But as we approached the edge of the pool, a volcano of nope, nope, nope took over. Not gonna do this. Not gonna happen.
Trinity must have been used to kids freaking the first time going into a pool, because she added, “I. Will. Not. Let. You. Go.” She paused, then repeated it. “Trust me?”
I did. I think. So I nodded yes. Then, I couldn’t help myself, but I glanced at the brace on her leg. Did it make a difference in the water? Then I remembered she said she’d been doing this for years, so I guess she had that covered.
She whisked me out of my wheelchair and strapped me into another one of those swim chairs that, now that I saw it up close, looked like it had been constructed out of pool noodles, a cross between a lawn chair and a pool toy. I found myself sitting on the side of the pool like any other swimmer, well, almost. Trinity sat next to me, swinging her feet in the water.
At this point Kim was literally trying to coax Karyn out of the pool. “We do this every day,” I could hear Kim promising her. An attendant brought over fluffy towels for them as Karyn was wheeled and transferred back to her own chair. As she passed by me, wrapped in the towel, she leaned over to say, “Maybe I’ll stay until after swimming tomorrow. But then I’m gone!”
Huh! But before I could respond, Trinity was wheeling me to the ramp. “You ready, kid?” she asked.
I couldn’t even give her a grunt of response. Because—what was going on with me?—I was too busy wondering if somebody’s heart can explode from terror. Even if I could talk, I wouldn’t have been able to speak. I felt like one of those characters in a scary movie just before the monster pounces.
Trinity could tell I was not, in fact, ready, because she said, “We’re going to roll down the ramp in this fancy water chair, just like Karyn did. And the pool’s only a couple of feet deep. You good?”
I heard laughter, splashes, cries of joy, shrieks, giggles of other kids in the pool. Maybe the Gazelles or the Panthers? I really didn’t care at this point, because all I knew was that in just a few seconds, death was gonna swoop in and take me. Yep, this was it.
“You good?” she asked again. Wow—she was as persistent as Penny. Penny! How was I going to go home and tell Penny I was too scared to swim? In what was essentially a giant bathtub! I couldn’t do that. So, oh so slowly, I nodded my head to tell Trinity to do it. She didn’t wait for me to change my mind. “Here we go.”
And then we were rolling backward into the water. Backward? What? I mean I saw Karyn go in this way, but it didn’t register then! I couldn’t even see how deep we were getting! And this ramp? It looked like plastic! Thin plastic! Argh! Yet slowly, smoothly, we kept rolling, despite the fact that this skinny little thing was gonna break into a million pieces, and I would plunge to my death in seconds. I wanted to scream so bad, but I forced myself to hold it in.
And I braced myself for the coldness to seep through my bathing suit. My butt actually hit the water first, and I gasped. But wait—it wasn’t cold at all! It was warm—really warm. And even felt soft, like when Mom lets me have a bubble bath.
I was so glad I didn’t howl a second ago—that would have been totally embarrassing.
Now the water was at my waist, then mid-chest, and I felt myself relax. Gee, what the heck had I been so worried about? This was easy-peasy.
Well, it was easy until Trinity decided it would somehow be fun to take me out of the swim chair. As soon as she undid the strap, I grabbed the water in a panic, but there was nothing to hold on to. Nothing! My fingers clutched and clawed, at nothingness.
One part of my brain was wondering how water could be something and feel like nothing at the same time. The other part was yelping, Nope. Nope. Nope. I changed my mind. Forget the embarrassment—I gotta get out of here! I started to struggle. I arched my back. I had to get out of the water! I let out something that sounded like a cross between a yowl and a yelp. No, this was a jumbo-sized, earth-shattering, gut-exploding HOWL!
I’m sure Martians on the next planet heard me.
Trinity didn’t seem even remotely bothered by the fact that I was going to die right that second. She held me tightly and just kept whispering, “I got you, Melody. I got you. Just relax. I promise on my life that I will not let you go. Just breathe. Let it in. Let it out. There you go. Just breathe.” She rocked me back and forth, slowly, gently.
“Look at you,” she purred. “Just look at you swimming. You’re doin’ it, girlfriend. You are doing it!”
My arms had stopped flailing, even though I still knew I was gonna die any minute now.
“Feeling better?”
I think I nodded.
“Feel the warm, Melody,” Trinity was saying now. “What color is warm? Orange? Turquoise? I’m feeling a little lavender here—how about you?”
That caught my attention—did Trinity feel colors too? And then I was thinking that the thought of the feel of a color made sense. The water felt soft, silky, and I dunno—it felt pink. Yeah, I know water looks blue in a pool, but this water felt pink, maybe pale rose.
“Looking good, Melody!” I heard Athena call out.
Trinity rocked us to the other end of the pool as Sage and Athena were getting in. As they rolled down the ramp, I wondered why they were using the special loading system like I had. Then I figured it was camp safety rules. Made sense.
Athena was the exact opposite of me when she hit the water. “Whoopie-woo!” she shouted, and immediately wanted to get out of the chair.
“Like my suit?” she asked me, waving, splashing water everywhere. But she sounded so happy I didn’t even care. I nodded yes. Her suit, of course, was pink. It had cute embroidered starfish all over it—so very Athena.