Up for Air

by Laurie Morrison

  “You ready for this?” she asked Annabelle.

  And then there was Connor, right next to Elisa.

  “Of course she’s ready,” Connor said. “She’s Hummingbird!”

  Ruby was there, too, her reddish-brown hair still straight and sleek around her shoulders. Annabelle’s wavy blond hair only looked that perfect if she had her mom blow-dry it with a round brush, and she wondered if Ruby had blow-dried her hair just for these few minutes before the swim meet started. Ruby smiled, which made her face even prettier than usual.

  Except then she said, “I really hope Annabelle’s ready. I want to win the medley relay!”

  “Yeah, we could definitely use those points,” Connor agreed. “Last year South only beat us by three the second time we raced them.”

  Annabelle’s heart rate picked up, racing even faster than it had during the hardest part of practice yesterday. And during warm-ups, she kept hearing Connor’s voice in her head.

  We could definitely use those points.

  She couldn’t hold on to the image of herself leading the team to a victory at the Invitational, but maybe that was too far away. Maybe she needed to start smaller and work her way up. She tried to imagine herself speeding across the pool today with the water giving way, but even inside her head, the swimmers on either side gained on her, and Ruby turned to Connor and said, I told you she doesn’t belong on a high school team.

  After warm-ups, Annabelle reached her arms over her head to stretch them out. Jeremy and Mia were across the pool, on the second row of the bleachers, and Mom and Mitch sat front and center. Mitch blew Annabelle a kiss and gave her a thumbs-up. Annabelle caught the kiss with her hand low around her stomach so nobody else would see.

  “You good?” Elisa asked, and Annabelle must have nodded. “Then let’s go line up. It’s time.”

  There was another relay group from Annabelle’s team and two teams from South Shore. She spotted the A group from South Shore immediately. They were jumping up and down, psyching each other up, and they were huge. Even Elisa was shorter than all but one of them. And the tallest girl with the giant shoulder muscles was probably their butterflyer.

  Against middle schoolers, Annabelle had an advantage because of her height. But this girl had longer limbs than she did, and how could she compete with someone that strong?

  Kayla and the other three backstrokers lowered themselves into the pool.

  It doesn’t matter who’s swimming next to me, Annabelle told herself as she stretched her arms some more. She had to focus on what she could control. Swim her own race. That’s what Mitch would tell her.

  The buzzer went off, and Kayla and the three other swimmers pushed off the wall. Kayla’s start wasn’t great, and the two South Shore girls got out in front of her. A tiny part of Annabelle wanted Kayla to fall way behind, so if they lost it would be her fault. But that was terrible. Kayla was her friend!

  Annabelle cheered as Kayla gained on the other girls a little at a time. By the time she was nearing the end of her swim, she’d passed one of them and was a split second behind the other.

  Ruby dove in and came up for a breath a tiny bit ahead of the girl from the South Shore A team. Her stroke was quick and clean. Breaststroke was usually the slowest leg of the relay, but Ruby’s pace was almost as fast as Kayla’s. Next to Annabelle, the tall, strong butterflyer jumped up and down. “Let’s go, let’s go!” she shouted.

  Pull ahead, Annabelle willed Ruby. Give me some kind of lead.

  But the girl on South Shore was just as fast as Ruby. Annabelle looked again at the butterflyer next to her. The only way she had any chance of staying close to this girl was to get into the water faster. She could be quicker off the blocks and get more momentum under the water before they both surfaced to start their stroke.

  Sometimes Annabelle could gain a whole body’s length on the other swimmers with her entrance into the water. If she could do that, she could stay close enough to give Elisa a shot to win the race, even if the South Shore girl overtook her.

  We could really use the points.

  Annabelle stepped up onto the blocks. Her job was to help the team come in first or second in the league so they could make it to the Invitational. That’s what Colette had told her. It would be almost impossible to do that if they couldn’t beat South Shore.

  Ruby was getting close now. A few strokes away. Now two. Now—

  As Ruby extended her arms forward, Annabelle launched into the pool. She stayed under as long as she could, and when her head broke the surface, she knew she was ahead of everyone else. Her adrenaline pushed her forward as her head and shoulders shot out of the water—she didn’t waste any energy popping up too high. She could feel the South Shore A team girl on her left, but she kicked even harder, and her turn was perfect.

  The tall butterflyer gained on her, but Annabelle was not going to lose enough ground that Elisa didn’t have a chance to win the race. She pushed harder than she ever had before—pull, kick, pull, kick—and she and the broad-shouldered girl touched the wall at the very same time.

  In the next lane, the other team’s best freestyle swimmer splashed into the water, and then Elisa was in, too.

  Annabelle hoisted herself out of the pool, gulping for air. Kayla and Ruby stood behind the blocks. Kayla put her arm around Annabelle for a second, but she and Ruby barely even clapped when Elisa came up for breaths. Why weren’t they cheering for real?

  Maybe that was a middle school thing, to squeal and yell and wave your arms every time your teammate came up for air and could hear you? Except that the South Shore teams on either side of them were doing plenty of yelling.

  Elisa was about even with the South Shore girl, swimming cleanly but not as powerfully as Annabelle had seen her swim before. And after she made her turn, she started losing ground.

  “Come on, Elisa!” Annabelle called.

  Elisa could go faster than this! Maybe she’d pulled a muscle on one of her early strokes? The B team girl from South Shore was almost even with her, and the rest of the South Shore team was shouting. But still, no one really cheered Elisa on.

  The South Shore A girl touched the wall first. Then Elisa and the South Shore B girl, so close together that Annabelle couldn’t tell who’d come in before the other.

  The rest of the South Shore girls rushed the pool, but Kayla and Ruby stayed where they were. Elisa pushed herself up and out of the water, and she pulled her goggles up to wipe her eyes.

  “We’ll get them next time,” Annabelle said. “You still swam fast.”

  And that’s when the official approached to tell them. “North Shore Sands,” he said. “You’re disqualified for an early start on the butterfly leg.”

  But . . . butterfly leg?

  That was Annabelle! She thought she’d timed it perfectly. Her big toe had still been touching the end of the block when Ruby had reached the wall. Hadn’t it? She’d never been called for leaving early in any of her races. Never.

  That’s why Elisa hadn’t swum her fastest. Elisa must have seen the line judge raise her flag. She’d had to swim her leg anyway, but she’d known from the beginning that it wouldn’t count.

  “It’s okay,” Ruby said. “It happens.”

  She patted Annabelle on the back before she walked away, but she probably only meant It happens when you let middle school kids swim with the high school team.

  “We have lots more races left,” Kayla added.

  She gave Annabelle a quick hug, and Elisa leaned in to squeeze Annabelle’s shoulder.

  “You swam really well,” Elisa told her.

  But it didn’t matter.

  We could definitely use those points, Connor had said. And in her first medley relay, Annabelle hadn’t earned the team any points at all.

  Later in the meet, Annabelle swam the 100-meter fly and the anchor leg of the team’s third-best freestyle relay team. The relay team came in fifth, so they didn’t earn any points, either. She managed to earn some when she came in se
cond to the really tall, strong girl in the fly, but when the final scores were tallied, her team had lost by five. Even more than they’d lost by last summer. With her on the team, they were worse than last year, not better.

  After the meet, she sat between Elisa and Kayla. Usually, there was something satisfying about the way her muscles stung after a meet, but today her whole body just felt tired. Empty. She barely listened as Colette told them what they’d done well and what they needed to improve on, because she already knew what she needed to improve on. Not getting her whole relay team DQ’d.

  When Colette finished, Kayla said, “You should come over tonight if you’re free. It’s TV and taco night, and Jer’s been moping around complaining how bored he is with Samir and them gone. You’d cheer him up.”

  But Annabelle couldn’t imagine cheering anybody up when she felt this miserable. “Thanks, but I think I have family stuff,” she said, and then she rushed over to Mom and Mitch. She didn’t even check to see if Jeremy and Mia were still around waiting for her.

  “Can we go?” she asked Mom.

  Mom was in the middle of a conversation with some other parents, but she didn’t object the way she usually would have, and she didn’t remind Annabelle to say goodbye to all of the adults, calling them Mr. or Mrs. whatever, even though all the other island kids called one another’s parents by first names.

  On the way home, Mia sent Annabelle a text with a whole bunch of hearts, and Jeremy sent a video with giraffes head-butting each other. Annabelle managed to send hearts and a thanks back to Mia and an LOL to Jeremy, and then she put away her phone.

  Mitch tried to talk about how Annabelle had lost some power on her kick in the 100-meter fly and she should make sure to extend her arms all the way forward, but she didn’t really listen. She looked out the window as they passed those huge gray houses near the pool—the ones that had stood empty and dark in the off-season but were all lit up now, with fancy cars with out-of-state license plates in the driveways, and big grills uncovered on the side decks, and little kids running around in their bathing suits in the emerald-green yards. Those summer kids were always so happy when they were here on the island. So completely carefree.

  Mom tried the old “You tried your hardest and that’s what counts” line she usually only had to pull out for schoolwork, and Annabelle let out a short laugh. It didn’t make her feel any better when Mom said it about swimming, either.

  Chapter 10

  On Monday, Mitch took an early lunch break and drove Annabelle and Jeremy to the pool before practice so he could help Annabelle do some extra work on her starts.

  Annabelle meant to ask Mia to come, too. She told herself she was going to text Sunday afternoon, and then Sunday night, and then first thing when she woke up . . . but she just couldn’t.

  She sometimes got the feeling that Mia was . . . Not that she was happy when Annabelle didn’t do well at something, exactly. But sort of always keeping track of which of them was ahead. And right now Annabelle was dragging way too far behind.

  “Hey, so I know this is kind of weird to ask,” Annabelle said when she and Jeremy walked up to the pool a few feet ahead of Mitch, who was on a work call. “But could you maybe not say anything to Mia about me asking you to come today?”

  Jeremy’s light brown eyebrows—a touch lighter than the rest of his hair—edged together. “Are you guys fighting or something?”

  “No! We’re fine. I just don’t want to hurt her feelings, and I . . .” She wasn’t sure how to explain it without sounding like she was criticizing Mia. “It was easier to just have you come, since you were right on our way to the pool, and she’s way out in the other direction.”

  “Oh. Okay. Got it.” He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual smile. This one wobbled a little at the edges.

  “Plus, I guess I kind of only wanted you,” Annabelle blurted. “I knew you’d help, and you wouldn’t make me feel bad.”

  And now Jeremy’s smile spread for real.

  Behind them, Mitch ended his call. “All right!” he said, catching up. “Let’s practice those starts!”

  So Annabelle stood up on the start blocks and Jeremy got in the pool, and then Mitch kept making Jeremy swim the last ten meters of a breaststroke leg, even though Jeremy never raced breast. Mitch called out instructions as Annabelle dove in over and over.

  “You can go sooner!” he yelled when she came up for a breath on her fifth or sixth try. “Right as Jeremy stretches out toward the wall!”

  But even though she’d been timing her entrances right for ages, today it felt impossible to start her dive as early as she was used to while making sure her toes still kissed the end of the block when Jeremy’s fingers touched.

  She’d always been able to leave early enough to get an advantage, but not so early she got flagged. But maybe she’d been cheating all along and only fourteen-and-up officials called it? Maybe now that she was swimming up with high schoolers, her advantage was gone?

  Jeremy was out of breath as she passed him on the way back to the starting block. “I’m sorry,” she said, but he shook his head.

  “It’s fine,” he said, panting. “It’s good for me to get extra practice.”

  He took his place ten meters from the end, and Annabelle stood back up on the blocks. She didn’t usually mind the way the rough surface scratched the bottoms of her feet, but right now she couldn’t stand the way it prickled, and she couldn’t bear to watch Jeremy gasp for air as his head bobbed up and down in the water, like one of those seals at Bluff Point.

  “You know what?” she said. “We need a break. Can we get some lunch, Mitch?”

  Mitch hesitated for only a second before he checked his watch and nodded. “Of course, kiddo. We should still be able to fit in a few more tries before it’s time for practice.”

  After they got their food at the snack bar, they settled in at a shaded open table near Mitch, who was catching up on work emails on his phone.

  “So are you excited for your enrichment thing?” Annabelle asked. “That’ll be fun to be in Boston and hang out with Samir, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said. “And I’ll get to do lots of nerdy math kid stuff.”

  That’s what Mia always called it when Jeremy went off to ninth-grade math class or mathletes. “Have a blast with your nerdy math kid stuff,” she’d tease him. “Go . . . equate things!”

  “You’ll be equating all over the place,” Annabelle agreed, keeping her voice jokey, even though she still hated the idea of him being gone for so much of the summer.

  He took a big bite of his burger and wiped his mouth with his paper napkin, but a tiny bit of ketchup stuck to the corner.

  If Mia were here, she would tease him about the ketchup and then Annabelle would be the one to tell him where exactly it was so he could get it off. But without Mia here to tease him, Annabelle wasn’t quite sure how to tell him it was there.

  She waited until he was looking and dabbed at the corner of her own mouth, but he didn’t get the hint.

  “Looks like Bertha stopped heading north, huh?” she said.

  She’d checked the night before, and the shark was back off the coast of Long Island for now.

  Jeremy wrinkled his nose, which was a little pink from the morning sun. “Yeah.”

  “That’s probably better, right?” Annabelle said. “Because if she comes back, everyone will get all freaked out again and that’ll be bad for your dad’s business. And this way the Bluff Point seals are safe.”

  “Her jaws probably still aren’t developed enough to eat a seal,” Jeremy said. “And even if she did, that’s how sharks survive. It’s no worse than you eating that turkey sandwich or me eating a burger.”

  Annabelle flinched. It wasn’t mean, the way Jeremy had said it, but it still felt a little bit like he was a teacher correcting her for getting something wrong.

  “You have ketchup on your mouth,” she told him, and his cheeks flushed as pink as his nose before he wiped it off.

 
; He readjusted his burger so the meat wasn’t about to slide out and took another bite.

  “Are you hoping Bertha comes back?” she asked.

  Jeremy finished chewing and put his burger down. “Well, my dad has that shark cage thing now, so a diver can go inside to see a shark underwater but stay safe.”

  Annabelle had heard Mrs. Green complaining to Mom about it. Mr. Green was completely fearless, which meant he had no problem working way up high on the roofs of the tallest houses for his construction job or taking scuba divers to see blue sharks off the coast. Mrs. Green had told Mom she felt all of his fear for him, and it was turning her hair gray.

  “But he doesn’t take people to see white sharks, right? Only blue ones?”

  Blue sharks were big and powerful, too, but nothing close to a great white.

  “Right, but some people would probably want to see a white,” Jeremy said. “I was thinking he could advertise at the shark museum in Cape Cod. Maybe he could even take scientists, like the ones who tagged her before.”

  “You think?” Annabelle asked.

  Jeremy shrugged. “Also . . . It’s probably silly—”

  Annabelle cut him off. “I’m sure it’s not.”

  It couldn’t be, if Jeremy was thinking it. All of Jeremy’s thoughts were smart.

  “I was thinking if I showed my dad that I . . .”

  But before Jeremy could finish, someone was calling Annabelle’s name, and there was Colette at the side of the pool, holding a red and white lane line.

  “Hey, Annabelle! Come help me get set up?”

  Annabelle looked back at Jeremy, who was flicking his straw with a fingernail.

  “Bananabelle!” Mitch whispered, angling his head toward Colette.

  “Sorry,” Annabelle told Jeremy as she stood up.

  She’d been apologizing to Jeremy a lot lately. But he shrugged and pointed to his full carton of mozzarella sticks.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Go ahead.”