English

Stage 7

Paper 2 Fiction 2022

Cambridge Lower Secondary Progression Test
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3138_02_INS_RP
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Text for Section A, an extract from Inventing Elliot by Graham Gardner

Elliot has just started at a new school.

The two weeks after that first day were two weeks of growing despair and fear.

He had the right clothes. He had the right haircut. He sat in the right position in class – not too
near the front, not too near the back. But he knew it wasn’t enough.

The years at his last school had taught him. Trying not to be noticed was doomed to failure.
There were kids who spent their time searching out kids who tried not to be noticed. 5

He couldn’t hope that he simply wouldn’t be noticed, so he had to ensure that he was noticed in
the right way.

Yeah, right, Einstein. Ten out of ten for brilliant logic. Now all I have to do is work out how.

He needed an opportunity. He needed a moment where he could make people look and see
and notice him in the right way. And he needed it fast, before they looked and saw and noticed 10
him in the wrong way.

Every day he scanned the school notice board for some kind of group he could join, a short cut
to acceptance. There were any number of school societies, all calling for new members: chess,
debating, choir, maths, drama… Once or twice he touched the biro in his pocket, then always
pulled his hand away. 15

Football… rugby… tennis… At this place, it seemed that if you were good at sport you were
classified as ‘OK’, at least by the people who mattered. But always he drew back from those
notices, his palms greasy with fear. He couldn’t do it. He didn’t only hate sports, he was useless
at them.

Then, in the third week of term, came a chance of salvation: a notice calling for boys from Year 20
Nine and above to try out for the school swimming team.

He was a good swimmer – he could say that to himself as a statement of fact, not a boast.

He’d just never thought of it as a sport. Sport was about competition, about being aware of
others and trying to beat them. When he swam, it was nothing like that – he was in a world of
his own, a world free of everyone else… 25

But it was a chance to be noticed in the right way.

Maybe my only chance.

The try-outs were on Thursday after school. He arrived at the baths feeling weak and sick.

The changing room was crowded. He saw several boys looking him up and down as he
changed, critically assessing him. His stomach churning, he walked through the changing room 30
and out on to the poolside.

He was among the first to be called. For a horrible moment he thought he was going to be sick.
Then it passed. He stood with four other boys while a square-headed man in a tracksuit gave
them instructions: starting gun, dive, twenty lengths racing crawl.

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Elliot took up his position. His toes gripped the edge of the pool. He didn’t trust himself to look 35
anywhere but the water in front of him.

My only chance.

He pulled his goggles down over his eyes, checked they were tight. Breathed deeply, tasted the
familiar chemical smell of the pool disinfectant.

Suddenly he wasn’t nervous any more. 40

I can do this.

He heard the gun fire. Then –

Piercing the pool surface. Down… but not too far.

Rising. Surfacing.

Cutting through the water. Fast but clean. Every part of him talking to every other part of him, a 45
silent language he couldn’t have explained to anyone who didn’t already understand it.

One, two, three… eight… fifteen… twenty –

He touched the bar. Stopped.

He hauled himself over the edge of the pool – and heard the tannoy announce that Elliot Sutton
had been fastest of the group, and would the next five swimmers come and take up their 50
positions.

At the end of the try-outs he was the third fastest overall, which meant he had a place in the
swimming team. It was as simple as that. He shook the hand of the square-headed man, who
turned out to be the swimming coach, and then had his fingers crushed by someone who turned
out to be the team captain. Back in the changing room the only attention he received this time 55
was friendly nods and admiring glances.

I did it. I got noticed in the right way.

He could have cried with sheer relief and happiness.

As he left, someone said casually, ‘Catch you next week.’ He probably would have said the
same to any one of the other winning candidates, but that wasn’t important. What was 60
important, what made all the difference in the world, was that he’d said it to Elliot.

Elliot walked home on a cloud of elation, repeating the words over and over: Catch you next
week… Catch you next week… It was unbelievable. He’d done it. He was noticed in the right
way.

From now on, everything would be different. He knew it. 65

No maybes.

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