9
The suspense of the story deflated between them. Sid imagined it like a little black balloon popping and drifting down into the murky depths.
“What’s he doing here?” Sid hissed.
Ashley lifted a hand from the water and waved.
“Don’t wave at him,” Sid said, trying to push her arm down.
Ash looked at him surprised. “He’s cool. I talked to him.”
“What? When?”
“I ran into him by Carl Lee’s rock yesterday.”
“Why was he there?” Sid demanded.
“He’s got a cousin who lives on our side of town.”
“Well, I don’t like him,” Sid said.
“Who said you had to?” Ashley asked.
Sid frowned, frustrated Ashley didn’t offer to drop Shane Savage then and there. Shane - with his stupid blond hair and his stupid skateboard covered in stupid stickers.
“The Thrashers are probably behind him. Are we going to be friends with them now too?” he complained.
“Take a chill pill,” she told him, splashing water his way. “He doesn’t even like those guys. Let’s get out and warm up.”
“What about the story?” he asked, hating how whiny his voice sounded.
“We’ll finish it next time.”
Sid scowled as he paddled behind Ashley to the shore. She reached it before him, climbing the rocks lithely. He realized she should have been the cat in their story. As he struggled up the rocks, he figured he made a better walrus.
Ashley sat on a flat rock.
Shane made his way down the sloping cliff that surrounded the pit.
“Hey,” he said, waving. “You guys swim out here too?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Sid muttered under his breath.
Ashley shot him an annoyed look. “Yeah. Beach is too crowded,” Ashley explained.
“For me too,” Shane agreed.
He didn’t pause to chat, but plunged off the rocks into the cool water. He disappeared, and when his head popped above the surface, he was several yards into the quarry.
“Show off,” Sid grumbled too quietly for Ashley to hear.
Shane’s arms sliced through the water in long clean strokes. He tilted his head as he swam, appearing as if he took no breaths at all, but merely kept his head down. Sid had seen adults swim that way, but never kids.
He saw Ashley’s eyes follow Shane and thought he spotted a tinge of pink in her cheeks.
Shane returned and climbed the rocks, jumping from one to the next, already showing muscles in places Sid doubted he’d ever have any.
Shane dropped next to them, stretching his legs long.
“It’s so hot,” he announced.
“We noticed,” Sid griped, picking at a group of weeds poking through a crack in the rock.
“Super-hot,” Ashley agreed.
“Did you jump?” Shane asked gesturing to the cliff, not the top of the cliff, but the halfway point where the rock ledge jutted out and offered a less stomach-dropping option.
Ashley nodded.
“First thing I do every time. I saw you opted for the sissy jump,” she gestured to the space before them.
It wasn’t lost on Sid that he too had done the sissy jump.
“That’s my warm-up,” Shane said, springing to his feet and running up the rock.
He ‘supermanned' off the outcropping, tucking himself into a ball just before he hit the water.
Sid too tucked himself into a ball, pulling his legs in close and resting his chin on his knees.
Shane returned a minute later, dripping, a huge grin on his face.
“Superman, huh? I’ve seen toddlers do that trick,” Ashley told him.
Shane laughed and shook his wet hair at Ashley, spraying her with cold drops. A few of the droplets hit Sid’s legs, and he bared his teeth, which he’d clamped together to keep from speaking the rolling list of snide comments parading through his mind.
“I’d like to see you do better,” Shane challenged. “In fact, I dare you to do a flip.”
Ashley said nothing, just stood, wrung out her long dark hair and marched up the rock. She stepped to the edge, and Sid stared at her dark feet, toes relaxed.
If Sid stood on the ledge, his toes would grab the rock like talons and his eyes would be screwed shut.
A part of him wanted to cry out for Ashley not to jump. A stupid thing that might cause her to slip and make things worse. Not to mention he’d watched her jump a hundred times, but his eye had wandered to the Witch’s Cave and to the tumble of rocks that lay at the bottom of that steep drop. He tried not to think of the crumpled body of the girl who’d died on those rocks, her blood steadily washing into the dark water.
Ashley jumped, curling into a ball and flipping. She landed on her back, still curled up and disappeared into an explosion of sparkling water.
Shane whistled from the rock ledge.
“You’re up,” she called to him, “but I dare you to do a back-flip.”
Shane’s eyes widened a bit.
Sid saw the first hint of fear, and he relished the look, though it disappeared too quickly for him to truly enjoy it.
Shane bit his lip, turned to face the trees, and stepped to the edge.
Again, Sid wanted to yell out. He wasn’t Shane’s friend. What did he care if he fell? But he couldn’t do anything to help the fear instinct, a hot bubbling in his gut that made him want to demand they stop acting so crazy.
The same sensation made him want to cry at his own cowardice.
Ashley climbed from the water; her eyes glued to Shane.
Sid could have been invisible.
Shane leaped backward, contorting his body, but as his head started to roll back, he faltered. He fell to the water with his arms and legs splayed, hitting the surface with a crack.
“Back-smacker,” Ashley announced, clapping.
Shane’s face was red when he climbed out on the rocks, but he continued to smile. He shrugged.
“Backflips are freaky,” he admitted.
Sid expected Ashley to taunt him, but she didn’t. She sat back on the ground beside Sid.
“Yeah, I usually spaz at the last second too,” she admitted.
Sid sighed, a tad disappointed Ashley didn’t razz Shane for his flop, but grateful they seemed to have tired of the game.
“I’ve got a Dr. Pepper,” Shane said. He trotted to his clothes and pulled a bottle of the dark fizzy pop from the deep pocket of his shorts.
Sid eyed it thirstily.
Shane twisted off the cap and handed it to Ashley. She took a long drink, burped at the end, and gave it to Shane. He swallowed a gulp of the pop and then offered it to Sid.
Sid gazed at the soda, his mother’s ‘sugar will rot your teeth’ reminders floated through his mind, but mostly he thought of his lips touching the bottle where Ash’s lips had touched and Shane’s too. It felt like a deal, a pact of friendship if he drank from the bottle, an agreement that Shane was one of them.
He shook his head, eyes watering at the fizzy bubbles beneath his nose. He handed the bottle back to Shane.
“No thanks,” he said, forcing his chin lower into his knees.
Ashley’s eyes lingered on him, but she didn’t ask why he skipped the drink.
Shane didn’t seem to notice. He took another drink and then handed the bottle back to Ashley. They went back and forth that way until the last of the dark liquid disappeared.