In Over Your Head

Oh no, The pool!

Don't get me wrong. I loved summer vacation. No school, taking trips, warm days, puppet shows in the park, and the best part was reading books from the library to get those stickers. But the part I hated was the swimming.

The summer I was six, my parents made me take swimming lessons at the pool. The teacher tried to make me put my head underwater, and I wouldn't., so I failed the test. Then, they made me take them again when I was seven. I failed the test again so my parents just gave up.

It didn't help when my obnoxious little sister, Evelyn, turned out to love the water. She was constantly dunking and going under as soon as she was old enough. You could tell it made her feel really superior to me.

So, every summer, my mother took the two of us to the pool a few times a week. It wasn't so bad. I went in the water, but didn't go under, and when I wasn't in the water, I sat by the pool and read my book.

One day, when I was ten, my mother, sister, and I were all in the pool when I heard a voice say, "Hi Alex!"

I gulped. It was Ingrid, a girl who had been in my fifth grade class the previous year. Now, the one good thing about the school year was that nobody talked about swimming. I could forget about that and pretend that part of my life didn't exist. But here there was a person from my school life at the pool.

And what a person. Throughout the fifth grade, Ingrid had a reputation for being a tomboy. She had short hair and usually wore overalls to school. Plus at playtime, she usually played sports while most of the girls were playing dolls and hopscotch. Some people would even joke about how she was really a boy.

But she didn't look like a boy, now. She was wearing a red two-piece bathing suit which made her look much more like a girl.

"Who is this, Alex?" asked my mother

"Is it your girlfriend?" asked Evelyn in a suggestive voice.

"No!" I cried turning red. "This is Ingrid," I said to my mother.

"Hi!" said Ingrid. "You want to see something?" Then, she took a deep breath and launched into an underwater handstand, so we could see nothing but her legs and bare belly.

When she was back on her feet, she pushed the wet hair out of her face and smiled.

"Wow!" said Evelyn, "can you teach me to do that?"

"Sure," said Ingrid.

She held Evelyn up a few times while she did a handstand, and, before long, Evelyn was doing handstands too and was very proud of herself.

Ingrid turned to me. "You want to try?"

"Uh. . .no!"

"He hates getting his head wet," reported Evelyn. And there it was! The secret was out of the bag. What if Ingrid made fun of me for this? Worse, what if she told everyone at school about this and they made fun of me for it. I would be the laughingstock of the entire Elementary School.

.But Ingrid didn't laugh. She just shrugged. "Oh? Why doesn't he like it?"

"Yeah, Alex," said Evelyn, "why don't you like it?"

I had no idea what to say to that.

"Oh well," said Ingrid. "I'm going to the deep section. Want to come?"

I ended up following her. If nothing else, it would be a reason to get away from Evelyn, (not to mention, my mother, who wasn't helping.)

When we got to the ropes which divided the shallow section from the deeper section, I picked the rope up and walked the under it. Ingrid didn't bother with that. She just dived and swam under the ropes. When she came up, she smiled and said, "Want to see something else?

"It's four feet deep here, but I can go all the way to the bottom." She dived, and from the surface, it looked like she was crawling along the bottom. She came back up and smiled again. "Want to try doing that?"

No, of course, I didn't. But there was something happening here. Maybe it was because this wasn't a swimming lesson. Maybe it was because Evelyn wasn't nearby but I kind of wanted to try it for her.

"Just take a deep breath before you go under and let it out while you go down," said Ingrid.

For a minute, I wasn't sure what to do. The water was up to my chin. The thought of being down below was frightening. Then, I did it.
I went under and there it was. Water was all around my face, pressing against my ears, and trying to get into my nose and mouth.

But I went down, and I thought I felt my knee touch the cement bottom., but I found myself giving a cry and jumping back up again.

I was above water. I felt water in my, mouth, my nostrils, and my eyes. I looked at Ingrid.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I guess."

Then, we both decided to get out of the pool and we walked back to my sister and mother. "Alex's hair is wet!" exclaimed Evelyn.

"Hmm, it is," said my mother putting her hand on my head as if she couldn't believe it.

"Alex, got his head wet for a girl!" said Evelyn. "Alex got his head wet for a girl!" She chanted a few more times for good measure.

Ingrid gave me an icy look. "You know," she said, "your little sister is a real pest."

No arguments there.

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