by Judy Delton
“Now just relax,” said Lisa. “It’s true, it really works.”
But Molly was not relaxed. She was mad. She wanted to get out of that pool and go home where she could take her bumblebees off and throw them in a corner.
“Thanks anyway,” she muttered to Lisa.
“Well, at least you got wet this time,” Sonny said to Molly when they went to the dressing rooms.
That sounded nasty to Molly, but maybe Sonny meant it to be encouraging.
As everyone got dressed and ready to leave, Molly remembered something. Plan B. All was not lost. She would have to think of an artificial way of staying on top of the water.
On the way home, the Pee Wees were kind to Molly. Patty put her arm around her and said, “Next week you’ll do it.”
Sonny said, “Remember those deep breaths so you get air in you.”
And Jody said she could practice in his pool, as soon as it was open.
But that would be too late. Too late for her badge.
When they got to Mary Beth’s house, she and Molly sat on the front steps.
“I can’t do it,” said Molly. “That’s all there is to it. I need something to hold me up.” She told Mary Beth about Plan B.
“What could we find to hold you up?” asked Mary Beth. “If you wore a safety vest, everyone would see it. It has to be something invisible.”
The girls thought and thought.
“Sonny says you need to be full of air to float,” said Molly. “I guess I have to swallow an inner tube!”
Mary Beth laughed and waddled along as if she had an inner tube inside her.
“Wait a minute!” she said. “I know something smaller that holds air! Balloons! Balloons float!”
“I can’t swallow a balloon!” said Molly.
“You don’t swallow it, silly,” said Mary Beth. “You put it inside your suit!”
“A balloon won’t hold me up,” said Molly.
“No, but lots of balloons will,” said her friend.
Mary Beth examined Molly’s bumblebee swimsuit. “See, it’s elastic,” she said. “It stretches! We could tuck lots of balloons under it! No one would see them, and they’d keep you afloat! All you’d have to do is kick your legs and arms!”
“Really?” said Molly. It made sense. And it seemed easy.
“Let’s go to the toystore and get some,” said Mary Beth, jumping up.
Molly ran home and got some of her allowance out of her bank. Then she and Mary Beth got out their bikes and rode to the toystore.
The store had balloons of all colors. The girls picked out ten bright yellow ones.
“In case they show, people will just think they’re part of your swimsuit,” said Mary Beth.
On the way home, she added, “We’ll blow them up on Tuesday. That way they won’t get flat before we go.”
Mary Beth was so smart! Molly was glad to have her for a best friend. It looked as if there was hope after all that she could get her badge with the others. Molly put the balloons under her pillow, so that they would bring her good dreams.
But they didn’t do that. Instead, that night, Molly dreamed that on the way to the pool, the balloons got away from them and flew high over the treetops. No matter how she and Mary Beth chased them, they couldn’t catch them. And when she woke up in the morning, Molly was all tired out as if she really had been running.
“It was just a dream,” she said to herself. “It won’t really happen.” And it didn’t.
On Tuesday Mary Beth came over and they blew up the balloons.
“Not too big,” said Mary Beth. “We don’t want them to pop.”
When they all were blown up, Molly and Mary Beth squeezed them under the bumblebees. The suit held them in place firmly.
“Wow, this was a good idea,” said Mary Beth. “No way will you sink now! Why didn’t we think of this before?”
Molly felt lumpy, but good. “Even if Roger tries to pull me under, I won’t sink!” she said.
“Even if every single one of the Pee Wees tries to pull you under, you won’t sink!” said Mary Beth.
It wasn’t easy to walk with all the lumps around her, but it was a small price to pay for a badge!
When Mary Beth saw Molly’s waddly walk, she said, “I think we should meet the others at the pool, instead of riding in Mrs. Peters’s van.”
“Why?” demanded Molly.
Mary Beth frowned. “If we go over bumps, you might pop. Then everyone would ask questions. You know how nosy Roger and Sonny are.”
Molly knew. Mary Beth called Mrs. Peters and said they would meet them at the pool.
“She said okay, but to be on time.”
“Let’s go,” said Molly.
She and Mary Beth started off toward the pool. Molly could not walk very fast. And she couldn’t see her feet. She tried to keep up with Mary Beth, but it wasn’t easy.
“Don’t fall now,” said Mary Beth. “You’ll lose all your air and we’ll really be in trouble.”
When they finally got to the pool, the Pee Wees were just getting out of the van. Mrs. Peters was busy counting noses and didn’t notice Molly’s waddly walk.
But the Pee Wees stared.
“Hey!” shouted Roger. “Look at Molly! Hey, what did you feed those bumblebees that made them so fat?”
“Don’t you know it’s not polite to call someone fat?” said Mary Beth to him crossly.
“How fat do I look?” cried Molly to her friend.
Mary Beth frowned. “Not very,” she said. “Anyway, you can’t have everything! You want to get your badge, don’t you?”
Molly did. None of the other Pee Wees said anything. But they looked as if they wanted to.
Baby Nick was splashing in the shallow water. He began to paddle with his little arms and legs.
“Look! Nick can swim!” shouted Jody. The Pee Wees all gathered around him and clapped.
“Even a baby can swim,” said Molly. “And he hasn’t got balloons under his suit.”
“Babies learn easily,” said Mary Beth.
Mrs. Peters raised her hand for attention.
The time had come. It was time for the Pee Wees to sink or swim.
CHAPTER 8
The Test
“Who wants to be first?” asked Mrs. Peters.
All the hands went up. Even Molly’s. She didn’t want to be first. But she wanted to get it over with.
But Rachel went first, swimming across the pool gracefully with almost no splashing. There was no doubt about it, Rachel seemed to be good at everything she tried.
Jody swam next, then Patty and Kenny. When Tim swam, he sank.
“Ho ho, no badge for Noon!” shouted Roger.
But Mrs. Peters gave Tim another start, and eventually he paddled across the pool on his own with a lot of splashing.
When it was Roger’s turn, he shouted, “Watch this!” He jumped into the pool, holding his nose. The Pee Wees watched, but no Roger came to the top of the pool!
Mrs. Peters looked alarmed, and the lifeguard jumped in to rescue him.
“I didn’t need help,” said Roger after he had been dragged, dripping and sputtering, to the side of the pool. “I was just staying down there on purpose.”
“Sure, he wanted to drown on purpose,” joked Rachel.
“This pool is too little,” Roger said. “I can dive from that high board. This is baby stuff.”
“He’s the baby,” said Mary Beth. “He wants to dive and he can’t even swim.”
“It’s because he’s nervous,” said Molly. “He swam before. His dad taught him a long time ago.”
Roger turned bright red when Mrs. Peters helped him. Finally he made it, but he looked cross.
“Pride goes before a fall,” said Tracy. “That’s what my mom says. When you want to show off, things happen.”
When it was Sonny’s turn, he swam across the pool better than Roger.
“I practiced a lot,” he said. “At the lake. My mom made me.”
; “Molly Duff is next,” said Mrs. Peters.
Molly waddled toward the water. Mrs. Peters squinted across the pool at her, and looked as if she was going to say something. But before she could, Molly was in the water. She began to paddle, and wonder of wonders, she did not sink! She rode very high on the water, like a canoe! Her face did not even get wet!
But as she paddled, she heard a pop! Then another one! It sounded like when her dad pulled a cork out of a bottle of wine!
Molly paddled on. There was only half the width of the pool to go now, and she’d have her badge.
Pop pop pop! Now Molly’s face was getting wet! But Molly paddled on, faster and faster! She gave one last shove, and made it to the ladder on the other side of the pool! She did it! Plan B had worked!
Everyone cheered when Molly got out of the pool.
“Good for you!” said Mrs. Peters.
“What happened to your bumblebees?” shouted Sonny. “They aren’t fat anymore!”
Molly looked down at the bumblebees. Everyone must have noticed they had been thin, then fat, then thin again. But Sonny was right. They were not fat anymore! And Molly would walk without waddling.
“The balloons are gone,” whispered Molly to Mary Beth.
“They popped,” said Mary Beth, nodding. “You swam across most of the pool without them!”
Molly could not believe her ears. Plan B had turned into Plan A. She had actually won her badge legally!
“Hey, Duff,” asked Roger suspiciously, “what happened to those fat bees?”
Molly pretended she did not know what Roger meant. All was well that ended well, as Tracy’s mom would probably say.
After Mrs. Peters had seen everyone swim, the Pee Wees played water games. Then they sang their Pee Wee song and said their pledge right there at the pool.
When they were ready to leave, Nick toddled out of the water with something in his hand. Something yellow. He held it out to his mother.
“Boon!” he said. “Boon!”
“Why, yes, it is,” said his mother. “It’s a yellow balloon! I wonder how it got into the pool!”
But Nick was picking up more yellow balloons from the water! They were flat. And they had holes in them. Molly turned bright red.
“Should I tell her they’re mine?” Molly asked Mary Beth.
“Why?” said Mary Beth. “My mom says to let sleeping dogs lie. It means let things alone.”
And sure enough, Mrs. Peters just took the balloons from Nick and threw them into the trash can. There was no use looking for trouble, thought Molly. Mary Beth’s mother was probably right.
CHAPTER 9
A Badge at Last
When Molly got home she decided she should tell her parents about plan B. It didn’t seem honest to keep things from them. She didn’t like to keep secrets from her own family. Besides, she felt as if she would explode if she didn’t confess to someone besides Mary Beth.
Her parents listened while Molly told them about how she had sunk at first, and how the balloons had held her up.
“But when they popped, it didn’t matter. I swam by myself without sinking!” she said.
“Well, I think you learned something, Molly,” her father said. “It would have been much easier if you had come and told us the problem and learned to swim the right way.”
“You worked so hard to pretend,” said her mother. “And in the end you swam alone anyway! You could have done it without all that fuss.”
What her parents said made sense. But Molly never seemed to do things the easy way. She was stuck with a wild imagination. She was stuck doing things the hard way. But she had to admit, maybe she had just imagined that she couldn’t swim!
Anyway, it felt good to confess. Now only the good things were left, like getting the badges and seeing Jody’s new pool. And soon the phone rang and Mrs. Peters said that they would do both of those together.
“We are going to give out the badges at Jody’s swimming party tomorrow at two o’clock,” she said.
The next day the Pee Wees couldn’t wait. Molly watched the clock and counted off the minutes as they went by. At last, at ten minutes to two, Mary Beth came to her door. Molly picked up her beach bag, and the two friends ran all the way to Jody’s.
When they got there, they saw a sign on the lawn that said WELCOME TO THE PEE WEE POOL PARTY!
Behind the sign was Jody’s house. It seemed to Molly to reach to the sky. The yard was full of flowers, and there was a big tent set up with tables full of food inside. Music floated out from the house, and balloons and paper lanterns hung from the trees.
“I don’t want to look at any more balloons,” muttered Molly.
“Wow!” said Mary Beth. “Jody is rich!”
The girls had known that Jody had a nice house, but they had not been inside it before.
“Do we go to the front door, or to the tent?” Mary Beth asked Molly.
“I think it’s polite to go to the door,” said Molly.
The girls walked up the smooth winding ramp for Jody’s wheelchair. The doorbell played a song when the girls pushed it.
A woman with a white apron on opened the door and said, “Come right in!” Molly knew it wasn’t Jody’s mother. It must be a maid!
“You can join the others out at the pool,” the woman said. “They’re all waiting for you.”
The girls walked slowly through the big house, sinking into the fat rugs and looking up at the big crystal lights. At the back of the house was a long porch with comfortable chairs, and when they went out the door, Molly could not believe her eyes.
The big blue pool stretched before them in the sun. There were trees, bushes, and colorful flowers growing around it in all the right places. There were pool chairs and tables, and beach balls and rafts and inner tubes. A man greeted the girls and offered them cold drinks.
When Jody spotted them, he left everyone else and wheeled his chair in their direction.
“It’s our first pool party!” he said with a big smile.
“It’s great,” said Mary Beth.
Molly saw Mrs. Peters stretched out on a lounge chair, with little Nick. Roger was chasing Sonny around and around a little fountain in the garden. Kevin was diving into the pool. And Lisa and Patty and Kenny were in the dining tent putting shrimp with red sauce on flowery paper plates.
When he saw all the food, Roger came running up shouting and whistling.
Sonny’s mother tried to keep Roger from putting too much food on his plate. She was there, thought Molly, because she was the Pee Wees’ assistant leader. In a little while Mr. White came in too. Probably because he’d helped them learn to swim and get their badges, Molly decided.
“This tile around the pool is from Italy,” said Jody, pointing.
If someone else had said that, it would have sounded like bragging, thought Molly. But it never did when Jody said it. You could tell he was proud of his family’s home.
“This is like the movies,” said Mary Beth, holding a drink with pink ice and a tiny umbrella stuck into a piece of orange.
The girls sat down in the pool chairs to drink their drinks. There were wonderful yard smells in the air, of good food, sweet flowers, and chlorine from the pool.
As they sat there, Jody’s mom and dad came around to welcome each Pee Wee. Then Mr. George gave a little talk, telling them how glad he was to have them at the party, and to have a good time and enjoy swimming.
After that Mrs. Peters got up and made a few announcements. Most of the Pee Wees were too excited to listen. She thanked the Georges for having them all there, and then she said, “We’ll all have some wonderful food now, and while we are waiting an hour to go in the water, we’ll hand out the badges.”
As Roger and Sonny dove into the buffet table again, eating and talking at the same time, Ashley said, “Mrs. Peters, I know what our next badge should be. It should be a badge for good manners.” Ashley glared at the boys.
“Those boys act like cavemen,” said Rachel. “Th
ey push and shove at the table and talk with their mouths full.”
Mrs. Peters laughed and said that a manners badge was not a bad idea.
As they were eating, Mrs. Peters called out their names, and each one of the Pee Wees came up and got his or her brand-new badge. It was a badge that Molly would never forget earning. Rat’s knees, it was beautiful!
As soon as the hour was up, the Pee Wees scrambled into Jody’s new pool. They played water games, and Mr. George led them in a water race.
Then Jody and Kevin showed Molly how to do the jellyfish float.
“When you go underwater, you don’t have to worry. You’ll come right to the top,” said Jody.
Molly had her badge. She didn’t have to learn anything else new. But she could see that Jody wanted her to learn. And besides, it was fun being in the pool now that she didn’t have to be!
Jody’s pool must have had some magic potion in it, because Molly did come right to the top! Instead of sinking, she popped up like a jack-in-the-box!
“The main thing is not to panic,” said Kevin. “You have to relax.”
Molly knew that, but it had never worked before. This time she trusted her friends. Jody and Kevin would not let her down. They would not trick her the way Roger would.
Now she could swim, and she could float. Without balloons in her suit.
Rat’s knees! It looked as if it was going to be a fun-filled summer in Jody’s new pool, with the Pee Wees!
Pee Wee Scout Song
(to the tune of
“Old MacDonald Had a Farm”)
Scouts are helpers, Scouts have fun
Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!
We sing and play when work is done,
Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!
With a good deed here,
And an errand there,
Here a hand, there a hand,
Everywhere a good hand.
Scouts are helpers, Scouts have fun,
Pee Wee, Pee Wee Scouts!