Chapter 6

The last couple of months have been hard. Preparing for the exams and all those hours of training had taken a toll on everyone. In a way, I was glad to be back to school for a couple of weeks just having lessons and now preparing for the sixth form. But for the rest of the term, it wasn’t like that at all.

On my walk down Churchgate Road past St Mary’s Church, I noticed all the cars stopping on the main road to let kids out; I wondered why they were not turning into the school. When I reached the corner that leads into the school, my question got answered. On Homeleigh Street, which leads to the school gates, parked on both sides, were at least half a dozen vans with satellite dishes on their roofs. Printed in large letters on each van were the names of the national TV channels, BBC, IVT, Channel 4, etc.

Going through the main gate, I found Emma, Pete, and a few others in our group. Emma looked at me with a worried look on her face.

“You know the tests that the athletes had before the event the other day, well nine athletes showed positive for drugs. Seven of them from our school.”

With anger in my voice, I shouted, “Which athletes?”

Emma has never seen me as angry before, and to my surprise, she stepped back before answering. “No names were announced yet.”

At that moment Tony and his two henchmen were marching towards me. When they reached their destination, Tony was a few inches away from my face while his bodyguards were on either side.

“Looks like you got a good dosage of peptide hormones for you to win them races,” He chuckled.

I grabbed him by his shirt, lifting him onto his toes and pushing him onto the nearest wall on my left. I then glanced at the two henchmen, but I think they saw I meant business and backed away. I twisted his shirt a bit, noticing he started to choke, saying at the same time, “What has your dad done?”

That is when Emma and Pete grabbed my arm, pulled me away from Tony, and tried to sit me down on a bench to calm me down while I kept my eyes fixed on Tony walking away with his two bodyguards.

That morning, instead of having lessons the whole school gathered for Assembly. The headmaster announced in front of everyone. “Some students had been taking illegal drugs while training to increase their performance. All the athletes who participated in the events this week will need to have another blood test. They will need to go to the nurse’s room to have it.”

We all gathered in the nurse’s waiting room. Everyone had the same thought in their mind: “was it the tablets that Coach gave us?” If it was, we all knew who the athletes were that showed positive. It was a matter of time for the names to be made public.

When I entered the examining room, the nurse was standing to one side. Seated at her desk were two gentlemen with white coats. They told me to sit down and said this would take a couple of minutes. They told me to roll up my sleeve; one of them took two blood samples from me.

I asked, “How long will it take for us to know what the results are?”

The one that wrote my name replied, “The results will be ready tomorrow morning, son.”

“Why so long?”

“Son, this is severe. The drugs found in some of the blood tests are hazardous. A lot of tests have to get done.”

For the entire day, no one could concentrate on the lessons. It was like the whole school was in mourning. Teachers would try to lecture with no success. Nobody was paying attention, and even they didn’t want to teach. During recess, all the students sat around in the school yard just talked about what happened. Everyone had the same topic of conversation, “Doping.”

The next day at school was the same, all the vans again parked outside the school. It seemed like they hadn’t moved all night, stationed in the same spot as yesterday. They were waiting for the breaking news. It was another nail-biting morning at the school, where everyone was on edge waiting to see what the results were for the drug tests. Finally, we found out who the athletes were. We figured out through gossip at recess, since the students with the positive tests were asked to go to the headmaster’s office during the break. At least Pete and I were not included.

Just after lunch time, all the athletes that attended the event in Ridlin were asked to go to an isolated classroom to be interviewed. When it was my turn, I sat behind a desk while two gentlemen in suits sat opposite as they asked me different questions. Who was supplying the tablets, did I ever take any, did I give my tablets to any of the other athletes, etc. It was more like an interrogation.

I sat through a good two hours of questioning. No one could go until everyone finished. I left with Pete. We started to make our way out of the main gate when I saw Emma there waiting for me. We hugged while kissing then turned to start walking home.

Pete said, “Wasn’t Sarah with you?”

Emma explained, “She waited a while, then her mum texted her. She had to hurry home.”

Pete just turned and walked away. I called his name out, but he just carried on walking without turning back. I turned to Emma, “I’m worried about him, he’s been acting strange since the day he didn’t qualify for the finals.”

I asked Emma if she wanted to come to my house for a while. She happily agreed. I called mum on my mobile to ask her if it was ok for Emma to come to dinner, even though mum always put a plate on the table for her. Emma took my arm in hers to cuddle up to me while we were making our way to my house.