by E. Van Lowe
Kilimanjaro was the incredibly high, free-fall waterslide that every daredevil who visited Splashtopia had to try. All the guys chimed in about doing it right after they ate, as if that made them seem tougher.
Guy wouldn’t go on the Kilimanjaro slide. Not that he was afraid. On my trip to hell, I found Guy hanging a hundred feet in the air lashed to electrified spider webbing. Guy would have had nothing to prove riding Kilimanjaro.
“Don’t be a wuss,” Jeremy said with a smile that showed off his good looks. It was hard to believe that a year ago Jeremy wouldn’t speak to me. Now he was teasing me as if we were old pals. A lot can change in a year. A lot had changed in the past year.
A soft breeze had begun to blow. It wasn’t a cooling breeze, but rather one that felt like hot air from an open furnace. It would offer no relief from the heat.
“I want to go in the wave pool. Just to cool off a bit before the movie.” Maudrina was staring at me and Curtis with doe eyes.
“I could use a dip,” Curtis responded.
Their eyes were on me.
“You guys go. I’ll just chill over here in the shade,” I said. I’d agreed to come to Spashtopia with them, but I did not agree to go in the water.
“Chill?” asked Maudrina with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, bake. I’ll just bake over here in the shade.”
“Come on, Megan. It’ll be fun. You’ve been complaining about the heat all day. Now’s your chance to do something about it.”
She was looking at me with pity eyes again. I swear, that girl could do a million things with her eyes, this time using them to guilt me into the pool.
“The lady’s got a point,” added Curtis. They really were a cute couple. I liked the way he backed her up every chance he got.
“Oh, all right,” I said, adding a loud exasperated sigh.
I didn’t agree to join them in the wave pool because I wanted to cool off. Okay, I did want to cool off, but that’s not why I agreed. And it wasn’t the pity-guilt Maudrina was throwing my way, either. I agreed to join them because Ashley Scott was looking at me like she wanted to chat. A chat with Ashley was more like a cranial probe for information she could use against you whenever you got on her bad side. I’d had a few of those chats with her in the past. I wasn’t in the mood for another.
The wave pool was half filled with bathers who were enjoying the cooling dip, some sitting on float tubes, others standing and jumping over the gentle waves as they rode through.
I had stripped down to my one piece and was feeling practically naked. My only solace was that Maudrina, in her black bikini, actually was practically naked.
“Hey Barnett, how come you never give me any play?” someone called as we arrived at the edge of the pool.
Jack Parson, a jerk from school, had said the exact same words to me one day in French class early in the semester, before Ashley Scott had shut him down. I turned. Jack Parson was now standing a few feet from me, ogling my breasts.
“Hi, Jack.” A knot began forming in my gut. Jack’s pale flesh was highlighted by a tattoo of a cobra that snaked its way up his left forearm and into his feeble bicep—the beginnings of a sleeve. I folded my arms across my chest, hoping he’d get the hint and avert his gaze. No such luck.
“Now that your ex is out of the picture, I think it’s time you got with a real man.” There was a self-satisfied smirk on his lips. His leering eyes were bloodshot, and I realized where his extra dose of confidence was coming from. He had been drinking—from the look of him, all afternoon.
“Ooh look, they just turned up the wave pool,” Maudrina called. There was little-girl excitement in her voice. “Come on.”
The soft swells in the pool had grown since we’d arrived poolside.
“Don’t be scared,” said Jack in a leering tone that made my skin crawl. “I got you.”
An unfamiliar churning bubbled up in the pit of my stomach—anger mingled with fear, blending into a dull ache. The anger was spreading quickly like a brush fire in dry weeds, moving too fast for me to tamp it down. The fear was there because the anger was spinning me out of control, and this lack of control was a new feeling for me. I didn’t know where it would lead.
Then Jack opened his mouth to speak again, and something told me the outcome of this encounter was not going to be good.
“Come on, Megan, I see you moping around school like a kid who’s lost his dog. It’s time you moved on. Guy was ai’ight. But he wasn’t all that.” A smirk edged its way onto Jack’s lips.
The party-line on Guy was that his parents had split up, and he’d opted to live with his father who moved to Anchorage.
“He was all that!” My voice was a soft growl.
Images of Guy flooded in: Guy holding my hand as we sat on my sofa; Guy staring into my eyes with laughter dancing in his; Guy romancing me with the sweetest kisses as we sat on the bottom of the bleachers. With each new image I could feel my anger mounting.
“The pool!” someone screamed.
Chapter Two
The waves in the pool had increased dramatically, swells rising up ten feet into the air and then smacking into one another before sloshing down over innocent bathers. Someone screamed as the bathers in the pool struggled to make their way back to shore, but their escape had been stifled. They were at the mercy of the raging water, being tossed like rubber toys in a bathtub.
“The wave pool’s gone wild,” someone else yelled.
Gawkers began swarming to the edge of the pool to get a better look.
“The wave machine must be broken,” Jack said, his eyes finally off my breasts and on the increasingly turbulent water. He was trying to act as though he wasn’t frightened, but I saw him inching backward, away from the edge of the pool.
“I’m ready,” I said.
“For what?” His eyes opened wide.
More people were starting to scream.
“I’m ready to go in. You got me, right?” I dipped my toe into the swirling water, looked into his sorry face with come-hither eyes.
“Megan!” Maudrina called in a scolding tone.
You crazy!” said Jack, as he continued backing away. “You got a death wish, don’t you?”
“It’s just a little harmless water. Come on, Jack. I betcha Guy wouldn’t have been afraid.” I stepped into the pool. “Come on. You got me, right?” I held my hand out to him. He didn’t take it. Instead, he continued backing away, eyes wide with fear.
A huge wave swept up out of nowhere and corralled me into its watery arms, yanking me from the shallow edge of the pool. The wave dragged me out toward the center.
“Megan!” I heard Maudrina scream.
Looking back toward shore, I saw horror strewn across Jack’s face.
“You’re not half the man Guy is,” I hollered before the wave tossed me into the air. Splashing down, I was immediately engulfed in another wave and went under.
As I hung suspended under the water, I wasn’t afraid. I felt good, so good. The quiet calmness beneath the storm on the surface excited me. The good feeling wasn’t only because of the look on Jack Parson’s face—oh, but that was precious. I was enjoying the looks on all of their faces. The fear in the eyes of all the bathers delighted me.
The churning in my belly congealed into a warm, sticky deliciousness. I did this, I thought. As crazy as it seemed, I believed it was true. I did this.
By the time I bubbled up to the surface, the surging water had begun to calm. Lifeguards were wading in, rescuing the most hysterical. I smiled to myself, and the deliciousness increased. I don’t need rescuing. I may never need rescuing ever again.
Someone had turned off the wave machine.
As quickly as it arrived, the deliciousness in my belly began fading away. It was gone in no time. My belly calmed. The waters calmed. The surface of the water in the wave pool was now smooth like a glass table top. I walked to shore. Agitated bathers were all around me. I was as calm as the waters of the wave pool.
When I got to shore, Jack Parson was nowhere to be found—but Maudrina was. She was staring at me with wild eyes. Curtis rushed to my side.
“Good God. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I didn’t know the water was going to be so rough, but I’m fine.”
“That was a dumb thing to do. You could have drowned in there.”
“No. Not really.” I looked at Maudrina. She was still staring at me.
“The wave machine must have gone wacko,” Curtis said, handing me a dry towel. “Splashtopia is about to get hit with a big lawsuit. Trust me on that.”
I again glanced at Maudrina.
“I think we should go,” she said in a clipped tone.
“Yeah, I agree,” said Curtis. “I’ll get our things. Maybe we can beat the crush of cars getting out of the parking lot.” He dashed off to retrieve our gear.
Maudrina and I were alone. She continued to stare. I couldn’t read what was stirring up behind her eyes, but I didn’t like the look of it.
“That was weird,” I said matter-of-factly. I looked away.
“Very.” Her tone was low, guarded. “What do you suppose happened?”
I looked back, holding her gaze for a long moment before responding. “I don’t know. I… guess the wave machine broke. Right?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she continued to stare.
*
All the way home, Curtis chattered a mile a minute about the happenings at Splashtopia.
“Best end of school year event ever. Ever! Ladies, we are part of history. We’ll be talking about this one all summer.”
I sat silently in the back seat staring out the window. Yes, I had planned for my afternoon at Splashtopia to end early. But I hadn’t anticipated anything like this.
“And, Megan, wow. You were in it. You actually went in,” Curtis continued.
“It was dumb of me,” I said. “That boy got me so mad. I was just trying to get away from him.”
“It seems suspicious.” Maudrina was finally breaking her silence.
“You mean like someone turned up the wave machine on purpose?” asked Curtis.
“Something like that.”
“You’ve got a wild imagination there, Zim,” he responded with a chuckle.
“I don’t know. What do you think, Megan?”
I wasn’t sure before that moment, but now I was. Maudrina believed what I believed--that I had caused the near calamity.
I suddenly felt tired, as if sacks of cement were hanging from my shoulders, weighing me down. “What do you want me to say, Maudrina?” there was a hint of unintended annoyance in my voice.
After a moment’s silence: “Nothing,” she replied in a flat tone.
“Did I miss something?’ asked Curtis. “Is something going on with you two?”
“Of course not,” I replied quickly. His eyes were on the road, and not on me squirming in my seat.
“Now whose imagination is working overtime?” added Maudrina with a laugh.
“All right, all right, you got me,” he said, backing away from his statement.
He was right, of course. There was something going on between us. I had told Maudrina everything about my trip to hell to rescue Guy. During my trip, a she-wolf had attacked me. When it looked as though she was going to retrieve The Book of Calls that I had brought along to trade for Guy’s life, a lightning bolt shot from my hand, knocking the book from her lips. Later, the angel, Roxanne, had told me that during my battle with Satan a few months ago, some of his power had rubbed off on me. The abilities will reveal themselves to you in time, she had said.
Now I was seated in the backseat of Curtis’s car wondering about the extent of my new abilities and wondering if what had happened today were, in fact, the abilities revealing themselves. I was sure Maudrina, seated on the front seat next to Curtis, was wondering the same thing.
I was grateful that Curtis dropped me off at home first. He wanted some alone time with Maudrina that he would get once I was out of the car. Perfect, I thought. The last thing I wanted right now was to be confronted by Maudrina. What would I say?
“You sure you’re okay?” Curtis asked as I climbed from the car. “That could have turned out really bad.”
“I know. But it didn’t. I’m good,” I said.
As I eased shut the door, I turned to Maudrina, who was rolling her window down, letting in the heat. “See you at school Monday morning,” I said, breaking eye contact and heading up the walk toward the house.
“Let’s talk later,” she called as I moved away. It was meant to come off as quick and matter-of-fact for Curtis’s sake. I knew better.
“Okay,” I hollered back without turning. What happened at Splashtopia was the last thing I wanted to talk about. What had happened at Splashtopia needed to stay at Splashtopia.
*
“Megan, is that you?” called Suze from her office in the breakfast nook as I entered the house. What a relief to feel the blessed air conditioning washing over me. I’d just taken the short walk from Curtis’s car to my front door and already my top was beginning to cling to my back.
“Yes, I’m home early,” I called back, realizing I was going to have to keep up the cheery exterior a little while longer.
“Come see what we found,” she called back cheerily. The we she was referring to was also the reason for all the cheer in her voice—her new friend, Tony Christopher.
When I arrived in the breakfast nook, I found my mom and Tony fawning over an old, tarnished silver goblet as if it were the crystal skull.
“Look at this. Pure silver,” she said, proudly holding the cruddy goblet out for me to see.
“We got it for a steal,” added Tony. They were childlike co-conspirators, giddy over the treasure they’d discovered.
“A silver goblet,” I said. My voice was flat.
“Six silver goblets,” Tony corrected. “You should have seen your mother haggling over them. I don’t ever want to haggle with this woman. That’s a losing proposition.” He shot her the sweetest smile, and tussled his unruly dark brown hair. Tony was the rugged, outdoor type who wore the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow as if he were a fashion model. Suze smiled back at Tony. Her smile was radiant, like she was being illuminated from within.
“Six silver goblets,” I said. “Umm… wow.”
“Don’t say it like that,” chided Suze. “I know you’re thinking, ‘just what we need, six silver goblets.’”
“No. That’s what I thought about the sixteen sets of vintage, canary yellow Melmac dishes you brought home last month. And I was wrong about those, wasn’t I?” A teasing grin appeared on my lips.
“Very funny,” Suze replied, screwing up her face at me.
“What are Melmac dishes?” asked Tony.
“Plastic,” I said with a double shot of sarcasm. “Cheap, plastic dishes that are now in a box in the garage waiting patiently to become antiques. How much did they set you back, Mom?”
She turned to Tony. “Ignore Miss Party Pooper over there. Melmac is an American classic, and those dishes are going to be worth a fortune one day.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “You’ll see. And when I’m rich, I’m not sharing any of my fortune with you.”
Since Tony had come into her life, the playfulness that once existed between us had returned. After months of battling over boyfriends and curfews and lies, we were practically best friends again.
She’d met Tony in the Whole Foods market in Scottsdale, of all places. He was at the market grabbing a bottle of wheat grass juice when they met. If you’d asked me to choose the person my mother would most likely not be attracted to, it would be Tony. Okay sure, he had a nice butt, but that butt was the only match on my mother’s boyfriend priority list. By the way, that list was something I didn’t want or need to know about… and yet, I did.
Tony is single and into fitness. Suze is a mother who hates working out more than I do. And yet, right from the beginning, they seemed to click.
&n
bsp; “Guess I’ll just have to make do without any of your Melmac fortune,” I replied in a teasing sing-song.
“What are you doing home, anyway? I thought you were going to Splashtopia with your friends?” she asked, changing the subject.
And just like that, the bad feelings of the day came streaming back.
“It was too hot out there,” I replied.
I didn’t dare tell her about the incident in the wave pool. If I told her the wave machine malfunctioned, she’d forbid me to go to Splashtopia for the rest of my life. Telling her what I believed really had happened was totally out of the question. My mother hadn’t the faintest idea of my paranormal life, and I planned on keeping it that way.
A short time later, I was off to take a cool shower. Once I was alone in the bathroom, I sat on the edge of the tub replaying the incident at the wave pool over in my mind as if it was a stop motion projector. I went through it moment-by-moment trying to recall any odd feelings I might have had that could have caused me to go off.
Guy was ai’ight. But he wasn’t all that.
Those were the words that touched off the anger storm.
He was all that!
I recalled getting angry and practically shrieking at Jack as images of Guy’s sweet face flooded in. I didn’t remember feeling particularly powerful at the time, just angry. As I got angrier, somebody screamed: The pool!
That’s it, I thought. The ability is triggered by my anger.
I got undressed and set the shower to lukewarm before climbing into the tub. There was one more thing I remembered as the soothing shower cascaded over me. When I was floating under the water of the wave pool, a delicious feeling had flowed into my belly like a rich melted chocolate. I enjoyed it, I thought. Everyone around me was freaking out, but not me. I enjoyed the mayhem, I thought. I’ve never been a vindictive person, never one to enjoy the misfortune of others, but there was no denying the pleasure I’d derived from the pandemonium at the wave pool. That troubled me more than anything.
*
“Surprise!”
We were standing in Erin’s living room, me and the rest of my nine-year-old friends from the third grade including Matt, who was off to the side swiping M&M’s from the candy dish on the refreshment table when no one was looking, and popping them into his mouth. When he spotted me looking at him, he donned a devilish grin and pressed a shushing finger to his lips.