Watch Your Step (9 page)

“Excuse me?” I flag down a salesperson. “Where are the T-shirts?”

“Um, at the mall?” He gives me a look that says I should know better. Then he resumes polishing a mannequin's blank face.

I try not to look at the mannequin. Because it's male. It has huge biceps and a twelve-pack. It might be made of plastic, but it's still way more of a man than I am.

“Three minutes!” Fern warns.

I dart to the nearest dressing room, yank its curtain closed, pull off my shirt.

“Minute and a half!”

The dressing room has a full-length mirror. I want to avoid my reflection but can't miss my pale, scrawny chest. Its whiteness is blinding.

Anxious to get out of there, I finish changing, throw my T-shirt back on, and join the rest of the Troublemakers outside.

We line up around the pool. Our teachers are still on the
concrete island. There's not a gap along the edge big enough for my friends and I to stand together, so we split up. Abe bolts left. Gabby bolts right. Lemon shuffles to a spot near a tall waterslide. Probably because he plans to hide beneath it while the rest of us compete.

“Seamus,” a soft voice says. “Over here.”

My heart skips. Elinor's standing by the shallow-end steps and motions to the empty space between her and Austin Baker. The space is narrow, but thanks to my barely there chest, I fit with room to spare.

“Can you swim?” she asks.

I nod. “You?”

She pauses. “I'm really good in a pool of reptiles.”

I look at her. “But this— Do you mean— Are you saying you don't know how—”

“Time's
up
!”

A horn blows. Lights flash. Fern tosses the silverfish overhead like it's a quarter, and we're waiting to see who goes first.

But then the silverfish glows white, spins, and nosedives down. The instant it hits water, every Troublemaker but me leaps in after it. Including Elinor, who comes up gasping for air.

“Over there!” Alison points to the deep end. She must not be thinking clearly in all the excitement, since sharing the target's location can only invite competition.

And fast. All Troublemakers kick and flail and paddle in that direction. So does Elinor. Whose feet seem to be made of lead as she stumbles across the shallow end, still gasping for air and wiping water from her eyes.

“Interesting technique.”

I look up. Houdini's standing next to me, studying his K-Pak screen. I sneak a peek and see Troublemakers spinning and tumbling underwater. Every half second a tiny white light zips between them, making them spin and tumble some more as they try to change directions. When I see Elinor doing the same, her cheeks puffed out as she holds her breath, her eyes squinty but open, I'm relieved.

“What is?” I ask.

“This. Staying put. Knowing that the silverfish will go where no one else is. Trusting that it'll come back to the shallow end eventually, and when it does, all you'll have to do is jump. When everyone else is scrambling to catch up. It's smart.” He nudges me with his elbow. “Of course, I'd expect nothing less from our star student.”

He's right about the technique. But he's wrong about me. I can't be a star student, at least not at this very moment, because I have no technique. I'm just too embarrassed to take off my shirt.

“Uh-oh.” Houdini's face turns serious. He takes a walkie-talkie from his shorts pocket. “We've got a possible K-2 in Q-1. Lifeguard on standby.”

“Copy that,” answers an unfamiliar voice. “LG in route.”

“Lifeguard?” I scan the pool. “Does that—? Did someone—?”

I stop when I spot Elinor. Her head's above water one second, below it the next. Her arms slam the surface as she tries to keep herself afloat. Oblivious Troublemakers create a dangerous whirlpool around her as they swim after the darting silverfish.

“Send in the lifeguard,” I say, my voice thin. “Elinor's in trouble.”

“Sit tight, Hinkle,” Houdini says, his voice calm. “Everything's under control.”

“But she's not a strong swimmer.”

“This is the best way for her to get better.”

I can't see it, but I know my snow-white skin now burns red. Anger and worry shove blood through my veins as an image of
Elinor lying on the ground in the middle of a blizzard, her arm hurt and face twisted in pain, comes to mind.

“Good idea,” Houdini says as I take off my shirt. “The silverfish should be—”

I jump into the pool. The water's choppy from so many people bounding around, and that makes it hard to swim. The other Troublemakers don't help either. As they continue to chase the silverfish, they push and knock into one another—and into me.

“Seamus!”

Eric Taylor slams into my side. My feet hit the floor. I stand for a better view and spot Elinor ten feet away. She's drifting into deeper water.

“Seamus—” Her head dunks below the surface, pops back up. “I can't—” Down it goes again.

I dive underwater. Hoping it'll be easier to swim below the waves, I hold my breath and open my eyes. Without goggles I can only make out colors and figures. Elinor's swimsuit is emerald green. Locating that shade, I kick hard and head for it.

I'm halfway there when Elinor disappears. The other Troublemakers vanish. I can still feel my arms and legs, but I
can't see them. I can't see anything. The whiteness is too bright, the water too rough.

“There it is!”
a muffled voice shouts.

“Out of my way!”

“It's MINE!”

The muffled voices get louder. I close my eyes. Open them again. Press my lips together to keep from gasping in a gallon of water.

The silverfish. It's right before me, floating in front of my face. It's glowing softer now, so I can make out its shiny fins and tiny metal scales. Its black, lifeless eyes seem to stare right at me, daring me to reach for it.

Dozens of hands emerge from the surrounding whiteness. The silverfish lingers a second more, then zips out of their reach—but stays within mine. If it doesn't move again I can reach it in two kicks.

But then I glimpse a flash of red.

Elinor's hair.

My heart lunges. I kick twice. Away from the silverfish.

And toward Elinor.

Her braid drifts behind her in the rough water, so I reach it
first. Still kicking, I stretch one arm as far forward as it'll go. I don't want to hurt her neck, but if I tug the end of her braid just enough to close the gap between us, then—

“What the—”

The words escape my lips before I can stop them. Water gushes into my mouth, down my throat. Something has me from behind. It takes all of my strength to blow out the water and clamp my lips shut. Trying not to choke, I kick and paddle as hard as I can.

It's no use. I move backward, not forward. The green ribbon at the end of Elinor's braid grows smaller.

Paddling even faster, I glance behind me. I expect to see Austin Lewis or one of my bigger classmates pulling me away from the silverfish. Instead, I see a propeller. Like the kind motorboats have.

Only this one's ten times bigger.

I kick harder. The propeller blades spin faster. My heart hammers. My lungs burn. I try not to picture my legs being sliced and diced like paper through Dad's favorite shredder—but I do anyway.

The liquid vortex drags me from the deep end and across the shallow end.

“Elinor!”
I cry out.

Water clogs my throat, fills my lungs. I'm pretty sure I'm drowning as I'm sucked out of the pool . . . and into complete darkness.

W
hat was that about?”

My eyelids snap open. I realize that I can see. But I'm not looking at the clear blue sky and fluffy white clouds of heaven. Or the flickering red flames of that other place—since, let's face it, my recent behavior doesn't deserve a warm welcome anywhere else.

I see a silver lamp. A white velvet couch. A glass desk. A chair made of diamonds. A white leather lounge chair, which I'm lying across.

Annika. Wearing a long white dress and standing by a wall of water.

“What happened?” My voice is scratchy, but it works.

She nods behind me. “George? Do you mind?”

A clear bucket appears out of nowhere. According to the markings on its side, it's filled with three gallons of water. Plus one soggy Band-Aid.

I sit up. “George? Is that really you?” The man holding the bucket certainly looks like the Good Samaritan I got to know well when Capital T (nicely) hijacked his helicopter with him behind the wheel.

George winks.

I grin. “How's Ms. Marla? And Rodolfo? And your vegetable garden? Did your prize-winning tomatoes earn another blue ribbon at the country fair?”

Ms. Marla is Kilter's Hoodlum Hotline operator—and GS George's new girlfriend, thanks to a little matchmaking on my part. Rodolfo's her three-legged Chihuahua. Gardening is GS George's favorite summer hobby.

His face lights up. “Thank you for asking! Everyone's great, and the garden's really coming along. We planted some new zucchini seeds that—”

“Ahem.”

GS George and I look at Annika. She raises her eyebrows.

“My apologies, ma'am.” GS George places the bucket on the floor by my feet and retreats to the opposite wall, where he stands still and stares straight ahead.

“What's that?” I point to the bucket.

“That,” Annika says, slowly strolling toward me, “is what was extracted from your stomach the instant you popped out of the Inner Tube—a fast-moving underground chute. It transported you here from the pool, clearing all ingested fluid along the way.”

Now that she mentions it—and that my head's clearer—I vaguely recall feeling topsy-turvy motion after I was sucked into the darkness. Like I was riding down a super-fast enclosed waterslide.

“Where's here?” I ask. “What is this place?”

“My subterranean viewing station.”

“What do you view?” I ask.

“Anyone and anything I need to.”

My eyes return to the bucket. “What's with the Band-Aid?”

“Accidental intake. One of your classmates had a boo-boo. The Band-Aid covering it came off during the game. You swallowed it along with all that water.”

I wince, bring one hand to my stomach. “Gross.”

“There's something worse.” Reaching one end of the wall of water, Annika presses a button on the adjacent wall. The water stills. As it does, I see my classmates—including Elinor, thank goodness. They're still swimming and dunking and bobbing.

“This is the pool right now,” Annika says.

“Everyone's moving slower. They must be getting tired.”

“Of course they're getting tired. They've been chasing an uncatchable Kilter silverfish for twenty minutes.”

“Uncatchable? Fern said it'd be hard, but that it was still possible to—”

Annika holds up one hand. “I'll ask again. What . . . was that . . . about?”

I open my mouth to answer. It's hard to tell her what she wants to hear, though, since I don't know what she's asking.

“The silverfish was right in front of you,” she says with a huff. “I gave you an eternity to catch it. A thousand credits—they could buy the troublemaking supplies of your choice—were there for the taking. And you let them swim away. You lost out on all those credits—
and
earned five hundred gold stars.”

I think fast. “It was too easy.”

Annika smirks.

“You want us to challenge ourselves, right?” I ask. “So we're always becoming better Troublemakers? The silverfish was right there—but I wanted to work for it. I wanted to catch it using the skills I've learned at Kilter. I wanted to
earn
the win.”

“And risk losing to your classmates in the process?”

Now I smirk. This is to say: Right. Like that would happen. Not because I think my victory was a sure thing, but because I know she'd want me to think it was.

This must be a good move because Annika lifts her chin, turns on one heel, and strolls alongside the wall of water. Once her back is to me I check out the pool again. Abe and Gabby have teamed up—or else Gabby has latched onto him. That's likelier. Either way, she's right behind him, doing everything he does a second after he does it.

I spot Lemon, too. Or his feet. I know they're his because they're scarred from the time he walked across a bed of burning coals just for fun. Now they're dangling in the deep end. The rest of him must be outside of the pool, sitting on a low diving board.

I'm still looking for Elinor when Annika stops and spins around on her other heel.

“I'm sorry for the sudden suction,” she says, “but I wanted
to meet with you. And I know you don't enjoy being singled out, no matter how much you often deserve to be, so I thought it best to do so while your classmates were consumed by the silverfish hunt.”