Chapter 1

Chapter 42

Going down the eight-foot waterfall in the raft during practice had been fun and smooth. This time — with just my body — was horrifying. When I plunged over the top, it was like I was doing a cannonball off the high dive at the city pool. I grabbed my knees and rolled into a tight little ball. My stomach lurched, and I held my breath, expecting to go under at the bottom. I did, but then I didn’t come up right away, like I do at the city pool. Instead, I hit bottom and stayed there, an invisible weight holding me down. I choked a little, kicked my feet and struggled with all my might to free myself. It was no use. I was running out of time and air. I screamed for help with my mouth closed and realized that my feet, and my Ready Eddy river sandals, were buried in the bottom of the river. I imagined what the next magazine article would say:

. . . and that was the end of that Riley Mae shoe-girl.

NO! I couldn’t let that happen. I had a two-year contract, after all, and I wasn’t allowed to break it!

Suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t in a ball anymore and that I needed to be. NOW. I pulled my feet out of the mud and grabbed my knees, prayed, and waited. For light. For air. For life.

And then I popped back up. Like a ping-pong ball.

But I barely had time to celebrate, because as soon as I got to the surface, I remembered that the Thrill-and-Kill was next. And that was a waterfall I wouldn’t survive.

“MOM! Where are you?” I turned in a full circle as the water propelled me farther down the river. I spotted the raft, now in front of me, pulled out of the water on my right side. Fawn was standing, holding a rope, in a pool of water that looked like it swirled up river. The eddy.

Go against the flow, Riley.

That’s what I intended to do.

“Swim hard,” Fawn yelled. “I’m going to throw the rope!”

I tried to move my arms, but the only one that cooperated was the one that didn’t have the smashed hand. I kicked my feet, and for a minute I think I was able to stay in one place in the river. But the fighting was exhausting, and soon I was being pulled close to the Thrill-and-Kill rapids. I heard Mom scream my name again, and I closed my eyes, not believing that everything was really going to end this way.