Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks by T.M. Alexander

structure. We added some in. It looked good. All we needed to do was tie a few good knots, I thought.
    ‘Shall we get on with it then?’ said Bee, nodding at the plan.
    ‘Hey! Quit spying, Callum.’ Fifty jumped up and tried to stand in the way of our blueprint for the raft. Pity he wasn’t taller.
    ‘Go away, Hog,’ said Copper Pie. He gave our number one enemy a shove to make sure the message was clear.
    Callum tried to look as though he didn’t care and strolled back to the Missiles.
    That was all that Team Tribe needed to get us going -the thought that Callum’s team might beat us with our own design. Even Copper Pie, who thought we were going to sink whatever, was sorting through the woodpile to find the right length planks. Jonno and I were the knotters, and raft management. Fifty and Copper Pie were choosers, fetchers and carriers. Bee and Lily were rope substitutes (they held things in place until they got secured) . . . no, they were scaffolding – sounds better. What a team! It took longer than I thought, and the knots were difficult because plastic barrels are slippy, but we were still the first to tell Max we were ready to launch.
    He came over for a quick inspection, and suggested we add a couple more strips of wood at right angles to the main planks to make the structure more solid. We did it in a hurry, desperate to get on the river.
    ‘All ready, Mr Max,’ said Lily. She saluted – girls can be a bit odd.
    Max shouted, making us all jump.’ Mr Morris, over here. We have our first contender for the river crossing.’ And then, ‘Can all the teams stop for a second and come and watch Tribe’s first attempt.’ I was glad he’d dropped the ‘+ Lily’bit ofour name.
    The other kids came over. I had a look around to see how they’d got on. Two of the teams had tried to put the four barrels in the middle – bit random. Team GB didn’t seem to have done anything at all. I looked back at ours. I had confidence running through my veins like blood (I got that from a song my sister listens to, except the word’s ‘lightning’, not ‘confidence’).
    The sun was making the water glitter. It wasn’t very far across to the other side. We were bound to make it if we pushed off hard enough.
    ‘Come on then,’ said Max. ‘We’re all waiting.’
    As we carried our raft to the edge, I realised we didn’t have a plan for how to get on board. I whispered to Jonno.
    ‘Two at a time,’ he said. ‘And we have to keep low, maybe crawl on.’
    I deliberately didn’t look at Callum. If I was going to have to crawl I didn’t want his face smirking at me, hoping I’d fail.
    Jonno turned to the others. ‘Keener and I are going on first. Do the same as us, stay low, OK?’
    I was starting to feel a little bit nervous, but there wasn’t time to think about it. We pushed the raft on to the water. Fifty and Copper Pie stayed on the bank and held it steady while Jonno and I crawled on. It wobbled madly, I heard some gasps from the audience, but we both instinctively went flat on our bellies, which worked. The raft calmed down. I tried to think of it as a surfboard.
    ‘There’s no room for us,’ said Fifty. (Of the six of us, he was the one who didn’t want to fall in.) So we wriggled, still on our bellies, to the outside edges so that Fifty and Copper Pie could slide on in the middle. So far so good. C. P. came my side and Fifty went Jonno’s side, to balance the weight. Two to go, and no room . . .
    ‘What shall we do?’ said Bee.
    No answer.
    ‘Coming on board,’ said Lily. I turned my head to see Lily grab Bee’s hand and clamber on to the raft. I felt her knee crash into me, forcing a gap between me and Copper Pie. The raft lurched, my arms went up to my elbows in water, but amazingly someone must have counterbalanced it. Bee, I supposed. It took a few seconds to settle down, and you couldn’t exactly say we were floating, but we weren’t sinking . . . yet.
    I think people were laughing,