by Jen Calonita
The park was filling up now. I could see Fairview kids running for the wave pool and others headed to the lazy river behind us. Our strange new group was just standing in the splash zone, talking about the ride we’d just gone on. I was itching for someone to move on and head to a new ride, but I didn’t want to interrupt Laura’s conversation with Jake.
“Zo-Zo!” Laura suddenly said, and I looked up. “Come on! We’re going again!” She and the other girls were already following Jake, Shardul, and Dougie back on line.
“Zo-Zo, come on!” I heard Dougie mimic.
I could handle one more run with the group, but then Laura and I were definitely going off on our own.
Or not.
We ended up going on the ride two more times. Then we went on two rides on two-person tubes, one of which Laura got to go on with Jake after Dougie practically insisted they go together. I was happy for Laura, but now she barely noticed I was there. She barely noticed I was there. Every time I suggested we ditch the group, Laura found an excuse to stay with everyone.
I really thought doing a retake of Aquatopia would bring us closer, but I’d never felt further away.
“Lazy river next!” Dougie shouted, and the group ran to the line. Somehow, I wound up at the back of the pack. By the time I reached the front, Laura and Jake were already floating away, with Ava and Sarah behind them. Shardul and the other boys dove in and out of their tubes. The rest of the girls were paddling fast, trying to catch up.
“Stay in your tube!” I heard a lifeguard shout, but the group was already turning a bend. No one even noticed I was missing.
“Zoe?”
I turned around. Reagan, Jada, and Clare were on line behind me. I let a ton of people cut me so I could reach them. The three of them were wet from head to toe, but smiling.
“Where have you been?” Reagan asked. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. My mom was worried.”
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized, my face reddening. “Laura ran off and I followed, and…I’m just sorry. I’ll go find your mom and explain.” Maybe it was better I got back to the present anyway, before anything got screwed up again.
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “I’ll just text her that we found you. That way you can go on the lazy river with us.” She whipped out her phone and did it before I could even argue. “She got a cabana with the other chaperones—I think it’s called Castaway B—so she’s there if we need her.”
I couldn’t believe Reagan was being so good about this. Laura would have freaked out if I ran off on her like that.
Jada looked around. “Hey. Where is Laura?”
“She’s on the lazy river with Jake Graser and some people from the play,” I said, and they all nodded knowingly.
“You can hang with us, then,” said Jada. “We found Clare here hanging in the gift shop and convinced her to go on rides with us.”
I was happy to see Clare in the water park and glad the others weren’t mad at me. It couldn’t hurt to go on a few more rides before I left. Laura was having a good time, and like Taryn said, I deserved to have fun too. “I’d love to hang with you guys.”
“Then let’s go on some real rides!” Clare’s eyes brightened. “We can float on the lazy river anytime.”
We all looked at one another. Then we ditched the line and ran.
Being with Reagan, Jada, and Clare was a lot different from following the drama queens. The girls didn’t care about their hair being a mess, trailing the boys on rides, having matching hair ties, or doing live videos from the water park. No one even pulled their phones out of their waterproof pouches. We were just having fun together sailing along in a tube at top speed. We rode the toilet bowl three times, did a body slide, and rode a two-person slide, each grabbing a partner with zero drama. No one cared about seeing Jake Graser or even going on Paradise Plunge. I’d spent a lot of time with Reagan and Jada at Future City, but I’d never hung out with Clare before, and she was funny—really funny. She seemed to open up more as the day went on. I was having such a good time, I almost forgot all about the Retake app or Laura.
“I think it’s time.” Clare grinned and looked at us. “Should we tackle FlowRider?”
“FlowRider!” we all shouted, and ran out of the wave pool we’d been bobbing in.
The FlowRider surf simulator was the attraction everyone talked about and rarely attempted. Forget Paradise Plunge—this ride was the real water park test. And if you failed, everyone would see it. The surf simulator sat at the entrance to the park and had a huge viewing area where crowds gathered to watch. It looked like a skateboard ramp with a waterfall that riders would attempt to surf on a controlled wave. We watched people go a few times before we got on line. Riders went in groups of two, started out lying down, and then attempted to stand up on their boards and ride the wave. Most seemed to go flying off, which was when the crowd cheered the most. Despite how hard surfing looked, the ride had the longest line.
“Are you nervous?” Jada asked as we inched forward. “I’m nervous.”
“Nah.” Reagan had her eye on the wave. “Who cares if you fall?”
“That girl got up.” Clare pointed to someone in the simulator. “See how she stayed low on the board for a while before she got on her knees? I think that’s the trick. We’ve got this.”
Jada frowned. “Maybe I’ll just bodyboard.”
“No! We have to try to stand up!” Clare insisted. “Who cares if people laugh? I’m so tired of worrying what people think of me all the time.” She sighed. “I’m going to try.”
“Me too,” Reagan decided.
“So will I,” I said, and we all looked at Jada, who smiled.
“Okay, why not? Let’s do it.”
Clare was so supportive. I really liked that about her. The drama queens seemed to support one another, too, but there was still that competitiveness. With these girls, my stomach wasn’t in knots, and I wasn’t worrying about every word coming out of my mouth. It was a nice change.
Before I knew it, it was our turn to ride. Reagan and Jada went first. Reagan tumbled off right away, but she was laughing. Jada hit the wave while on her stomach, and we watched as she slowly got to her knees and stayed there the whole ride, which was more than she thought she could do.
“Woo-hoo!” Clare and I cheered, doing a goofy victory dance on line.
Clare and I were up next. She headed to the left side and I went to the right, each of us grabbing a large white surfboard from the lifeguard. My chest was pounding.
“You’ll have to leave your phone on the side,” the lifeguard said when he saw it around my neck.
“But…” Nothing could happen to this phone. Nothing.
“I’ll wear it,” the lifeguard offered, as if he could hear my thoughts. “It will be fine.”
I handed it over and watched anxiously as he placed it around his neck.
“Go, Zoe!” I heard someone shout, and assumed it was Reagan and Jada, but I didn’t look. Instead, I concentrated on the lifeguard’s instructions and got ready to drop my board into position when they turned the simulator on. It was kind of exciting. I looked over at Clare, who was about to do the same. She gave me a thumbs-up, and then the buzzer sounded, water started gushing, and the lifeguard shouted, “Go!”
I took a deep breath and dropped. The mist from the board hitting the wave made it hard to see, but I held tight, trying to find my balance. The wave was making the board bounce up and down and sway side to side across the simulator, but I tried to remember what I’d seen other riders do before me. Slowly, I pulled my knees up to my chest, trying to curl them under me. I will not fall, I told myself. I will not fall! Next I tried to sit up on my knees. That was so hard that it seemed smarter to skip that part and just attempt to stand. I stared straight ahead like I was on a balance beam (wasn’t that what they always told us to do in g
ym?) and pulled myself up to standing. Yes!
I could hear screaming and cheers over the sound of the rushing water, but the loudest sound was the whooshing in my ears. I started to count how long I was up there….Five seconds…ten…fifteen…twenty. I heard the buzzer sound, and the simulator slowly started to shut off, the board coasting off the wave into the pool with me on it. I skidded onto the mat at the same time Clare did.
“I did it!” she said, laughing.
“Me too!” We high-fived.
A crowd was gathered in front of the simulator. Jada and Reagan were in the front, screaming and jumping up and down. I wiped the water out of my eyes, exited the pool, and came face to face with Laura’s crew.
“Look at you, Surf God!” Dougie shouted as Shardul and Jake high-fived me.
“That was amazing!” said Hyacinth, who was standing with Marisol and Stephanie. “I was afraid to get up there and fall in front of everyone so I didn’t do it.”
I didn’t think the drama queens were afraid of anything. “Clare said we should just go for it so we did.” I smiled at her. “It was really fun.”
“We know. The rest of us tried it and fell,” Shardul admitted. “But at least we didn’t wipe out like Laura.”
Dougie shuddered. “There was blood and everything.”
My heart stopped. “Did you say Laura?”
Jake made a face. “Yeah, she crashed into the side of the simulator and cut her knee bad. They took her to first aid.”
“I should go check on her,” I told Clare.
“Tell her we hope she feels better,” Clare said.
I quickly followed the signs to first aid and found Laura sitting on a table with her knee bandaged. She was holding an ice pack that was dripping as if it had already melted. She and Sarah were talking to the lifeguard. Laura saw me and looked away. Sarah gave me a small nod.
“You’re free to go, but I’d avoid going back in the water with an open wound,” the lifeguard was saying.
“Thanks,” Laura said, but I could tell from her voice she was upset.
“I’m going to get you some more ice packs to take with you. You can crack it and put it on your knee later.” When the lifeguard walked into another room, I ran over to Laura.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“No. I fell,” Laura said flatly.
“She was on the surf rider, and her knee hit the wall,” Sarah explained.
“I heard,” I told them, “and came right here. At least you didn’t break anything,” I said optimistically.
“Yeah, but I embarrassed myself in front of Jake and half the sixth grade!” Laura’s eyes filled with tears. “I practically rolled off the simulator! Dougie was videoing. It’s probably online by now! I’m going to be the new Pukey Pete.” She put her head in her hands.
“He wouldn’t do that,” I insisted, but Sarah gave me a look behind Laura’s back that told me the video was probably already viral. “Even if he did, you didn’t puke on a ride. You fell. Most people do. It was really hard to stay up on the simulator.”
Laura looked up. “You went on it without me?”
I blinked. “Yeah. But so did you.”
Laura covered her face and mumbled through her fingertips. “Jake didn’t even come with me to first aid. Sarah was the only one sweet enough to walk me over since you were nowhere to be found.” She glared at me. “What happened to you? We were on the lazy river and you just disappeared.”
“You were gone before I even got a tube,” I pointed out. “You were with Jake and the other”—I stopped myself from saying “drama queens”—“girls.”
“When I turned around, you were just gone, and Hyacinth said you went off with Reagan and Jada,” Laura said accusingly. “You didn’t even tell any of us you were going.”
“Because you were already gone,” I said again. “I was the one who wanted us to go on rides together today, remember?”
“We were on rides together!” Laura said.
She wasn’t getting it. I wanted today to be a chance for us to have fun together. I really thought she’d go on one ride with Jake, and then we’d go off alone. But I was starting to realize our friendship wasn’t enough anymore—for Laura or for me. It wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t feel great being replaced.
“Jake probably thinks I’m an idiot,” Laura said, and Sarah nodded sympathetically. “If you were there, I wouldn’t have gone on the simulator.”
I gaped. “How is this my fault?”
Laura shrugged. “You should just go. Sarah said she’d sit with me in the cabana till we head back to the bus to go home. I’m sure Reagan and Jada are waiting for you.”
That was a dig if I ever heard one. So, she was allowed to have new friends, but I wasn’t? I wanted to scream. The Retake app let me redo this moment, but nothing had changed.
I didn’t understand. Why wasn’t this retake working either? I had to think of a different moment I could go back to. Maybe if I scrolled through my feed again…My phone! I’d left it with the lifeguard. “I have to go,” I mumbled, and took off.
I ran all the way back to the wave simulator, cutting the line to get to the top. When I spotted the lifeguard wearing my phone around his neck, I silently cheered.
“Hey!” Hyacinth said when she saw me. She was at the front of the line with the other girls and Jake, Shardul, and Dougie. “How is Laura?”
“She can’t go on any more water rides,” I told them, “so she’s upset. She’s headed to the cabana. She’d probably love to see you guys.” I looked at Jake.
“We’ll try to go by,” Jake said, answering for everyone. “We want to get on this ride again first.”
At least it wasn’t a straight-up no. If Jake showed up in the cabana, Laura couldn’t stay mad at me. But would he still go if I left? This app made everything so complicated. I had to hope he would.
“Go on again with us,” Hyacinth said. The buzzer sounded and a new set of riders got into position. “I want to see how you do this.”
“I should really get back to Laura.” There was no way I was staying here and messing up things even more. “I just came back to grab my phone. See you later!” I flagged down the lifeguard.
“Was wondering when you’d be back.” He lifted the phone off his neck and handed it to me. “You better take that phone out of the pouch. It’s overheating.”
“Thanks!” I immediately opened the seal. The phone was really hot now. What if it completely shut down? I tapped the screen. The phone was still working, but this wasn’t good. If the app fried my phone, I could get stuck in the past. Even if that didn’t happen, I could still wind up with a broken phone that my parents would never replace. I needed to make sure this next retake worked, in case I didn’t get another shot at this. But shouldn’t I at least get back to the present first, to see what was going on? If Jake went to check on Laura, she’d probably forgive me. For all I knew, things could be fine with us in the present. I took a deep breath.
Okay, that was the plan: Check out the present, and if things were bad, I’d hopefully have one more chance at a retake before my phone fried.
I just needed to find somewhere private to travel back to the present, because I still had no clue how this Retake app worked. What if I just disappeared in front of a crowd? Seeing signs for the changing rooms, I headed there, searching for an empty row of lockers. When I found one, I opened the app, my fingers practically burning at the touch of the phone.
The picture of us from this morning was already loaded into the app. It said #aquatopiaboundbffs, and Laura and I were both tagged in it. The picture was glowing, rather than faded, which was different from what had happened at the sleepover. Maybe that was a sign that Laura and I were okay. I scrolled forward, passing pictures from June—this time Laura was in all of them—and searched for a photo in the present.
“Mom! Which locker number are we?”
“It’s 742!” a mom yelled back.
I looked at the locker numbers in front of me. They were in the 730s.
People were coming. I had to be fast. I scrolled as far forward as I could go, landing on a new picture of Laura and me from September 6—the first day of school. I didn’t even read the hashtag or see where we were. We were together on the first day of seventh grade. That’s all that mattered. I clicked on the button and closed my eyes. “Please send me back to the first day of seventh grade.”
“Zoe?”
I opened my eyes. Clare was standing in the locker row, looking surprised.
There was a blinding flash, and I was gone.
“Say ‘First day of seventh grade’!” Dad shouted, and then I was greeted by another flash, courtesy of Dad’s camera.
“First day of seventh grade!” Laura shouted.
She was standing beside me, her hair tied up in a messy bun, and she was wearing a pink paisley shift dress that looked like one of those expensive designer ones we were always looking at longingly. I looked down—we were not matching. I was wearing a teal graphic tee that said “Sunscreen, Sun, Sand, Repeat” and jeans (not white ones!).
I breathed a sigh of relief. Things had to be good between us if we were going to the first day of seventh grade together! Jake must have shown up at the cabana to check on Laura, told her I sent him, and everything between us was good again. Maybe I didn’t even need another retake! I could just delete this app off my phone so it stopped running hot, and stay right where I was in the present.
“Hey.” Laura nudged me. “Why are you zoning out?”
“I’m not zoning out,” I insisted.
She laughed. “Yes, you are! Who are you thinking about?” she whispered in my ear. “Dougie?”
I stepped back. “I am not thinking about Dougie.”
Her phone buzzed. “It’s my dad,” she said, surprised. “I guess he’s calling since he isn’t here for the first day. I’ll just take this over there.” She pointed to the driveway, and I nodded.