By Anna Hug
When we were kids, Mum used to drive us to Plas Madoc Leisure Centre in Wales. It was a long brick building with a curved roof and an oversized blue sign that stood out against the slate sky. Inside it smelt strongly of chlorine. Signs on the wall around the pool forbade running or jumping. And one, with a cartoon couple locked in an embrace, warned against heavy petting. But how exotic it was to my seven-year-old mind, this tropical lagoon with its fake desert island, tube slide and green plastic crocodile. Once my pale body in its baggy mauve swimsuit was in the water, I was some place else altogether. Especially when the siren sounded and the wave machine started. Waves that reached above my Dad’s head would advance across the water. If I stayed in the shallow end I could jump them. But if I ventured into the deep, where the Welsh boys whooped and ducked each other, I was there in the ocean.
· Another one by Anna, in which she makes every word count. The scene is vivid, thanks to the masterful descriptive detail. She has a well established voice – the style and tone that is each writer’s signature. For a different treatment of the same topic, and a different voice, read Waves by Carri Kuhn.
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