The Weight of Twenty-Nine Elephants.

Petey has already launched himself from the riverbank, all elbows and knees, as I shout, “Don’t!” from the top of the little dam.

Jimmy and Steve giggle beside me, still clucking and strutting like featherless chickens, slick with river water in the summer sun after squeezing through the dam’s concrete tunnel.

Petey surfaces and gulps a breath. “Ignore them,” I call, “you don’t have to…” but he duck-dives, thrashing limbs and spray.

A faint rainbow hangs in the air, then disappears.

I turn to the reedy water on the other side. It takes a strong swimmer about 20 seconds.

One elephant…two elephants…

But Petey isn’t a strong swimmer. A strong anything.

…four elephants…five elephants…

Still in junior school. Almost a foot shorter. Always sick.

…eight elephants…nine elephants…

They call him Weedy Petey or Weepy Petey.

…twelve elephants…

But my mum and his mum are friends, so I end up ‘babysitting’, as Jimmy calls it.

…sixteen elephants…

But he’s not a baby. He’s a nice kid.

…nineteen elephants…

I realise I’m counting aloud.

…twenty-two elephants…

Hands on his head, Jimmy mumbles, “It’s not our fault.”

…twenty-five elephants…

A cloud passes in front of the sun. The riverbank trees shush and whisper.

…twenty-seven elephants…

“You’ll look after my boy,” his mum had said, Petey blushing beside her, “won’t you?”

…twenty-eight elephants…

Why didn’t I stay with him? Speak up. Stop the taunting.

…twenty-nine…

Petey breaks the surface and silence, gasping.

“I did it!” he shouts at the sky. And the cloud passes.

Prompts
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Action: Checking the time
Word: Fault