Swim the Fly

Swim the Fly (2009), a young adult humorous novel by Don Calame, tells the story of a teenage boy and his best friends on their ultimate summer mission—seeing a naked girl in real life for the first time ever. The first book in the Swim the Fly trilogy, it received generally positive reviews. It was nominated for the 2015 Lincoln Award. Swim the Fly is Calame’s debut series. When he is not writing novels, he is a professional screenwriter whose credits include Employee of the Month. He used to be an elementary school teacher.

The protagonist, Matt Gratton, is a typical fifteen-year-old boy who lives in Lower Rockville, a US suburb. He has two best friends, Coop and Sean. It’s summer vacation, and they’re on a mission to see a real-life naked girl for the first time. The problem is, none of them have girlfriends, and they are too nervous to even ask girls out on a date.

Matt also loves to swim, and he has a personal goal—swimming the 100-yard butterfly. This is the hardest stroke to learn, but he’s motivated. He has a major crush on Kelly West, a new girl on the swim team. He’s confident that if he swims the 100-yard butterfly, it will impress her enough to earn a date. Then, he might fulfill his other wish of seeing a naked girl in real life. Matt knows he only has until the regional championships to learn the stroke. He’s also competing against Kelly’s ex-boyfriend, Tony Grillo, who’s an amazing swimmer. Coop and Sean bolster his confidence, but even they know it is a long shot. Coop and Sean, also on the swim team, plan to spend most of the summer in the pool.



The friends decide that a great way to spy on naked teenage girls is to break into a changing room. However, they know they can’t go in dressed as boys. They try to dress up as girls, but Sean’s sister catches them, threatening to expose them to the entire school. Unsurprisingly, they back out of this plan, deciding they need a better one.

Matt’s eighty-year-old grandfather is also obsessed with women. A lonely widower, he is determined to get back out there and find love. He sets his sights on a widow who lives across the street, but he is too nervous to talk to her. Matt promises to help him, and together, they work out things that his grandfather can walk over and talk about.

Matt’s mother sells nutritional supplements to make money after his dad left. She sells things like protein powder, which Matt knows can make him stronger. He takes it every day to help him with his workouts, which he overdoes. He is always sore and pulling muscles because he doesn’t give his body a chance to rest. This results in him taking more powder. One day, Matt takes what he thinks is protein powder. As it turns out, he’s taken a laxative powder. By the time he reaches the pool, he is suffering from extreme diarrhea. His friends find this hilarious, but Matt decides he doesn’t swim good enough to complete the butterfly stroke.



Matt tries to get out of swimming at regionals by faking appendicitis. However, the coach and the team know he is lying; they won’t let him out of the competition. Sean and Coop take his mind off swimming with a plan to hide in a closet at a party in the hope of seeing girls undressing. They know Tony will be there, and he’s going to try to have sex with his girlfriend, Mandy. The friends think this is the perfect time to catch someone naked.

Instead, Sean’s phone goes off and he hits his head on the closet door. Tony yanks the door open, threatening to beat them up for spying on him. The boys run away, glad they don’t have black eyes to show for it. They question if they’ll ever see a naked girl or if they’re destined to be virgins forever.

As the summer races on, Matt isn’t sure that Kelly is the kind of girlfriend he wants. He doesn’t know if he wants to see her naked. He thinks about the other girls on the team and the girls at school. He’s quiet and “nerdy” by nature; he wants someone who will understand him—not just someone he can see naked.



Meanwhile, Sean and Coop hatch a new plan—going to a nudist beach. The problem is, they see their swim coach, and this grosses them out. They can’t face going back to the beach or getting naked themselves. Matt forgets altogether about seeing a girl naked, focusing on his swim meet.

Matt cuts a hole in Tony’s swim shorts to slow him down. Tony is stuck in the water with his ruined pants, and Matt wins the race. However, he doesn’t get Kelly. Instead, Kelly gets back together with Tony. To celebrate Matt’s win, the best friends decide to make one last visit to the nude beach—where, finally, they see naked girls.