Authors: Angela Morrison
Tags: #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Christian, #Friendship, #Juvenile Fiction, #Sports & Recreation, #General, #Religious, #Water Sports, #Death & Dying
Taken by Storm (2 page)
So much easier to be a fish.
I leave the juvies playing hide-and-seek in the coral’s tiniest caves and swim over to the wall for a look. Nice. Steepest one we’ve been on. Blue, deepening to bluer, deepening to a thousand feet of blue. Perfect. I know I can break a hundred. Today.
Every time I tried at the condo last summer, either the waves were too high or the currents too strong. That’s the Keys. None of that here. I turn away from the promising depths and swim toward sunshine.
When I break the surface, Mom’s all over me. “Dammit, Michael, you’re supposed—”
“Just warming up. Not a real dive.” I suck up. “Never without a buddy.” I duck under the BC raft, grab the weight belt I brought for her from the vest’s pocket, and surface.
“It looked like a real dive to me.” Mom fastens the belt, kicking slow to stay afloat.
I grin and give her a saltwater kiss on the cheek before I move out along the line stretched between the buoy and raft, positioned so I can dive straight down the wall. I float on my stomach, blow through my nose to clear my mask, shoot a spout of water out of my snorkel, and inhale—fill my gut, hold it a few beats, then blow it out nice and slow, expelling CO
2
, the waitress, Carolina, Mandy, even Mom through that handy tube stuck in my mouth.
2
, the waitress, Carolina, Mandy, even Mom through that handy tube stuck in my mouth.
“Take it easy this morning.” Mom treads water instead of taking up her spotting position. “Don’t go too deep.”
I keep venting, soaking up the blue world under me, eager to immerse myself in it again.
“No blackout today, right?” She says that every dive. I was ten that one time. Get over it.
A pair of painted angels drift over the top of the wall, their fins waving in time to my slowing heartbeat. I blow up my chest and gut, nine more mesmerizing cycles.
Mom maneuvers into position, facedown on the other side of the line.
I advance to super-vents, stretch my head back so I can drive air into every chamber of my skull and torso, filling my throat and nasal passages again and again until my fingers tingle perfect breathe-down. O
2
maxed, totally zoned.
2
maxed, totally zoned.
I inhale one last time, packing every crevice, and then pack more air and more. Mom bumps my leg. Doesn’t matter. I’m Mr. Zen of the Deep. Nothing can penetrate this lean mean free-diving machine.
I slip the snorkel out of my mouth, bend at the waist, kick my massive free-dive fins skyward, and shoot down through the water. One kick, two. My buoyancy slides negative at fifteen feet. I streamline it, conserving my hoard of O
2
. Don’t need to kick now. Pinch my nose and clear my ears—easy. I zoom past the top of the wall, equalize my mask, glance at the dive computer strapped to my wrist, seventy feet, clear again, eighty. The deeper I go, the faster I fall. I blow past ninety. Hit a hundred before I know it. The water’s so kicking clear.
2
. Don’t need to kick now. Pinch my nose and clear my ears—easy. I zoom past the top of the wall, equalize my mask, glance at the dive computer strapped to my wrist, seventy feet, clear again, eighty. The deeper I go, the faster I fall. I blow past ninety. Hit a hundred before I know it. The water’s so kicking clear.
I pull up hard, flip so my head points skyward, and work my fins to stop sinking. I want to celebrate. Kind of a deadly idea. A massive crab, all blued out, sits in a crevice sliced into the wall. He waves his claws in my direction. It took less than a minute to get down there. I have plenty of oxygen packed in my body, but I need it all for the ascent. No time for underwater fans.
I begin kicking for real, powering my giant fins back and forth. Don’t go anywhere. Freak. Ditch my weights? No way. Dive won’t count. My depth gauge reads 99 feet. Good. I’m moving—just doesn’t seem like it. I paste my eyes to the blaring pink triangle that is Mom and kick harder. Ninety feet, eighty.
I make the top of the wall with upward momentum. Acid scalds my leg muscles. My lungs weep for air. Still, I don’t chuck the weights. I keep eye contact with Mom so she won’t think she has to save me and wreck this dive. My chest vibrates with the effort of holding on to the last dredge of O
2
. My legs get stiff. I force them to keep wafting my heavy fins back and forth.
2
. My legs get stiff. I force them to keep wafting my heavy fins back and forth.
The drowsy warmth of blackout creeps over me at fifteen feet, but I don’t give it any room. I blow my CO
2
. Positive buoyancy propels me to the surface. I blast through, plastering Mom. She squeals.
2
. Positive buoyancy propels me to the surface. I blast through, plastering Mom. She squeals.
My starving lungs kick back mounds of fresh salt air.
“Your lips are blue, baby.” Her eyebrows draw together.
I suck O
2
to my brain and stick my computer-strapped wrist in her face.
2
to my brain and stick my computer-strapped wrist in her face.
107 feet. Perfect.
“Whoa.” She doesn’t yell it and give me skin like Dad would have. “From now on you’re going to need a lot better spotter than me.” Mom starts untying the diver-down flag from the buoy. “Let’s head back.”
“We’ve still got tons of time.” I fin over to her. “I’m going again in a few minutes.”
“No way.” She struggles with my knots.
“Yes. Way.” My mask fogs up. I rip it off my head. A few strands of wavy brown chick-bait hair come with it.
Mom gets the rope loose. “You need to work on your knots.”
“I just got started.” I hock a ball of slime into my mask and rub it around with my finger. “What am I going to do back on the boat?”
“You’ve got yesterday’s dives to log.”
“I’m staying.” I swish my mask around in the water.
“Not without a spotter.” She winds up the rope and hands it to me.
I hook the scuba-vest raft with an elbow. “Then spot me.” I put my mask back on, mess around clearing it of my wild hair, remembering how Carolina clutched at it the last time we were together.
Mom turns her back on me. “You’re diving way out of my league.” She unlatches her weight belt, lifts it out of the water by one end, and sets it on the BC raft. “You know I’m lucky if I free dive to thirty.”
“This is stupid. You always spot me.”
“Not anymore.”
“One more dive. Just to the reef. A baby could make that dive.”
“Can I trust you?”
How can I answer? We both know I’ll be down that wall again—freaking
should
be down that wall again.
should
be down that wall again.
“I’m not going to lie there and watch you drown. End of story.” She pulls her still pretty face into a crease. “You’re not free diving unless you’ve got a qualified spotter at the surface and a scuba spotter at depth.”
“Give me a break.” Nobody does that for a hundred feet. “It’s not like I’m riding a sled to 450.”
“Don’t give me nightmares.”
Right on cue, like Mom foresaw all and paid off the captain to get her way, the horn on the
Festiva
blares, over and over.
Festiva
blares, over and over.
Mom frowns back at the boat. “Let’s go.” She starts swimming.
I hang back.
“Get a move on,” she yells. “They don’t blow that thing for nothing.”
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
chapter 2
AFTER
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
When i ask for clothes, the nurse opens a drawer in the nightstand and pulls out my dive-club jacket and pants. This log was in the waterproof pouch. Must have stashed it there on the way to dinner. The thing is totally dry. The ink didn’t even run.
Wish i put my wallet in there. It’s wrecked—salvaged the plastic—my license, dive card, and a condom. The picture of me and Mom and Dad smiling on a dive boat together is ruined. The Belize money fell apart, but my U.S. dollars dried out. They’re salty, but they survived. Guess breathing isn’t an issue if you’re a dive log or a dollar or a stupid condom.
i keep forgetting how. To breathe. Three, four minutes go by and i realize i’m doing it again. Holding my breath. Good thing i’m not hooked up to those monitor machines. The alarms would be buzzing all the time.
There’s an old guy across the hall. Must be close to toast. Bells go off seems like every ten minutes. Nurses run in there. A doctor or two show up. And then i hear that steady bleep, bleep, bleep. And i’m glad the guy’s still with us—some shriveled-up old Belize man i don’t even know.
The nurse says they’re going to call me a taxi in a couple hours, so i shower. First time in days. Get dressed. Maybe somebody laundered my clothes. They don’t stink. No mud, salt.
i don’t think i have shoes. i limp out into the hall to ask where i can buy some sandals, and the nurse leads me back to my room and makes me get in bed. The sun is shining in my eyes. No blinds. Hurts. Wish i could turn it off.
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
i’m checked in. No luggage. The nurse gave me a pair of gigantic green flip-flops from the lost and found. You think they’re some dead guy’s? Am i wearing a dead guy’s flops? The airport’s got a junky-looking trinket shop and a place to buy drinks and stale sandwiches. Maybe sandals. Not. That would mean standing, moving, talking. My lime flops will do—go great with the gauze and white tape the nurse wrapped around my foot.
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