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    Haze
    Haze
    Haze
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    Haze

    By Erin Thomas

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    About this ebook

    Bram's friend Jeremy wants to go public with information about a hazing-related student death.

    The morning after he tells Bram this, he's injured in a hit-and-run accident. Now Jeremy is in a coma, and Bram is trying to follow the trail that he left. The trouble is, Abby, Jeremy's sister, is convinced Bram's swimming coach is to blame. Bram knows Coach is innocent, but can he prove it? And what will happen if he's wrong?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2012
    ISBN9781459800724
    Haze
    Author

    Erin Thomas

    An acclaimed writer among entrepreneurs worldwide, Erin Thomas always knew that she would write a children's book when she had a story truly worth telling. You are holding in your hands that story and her debut as a children's book author. Erin's mission in life is to build a magnificent existence that is authentically, unapologetically, her- and to help others do the same. For her, it's a life full of far-away lands, powerful storytelling, deep connections, joyous music, big love, unbridled freedom, endless play and giant slices of cake.A Charleston, SC, native, Erin currently lives in Europe with her husband, daughter, a Boston Terrier, a French Bulldog and two cats that think they own the place. (They're probably right.)

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      Book preview

      Haze - Erin Thomas

      ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

      Copyright © 2012 Erin Thomas

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Thomas, E. L. (Erin L.)

      Haze [electronic resource] / Erin Thomas.

      (Orca sports)

      Electronic monograph.

      Issued also in print format.

      ISBN 978-1-4598-0071-7 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0072-4 (EPUB)

      I. Title. II. Series: Orca sports (Online)

      PS8639.H572H39 2012          JC813’.6          C2011-907784-1

      First published in the United States, 2012

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2011943721

      Summary: When trouble arises on Bram’s swim team, he struggles to find out who hurt his friend and to protect his coach from blame.

      Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council ®.

      Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

      Cover photography by Getty Images

      Author photo by Neil Kinnear and Lesley Chung

      www.orcabook.com

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      15  14  13  12  •  4  3  2  1

      For Mike, the crusader of the family,

      with love and apologies for years of

      bad nicknames.

      Contents

      chapter one

      chapter two

      chapter three

      chapter four

      chapter five

      chapter six

      chapter seven

      chapter eight

      chapter nine

      chapter ten

      chapter eleven

      chapter twelve

      chapter thirteen

      chapter fourteen

      chapter fifteen

      chapter sixteen

      chapter seventeen

      chapter eighteen

      chapter nineteen

      chapter twenty

      chapter twenty-one

      chapter twenty-two

      chapter twenty-three

      chapter twenty-four

      chapter twenty-five

      chapter twenty-six

      chapter twenty-seven

      chapter twenty-eight

      chapter twenty-nine

      Acknowledgments

      chapter one

      I curled the toes of my left foot around the cool concrete edge of the starting block. My right foot was behind me, ready to push.

      I was trying out for the Strathmore Academy swim team along with a bunch of other kids. Most of them were ninth graders, a year younger than me. The Sharks called us pond scum.

      I breathed deep, like I always did before a race, filling my nose with the smell of chlorine. The Sharks were about to see that this pond scum could swim.

      I bent forward. My fingers skimmed the starting block. My lane was in front of me, blue water rippling. This was my world. I was focused. Ready.

      Go!

      The Sharks hadn’t even finished shouting the word before I sliced the air in a dive. I broke water, not going too deep, dolphin-kicking up to the surface to keep my speed. My arms pulled me through the water, fighting the drag of the adult-sized diaper I wore over my swimsuit.

      The diapers were for us pond scum. Just like the Vaseline-in-the-swim-cap joke. Or the time they stole our clothes out of the locker room and we had to walk across the grounds and back to the dorms in our Speedos.

      Compared to the Speedo walk, wearing diapers for this race wasn’t that bad. Mine was soaking up water fast, slowing me down. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to beat my personal best. I only had to beat the other pond scum.

      To make the team, I had to impress Coach. But to be part of the team, I had to impress the Sharks.

      I was in the outside left lane, so I couldn’t tell what the other swimmers were doing, except for Droid, my roommate. He had the lane beside mine. Droid was a strong swimmer, but faster on his back than on his front. Back crawl was his stroke. The front crawl was mine. I passed him.

      I shot my arms out again and again. My shoulders burned because my body wasn’t slicing through the water like it usually did.

      Droid fell behind. The wall was in front of me. I forced my body down and around and dolphin-kicked up again, never breaking my stride. This was a short race, only four lengths.

      The soggy diaper slid down over my hips, strangling my kick. My arms were churning water, not slicing through it. I sucked in a quick gulp of air and powered on to the end of the pool. Two more lengths.

      By the time I finished, the diaper had slipped down almost to my knees.

      I tagged the wall and surfaced in one motion, looking to the right to see the others finish. Droid was a few strokes back. One other guy, with a bright red swim cap, was already holding the wall. I didn’t know his name. Most of these guys, even the ninth-grade freshmen, knew each other. They were all connected through Connecticut rich-boy clubs or whatever. Not me. I was the scholarship kid.

      Red Cap pumped a fist in the air, letting me know he had won. Not surprising. His shoulders were about six feet wide. When it came down to a power race, like this one with the drag of the diapers, he had all of us beat.

      Still, second wasn’t bad.

      Out of the pool, pond scum, one of the Sharks called. It was Steven, the one who always looked as if he had stepped out of a J.Crew ad. All the other swimmers had finished. We were never more than a few seconds apart from each other.

      Coach Gordon leaned against the swim team office’s large window. A row of trophies was lined up on a ledge behind him. His Olympic silver wasn’t there though. That he kept at home.

      He gave me a nod, letting me know he had been watching and that he liked what he had seen. I grinned, but ducked under the water to hide it. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. It was tradition—he usually disappeared for the last fifteen minutes of each tryout session and let the Sharks run things. That was where the diapers came in.

      If he had stuck around to watch the hazing, he had a reason. We hauled ourselves onto the tiles and waited to hear what Coach had to say.

      chapter two

      As I stood beside Droid, in line with the other pond scum, one of the Sharks, Jeremy Blackburn, gave me a thumbs-up. That was as close as he could come to saying Good race, Bram. My chest puffed up.

      Jeremy was a senior-year swimmer from my hometown, Storrs. He was here on a scholarship too. I had grown up chasing his swimming records. Some I beat, some I never managed to. I’d never admit it to him, but when I was eight and he was ten, I told my mom I wanted to be Jeremy when I grew up.

      I even dated his sister, Abby, back in grade eight. That kind of put a downer on the whole hero-worship thing. Before she decided we were better off as friends, Abby told me all of Jeremy’s disgusting habits, like the fact that he picks his toes when he watches television.

      What mattered more than the thumbs-up from Jeremy, though, was the nod from Coach Gordon. He was the reason I was here.

      Nice uniforms, Coach Gordon joked, addressing the line of us standing on the pool deck with soppy diapers hanging around our hips. "Boys, I thought I told you not to be too hard on

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