple one.  “Whose was this? Virgil?”

“Nope, that was mine.  Virgil had a penguin” said Gordon, claiming the dolphin and giving it an affectionate pat.  “That was a birthday to remember.  I was so excited that we had our own pool and that I could use it year round.”

Scott grabbed one of the shapes.  “Palm tree was yours wasn’t it John?”  The inflatable was tossed across to the answering nod and John started blowing it up.

“This one was mine” said Alan, claiming the octopus “and I’m sure this last one is a seahorse.”

“Seahorse was mine.  You sure that’s it?”

“Positive”

“So where did the penguin go?  All the others made it back into the cupboard, why not Virg’s?  We could have had a rerun of the races”

The engineer shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of his eldest brother.  He had got rather attached to his inflatable and hadn’t wanted to consign it to the cupboard after the party.

“Virgil?”

“Fernando lives in my room.”

“Fernando” snorted Scott.  “What sort of name is that for a penguin?”

“Surely a better question is why did he name it at all?  I mean, it’s a pool toy?”

“Don’t you listen to the nasty man, Gloria”  Gordon stroked his dolphin.  “Just because he has a silly old tree rather than a nice, sensible animal.  Come on Virg, go dig out Fernando”

Virgil shrugged and headed into the villa to retrieve his inflatable.  How the others had missed that he had a 4 foot penguin living in the corner of his room was beyond him.  It wasn’t exactly an item you could easily hide.  Maybe they had just got blind to the fact it was there, like a piece of furniture you no longer really see because it is so familiar.

As he headed back through the villa, penguin under one arm, he could hear the shrieks long before the pool came back into sight.  It sounded as though the finding of the inflatables had given his brothers their second wind.

Sure enough the races had already begun.  Each brother was valiantly trying to stay atop their float while using a pool noodle as a paddle.  Progress was slow and erratic with a competitor frequently being pitched off their steed or toppling sideways into the water, often in response to a jab from an opposing noodle.  Even John, normally the most reserved of the group, was in the thick of it.

Virgil dragged a couple of loungers into a shady spot, put the penguin on one and stretched himself out on the other.  A spare set of sunglasses was retrieved from the waistband of his shorts.

“There you go Fernando, can’t have you damaging your eyes.” 

this must be what two hours of sleep does