“I’m ready to fail!”
He frowned. “Not necessarily the best mindset to have when attempting something for the first time.”
“You can always rely on pessimism,” I offered, “because if things don’t work out, it’s because everything sucks anyways.”
He grumbled about my sourpuss mood, so I splashed him in retaliation. Sensing the danger of a repeated brawl, Daniel suggested that we get right to it.
If I thought my balance was subpar on solid land, I was a stoned drunk when you threw me in billowing waves. Lying on the board and paddling around was straightforward enough (and I had a grand old time of pulling myself through the water), but even adopting the half-pushup position was a terrible strain. I felt every muscle in my body quiver, my weak core vibrating to stabilize the board.
“It takes practice,” Daniel encouraged. “I’ve been at it for years and years.”
“But you do it so well,” I pouted.
“And you’ll get there too,” he promised me. “After all, you’re lucky enough to have the best surfing instructor in the world as your private tutor. You’ll be competition-ready in no time.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
A good ten minutes later, I was able to hold myself in the position with only moderate pain. My whole body felt like I’d done the most intense workout of my life … a billion sit-ups for sure. I would certainly wake up the next morning with a shredded six-pack.
“Are you ready for the hop?” he asked.
The word brought on a feeling of terrible dread. “Uh?”
“Great! Channel your inner bunny rabbit and do it.”
I thought of carrots and making little pellet poops. Be the bunny, be the bunny, be the bunny. “Okay.”
“Hold the rails tightly,” he instructed (my knuckles were white), “and jump.”
I closed my eyes and awkwardly jerked my legs forward.
“Did I do it?” I asked, my words cut off in a gurgle as water rushed into my mouth.
“Almost,” he told me. “Get back on.”
Time after time after time after time … I kept falling into the water. The board was like a mechanical bull with a sadistic mind of its own, bucking and jerking and determined to throw me off in a dramatic and wild flail of limbs.
“I can’t do it,” I told him, wheezing.
“You most certainly can,” he informed me, his mouth set in a hard line. “And you will.”
“Daniel, it’s hopeless. Pessimism wins this one.”
“No,” he told me firmly.
“But—”
“Again.”
Internally, I wasn’t so pleased with him, and I prepared a long string of four-letter words.
“Will, you can do it.”
I pursed my lips, displeased, but clambered back onto the surfboard. My limbs were useless. I was exhausted. Hands tightly gripping the rails. Push up. Bunny hop forward. Surge of salty water down my throat, streaming past a uvula that was teetering on the very edge of ordering a flood of vomit.
But there was no choking water (or, thankfully, any vomit). I opened my eyes.
“Will …”
I was in a crouching position, my hands fused to the rails, my feet landed under my bathing-suit-clad caboose.
“I did it.”
“Stand,” Daniel ordered, his voice bubbly.
“Stand?”
“Yes, let go of the rails and stand up. Like we practiced. Use your arms for balance.” His voice was my rock.
I attempted what he asked. Releasing my iron-tight grip, I started to unfold myself, slowly, sloth-like. I spread my arms as if my life depended on it. And I managed do get about halfway into a standing position before I lost my balance and tripped.
Though I should have been discouraged, the impact of falling from that slightly higher height was my motivation.
“Great job!” Daniel exclaimed.
“Let me try again.”
This time, I made it a fraction of an inch farther. The next time, even more. By the fifth or sixth time, I was “standing”—I use quotation marks because I wasn’t stick-straight, but I was definitely closer to being up than I was to being down.
And then I fell again.
“Can we take a break?” I asked, panting.
Daniel was beaming. “Sure!”
Feeling like the water was pooling in my every pore, weighing me down, I sloshed toward the beach like a zombie … except without the swollen brain and festering flesh wounds.
Absently undoing the leash of the board, I crawled the last bit of the way to our towels and plopped down, covered in sand and looking like a strip of chicken already rolled in breadcrumbs and ready for the oven.
“I’m so proud of you,” Daniel enthused, extending his fist. I punched it in the weakest fist-bump I’ve ever given.
“Thanks,” I huffed.
“Here,” he said, holding out a bottle of water. I took it gratefully and guzzled it down like an SUV at the gas pump.
“Time check?” I asked.
“Uh, ten thirty.”
We had been in the water for a little over an hour. No wonder I felt like I’d just come out of a double period of gym class with physical fitness evaluations.
“Lunch time?” I begged, adopting Hannah’s policy that a brunch of pizza or cheeseburgers was perfectly acceptable when in Seaside City … and I chose to extend that to Seaside City and its surrounding territory.
Daniel laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I pulled myself into a sitting position and searched through my backpack. Triumphantly, I retrieved the crumpled paper bag that contained my noontime—or slightly earlier—meal.
“I think paper-bag lunches are seriously underappreciated,” I told Daniel.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. All these bratty little kids want superhero or princess lunchboxes or whatever, but why mess with the classic? When you tell your kids about eating lunch as a teenager, don’t you want to be able to say that you used a paper bag? I’d be embarrassed to say that I used one of those commercialized boxes of evil.”
“That’s an … interesting point of view,” he teased.
I sniffed. “Well, I think it’s an important issue.”
“No, no … definitely. For sure.” He shook his head as he laughed, and I allowed myself a small smile. “Very important. Extremely important. The president should pass legislation about it.”
“I see that you favor a plastic bag instead of paper,” I commented, ignoring his sarcasm.
“Is there something wrong with that?”
I shrugged. “I mean, the overloaded landfills and melting icecaps are probably not that big of a deal.”
“Oh, that’s a low blow. And where does one even find paper bags these days, anyhow?”
“I … uh … I don’t know.”
“Where’d you get yours?”
“It came with the apartment,” I told him. “It was in one of the cupboards.”
He threw back his head in laughter. “It figures! Adorable … it’s vintage!”
We waited the mandatory sixty minutes after eating lunch before going back in the water, because I didn’t want to fall off the surfboard and get a cramp and drown.
“Are you ready to surf?” he asked once the necessary time had elapsed.
“Like actually surf?”
He got a mischievous expression. “Let’s go catch some waves.”
“What happened to baby steps?”
Infuriatingly, Daniel ignored me and merely grabbed me by the hand and hauled me to my feet. Moments later, I was again shivering in the frigid water with the dumb leash bound to my leg.
“We’re going to paddle out farther than we went last time; over there, you see wher
e the waves break?”
I shot him death stares. “Uh-huh.”
The next fifteen minutes of my life were bruising both physically and egotistically, because I was repeatedly thrown from the surfboard and pounded beneath the splintering waves.
Pummeled over and over, the minutes crawled by as I attempted to stand on the board and ride a wave. Thirty minutes passed. And it felt as though I’d just been beaten up by the ocean.
“Can we take a break soon?” I gasped, clinging onto the board for dear life.
“One more try,” Daniel told me. He’d been wading by my side the entire time. “Just once more.”
I threw myself into it haphazardly, eager to be done with the whole thing. When I got home, I was going to have a serious talking-to with the List. What was the big idea? Learning something new … bah!
“That’s it,” he encouraged as I did the little bunny leap.
I rolled my eyes and, dumbly, stood right up without any attempt to balance myself.
“You see?” I shouted as I felt myself teetering, and then a wave slammed into the board, and I took a sharp sideways fall.
My skull cracked into the board, and I was swallowed up into a spinning darkness. I couldn’t think. Everything buzzed and swam, and my eyes slipped closed, and my mouth opened, and I was choking on water, and it was up my nose, and I was as limp as a doll, and I was dying. I tumbled underwater twice more before blacking out.
… And I came to, spluttering, emptying myself of seawater. It sprayed from my nose, rose with the bile from my throat, slipped from my eyes.
“Thank God. Oh my God. Thank … oh God.”
Hopelessly confused, my eyes darted back and forth to settle on Daniel’s panicked face hanging above me. His labored breath hot on my face—it smelled of apple juice. And his body hovered over the length of my own.
I was totally lost. “Da … niel?”
“Yes,” he croaked, and he was crying. He put a shaking hand to the side of my face and stroked along my cheek. “Yes, I’m here.”
“Daniel.”
I threw up again; it dribbled from the corners of my mouth, and he tilted me to the side. I coughed it all out.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, a firm and reassuring hand on the back of my neck. “It’s okay.”
“What …”
“The surfboard hit you in the head. You almost drowned.”
“Oh …”
He hugged me close to him. “I thought you were gone. I thought that … that …”
“You … saved …” I coughed. “Me? You saved … me?”
“Yeah.” He smiled through the tears. “Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
And then I fell back onto the towel and closed my eyes, breathing softly, my head a single, throbbing ache.
. . .
When Rose Clark came to pick us up, she took me straight to the medical clinic. I don’t remember much of what happened, but I ended up leaving with a fairly good bill of health, all things considered. I’d suffered only a very mild concussion, and I got an angry red bump on my forehead as a souvenir.
Aunt Nellie arrived in a flurry, doting on me with a crazed look in her eyes. Once she’d heard the full story, she couldn’t stop hugging and thanking Daniel for being my own personal lifeguard.
Later, when Rose dropped Aunt Nellie and I off at home, I gave Daniel a big hug, leaning into his body. “Thank you.”
“Don’t … it’s okay.”
I nodded and managed a smile, eager to get inside, down about three bottles of headache pills, and spend the night parked comfortably in front of the TV.
Thankfully, the spectacle that was the sizeable lump crowning my head didn’t last very long. I remained in a vegetative state for two days afterward, coping with pulsating migraines and the fact that I thought my molars were slightly looser than they ought to be.
Hannah came to visit me the day after my commendable attempt at achieving step one toward becoming a beach bum. It was strange to see her so … serious. There was a furrow between her brows that looked like it had been there for a while, and it was sort of nice to know that she had been worried about me.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked me after I’d told her that I would be, at the very least six times.
“I promise.”
The furrow smoothed out a little bit. She extended a hand and gently brushed my hair back from my forehead, tenderly touching the bump; I grunted in pain, and she winced. “I’m going to kill him.”
“He saved me,” I told her.
“Yeah,” she grumbled, crossing her arms as if she didn’t want to believe it. Then she gave me a get-well present from the whole Clark family: a copy of The Wizard of Oz starring Daniel Clark as the Tin Man.
Those two days were like staying home sick from school; despite being unwell, they were still nice. I hardly moved from the couch, except to go to the bathroom and to go upstairs to sleep at night. Aunt Nellie stayed home to hang out with me and insisted on doing everything for me. She even made me chicken noodle soup and had me drink orange juice, though I didn’t have a cold … it was still a nice gesture.
Soon, with rest, the bump went down, and I was able to function again. In celebration of my newfound health, I showered. My hair was presentable again, and I didn’t have to bury my BO under a heavy sweater and three layers of deodorant.
Thus concluded the saga of William O’Connor: The Failed Surfer.
14. Learn something new
Chapter 16
The Party and the After-Party
Once I was back on my feet, Hannah was eager to share with me a piece of spectacularly good news, the likes of which she promised I had never known before.
“Blake,” she said, “is throwing a party.”
The metaphorical crickets chirped in the background. I shrugged. “Okay. What’s the big deal?”
“Blasphemy!” She gasped, drawing back from me, spitting on the ground, and crossing herself to ward off the devil.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Blake Jackson happens to throw the best house parties small-town teenagers like us could ever hope to have the privilege of attending,” she explained.
“Oh … um, all right.”
“You know, this whole blasé attitude you’re giving me now is horribly misplaced,” she muttered. “You’ve never been to a Blake Jackson party. It’s crazy. His parents run a party-supply company—they work with my mom sometimes—so he has great speakers and colored lights and all kinds of fun stuff.”
I was nodding. “Cool!”
“Oh my God,” she groaned. Then she grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me back and forth. “You are invited to Blake’s party! Smarten up, kid. Get excited.”
Hannah painted the picture of how awesome a night it was going to be, and I did start to get excited. She said that there would be dancing and tons of people … and alcohol. It was something to cross off the List.
“But it’s the after-party that’s always the best,” she explained.
“Why?”
“Because Blake kicks everybody but his close friends out—and that elite group now includes you, amigo,” she informed me. “And we’re all drunk, and it’s really fun.”
My heart started beating really fast. I was going to an actual party. I was going to drink for the first time, and get drunk. “I’ve, uh, never gone to a house party before.” Jessie Stuart’s party didn’t count.
“You are my apprentice, young one,” she said, wrapping an arm around me. “I’ll take good care of you, buddy.”
The night of the party was upon us faster than you could say, “Illegal underage drinking.” And it was all anybody could talk about. A million different people I’d never seen before were constantly cropping up around us, chatting Blake up about how awesome it was
going to be.
“I hope you have a good time,” Aunt Nellie told me as I was putting on my shoes for the big night. “But you’re going to be careful, Will.”
“Understood.”
“Look, I think this is a good experience for you to have … even though you won’t be drinking soda and Shirley Temples,” she said, pursing her lips and putting on her best strict adult face. “But I just want you to be safe about it. And I swear to God if you go anywhere near a car … I will murder you. Okay?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I pledged.
She nodded severely. “Damn right.”
I gave her a hug and started down the stairs.
“Breath check!” she called after me.
I put a hand in front of my mouth and breathed out, sniffed … minty fresh. “It’s fine; I have gum.”
“Antiperspirant?”
“Applied liberally.”
“I love you, kiddo!”
I grinned a wild, exhilarated grin as I opened the door. “Love you too.”
. . .
From the outside, Blake’s house reminded me of Jessie Stewart’s on the night of my infamous and impromptu late-night swim. A rainbow spectrum of colored lights blazed in every window, painting glowing squares all over the lawn. A remix of a pop song was blaring, the line “DJ keep the bass dropping/ain’t never gonna be stopping” on repeat.
“And you said his parents are cool with this?” I asked Hannah in awe as we marched across the Jackson family’s front lawn.
She shrugged noncommittally. “Somewhat.”
“Somewhat?”
“They make themselves scarce for the weekend,” she told me. “And Blake’s only job is to have the house look exactly the same by the time they get back.”
“What about the neighbors?”
“Well, they kinda just let us have our fun,” Hannah said. “I mean, we all live close enough that we won’t be driving anywhere drunk afterward. We’re staying close to home, and we just don’t let things get totally out of control. So everybody basically just lets us have these little parties. I guess they think we’ll just get it out of our systems.”
I blinked. “Um, wow … okay.”
The Big Summer Page 17