Two days before the event, fliers landed in every letterbox and were given to everyone at school. The day before the event, a television crew arrived from the city. They took over the one motel in town, parking their cars along the street. Gabby was woken on the morning of the finals by the sounds of a helicopter slowly making its way towards Explore! Gabby pulled her pillow over her head but it wasn’t enough to block out the thwump-thwump noise of helicopter rotors. She threw the pillow away and looked at her clock. Six a.m. Normally, she’d be up and in the pool by now but it was getting harder to do. She’d increased her training so much that by the end of every day she was exhausted. Gabby glanced at her table with its pile of undone homework. She’d been too tired to do any for weeks now and her teachers were beginning to show real concern. ‘Gabriella,’ Ms Guildford, her French teacher, had called the day before as Gabby had been walking out of class. ‘A word, please.’ Gabby’s friends had left her to it and she stood silently in the empty classroom.
