Spartacus Ryan Zander and the Secrets of the Incredible

by Elwood, Molly;

  Not like I’d thought out that scene or anything.

  Will was the right person. He was my opposite—and maybe he was for a reason. So we could balance each other out or whatever. Help each other. You know, if he ever stopped picking on me.

  Call me an optimist.

  Look, I know what you’re thinking—Will would refuse to go. But I was sure that if I could just get him to really look at all the evidence (and also see that I was going with or without him), he’d have to say yes. It was just a matter of finding a good time to ask. But when your relationship is built entirely on trying to avoid getting punched in the stomach, there isn’t a “good time.” And so the right time still hadn’t come when Will pulled the Worst Prank Ever on me.

  And there have been some bad ones. Like when he used a syringe to inject my unopened yogurt with a laxative. Or the time he convinced me the house was haunted by writing messages on mirrors (and in my food) before finally putting a live squirrel in my room in the middle of the night. No. Those were just jokes. Teasers. Child’s play. They were nothing compared to what he had planned for me this time.

  What I’m trying to say is that Will (and by default, Dad) left me no choice but to save my mom on my own.

  Chapter Two

  Brenville is just a blip on people’s drives across Oregon, trips to bigger cities—cities with stop lights and things to do. We once had a place to rent movies, but it closed. There’s a park with two benches and a broken water fountain, but that’s it when it comes to entertainment. Other than the pool.

  Brenville has a real, Olympic-sized public pool with the full ten lanes and a thirty-three-foot high dive. If you haven’t seen one, try picturing a giant tower with three diving platforms. And the highest one? It’s a ridiculous thirty-three feet up.

  Yeah. Thirty-three feet. That means the pool has to be seventeen feet deep.

  So why is this pool in Brenville? A town that doesn’t have a chain restaurant or a store that sells things like shoes or hats? Well, years ago, some rich dad wanted his kid to swim in the Olympics—so he built her a pool. She lost interest, of course, and they eventually moved away and donated the pool to the town.

  During the summer, pretty much every kid lived at the pool. As far as we were concerned, the high dive was it. The whole chili dog of existence.

  Except, no one under eighteen was allowed off the high dive—and, face it, adults weren’t interested (not even my mom, for some reason). So while everyone talked about going off it, only Will broke the rules and actually did. Sure, a few others did some nothing-spectacular, ho-hum cannonballs from the mid-level platforms, soaking everyone. But Will? He was an honest-to-god diver. He took his time before leaping off the platform and slicing into the water like a knife.

  I didn’t know how he got so good; he didn’t practice that much. I mean, really, he couldn’t. He usually had to have a friend around to distract (or pin down) the lifeguard when he went up. So he didn’t go up that often. Maybe he was a natural athlete, like Mom. Seeing him up there, hearing all the other kids Oooh and Aahh, was one of the few times I was proud he was my brother.

  Everyone wanted to dive like Will. I’d even been up on the platform once to check it out, thinking maybe I’d try a cannonball. But thirty-three feet is high. Like stupid high. I figured you had to be kind of crazy, like Will was, to do something like that.

  I must have mentioned the high dive too many times at home, though, because Dad seemed to get it in his mind that I really wanted to do it. (And no, Dad didn’t give two finks about the age restriction.) Actually, I would have been quite happy living the rest of my life in Wimpdom. I could have grown to be an old man of forty, with kids of my own, and not have felt the least bit sad I’d never jumped off the high dive.

  But, according to Dad, if I wanted it so badly, I should just do it. See, just because Dad thought Mom joining the circus was unacceptable, that doesn’t mean he was against me doing wild things. My mom bungee-jumping off an overpass? Frowned upon. Me risking my life jumping from, like, a mile in the air? Yes, perfectly fine.

  I think he was just upset that one of his sons was defective. With Will being the fearless weirdo he was, and my mom being what she was, I should have been less afraid. It’s like my fear of diving represented all my shortcomings, wrapped up in one perfect, shameful package.

  “So, did you go off the high dive today or what?”

  Almost every summer dinner conversation began with this question. During the last week of school, while I was focused on my rescue mission, Dad focused on the high dive with even more excitement than the year before. He was like a bear trap with my foot caught in it—and he wouldn’t let go. This summer would be the Diving Summer. He actually said that: “The Diving Summer.” That’s when I felt I needed to speak up.

  “Dad, I know the diving board is important to you,” I half mumbled to both him and my plate. “But it’s not important to me.”

  While I said this, he just shook his head in a mixture of sympathy and disgust. Mostly disgust.

  “I just don’t get you, Ryan,” he said. “You’re thirteen now, a teenager.”

  “I’m twelve, Dad.”

  “Basically, you’re thirteen. And I mean, really, it’s not that high.”

  I bit my tongue. Yeah, falling thirty-three feet through the air was a piece of cake. That’s why there were so many Olympic high divers around.

  “Besides,” he continued, “you can’t go through life being scared of things. When I was a kid, I was afraid of—well, I was afraid of.…” Dad looked thoughtful. “Well, I could imagine what it would be like to be scared of, like, say, crowds or something. But I wasn’t, of course. I’m just saying that I know what it would be like. And that I’d get over it already.”

  There was no point in telling him that I wasn’t going to do it. So I kept quiet and that seemed to be the end of it, at least for that night.

  But that wasn’t the end of it.

  The next day, Will “accidentally” ran over my binoculars while “speed mowing” the lawn. Before I got a chance to tell Dad, Will cornered me and said he felt bad about it. He said he would teach me to dive, to be just like him. He said we could sneak into the pool late at night so no one would know I was practicing.

  “Let me make it up to you. You’ll be famous,” he said. “The girls are gonna go nuts.”

  First—yes. Red flags galore. Will doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t do favors. He doesn’t “make it up to me.” Ever.

  But.

  But I said yes.

  I know; this goes against everything I just said. But it was the night before the last day of school, and I was set to leave in a week. Even as I shook my head as Will tried to persuade me, I had a horrible but brilliant realization: If we bonded with the diving stuff, Will would have to go on the rescue mission with me.

  How could he not?

  And when you got down to it, I really needed Will.

  Besides, I reasoned, maybe I wouldn’t even have to dive, just…you know, show up and try. Get Will to like me for me, and all that garbage.

  It was a Hail Mary, but maybe, just maybe it would work.

  Okay, and if I’m being honest here, I was also kind of interested in the “girls going nuts” part. Well, there was actually only one girl I wanted to go nuts. Her name was Erika Dixon. Erika had gone to school with Eli and me since the second grade, and I could barely remember a time when I didn’t have a crush on her. She was pretty and smart and popular. She also smelled like cinnamon all the time, which made no sense to me, but might have explained me liking her so much because cinnamon is my favorite spice.

  Oh, and Erika never called me Poop Lip. Even after the time in fifth grade when I burnt her dress with Eli’s homemade arc-welding science project (which he got a D on because of the danger level). So she wasn’t rude to me even after I lit her on fire, which was a
plus. However, when I wasn’t burning her stuff, she didn’t have two words to say to me. So, as much as I was thinking about the rescue mission, I have to admit my mind might have been on Erika a teeny bit, and the fact that she’d have to notice me if Will came through and taught me to dive.

  Not that I was going to actually dive, because I wasn’t crazy. But you know, the mind wanders a bit…

  But I’m sure you’ve already guessed that I should have told Will no, right? That perhaps him teaching me was only setting the stage for the Worst Prank Ever? That I shouldn’t have trusted him, shouldn’t have gone to the pool, shouldn’t have hoped I was on the brink of a brand-new brother?

  You’d be right.

  But try as I might to get a read on him, he seemed sincere. He seemed apologetic about my binoculars. He seemed—well, like Dad might have put him up to it. And like I said, I needed Will. So the very same night he offered, the night before the last day of school, I went with Will to the pool.

  Will knew how to sneak in through a part of the fence that wasn’t connected to the backside of the building. He just rolled the chain links back and we slipped in. He even knew where the light controls were. It was like he owned the place.

  I stood on the cement pool deck while Will fiddled with the light for the pool. The ground was dry—it was never dry, but then again, I’d never been there after the pool closed. Crickets hummed in the dark night, but they stopped, startled, the moment the pool lit up. It was a surreal, emerald green and its surface threw wavering diamond shapes up the side of otherwise dark, ominous diving tower.

  And it was terrifying. The only thing that kept me from bolting was the thought of the rescue mission. I just had to fake that I was going to dive for a little bit longer, and then I could start working on convincing him to come with me.

  “You gotta get used to the height first,” said Will, interrupting my thoughts.

  Height. Right. I’d forgotten. I was basically here to die.

  After some coaxing, I went up the steps, pretending like I was scared, even though I knew I wasn’t going to jump off. All the way to the top, past the normal diving boards. Three stories into the air. A place I’d only stood once before.

  But as it turned out, the only person I was kidding about not jumping was myself.

  “Time to jump, Ryan,” Will said, grinning.

  “So, about that,” I stammered, glancing down. “I really think that—”

  “Point of no return, Ryan,” he interrupted, taking a step toward me, making me take a step closer to the end of the board. “You know you want to do this.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about…not doing this?” I was officially nervous. This wasn’t how I imagined it would go.

  “You will be fine. I promise.” He took another step toward me, forcing me back another step. I was nearing the end of the board. My heart was pounding.

  “But what if—what if I’m not?” I asked in a tiny voice.

  “Life is too short—”

  Step.

  “To be—”

  Step.

  “Afraid of things, little brother.”

  I was officially at the end of the board. Will was almost chest-to-chest with me. He lifted his chin, challenging me.

  And in the end I only jumped so Will wouldn’t push me in.

  When I surfaced—alive!—I felt different. I felt exhilarated. I knew I had this. I would learn to dive. I would convince Will. And maybe I would get the girl.

  You got this, Ryan.

  We just did regular jumps off the high dive. More like falling off the platform, really. Pencil drops. Jack knives. Cannonballs. Once I got comfortable with those, Will took me back down to the pool deck and got me diving from there. Real diving, where I was facing straight down with my hands in front of me like a wedge. And I was pretty good. I have to say, I might even have been a natural. At first, Will thought it would take me a few days to learn, but I moved so quickly he decided I should do the high dive that night.

  So we moved up to the nine-foot diving board. That came pretty easy. I just had to overcome my natural urge to chicken out and go straight back down the steps.

  Then came the fifteen-foot platform, which wasn’t that much scarier than the nine-foot, except there was a lot more water to swim through to get to the surface.

  Then, finally, back up to the high dive again. My palms were sweaty as I looked all that way down to the tiny green pool below. Diving off was a lot different from just falling off. I mean, for one, you gotta keep your eyes open. I hesitated for a long time. Will was right beside me, though, giving me pointers. He was actually encouraging me.

  Who was this person and what had he done with my brother?

  And so I did it. I dove off the high-dive.

  You know how some people are born to be good spellers or fast runners or chess masters? I was born to do the high dive. I was that good. I was going to go to the Olympics. I was going to be on cereal boxes.

  When I surfaced this time, I was shouting.

  “I DID IT! I DID IT!”

  And Will just stood there at the edge of the pool, doing a slow clap.

  

  “You’re like Greg Louganis,” Will said, shaking his head in awe as we walked home from the pool in the dark.

  “Greg who?” I asked. My body felt incredibly light. I was euphoric.

  Will rolled his eyes. “You know, Louganis? Like the best Olympic diver ever?”

  My grin hurt my cheeks.

  “Everyone is going to be talking about you after tomorrow, Ryan,” Will said. “Are you ready for fame?”

  Ryan? I thought. I almost tripped. What happened to Poop Lip?

  “Trust me,” he said, a big grin on his face. “Even Erika will remember you after tomorrow.”

  And then he ruffled my wet hair.

  Ruffled. My. Hair.

  The clues were everywhere. I should have known something was up. But just as I was about to talk to him about the rescue mission, he ducked off into the dark to go sneak a smooch with his girlfriend.

  I’d have to wait.

  

  The next day, after the last class on the last day of school, I stuffed everything from my locker into my backpack and raced home through the summer heat. I sort of wished Eli had been around for moral support, but he was already away at a month-long computer camp. (Dad thought that it was ridiculous that Eli got out of school early for “nerd camp.”)

  At home, I was scrambling to find my swim trunks when Will appeared in the door and tossed his own shorts at my head.

  “Here, you can wear mine; they got a drawstring,” he said with a smile on his face (or was it a smirk?). “You’re gonna be awesome.”

  I gulped at him, standing there, looking calm as a clam, nothing like how I was feeling. Something didn’t seem right. I was getting a pain in my gut.

  “Maybe we should wait until another day,” I said.

  “Don’t worry so much, Poop Lip,” he said. He stopped when he saw me flinch. “I mean, Ryan. I saw you last night. You’re a natural.”

  “Why are you being nice to me?” I blurted out, surprising both Will and me. I mean, sure, I wanted his help, but things were getting weird.

  “Okay,” Will said, his face suddenly serious. “I’ll level with you. I’m gonna be going to college soon—”

  “In three years,” I added, but Will waved the comment away.

  “If I don’t help you grow a spine now, while I’m still here, you’re going to be Poop Lip forever. That, and…”

  “And?”

  “…and Dad promised to get me a dirt bike if I tried to make an effort to be nicer. There, you happy?” Will crossed his arms and gave me a hard look.

  “You’re being nice to me for a dirt bike?” I sputtered. I mean, I couldn’t blame him. But he actually
had me thinking for a second that he was trying to be my friend.

  “Come on!” Will exclaimed. “The bike is just a perk now. I want you to stop being so scared. I want you to be cool. And come on: we’re having fun doing this, right?”

  I thought about it and how—if it was somehow true—I was closer than ever to getting him to help me rescue Mom. So I nodded.

  “It is fun,” I agreed cautiously.

  “Exactly,” Will said, his face relaxing. “Come on, dude. Let’s go impress some ladies.”

  

  He kept up the pep talk and never left my side while I got ready to go. As we were walking there, he kept giving me pointers: hands out to your sides before you jump. Only pause for a moment or you’ll look like you’re scared. Remember to breathe until the last possible second. Don’t plug your nose or close your eyes.

  “And another thing, once you start the jump—”

  “You have to go through with it. No matter what,” I finished for him. He looked at me in surprise.

  “Mom told me that, once,” I said quietly. I didn’t elaborate—Will thought Mom’s circus stuff was dumb. He just nodded his head, kept a firm hand on my back, and, before I knew it, we were at the pool.

  Thousands of kids were there. Well, maybe not thousands. But every kid from Brenville Middle-Senior High, as well as a bunch of younger kids from the elementary school.

  Holy crap. I stiffened.

  “I invited a few people,” Will shrugged. “Don’t even go into the pool first. Just dive in. Trust me, the kiddos will go crazy.”

  “Where’s the Lifey?” I asked. The lifeguard’s chair was empty.

  “Probably taking a leak,” answered Will, but I still didn’t move. I just stood there in my brother’s swim trunks that came down to my calves, suddenly shivering in the eighty-degree heat. Will finally gave me a small shove.

  “Come on, Ryan. You can do it.”

  I stumbled forward and thought about how much I needed Will to help me rescue Mom. If I could just survive this, I thought, then Will would take me seriously when I told him about my plan.