“Wait, I made the team?” I ask, shocked.
“I need warm bodies out there and I’m short on those this year, so you’ll be our second alternate,” Coach tells me. “If two girls can’t make it to a meet, you swim. But you come to all of the practices and meets either way. In the meantime, you’ve got a lot of work to do. First practice is tomorrow afternoon.”
Right about that time, Brianna comes slinking out of the locker room.
“Brianna,” Coach shouts. She looks up timidly. “I want you to work with Malone here. Fifteen minutes before and after every practice. It’ll be good for you too.”
“Yes, Dad,” she replies, looking down.
Dad? Brianna is the coach’s daughter?
“Um, thank you?” I say, since it’s pretty clear neither of us has a choice.
“I’ll take her to get a team suit,” Brianna says. “Come on, Maggie.”
We start heading toward her dad’s office.
“Hey, Brianna, I really appreciate you helping me out,” I say, struggling for words. “I mean, you’re an amazing swimmer. Really great! Like, way better than me, although I do have that first-place award from Camp Itchy Bitey.” Brianna says nothing, so of course I keep talking. “Hey, you’re not upset that Elizabeth swam a little faster than you did, are you? It’s just swimming. It’s supposed to be fun, right?”
“Oh…yeah, Maggie,” Brianna agrees, smiling and looking around the corner. “You’re right.”
And then just like that, sweetness and light turn to fire and brimstone.
“Here’s the deal, Malone,” Brianna says, yanking me by the arm and pulling me inside her dad’s office. “I’m gonna teach you not to drown…maybe…and you’re gonna convince your friend back there to quit the team and never come back. You’ll be doing her a favor. You see, I don’t want her here. And if I don’t want her here, I’ll make both of your lives miserable. I can promise you that. Tell her to pick another sport. Got that?”
“Wait, what?” I say, totally confused.
“Are you deaf? Speak any English?” Brianna says, her eyes all skinny. “Get. Your. Friend. To. Quit. The. Team. Or else.” She adds sign language gestures to make her point. Wow.
I’m kind of in shock and don’t know how to respond, but that’s okay because Brianna has more to say.
“Listen, Malone, there is no end to the ways I can take her down,” Brianna promises. “I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. It’ll be an inside job, you see, my dad being the coach and all. The man believes everything I tell him, so you do the math.”
I swear I didn’t see her head spin around on her body, but it must have because I feel like I’m listening to the devil herself spin a tale of dastardly destruction. Even if I wasn’t good at math, I think I’d get her gist.
“Well, um, Brianna?” I ask. “Why don’t you just tell Elizabeth all this yourself?” It’s kind of an obvious question, I think.
“Right!” Brianna huffs. “And have her go running to my dad and tell him how I threatened her? I don’t think so. Either she picks another sport or I’ll make sure she’s DQ’d from playing any sport in this town again ever. Got it? Oh, and remember, I’ll take you down with her.” Brianna’s bony little finger pokes me in the chest when she gets to this last part.
“Everything okay, girls?” Coach sticks his head into his office.
“Yeah, Dad,” Brianna says brightly, turning and slinging swimsuits onto the floor. “Just finding the perfect fit for Maggie and explaining how things work around here.”
I look out at the pool and see Elizabeth swimming her heart out. It looks like she’s totally found her thing. And she has no idea that this tiny minnow here is actually a shark. Out for blood. Maybe literally.
Chapter 6
When I Turn into a Big, Fat Liar
Elizabeth and I stuff our wet suits and towels into our backpacks and head down the hill on our bikes. As soon as we’re safely out of earshot, she lets out a huge whoop.
“We did it!” she shouts—shouts! “We made the team! I mean, sorry about the alternate thing, but wasn’t that nice of Coach to ask Brianna to help you? She’s so cute, and she’s actually a really strong swimmer! Oh, and I’ll help you too, of course. We can swim on the weekends! It’s going to be so great. Amazing, even!”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I say hesitantly. “Do you think maybe yearbook would be even more fun? I heard the photographers get to use these really fancy cameras and get front-row seats at all the games and stuff. That would be pretty cool, don’t you think? I mean, just because we made the team doesn’t mean we have to do it or anything…” I trail off.
“Wait, what are you saying?” Elizabeth asks, confused.
“I mean, all those laps and not that it always has to be about the outfit, but have you seen the swim team suits?” I say, struggling to come up with reasons why we shouldn’t do swim team, even though I’m the one who was all for it in the first place.
Elizabeth steers her bike to the side of the road and stops, so I do the same.
“I don’t know,” she says, thinking about it.
“And have you noticed the swimmers’ hair? It’s green, Elizabeth! Green! I don’t know about you, but I wore a green wig the year I was a pumpkin for Halloween, and that was not a good look for me.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” she says, patting her shiny blond head absentmindedly.
“Besides, when we’re on the yearbook staff, we can put all our friends on the Pinkerton Parade page,” I add. “It’s a definite perk of the job, you know. I just think swim team isn’t the best fit for us.” I nod my head for emphasis, relieved that the whole Brianna thing is going to blow over like a dark cloud that doesn’t actually ruin your day at Wally World.
“Wait a minute, don’t you mean for you?” Elizabeth asks, looking right at me like I just stole her last Oreo when she wasn’t looking. “You mean swim team’s not a good fit for you since you made second alternate.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that… I just…” I mumble, trying to come up with the right words, but I’m too late.
“You know what, Maggie? I think you’re jealous that I made first string and so now you want to quit. Well, you can go right ahead, but I’m staying on the team.”
“No, Elizabeth, you don’t understand,” I say, straddling my bike. “I’m not jealous, I promise. It’s just that, well, Brianna is seriously going to make your life miserable if you stay on the team. She told me so herself.”
Elizabeth laughs—not a happy laugh but a full-on angry laugh, if there is such a thing—and shakes her head.
“Yeah, right. That sweet little girl told you she’s going to make my life miserable? Maggie, I don’t believe you. I thought you’d be happy for me, but I think you’re just jealous. Have fun doing yearbook.” She puts her helmet back on her head, like a neon sign telling me that she is DONE with this conversation.
“No, that’s not it, Elizabeth,” I plead. “I’m telling you the truth!”
I’ve got to somehow make her believe me! Her life might depend on it! Think, Malone, think!
“Hey! Do you remember hearing about that third grade girl who got her head shaved at a sleepover when she fell asleep first?” I ask, rolling my bike closer to hers.
“Yeah, so?” Elizabeth asks, looking at me sideways.
“That was Brianna!” I yell, arms wide for emphasis, hoping that will get her attention.
“It was not,” Elizabeth scoffs. “That’s some kind of urban legend. My second cousin in California told me she knew the girl who stole her dad’s electric clippers and did that.”
She’s right. I made that up, but I’ve got to come up with something that will convince her to stay out of harm’s way—Brianna’s way. What’s it going to take?
“She told me herself, Elizabeth!” I explain. “She also told me tha
t she put a bunch of Ex-Lax—you know, the stuff that’s about a thousand times stronger than prune juice—in a Hershey bar wrapper last year and gave it to a girl on the swim team who was number one, when Brianna was number two, right before a meet. The girl pooped in the pool, Elizabeth! Talk about disgusting, and right in front of both teams and all the parents! It took weeks to drain and disinfect the Mountain View Pool!”
Whoa! Can I get some fries with that Whopper? I don’t ever tell lies, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, I’m doing it for her—not for me. That makes it sort of okay, doesn’t it? I look at Elizabeth, hopeful that I’ve convinced her to abandon this swim-team madness.
“I never heard about that,” Elizabeth says, looking skeptical.
“Oh yeah, it was a huge scandal,” I say, hopping on my bike and giving her a smile. “So what do you say we just do yearbook?” I cross my fingers and say a silent prayer that my tall tales have done the trick.
“I say no thanks,” she replies, staring me straight in the eyeballs. “I thought you were a real friend, but I guess I was wrong. I think you’re a liar.” Before I can make sense of what just happened, she takes off toward her house.
“Wait!” I call after her—but she’s gone.
I pedal home slowly and consider my options. As far as I can see, I have two: I could just quit the team and let Elizabeth fend for herself—but that leaves me back where I started, all alone in the nosebleed section at next week’s pep rally. The other option is to get my friend to quit the team and think it was all her idea.
Misery loves company, right?
Chapter 7
When I Step into the Coolest Flippers Ever
When I get home, I stash my bike in the bushes, race to my room, and sit down at my computer. I start thirteen different emails to Coach King, but I delete them all. In one, I try telling him that Elizabeth’s family is moving to China, but then I realize she’ll just show up for practice on Friday so that won’t work. In another, I let it slip that Elizabeth is failing Spanish, which would get her benched…only she’s not failing. In fact, she’s a straight-A student like me, so all she’d have to do is show him her report card.
Then I write that I think he should know that Elizabeth has the really bad kind of asthma where she could drop dead from any sort of exertion, so I thought he might want to take her off the team for her own good. That one’s the worst—and I realize I just can’t do it.
“It’s so unfair,” I say, slumping into my vanity chair and staring at my reflection in the mirror. “I am a real friend, and I’m not jealous! Well, maybe I am a tiny bit, but I’m not a liar. Okay, fine, I stretched the truth about Brianna with those crazy stories, but it was for Elizabeth’s own good. Is it my fault she wouldn’t believe me when I actually told her the truth? Oh, what am I going to do? How am I ever going to fix this?”
“Are you asking yourself or me?” Frank says.
“AAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCC-CCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!” I scream, tipping over backward in my chair. I land in a heap on my zebra rug, my heart pounding harder than it did the time my brother, Mickey, and his friend Oliver hid under my bed and waited until I was this close to falling asleep before they rolled out, jumped up, and shouted Gotcha! right into my face.
“Geez, Frank, could you give a girl some warning?” I ask, pulling myself back up into my chair.
“If I’m not mistaken, you called me.” Frank-in-the-mirror laughs.
Frank came with the MMBs—Mostly Magical Boots—and the only way I can talk to him is in a mirror. That’s why he’s Frank-in-the-mirror. Anyway, since I haven’t had the MMBs that long, I’m not always sure exactly how it all works. But this is definitely the first time Frank has just shown up like this, practically uninvited. Still, I’m pretty glad to see him. I need somebody to talk to.
“Well, since you’re here and everything,” I tell Frank, “you got any of that great genie advice you’re so famous for? Just please don’t tell me ‘You’ve got this,’ okay? Because I obviously don’t. Like, at all.” I let out a huge sigh. My heartbeat is slowing to a normal rhythm again, thankfully.
“Which part of this little mess do you want my help with?” Frank asks.
“Well, I… Wait, what’s that clicking sound?” I ask, totally distracted by the noise.
Frank holds up a pair of knitting needles and a huge ball of bright blue yarn. “I’m making a beanie,” he says. “What? Knitting relaxes me.”
“You’re weird,” I tell Frank.
“Compared to all the other genies you know?” Frank asks with a laugh, click-clacking away.
“Whatever. I just don’t know how to make Elizabeth believe me. Or what to say to Brianna,” I explain, resting my chin in my hands.
“I hear you,” Frank says, setting his knitting needles aside. “That little whippersnapper’s a piece of work. Who peed in her Rice Krispies anyway?”
“Okay, that’s just gross,” I say, cringing.
“Here’s the thing, Malone,” he says, leaning in. “You can’t control what other people do…or how they act, what they say, or what they believe. All you can do is be yourself. Stay one hundred percent Maggie Malone—you know the deal. Now that’s some excellent genie advice, if I do say so myself.” Franks nods, pleased with himself.
“But that bratty girl’s going to—” I protest.
“Nope!” Frank holds up a hand to stop me.
“And Elizabeth thinks that I—” I plead.
“No, ma’am, Pam,” Frank says.
“Wait, who’s Pam?” I ask, confused.
“Oh, that’s just something people say. You know, like ‘Hop on the bus, Gus,’ or ‘Slip out the back, Jack,’ or…” Frank continues.
“Not to be selfish, but I really don’t feel like playing a rhyming name game right now. As a matter of fact, all I really want to do is crawl under a rock and wait for all this to be over. Or sink deep down to the ocean floor, far away from this mess where the only things I can hear are dolphins and waves and… Oh my gosh, that’s it!”
“What’s it?” Frank looks up because apparently he’d gone back to his beanie.
“Marina Tide! I want to be her!” I explain, jumping up and throwing my hands over my head. “She lives in Florida… Well, technically she lives wherever her big boat takes her, but she’s off the coast of sunny Florida right now, and it’s freezing here so…I’ll soak up the sun and swim with Skipper and probably save a coral reef! It’s going to be amazing!”
“You know, her life might not be as easy or perfect as you think it is,” Frank says.
“Yeah, right, Frank!” I laugh. “It’ll be tough to decide which of Marina’s seventy swimsuits to wear and to spend all day petting that adorable dolphin and getting a tan! And even if she has to clean the boat from top to bottom everyday, it has to be better than what I’ve got going on here. And since Marina’s practically a fish herself, I can work on some of my strokes and maybe get bumped up to first alternate on the swim team. It’s perfect timing, when you think about it.”
“Well, the MMBs aren’t for running away from your own life, you know,” Frank tells me. “But I do agree that maybe you’ll learn something as Marina that you can use to help you out with this little swim team…situation. Do you think you can keep your eyes open for that?”
“Oh, sure, definitely,” I say, but I’m not really thinking about what he’s saying. I’m too busy picturing myself exploring gorgeous coral reefs and body surfing alongside sweet little Skipper and, most important, not having to deal with Brianna the piranha for a day.
“Then I guess it’s settled,” Frank says. He looks at me a little sideways and then leans in toward me in the mirror. “Don’t forget your trusty genie pocket mirror in the drawer there… I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of mirrors on Flynn Tide’s trawler.”
“Right!” I say, relieved that he di
dn’t try to talk me out of slipping into Marina’s super-cool flippers for a day. “Good thinking, Frank! TTYL!” There’s no way he’s going to get that, I think to myself.
“OK!” Frank yells back, changing from a clear picture in my mirror to a watery blob. “TTFN!”
I kind of love that genie.
Chapter 8
When I Wake Up in the Middle of the Ocean
Not to be full of myself or anything, but I’m kind of getting to be an MMB professional. Last night I laid out my clothes and set my alarm to go off extra early today. (I picked four forty-four because I love it when numbers repeat. On regular school days I always set it for five fifty-five, even though I don’t technically have to be up until six fifteen. I’m sort of strange like that.) The alarm blares and I bolt straight up in bed. It’s showtime!
I tiptoe into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Then I put on my favorite tracksuit, the hot-pink one with white stripes down the sides. Even though I won’t be wearing it when I wake up as Marina, I feel sporty when I wear it so it seems fitting. Plus it has pockets so I have somewhere to stash my genie pocket mirror. I slip the mirror in the pants’ side pocket and zip it up nice and tight. After giving my hair a quick scrunching—there’s no sense trying to comb it or anything, since I’m sure it’ll be wet in, like, five minutes—I walk over to my closet and pull down the MMBs from the tippy-top shelf. They smell like chicken curry mixed with burnt marshmallows. Don’t ask me why, but they do.
I pull on the MMBs and stand up tall. Then I walk over to my mirror. I’ve got to tell you, beat-up old cowboy boots look pretty funny with my tracksuit, but I won’t be wearing this crazy getup for long. “With these MMBs I choose,” I say to my reflection, “a day in Marina Tide’s shoes!”
• • •
Why is there water slapping up against my room? And why is it, like, seven hundred degrees in here, even though there’s a fan blowing right on me and whipping my curls into a strawberry-blond tornado? That’ll be fun to brush out… And the windows in my room have shrunk to tiny, round holes the sun is shining right through. Wait a minute! I’m her! Marina Tide!
Maggie Malone Makes a Splash Page 3
