Sink or Swim

by Bob Balaban

  “Yeah,” I agree halfheartedly. “Probably.” I feel like calling my parents and begging them to come get us. But now that I am twelve I have to at least pretend not to be a whiny little baby.

  We get up from the cold, wet ground, and scrape the mud from our school shoes with twigs. And then we make a mad dash for 442 Lonesome Lane and the safety of my cozy, warm, werewolf-free kitchen.

  5

  FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD

  “I DON’T WANT you kids going out after dark by yourselves for a while,” my mom says to Lucille, Sam, and me, putting on her apron. “Your poor uncle Marvin is still recovering from the shock of his used shoe robbery. It isn’t safe out there. Not with that thief on the loose.” A worried look crosses my mom’s face. “Actually, Principal Muchnick stopped by this afternoon.” She takes a pan of freshly baked hummus puffs out of the oven.

  “He did?” I try not to sound concerned. “What did he want, Mom?”

  “He asked me a lot of questions about your whereabouts this morning, honey. I told him there was no way you could have broken into school. But he was awfully persistent.” She places the tray on a trivet on the table. “Careful, kids. They’re hot.” My mom comes up to me and gives me a big hug. “It must be terrible to have people going around thinking you did something you didn’t do.”

  “It’s not my favorite thing.” I sigh.

  “Dig in, kids.” We don’t need to be asked twice.

  I spear a few of the delicious puffs with the tip of my long pointy tongue. “These are great, Mom. What do you call them?”

  “Crispy Hummus Dreams, sweetie.” She hums to herself as she starts arranging her mixing bowls. “Why don’t you try one, Sam?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Sam grabs a fistful of puffs and shoves them into his mouth until big round cheeks bulge out like a squirrel carrying around too many nuts.

  “How’d your big meeting go this morning, Mom?” I ask.

  “What meeting, Mrs. Drinkwater?” Lucille polishes off a Crispy Hummus Dream and reaches for another one.

  “I met with Mr. Hollabird over at Beautiful Bites.” My mom wipes invisible crumbs from her apron. “He invited me to make my six favorite healthy desserts and bring them to the charity bake-off his company is sponsoring the week after next. The winner gets a one-year contract and a thousand-dollar advance.”

  “You’ll be Martha Stewart in no time, Mrs. Drinkwater!” Lucille exclaims.

  “I don’t know about that, Lucille, honey. Alice’s mom, Sally Pincus, will be competing, too, and I’m a little concerned about it.” My mom reties the bow on her apron. “If she submits her low-fat vegan pineapple upside-down cake with coconut drizzle frosting and vanilla pot de crème, my goose is cooked. No one works with tofu the way that woman does. It’s uncanny.”

  “My money’s on you, Mom.” I spear a few more of those delicious hummus puffs with my gigantic tongue.

  Dave comes racing into the kitchen, carrying a football under his arm. “Practice was great! I scored three touchdowns and two field goals and completed five lateral passes. Catch!” He suddenly hurls the football right at me with all his might. It hits me smack in the stomach before dropping to the floor and rolling under the table.

  I am the worst catch in the history of catching.

  My brother grabs the last remaining Crispy Hummus Dream and pops it into his mouth. “These are great, Mom. What’s in ’em?” Dave asks.

  “Love, honey. Lots of love.” She brings the empty platter to the sink. “Everybody out of the kitchen this minute. I haven’t even started dinner, and your father will be home soon. Shoo.”

  While my mom gets supper ready, Sam and Lucille and I sit in the den, learning ten new words from Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis’s book 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary, while we watch The Raven.

  “Tawdry,” Sam announces.

  “Cheap or gaudy,” I respond. “Overly decorated. In poor taste.”

  “Very good, Charlie. Use it in a sentence, Lucille,” Sam orders.

  “Amy Armstrong looked tawdry when she showed up for English class wearing false eyelashes, a fake diamond tiara, and her middle school prom dress.”

  Sam and I laugh. If her mother would let her that is exactly what Amy Armstrong would wear to school every day of the week.

  Sam buries his head in the book while Lucille and I watch the movie. The Raven stars Boris Karloff as Edmond Bateman, a disfigured escaped murderer, and Bela Lugosi as Dr. Richard Vollin, a mad surgical genius with a torture chamber in his basement. We’re just at the part where Doctor Vollin saves the life of the beautiful ballet dancer, played by Irene Ware, after she has been in a horribly disfiguring car accident.

  The Raven is possibly the scariest movie in the history of scary movies. I do not recommend watching it (A) after midnight; (B) if you are alone; or (C) at all, if watching a movie in which an insane surgeon cuts off people’s faces and then puts the poor faceless creatures into a giant box and squishes them to death makes you want to hide under your bed and never come out.

  Sam looks up from the book. “Something tells me there’s someone else running around Decatur making everybody think you’re committing those crimes.”

  “Do you think Craig Dieterly is doing it to get me in trouble?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.” Sam scratches his dark purple hair and plays with his nose ring. “All I know is it’s a mystery. And I love a good mystery.”

  Just then Balthazar woofs excitedly as my dad strides through the front door. “I’m hoooome everybody.” He tosses his scarf and his overcoat onto the little bench in the hallway. “What smells so good?”

  “Suppertime, guys!” Mom calls. Dave rockets down the stairs, and my friends and I run into the dining room, take our places at the table, and dig in. “Everybody choose one new and interesting thing that happened to them today and tell it to the table. Let’s start with—”

  My mom doesn’t even get a chance to finish her sentence when Dave blurts out, “Charlie’s on the swimming team as of this morning. Coach Grubman told us all about it at football practice.”

  “I know, sweetie,” my mom says. “Principal Muchnick told us all about it.”

  “Does that qualify?” Dave asks. He hands me a platter of vegetarian steak.

  “It sure does,” my dad replies. “It’s new and interesting, and it happened to somebody.”

  “Unfortunately,” I say, “the somebody it happened to will probably drown as a result. Anybody want more fake food?”

  “You won’t drown, sweetie,” Mom says cheerfully. “You have built-in flippers. You’re amphibious. You’ll be a great asset to the swimming team. And we call vegetarian steak real food where I come from, honey.”

  “I wouldn’t call not knowing how to swim a great asset to the swimming team, Mom,” I say.

  “You’ll just have to learn!” Dad reaches for the platter. “Remember, son, nothing’s impossible.”

  “That’s what my mom always says!” Sam exclaims.

  “I bet your inner athlete is hiding inside those big green scales, just waiting for a chance to come out,” Dave adds. My brother is a regular cheerleader. You can practically see him jumping around and waving pom-poms as he speaks.

  “Anybody else feel like sharing?” Mom asks. She hands my dad a homemade sweet potato pie.

  “Why don’t you tell Dave about the new and interesting thing that happened to you today, Doris?” my dad says proudly.

  “Mom’s going to be in a bake-off and win a thousand dollars and become a famous chef and get her own show on the Food Network,” I announce.

  “That’s fantastic, Mom.” Dave is slurping down his soup so fast he’s nearly finished his bowl.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m going to be competing against real professionals.” She gets up from the table and goes i
nto the kitchen.

  “Watch that negativity, Mom,” Dave calls. “You have to start talking like a winner if you want to be one. Take it from me. I know a little something about the subject.”

  My brother has been on thirty zillion winning teams. He plays every sport known to man, and some you have never even heard of. Like underwater tennis and competitive burping. He puts his hands to his mouth like a megaphone and practically shouts: “Message to Charlie and Mom: if you want to win, think positive. It really works.”

  “Mom, when you’re rich and famous, will you still make us lunch every day?” I ask.

  “Maybe. If you’re very, very nice to me.” My mom hangs up her apron and takes her place back at the head of the table. “Charlie, when you win the big swimming race and they pin the blue ribbon on your bathing suit, will you remember to thank your friends and your family who supported and encouraged you, even on your darkest days?”

  “Like that’s ever going to happen,” I say.

  “Say, that reminds me.” My mom reaches into her pocket and pulls out the little pad she keeps in there in case of sudden inspiration. “I’m going to have to make you swim trunks tonight.” She pulls out a small mechanical pencil and starts sketching something that looks an awful lot like lederhosen. You know, those funny-looking shorts that Swiss yodelers wear when they go mountain climbing. “You can’t very well go swimming in your birthday suit, Charlie. What would everybody think?”

  “They’d think he was pretty strange, Mrs. D.,” Sam says, digging into his salad. “But come to think of it, everybody already does.”

  By the time supper’s over, the table looks like a swarm of locusts has descended and eaten everything but the chairs and the napkins.

  Dave goes to Lainie Mingenbach’s house for a study date. Lainie is Dave’s third-favorite girlfriend. She is captain of the pep squad and specializes in doing the cha-cha, the samba, and modern jazz. If it can be danced, she can dance it. This means Dave’s first- and second-favorite girlfriends are either sick, grounded, or out babysitting.

  Sam and Lucille and I finish watching The Raven. (I don’t want to spoil the ending for anybody, but basically everyone in it eventually gets maimed, killed, or arrested.) We learn two more vocab words and do the rest of our homework, and then my dad and I drive Sam and Lucille home in my mom’s old pickup truck.

  “You know you could be a wonderful swimmer if you put your mind to it, Charlie,” my dad tells me when we’re finally alone and heading back to our house. “Your grandmother swam like a veritable fish.”

  “She was a fish, Dad.” I sigh. “She played championship bridge, too, but that doesn’t automatically make me a card player.” My parents are always telling me I can do anything. Which is nice, I guess. Only sometimes it just reminds me of how many things I can’t do.

  “I just hate to see you being so afraid, son. That’s all. Fear can stop you from doing all sorts of fun and interesting new things.”

  “But can’t fear sometimes be a good thing, Dad? Like fear of putting your hand too near the fire? Or fear of falling off a tall building?”

  “Of course, son.” Dad smiles as he pulls into our driveway. He shuts off the motor and we go into the house. “We have to learn to tell the difference between our unnecessary childish fears and the fears that keep us safe. That’s what growing up is all about.”

  Balthazar trots up behind us as we quietly climb the stairs. “Sleep well, Charlie. You have a big day tomorrow.”

  My father pads down the hall and I change into my pj’s and get into bed. At least most of me does. The part that’s too big to fit sticks out over the end and rests on my brother’s old camp trunk. Balthazar curls up next to me. Pretty soon I hear Dave come home and go into the bathroom to brush his teeth. The big spruce tree outside casts an ominous-looking shadow on the ceiling. But then, any shadows you run into after watching The Raven are guaranteed to look pretty ominous.

  Suddenly a distant shriek pierces the silence of my room. It is the same sound we heard on the way home from the fish store today. I wonder if “fear of shrieks in the night” is an unnecessary childish fear, or a helpful adult one.

  Balthazar wakes up and runs to the window, barking his most protective bark. He wouldn’t hurt a mouse, but he can sound really ferocious when he thinks something might endanger his family.

  Dave shuts off the water. It gets awfully quiet. He tiptoes out of the bathroom and steps on my Buzz Lightyear action figure. “OUCH!!!!!” he screams. Hard molded plastic toys are the worst thing you can possibly step on in your bare feet. “Sorry,” Dave whispers.

  “It’s okay. I’m not asleep.” I sit up in my bed and turn on my desk light. Balthazar jumps back into my bed and curls up next to me.

  “You’d better get some rest.” Dave sits on the edge of his bed and rubs his sore foot. “Don’t you have swimming practice tomorrow?”

  “How am I supposed to be on the swimming team?” I say. “I don’t know how to swim. I don’t like to put my head underwater. I’m not even that crazy about drinking the stuff. I’m going to make a complete and total fool of myself.”

  “Sorry I brought it up,” Dave says quietly. He gets under his covers.

  “I hate seventh grade. It’s like one big opportunity to goof up. Everyone stares at you all the time, just waiting for you to do something stupid so they can talk about it behind your back for the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah,” Dave agrees. “Seventh grade is the pits.”

  “Amen.” I turn off my light.

  We both grow quiet. I think about how much I hope they catch the mysterious robber.

  Then that horrible sound starts in again. Only this time it’s closer. Much closer.

  A shiver travels up my body from the tip of my flippers to the top of my pointy head. Balthazar rolls over onto his back and asks for his stomach to be scratched. “What do you think that sound is, Dave?”

  “I dunno,” he answers. “Maybe a couple of bobcats fighting. Why, what do you think it is?”

  “It sounds kind of like a werewolf to me.”

  Dave chuckles. “You’re kidding.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Because there’s no such thing as werewolves, okay?” Dave sits up in his bed and looks me right in the eye. “You know that, right?”

  “I guess so.” I scratch Balthazar carefully on his soft round belly with one of my claws. He’s almost asleep again. “You think maybe it’s a banshee?”

  “No, I do not think it’s a banshee.” Dave seems pretty adamant. “There’s no such thing as banshees, either. You know, for a genius, sometimes you’re not very smart.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You’ve got to stop watching those scary movies. They’re a bad influence on you. Seriously, Charlie. And there’s no such thing as vampires. Or zombies. Or the Invisible Man. Or Mothra, for that matter.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, what about Creatures? Are they imaginary, too?”

  For once in his life, my brother can’t think of a single thing to say. He just sighs deeply and pulls the covers over his head.

  Pretty soon I can’t tell who’s snoring the loudest: Balthazar or Dave. And I am still awake. I stare up at the ceiling and try to keep my mind off tomorrow’s swim practice. Which only makes me think about it more.

  If there really was an alternate universe somewhere, I would move there immediately. Just as long as they don’t have swimming teams there.

  6

  YOU CAN LEAD A CREATURE TO WATER, BUT YOU CAN’T MAKE HIM SWIM

  “WHEN I BLOW my whistle, everybody into the water!” Coach Grubman shouts. Last period just ended and swimming practice is about to start. I am doing my best off to ward off a panic attack. Wish me luck.

  Coach Grubman is short and stocky and bald. A large silver whistle hangs from his neck. He looks like one of those pe
ople who goes around wrestling alligators on Animal Planet. He ought to feel right at home with me.

  “One, two, three. BRRRRRRING!!!”

  The sound echoes through the pool area, and the fifteen other members of the Stevenson Middle School swimming team leap into the deep end, laughing and screaming and waving their arms.

  Not me. I say a silent prayer, hunker down by the gutter, and dip my scaly green legs slowly and carefully into the shallow end. I have hated going in the water ever since Craig Dieterly pushed my head in the sink and turned on the faucet during first-grade bathroom break. I nearly drowned.

  “You there! What do you think you’re doing?” Coach Grubman barks.

  I was kind of hoping he wouldn’t notice me. Not happening.

  Coach holds a rubber band in his hands and fiddles with it as he talks. He stretches it. He winds it around his fingers. He balls it up in his fist. “What part of ‘everybody into the water’ don’t you understand, Drinkwater?” He snaps the rubber band like it is an exclamation point.

  “Sorry, sir,” I reply. “I’m almost in. Just give me a minute here.” I teeter at the edge as I lower myself another few millimeters, wishing that Coach Grubman would stop staring at me. The acrid chlorine smell burns my eyes and makes my extremely sensitive nostrils itch. The entire team swims over and gathers around me in the shallow end to watch. The ridiculous brushed satin bathing suit my mother made billows up around my haunches like a giant green parachute.

  “What are you wearing, Bigfoot?” Craig Dieterly yells. “You look like the Jolly Green Baby.”

  “Yeah,” says Dirk or Dack Schlissel. “Where’d you get that stupid diaper?”

  “Shut up, Schlissel,” I reply. “Haven’t you ever seen a bathing suit before in your life?”

  “Ooh, now it’s mad,” Craig Dieterly taunts. “I’m so scared.” He splashes around and pretends to cry. Everyone thinks it’s the funniest thing they have ever seen in their life. “I want my mommy!”

  “Can it, Dieterly,” Coach Grubman grumbles. “And Drinkwater, you’d better get in the water this instant. I’m starting to lose my patience.”