I flipped water in her direction and tried a friendly grin. “What are you doing? Did you slip?” Did she slip? What a bozo! Pauline caught her breath and scraped her hair back from her face. He could only see Pauline spluttering in the water. “Pauline! Pauline!” Otis was leaning over the curve. I let go of her and backed up against the stem of the Toadstool, out of sight from above. She came in with a terrible splash and a shriek that I heard all right in spite of the river noise. I guess I thought she’d slide gracefully down beside me, a mermaid, tossing her long blond hair. “Not a bit of my warm body can touch the water.” Without another thought I grabbed her ankles and yanked. “We got out here, Otis, and now we have to swim back. But would Otis McCandless paint his toenails orange? They were ugly feet, actually, and I didn’t want to believe they belonged to gorgeous, golden Pauline Genero. They swung back and forth, just tipping the water. I was handing there, one handed like an ape in a tree, when I saw these little feet dangling over the edge of the Toadstool’s cap. The only guy faster than I am is Hank Chubley and he’s seventeen.īut splashing Otis and Pauline didn’t seem enough.
Of course Otis might come in after me to teach me manners, but I’m a good swimmer and even if he did, I was betting I cold make it back to the beach before he got me. Now, what should I do? I could splash them, scare the heck out of them. There’s about two feet of space between the Toadstool’s cap and the water below. If Pauline and Otis were talking up there, somewhere above me, I couldn’t hear them. There were little growths on it like warts. Its stem was slimy and mossy, its cap curved above me. “The Vultures always finish what they start,” he’d brag…He was watching and I was right under the Toadstool now. But if he was watching, he’d tell me what a wuss I was for not finishing what I’d started. If only he’d gone home, I’d have definitely headed back for the beach. If Pauline and Otis wanted to kiss each other and wrestle and laugh, what did I think I was going to do about it? I didn’t have dibs on her. My rage had grown cold, along with the rest of me.
If I could have kicked and splashed I might have warmed up, but secrecy was the thing here. What was that? Like wrestling? They were both laughing. Otis and Pauline had their arms raised above their heads, their fingers locked. The cold darkness of the pond pushed against my eyeballs, like thumbs trying to gouge them out. The rush of the river thundered in my ears, and as I got closer, I duck dived and swam underwater in case they’d seen me, in case they’d taken their eyes off of each other. Alex was standing at the edge of the pond. I glided through the water quiet as a snake, head up, my eyes fixed on the Toadstool.
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