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  “Squeak by, that’s good enough for you? Really?”

  “Aw, come on, En,” Andy said as he trailed her toward the school cafeteria. They passed by the food lineup and right to one of the tables.

  “Andy, I know you don’t think school is all that important,” Enalyn said as she sat down across from him.

  Andy opened his notebook. Enalyn craned her neck to see.

  “So instead of copying down equations, you just wrote 56 over and over?”

  “It’s the most important number in the world,” Andy said. “I’m hungry. I’m going to go stand in line over there. Want anything?”

  “I’ll get my own when I’m ready,” Enalyn said in an icy tone. “You know, when the exam comes in two weeks, I bet none of the answers to any of the questions will be 56.”

  “Well, maybe one of them.” Andy smiled.

  Enalyn shook her head. “You know, sometimes I don’t know why I waste my time hanging out with you. You’re ‘56 seconds this’ and ‘56 seconds that.’”

  “That’s the time that’ll get me to nationals,” said Andy.

  “And you’ve been swimming that time in practice for weeks now. So stop being so worried about your time and worry a little more about algebra.”

  Andy scratched his head. “Look, we have practice in the mornings, practice in the evenings. I also work a bit at the comic shop. It’s hard to fit the homework in.”

  Enalyn put her hand on Andy’s shoulder. “Look, I do the two-a-day practices, too. And I can still pull a decent grade.”

  Andy smiled. “Well, maybe you could give me some extra help?”

  Enalyn’s face reddened just a little. “Of course I’d help you. But you better take it seriously!”

  @Just_Enalyn

  @TheREALMiriamSaid Any tips on how to get faster?

  @TheREALMiriamSaid

  @Just_Enalyn In the pool? Practice, practice, practice.

  @Just_Enalyn

  @TheREALMiriamSaid But, I need to get better, as in, right away.

  @TheREALMiriamSaid

  @Just_Enalyn I’m sorry, @Just_Enalyn. There is no quick fix. It takes time.

  4

  Swim Meet

  @TigerShark

  @MarkLi Just saw the latest rankings. Still NUMBER ONE!

  @MarkLi

  @TigerShark Rankings are nice. But all that matters is having the best time on race day.

  The deck was crowded with swimmers.

  Coach Ocampo walked over to Andy. “Pretty good turnout for our little invitational meet, huh? I think the Whitby Dolphins and the Mississauga swim club sent all of their best swimmers.”

  Coach Ocampo had arranged for two of the best swim teams in the Toronto region to come to Brampton for a Saturday invitational meet. On a table in the Earnscliffe lobby sat a trophy and some medals, sponsored by local businesses.

  “I don’t see him,” said Andy.

  “Oh, Mark Li?” asked Coach Ocampo. “I was just talking to Whitby’s coach. He told me that Mark is here, all right. What, you worried about him or something?”

  Then Andy saw him. Mark Li. Wearing what Andy thought was a silly-looking Dolphin swim cap on his head. Who’s afraid of a dolphin? Andy wondered.

  “I’m not worried about him,” Andy said. “Every time I’ve raced him this year, I’ve won. And I’m usually a second or so faster.”

  “Well you just worry about yourself,” said the coach. “Just worry about your form. This meet is about getting ready for provincials. Concentrate on your turns.”

  The provincials would be held at a long-course pool, 50 metres long, which was the Olympic size. But not all recreation centres were built to hold a pool that long, so COBRA, like many swim teams in the country, trained in a 25-metre pool, a short course. To swim a 100-metre race in an Olympic-size pool, a swimmer had to turn just once. In the short-course pool, it took four laps — and three turns — to do the same distance.

  Andy nodded and then plunged into the pool.

  Enalyn bobbed next to Andy. “All we’re missing is squirt guns and noodles for it to look like a community-pool free swim. It’s crazy here.”

  “Hey, aren’t you racing soon?” Andy asked.

  “Yup,” nodded Enalyn. “My race is the first on the schedule.”

  “Well, you should tear it up — like you’re Miriam Said or something.”

  “Andy, Miriam Said has set every provincial record she’s ever had her eye on. I’ll be happy to finish top three. Heck, if I ever got into the same pool as her, I’d be freaked out. She’s going to be the best swimmer this country has ever produced.”

  “Well, if you make it to provincials, you’ll be able to see her face-to-face.”

  Enalyn smacked her hand against the surface of the water, splashing Andy in the face. “Andy, can you stop with all of this? I said I’d be happy to finish top three today, maybe set a personal best.”

  Andy swam away and tried to focus on some kind of warm-up. He rotated his arms. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to beat Mark Li again.

  ***

  “En, go! Faster, faster!”

  Andy screamed. He pumped his fist. He jumped up and down on the deck. But he couldn’t make Enalyn’s breaststrokes any faster. She was in fifth place when she got to the first turn. She held the spot into the second and third lap, but then got passed by the swimmer in lane 1. She was now in sixth. Her arms pushed forward, shovelling the water from out in front of her. But she was a third of a length behind the swimmer in the lead. By the fourth lap, Andy resigned himself to the fact that she would finish nowhere near the podium.

  She held onto sixth spot.

  Enalyn climbed out of the pool and ripped off her goggles and swim cap.

  Andy walked over to her. Coach Ocampo had beaten him there.

  “Your turns were awfully good,” said the coach. “That’s what you have to take from this. This meet is not the be-all and end-all. There are positives to take from this.”

  Andy noticed a couple of droplets on Enalyn’s face moving downward from her eyes.

  At least, with her face wet, you have to look real close to notice she’s crying, he thought.

  “Enalyn, um . . .” he started.

  “It’s okay, Andy, really.” Enalyn took a deep breath and looked down. “Just go and get ready for your race.”

  Andy walked away. He felt a bit relieved because talking to a girl when she was crying was way too weird for him to handle. Andy tried to pay attention to the next race. The Eel was in a boys’ breaststroke event. The Eel did pretty well — he finished second — but Andy had a hard time focusing. He kept thinking about how slow Enalyn had been.

  I hope that never happens to me, Andy thought.

  It was time for Andy to go to the blocks for his best event, the 100-metre freestyle. As the club’s best swimmer, Andy had been entered into a bunch of events, but the 100-metre free was his favourite.

  He was in lane 3. He saw that Mark Li had gotten onto the lane-5 block. Andy looked over to Mark, and waved.

  Mark Li shrugged. “What’s your problem?”

  “Waving you goodbye,” Andy said as he pulled down his silver goggles. “You know what a Tiger Shark’s favourite meal is? Dolphin!”

  The race-starter blew a whistle. The boys all got set on their blocks. Then the pop of the starter’s gun. Andy plunged into the water. One. Two. Three. Breathe. His pace was strong. He felt like a predator cutting through the water; instead of arms and legs, he had razor-sharp fins.

  He got to the second turn and exploded off the wall. He pushed off so hard, it was like he had TNT in his ankles. In the water, his ears filled with a zinnggg sound.

  He came out of the third turn and headed for home. He saw the wall coming up toward him. He stretched, stretched . . . and the race was done. He popped ou
t of the water and glanced toward lane 5. Mark Li wasn’t at the wall yet! He was still a stroke away from the finish.

  Andy pumped his fist into the air. Finally, Mark Li hit the wall, followed by six other swimmers. Li’s head popped into the air.

  “Hey, they need a calendar to time you, not a stopwatch!” Andy called out toward Mark. “But silver’s still a nice colour. You should do up your trophy room in silver. I can help you with that!”

  5

  Proving Yourself

  Andy and some of his teammates sat in the men’s change room. Andy had three medals — two gold and one bronze — around his neck. He’d won the 100- and 200-metre freestyle races. He also anchored the relay team, but his best efforts couldn’t improve COBRA’s third-place finish — out of three teams.

  Andy tried as hard as he could to suppress a smile as the new guy walked in, soaking wet. After the meet was done, the COBRA members who hadn’t competed had gone into the water. They’d also been put in charge of putting away the lane ropes.

  “Hey, Superpuke, good on you,” Andy said, loud enough for his voice to echo off every corner of the change room. “You are maybe the best clean-up guy in team history. And your penmanship on the registration forms? Fantastic.”

  Some of the other members of the team snickered. It’s too bad Enalyn can’t see this, thought Andy. This might cheer her up.

  The new guy shuffled to an open slot on the bench as the rest of his teammates laughed.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. That was mean,” Andy said. He walked over to where his open gym bag sat on the bench and pulled out a black swim cap with COBRA emblazoned on it in yellow. He then brought it over to the new guy.

  “Here. Try this on,” Andy said.

  “Thanks,” the new guy said. And then he pressed the swim cap over his head, fitting it tightly over his blond locks. Andy had to look away to stop himself from laughing.

  The new guy looked at Andy. “By the way, you’ve called me Superpuke for the last week or so. My name is Zach.”

  Andy looked hard at Zach. “Hey, look. Don’t feel too bad about the nickname thing. We all get nicknames. As you know, I’m the Tiger Shark, Jamie over there is the Electric Eel, Scott is the Stingray. And as you know, well, you’re . . . you’re . . . Superpuke.”

  Andy began to laugh. He slid off the bench and fell to the floor. He was laughing so hard, he couldn’t get the rest of what he wanted to say out of his mouth. So Jamie, the Eel, stood up.

  “Hey, Zach. Do you like the new cap?”

  Zach simply put his hands to his head.

  “Well,” said the Eel, “you know that swimmers don’t want a lot of hair, right? Slows us down. We all thought your hair was too long. So, well, we fixed your cap before we gave it to you.”

  “What? What?” Zach opened his eyes wide.

  Andy’s laugh had turned into a series of hacking coughs. It was one of the oldest pranks in the book, but it was a beauty. At least Andy thought so. Before Zach got to the dressing room, Andy had smeared hair remover inside the cap.

  “Don’t worry,” the Eel smiled. “That heat you’re feeling right now is only your scalp burning. At least that stuff washes out fast.”

  “You . . . you . . .” Zach tore the cap off his head and dashed around the corner. The rest of the guys on the team heard the hiss of the shower.

  “It burns!” They heard Zach’s voice echoing. “My hair! It’s coming out in patches! I’ll kill you guys! All of you!”

  ***

  Andy sat in one of the comfy-but-worn pink chairs on the second floor of the Chinguacousy library, located across the parking lot from the City Centre. His phone lay in front of him on the table.

  Enalyn sat across from him at the study table.

  On the desk in between them lay pages and pages of equations and notes.

  “So at practice today you looked a bit quicker,” Andy said.

  “Yeah, maybe a quarter-second. Still not nearly fast enough,” Enalyn said. “And enough with the swimming talk. Exams are coming up fast and you want to ace it, right? Well, here are the notes. Here’s how you move the variable to the other side of the equation, and then you can work backward to . . .”

  “Work backward?”

  “Didn’t you follow any of this in Mr. Chalmers’s class?” Enalyn hissed, her voice threatening to rise above a whisper. “It’s not that hard. You just take the variable here and then move it. And now, instead of adding, you’re subtracting.”

  “Enalyn,” Andy said, looking down at the worn carpet. “There’s only a couple of weeks before exams, then there’s only a couple till we go to provincials. You don’t have much time left. You need to get faster. Take what happened last weekend at the meet as a wake-up call. You can’t let that happen again.”

  “Andy!” Enalyn yelled. All around the library, heads swivelled and stared at her and Andy. She turned red and gave Andy a cold stare. She gathered her notes from the table. “Andy, it’s clear you don’t want to study. Why bother? We’re done here.”

  “Hey!”

  Enalyn shoved the papers into her backpack, got up and rushed down the stairs, leaving Andy alone at the study table.

  Andy grabbed his phone from the table and began to text.

  What?

  Leave me alone.

  Why?

  I’m not good enough for you, am I? All you care about is time.

  Andy was about to send another message to Enalyn, but his phone buzzed. He’d received a text message from the Eel.

  Hey, did you get the e-mail from coach? Ha!

  Andy swiped over to his e-mail.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected], [email protected]

  SUBJECT: Suspension

  Gentlemen:

  Look, I know and you know the hair-remover thing is the oldest trick in the book. But I’ve got to do something. You should know, the new kid’s got guts. He decided to shave his head after what you guys did to him. And he did it without coming to me, and before his parents found out. He just told them that he needed to be faster and needed to lose the hair. He didn’t mention the prank at all to them.

  So, cut him some slack now. He’s been initiated. Don’t come to practice tomorrow. I’m going to suspend you all for the day.

  COACH

  Andy’s phone buzzed again. Another e-mail had arrived in his inbox. And it was from the coach, but this one was addressed only to him.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  SUBJECT: Enalyn

  Andy, I know you talk to Enalyn and all that. Anyways, she sent me an e-mail earlier saying that she wanted to quit. Do you know anything about this?

  6

  Slow Down

  @MarkLi

  You still talking, @TigerShark? Can’t wait to wipe that smile off your face.

  @TigerShark

  @MarkLi you are soooo brave on Twitter. Soooo tough. Where was that at the meet, huh?

  @MarkLi

  I’m not gonna pop off at a meet like an idiot . . . like @TigerShark does.

  @TigerShark

  Can’t wait to beat @MarkLi again at provincials. Does he need a head start?

  @MarkLi

  I will beat you when it counts, @TigerShark. See you at provincials.

  The water rushed against Andy’s face. He breathed out of his nose, hard, as he rotated through his flip turn. Blowing the air out helped keep the water from rushing up his nostrils. He pushed off the wall and headed back in the direction he’d just come from.

  I’m slow this morning, he thought. Really slow. Like, Mark Li slow.

  When Andy surfaced to take a gulp of air, he heard the coach yelling.

  “Andy, faster! Faster!”

  He didn’t need the coach to tell him that. He knew he needed to pick
up the pace. He tried to find an extra gear to make his legs kick harder and faster.

  He got to the wall and surfaced.

  The coach stood on the deck, stopwatch in his hand. “That’s like, wow. Almost 57.5 seconds. What’s up with you?”

  Andy slapped the water. He tore the swim cap and goggles off his head and threw them onto the deck. “You didn’t need to tell me my time, Coach. I could tell.”

  Zach was in the next lane, treading water next to the Eel.

  “If Tiger Shark swims any slower, well, that’s like a girl’s time,” said the Eel. “Or worse, it could be close to your times, Superpuke.”

  “How did he know that he was that slow?” Zach asked. Both he and the Eel kept treading water, but raised their arms out of the air — an exercise meant to build stronger legs and endurance.

  They treaded for 60 seconds, working so hard that it was too tough to talk. Then the Eel floated over to the edge of the deep end and grabbed ahold of the wall. “You’ll get it after you’ve been doing this a while. Every swimmer knows if he’s faster or slower than his usual pace. Even if you’re just a second off, you know it.”

  Andy hopped out onto the deck. He then dropped and did twenty-five push-ups.

  “Wow, push-ups without asking,” said the coach. “You really must be pissed off there, Andy.”

  Andy didn’t say a word.

  When Andy grunted through his final push-up, the coach leaned forward and whispered. “So, did you talk to Enalyn?”

  “No. She’s not talking to me, at all.”

  The coach looked at his watch and then blew his whistle, which echoed through Earnscliffe Pool. “Okay, okay, that’s it for the day! You’ve got a few minutes, everyone, before the pool opens to the public for lane swims!”

  Some of the swimmers got out of the pool. A few of them finished the last of their laps.

  The Eel and Zach joined Andy on deck.

  “What’s up with you?” the Eel asked Andy.

  “Stupid math exam is all over my head. I’ve got to write that thing later today. I hardly slept last night. Enalyn was going to help me with it, but she hasn’t talked to me since, well . . .”