Swim the Fly (15 page)

“YOU WILL THANK ME
when you are stranded at sea,” Ulf calls to us from the comfort of dry land. He’s still pacing like a hungry tiger. “I am saving your life. In advance.”

We have been treading water for twenty-seven minutes now. My clothes are so weighed down that I can barely keep my head above water. All of us are huffing and puffing. I was already in pain from my extreme weight-lifting routine, but now I am beyond sore.

Several times during this torture, I have attempted to do a dead man’s float just to catch a second of rest, but every time I’ve tried it, I’ve felt a dive ring smack me in the back of the head.

“You will be diving down to retrieve every one of those rings, Mr. Bottomly,” Ulf said to me after he’d hit me the third time.

There are six rings down at the bottom of the pool now.

Ulf studies his wristwatch. “In exactly two minutes you will have a sixty-second recess. In that time, I expect you to remove your clothing. Down to your swim trunks.”

Ulf walks over to a pile of bricks I hadn’t noticed until now. He grabs one and hurls it into the pool, barely missing one of the kids. “Heads up,” he says, way too late.

Five more bricks get tossed our way, each
kerplunking
loudly into the water. I don’t have the energy to dodge, and I secretly wish for one of them to hit me in the temple so I can have an excuse to quit.

“Each of you will dive down twelve feet for a brick and swim it back to shore. Mr. Bottomly, you will dive for your six rings
and
your brick. Then we will swim four hundred yards of butterfly. For this I will join you. To keep the pace.”

Ulf pulls his shirt off over his head to reveal a severely toned torso with a great big purple birthmark cut diagonally across his chest. If you just glanced at it quickly, you might mistake it for a supervillain insignia.

My limbs feel like deflated inner tubes. The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that I never have to come back here. Ever.

When time is called, we drag ourselves out of the pool. It takes me all sixty seconds of the “recess” to strip off my waterlogged dress shoes, socks, pants, and shirt. My wet clothes must weigh like twenty pounds.

Fifteen minutes later, I’ve managed to dive for all the rings and my brick, hating life all the way.

I cling to the edge of the pool like a wet newspaper.

“Now we swim!” Ulf launches himself right over my head into the water.

The other boys follow.

They finish their first lap of butterfly in no time and are headed back toward me before I can even muster the energy to push off from the side.

There’s no chance in hell I’m going to be able to finish sixteen laps of fly. I’m only halfway across the pool when I have to switch to freestyle.

I’ve only taken four strokes when I feel someone grab my legs and yank me backward.

I stop swimming and turn to see what’s going on.

“Do you think that I was born in the morning?” Ulf says, wading there behind me.

“I don’t know.”

“When I say swim the butterfly, I do not mean dance a waltz, I do not mean comb a sheep, and I definitely do not mean swim the crawl. Do you know what I
do
mean?”

“Swim the butterfly.”

“Yes, well, at least we have determined there is nothing wrong with your hearing.”

Ulf makes me swim all sixteen laps of the fly even though I have to stop every few strokes to tread water.

When I’m finally finished, forty-five minutes later,
all the other kids are long gone. I can barely move. I can barely breathe. I’m so light-headed that I have to sit down on the pavement, my head between my knees, before I can even think about getting dressed. I’m not sure how I’m going to bike home.

“We must talk.” Ulf towers over me, pulling his shirt on. His matted hair drips water onto my curled-up legs.

He’s going to tell me that I am not qualified to be in his advanced swim class and that’s just fine with me because, like I said, I don’t plan on ever coming back again anyway.

Ulf crouches down next to me. “I was picking up the pieces of your wallet while you were swimming.” His face is close up to mine. I can smell his vinegary breath. “And I found this,
Matthew.
” He holds up my DMV identification card, complete with my name and picture and address on it. Mom made me get the ID card for some stupid reason, like if I ever got kidnapped or something, and I’ve never regretted it more than right now.

“I’m sorry,” I say, looking down. “I won’t come back.”

Ulf laughs, but not in a something’s-funny way. “I am afraid you
will
be coming back. Twice a week for the next five weeks. You will finish my course. I do not care if you are a member of this club or not.”

I look up in disbelief. “But —”

“
Nobody
starts my program and then does not finish it.” He flicks the ID card with one darkened fingernail.
“And just to make sure, I will hold on to this. That way I will know where to send the police if you do not show up. Do you know what the consequences are for trespassing and for impersonating a country club member?”

“No,” I say, looking back down, but I have a feeling he’s about to tell me.

Ulf stands and smiles. “You have two choices, Mr. Gratton: my class. Or jail. What will it be?”

I hesitate, because it’s a tough choice. I’ve never been to jail, but it’s hard to imagine it’s much worse than this class. Still, I can’t go to prison. Mom would be pissed. “Your class, I guess,” I say finally.

Ulf nods. “We will see you next Tuesday. Oh. And one more thing. Five weeks at twenty dollars a week is one hundred dollars. You will bring it next lesson.”

I don’t look up as Ulf walks away.

I just sit there, shaking my head. Wondering how I keep getting myself into all this crap.

“I DON’T FEEL SO GOOD,”
I say to Coop and Sean. I try to lift my arm up over my head, but it’s not happening. I am in serious pain. My whole body feels like it’s being clenched in a giant’s fist.

“What do you expect?” Coop pushes a shopping cart and scans the supermarket shelves. We’re “casually” strolling down the beer aisle of PriceMark, trying to figure out how we can buy a six-pack so we can get into Ronnie Hull’s party tonight. “You’re not supposed to do some sick Extreme Workout when you’ve never even looked at a weight before. Not to mention, signing yourself up for a swim-torture class.”

“I didn’t sign up. It just . . . happened.” I look at all the different beers on the shelves and get a kind of anxious, carsick feeling.

There was talk of trying to get some kind of booze from our parents, but the only alcohol in my house is a
bottle of cooking sherry and Sean’s parents are trying to quit drinking, so that just left Coop, who said he would definitely lift a six-pack except that his mom keeps a strict count of all the beer in the house because his dad has diabetes and is only allowed to have two drinks a night.

“What are we doing here?” Sean says. “There’s no way they’re going to sell us alcohol.”

“I’m thinking,” Coop declares. “There has to be some way. Maybe if we buy a whole bunch of other stuff along with the beer, and we pick a cashier that looks sort of clueless . . .”

“This is stupid,” Sean says. “Why can’t we bring something that tastes good? Like Red Bull or Rockstar?”

“Right, dorkus. That won’t get us tagged as a bunch of tools in
too
much of a hurry.” Coop shakes his head. “Besides, we don’t have to drink it. We just need it to get into the party. It’s like our ticket.”

“Yeah, well . . .” I roll my stiff shoulders. “I don’t even know if I’m gonna be able to go.”

Coop stops walking and stares at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how I can hardly move.”

“Dude. You’ve got to suck it up,” Coop says. “You don’t get invited to a party by a girl that you’re trying to impress and then not show up. You’re practically being handed the keys to Kelly’s missile silo, and you just want to throw them away.”

“First of all, you don’t know that,” I say. “And second, it doesn’t even matter. Once Kelly sees that picture of us in drag, she’ll never be able to look at me without laughing.”

“All the more reason to try and plant the parsnip tonight, dawg.” Coop claps me hard on the shoulder.

“Ow! Jesus!” I groan in agony and shrink away from Coop’s hand.

“What?” Coop says.

“I’m in pain! Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Sorry.” Coop shrugs and starts pushing his cart again. “I didn’t realize you were such a wuss.”

“Whatever.” I try to wave Coop off, but since I can’t lift my arm, I just look like a girlie T. rex.

“What if we get a six-pack of O’Doul’s?” Sean says.

“What the hell is O’Doul’s?” Coop asks.

“It’s a nonalcoholic beer that my dad drinks. They sell it with the soft drinks.”

“I don’t know.” Coop shakes his head. “That seems kind of . . . lame.”

“No one will even be able to tell. It looks exactly like all these other beers. I’m telling you.”

“You think they’ll let us buy it?” I ask.

Sean shrugs. “Sure. Why not?”

Coop checks his watch and sighs. “I guess it’s worth a shot. Let’s go take a look.”

We find the O’Doul’s on the shelf in the soda aisle.
And Sean’s right. It does look exactly like regular beer. Green bottles in a green cardboard six-pack carrier. You have to look super close to even see that it says “nonalcoholic” on it.

“See, I told you,” Sean says, all proud, holding up the six-pack. “If you saw this at a party, you’d think it was regular beer, right?”

Coop scrunches up his face. “I guess. But what if someone’s heard of it?”

“
You
hadn’t heard of it,” Sean insists. “Why would anyone else?”

“It’s perfect,” I say. “O’Doul’s even sounds like a real beer. Let’s get it.”

We throw a bag of pretzels, some potato chips, a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, and a box of cookies into the cart as well. As distractions. Just in case buying nonalcoholic beer isn’t as easy as Sean thinks it will be.

We go to the express line where there’s no wait and load our groceries onto the conveyor belt. We put the O’Doul’s at the very end so that if there are any questions we can claim that it’s not ours.

The cashier is a tall dude with an accountant’s haircut and a red vest. I try not to look him in the eyes and instead read his nametag:
KENNETH
— MANAGER
.

Damn it.

My eyes dart over to the other cashiers, looking for someone who might cut us a break, but it’s too late. Two
hot girls in tank tops and miniskirts step up behind us, and Kenneth-the-manager has already grabbed the bag of pretzels and is running it past his scanner.

Kenneth is robotic in his movements, scanning an item, dropping it into a plastic bag, scanning another, then dropping it in the bag. His inattention makes me relax a little.

Until he grabs the six-pack and swipes it over the scanner.

There’s a loud, prolonged beep that sounds like an alarm. My stomach does a backward somersault.

Kenneth looks at the beer, looks at us, then back at the beer.

We are screwed for sure. Stupid Sean. I don’t know why we trusted him.

Kenneth grabs his red emergency phone. Presumably to call security and have us taken away.

“Wait . . . No,” I blurt out, before he can dial. “Don’t. That’s not ours.”

Kenneth looks at the two hot girls behind us, but they both shake their heads.

He narrows his eyes at me. “You aren’t buying this?”

“I . . . umm . . .” I blink hard. “Why did the alarm go off ? Who are you calling?”

“I need to do a price check,” he says. “Do you or don’t you want this?”

“Of course we want it.” Coop laughs, a little too
loudly. “Don’t mind Matt. He’s got Tourette’s. You should hear the kinds of crazy stuff he shouts out at school. It’s like diarrhea of the mouth.” He gestures toward the phone. “It’s okay. Do your price check.”

The two girls behind us turn to each other and giggle.

I feel the heat of humiliation wash over my neck and cheeks.

Kenneth looks at me like I’m a feral raccoon that might dive over the counter and attack him. He keeps an eye on me as he dials the phone.

Once Kenneth has the price of the O’Doul’s, he totals our bill and Coop pays.

We exit the supermarket and I am ready to explode.

“What the hell was that all about?” I shout.

“That was me saving your ass.” Coop grins, lugging the shopping bag.

“I don’t have Tourette’s, butt rot.”

“You could have fooled me,” Coop argues. “With all that blubbering you were doing. I had to say something.”

“You didn’t have to say
that.
”

Coop rolls his eyes and laughs. “Jesus, dude. Stop being so emo. It’s worse than having Tourette’s.”

We walk around the corner of the PriceMark. Actually, Sean and Coop walk. I’m several steps behind them, doing a sort of Frankenstein’s monster waddle. Stiff legs, stiff arms.

“Pick it up, Grandpa,” Coop calls out. Several people in the parking lot turn to look at me.

I’d shake my head, but I can’t. My neck has seized up.