Tuesday was Swim Level Placement Day in P.E. All of the students in sixth grade were being tested to see if they could “float, fly, or flounder.” Grace was so appallingly cloddy at land-based sports that she usually turned red with embarrassment a whole period before P.E. classes even began. But swimming was now Grace’s forte, and she was eager to get in the pool and strut her stuff. There would be no balls to drop, no throws or passes to miss, just smooth, easy strokes and kicks. Grace would be safe as safe could be in a school pool. Chlorine might make her skin itchy but it wouldn’t turn her legs into a tail.
“No question, sweetie, you’re definitely a small,” Mrs. Presser declared as she distributed blue tank swimsuits outside the girls’ locker room.
“You’re kidding,” said Grace, holding the suit between thumb and forefinger, her nose wrinkling in distaste. It smelled like disinfectant and looked like something only a grandmother would wear. If it were purple, Mrs. Shelby might like it. “I have to wear this to swim class?”
“You and all the other sixth-grade girls,” Mrs. Presser told her. “Look at it this way, sweetie, everyone wears the same bathing suit in swim class, so everyone looks awful. No competition for who looks the most fabulous, so there’s no first-place beauty or last-place loser.” Mrs. Presser grinned at Grace like the Cheshire Cat. “Towels are at the end of the counter. Next!”
Grace grabbed a scratchy white towel and shuffled reluctantly into the locker room. While other girls talked and laughed as they changed into their boxy blue bathing suits, Grace found an empty locker at the far end of the last aisle. As she pulled her Ohio State T-shirt over her head, someone asked, “Mind if I sit here?” Grace poked her face through an armhole and saw Tanya on the bench next to her.
“Go ahead,” Grace answered with a smile.
Tanya held up her own stiffly starched bathing suit. “My older sister warned me about these yucko things, but I never thought they’d be this foul.”
Tanya spoke with a slight accent, Grace noticed, wondering where Tanya was from, but she felt too shy to ask. “Ugh! It feels even worse than it looks,” Tanya groaned, slipping her brown arms through the suit straps. “So, Grace, how do you like school so far?”
“It’s okay, I guess,” Grace replied. “Some of my teachers are interesting, but others are pretty dim.”
“I know, right? Mr. Conrad, my English teacher is, like, so boring I want to scream sometimes. But you’re lucky—I heard you got Karp for science.”
Grace narrowed her eyes. “I guess Christi told you we were in the same class, huh?”
“Yeah, she mentioned it.” Tanya glanced awkwardly at the floor. “Listen. Don’t get the wrong idea about me and Christi. It’s not like we’re BFFs or anything, it’s just that....”
Before Tanya could finish her sentence, Ms. Hayes, the gym teacher, burst into the locker room. She wasn’t much taller than her students, but she was built for jockdom, with tree-trunk legs (the better to play soccer with), broad shoulders (the better to swim with), and a voice that boomed like a foghorn (the better to intimidate with).
“All right, girls,” she yelled, “time to get wet! Everyone stop gabbing and head out to the pool, pronto!”
Grace and Tanya walked out of the locker room together. They inched toward the pool deck, where boys and girls stood in awkward clusters. The boys’ swimsuits were even more pathetic than the girls’—the same bleached-out shade of blue that hung to their knees. Mrs. Presser was right—everyone looked horrible.
But the indoor pool was spectacular. Like the lunchroom, it looked as if it belonged in a country club rather than a middle school. It was edged with beautiful mosaic tiles and surrounded by large panoramic windows that boasted picture-postcard views of the ocean.
“I’m not big on pools,” Tanya groaned. “They make me antsy. I like the ocean much better.”
Grace was only half-listening, spellbound by the glittering surface of the school pool. She felt as drawn to the pool as she was to the ocean outside and couldn’t wait to dive in.
“All right, kids,” Hayes barked. “No dilly dallying. Everyone in the water!”
No problemo, Crazy Haysie, thought Grace. She took two quick steps and was in a midair dive as Tanya said, “At least this pool’s salt water, straight from the Pacific. So what’s the point? Why not just take us down to the beach?”
Grace froze in panic, just as she felt the water hit her fingertips. Why had she stupidly assumed the school pool was a regular skin-drying, eye-reddening chlorinated pool? These rapid thoughts came together in her head as a single word—disaster!
With a strength she never knew she had, Grace hurled herself from a dive into a flip. Her feet flew over her head, her upper body followed, her legs plunged into the water, and she landed hard on the concrete bottom. But luckily she was standing, with her head and shoulders above, and out of, the water.
Tanya was now in the water, too, but oblivious to Grace’s freak-out. “Did you know that back in the 1920s,” Tanya continued, “saltwater pools were all the rage around La Toya? They were, like, uber-cool, especially with the Hollywood set that came down here to de-stress. Did you know this school used to be some fancy spa back then?”
Grace—terrified that her gills might form and her legs transform into a tail—was speechless. She shook her head and tried to hide her trembling.
“There’s a plaque on the side of the building, but it’s sort of hard to see behind the oleander bushes. I think the whole school was called the La Toya Pool and Tennis Club. Weird, huh?”
“Yeah, weird,” Grace managed, watching as kid after kid jumped into the water. She was doomed. If Hayes expected them to put their heads under water, Grace would transform in front of everyone. What if one of the hooligan boys decided to knock her over and get her soaked? Or what if Tanya pulled her underwater for pool-bottom handstands? What if Ms. Hayes expected them to hold their breath underwater? Well, she knew exactly what would happen—the entire class would scream in fear as her purple tail swished toward them; they would flee in terror at the sight of Grace’s shimmering scales, mottled skin, and the strange flapping gills on her neck.
Tanya shook Grace’s shoulder. “Grace, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I ca..ca..I can’t...” Grace croaked.
“Come on, Grace. Hayes may look like a twelve-year-old, but she’s a drill sergeant. She’ll kill us if we don’t make it look good.” Tanya grabbed Grace’s hand and started pulling her toward the deep end.
“You do...don’t understand!” Grace yanked her hand away and hoisted herself out of the pool. “I ca...ca... CAN’T! I CAN’T!”
Ms. Hayes marched over to the shallow end, fists on her hips, elbows jutting out sharply. “No stalling, girls!” she hollered. “Get back in the pool, Minnaugh. I want everyone swimming now!”
“Can’t what?” Tanya asked Grace quietly.
“I can’t swim,” Grace squeaked, peering up at Hayes, who towered over her like an angry giant.
“No excuses, Minnaugh,” Hayes snapped. “You may not be swim team material, but you won’t drown. The water is only three and a half feet deep. You can join the other beginners holding on the pool edge and practicing your underwater breathing.”
Feeling nauseous and dizzy, Grace was paralyzed by fear—her heart thumping in her chest like a wild bongo drum. The walls, the windows, the glistening pool began to whirl around.
“Grace? Are you all right?” asked Tanya. “You look like...” but before Tanya could even finish her sentence, Grace fainted.