I sure did. Most of us smiled as we thought about baby toys.
“Well, this boat is like a giant, unsinkable toy. It’s been made supersafe, and it’s designed for fun. So let’s go have some!”
I looked over at Karyn. She still looked doubtful, but she let herself be strapped into her life jacket without further questions.
What if… I heard the snap-thud sound of the unlocking of my brakes. We were out of here. Other counselors and their campers were already heading down to the dock. All the campers were sitting in wheelchairs too. I guessed that was a good idea.
Athena plunked right into the wheelchair Sage held out, then waved at me cheerily as she and Sage rolled out the cabin door. “This is gonna be so awesome!” she singsonged, then asked Sage to please push faster.
Jocelyn sat super straight in her chair, wobbling with every bounce but never leaning back.
At the dock, we paused as Kim told us about the lake. “So Lake Lilliana’s just a large bucket of water surrounded by all the land you see. It’s pretty deep but not very large, not like, say, Lake Erie, which is HUMONGOUS. We’re super careful to keep it clean and healthy—no trash, no diesel-powered boats. We even have a lake ranger who patrols it, on the lookout for folks who break the rules. That’s how much we love this lake. And you’re gonna love it too.”
I’d never actually thought about the idea of a healthy lake, but hey, lakes need love too. I liked that idea—folks here looking out for its health, sort of like how Mom makes sure that me and Penny take our vitamins and wash our hands and get our yearly doctor checkups.
A ramp led from the dock, where at least I felt like I could manage a little, to the boat, which was like a foreign country with a different language. I didn’t speak boat very well. I didn’t speak boat at all!
“Ah, I see we’ve got the large pontoon today,” Trinity said happily, looking down at the chunky, rectangular-shaped vessel.
“Look,” said Athena, “it does have floaties! It’ll never sink!”
Karyn scoffed, “I’ve watched that movie about the Titanic like ninety-nine times. Trust me, ‘unsinkable’ boats can go down.”
Another Titanic fan, and yeah, she wasn’t wrong.
Sage adjusted her baseball cap, her ponytail dangling out the back. “Well,” she replied, “I’ve seen that movie a million times as well. But since we have no ocean storms or icebergs in the forecast, just calm, placid lake water, I think we’re safe for this trip.”
The boat rose up and down with the motion of the water, but it was secured to the dock by really, really thick ropes. I’d actually never seen a rope that huge and so tightly woven. I doubted my dad could even wrap his hands around it.
And those things called pontoons? They really were like giant metal floaties attached to the bottom and sides of the boat. And I gotta admit, it did look pretty much unsinkable, but what did I know?
Athena begged to go on first and called out, “Ahoy!” as she and Sage rolled down the wooden ramp and onto the shifting boat.
I flapped my hand at Trinity—I wanted to go next! As we wheeled down the ramp backward, Karyn waved from the dock. I didn’t have time to wave back, because a second later I was on a boat! Me!
I couldn’t help looking in every direction at once while Trinity positioned my wheelchair and began snapping and hooking and connecting it to several tie-downs on the floor. She triple-checked each fastener, giving each a big tug, then declared me “hooked solid.” I guess I’d graduated from guppy to trout.
Karyn and Jocelyn came down next, and our counselors set our chairs so that we could see each other as well as the lake—yay. Another group of girls was already safely secured on the deck—the Green Gazelles. Cool.
I thought now we’d launch off or take off or go full steam ahead—however you say get going in boat-talk—but then we heard loud, deep laughter coming from one of the paths. Karyn and I looked at each other in surprise as a group of boys in blue and purple shirts, wearing life jackets, burst out of the bushes with shouts of, “Hey, wait up! Don’t leave us!”
Kim rolled her eyes, but in a joking way. “Those are guys on our team—the Purple Panthers and the Blue Badgers. Last year,” she explained, “they managed to miss the boat—literally!”
Trinity added, “My bad! I actually forgot they might be joining us! I’m glad they made it ‘just in time’ this year!”
I opened my mouth and closed it again as the guys were being boarded, one at a time. They were also secured in chairs, just like we were.
Lulu explained how each wheelchair was hooked to a specific spot, and that spot revolved.
I looked down at the circle around the bottom of my chair, which had to be what swiveled us around. “You can do a complete three-sixty and see everything!” Lulu exclaimed.
As I was getting over both surprises, I looked from the boys to the lake behind them. I still couldn’t get over the colors. Azure, indigo, sapphire. I ran out of blue words in my head! I mean, I knew lakes were blue, or maybe green, but not all the ding-dang blues with glints of white at the ripples. I couldn’t stop staring. And it wasn’t at all like a swimming pool.
Swimming pools are tame, docile, chlorinated, and medicated. Okay, I read that in a book someplace, but it fit. And no joke, this lake never stopped moving. It was like blue power! And here I was, Melody Scared-of-the-Water Brooks, floating on it—well, part of it. I could hardly believe it.
When everyone else was declared “hooked solid,” Lulu signaled a man who just had to be the captain—he was wearing one of the little navy-blue hats with a brim, right out of a movie.
He walked over. “Ahoy, mates! Welcome aboard, my friends!” he said. His voice was deep and sandpaper rough. “I’m Captain Frederick Carter. We’re mighty glad to have Camp Green Glades with us again this year. This boat here—her name’s Silver Sarah—is safe and powerful and knows what she’s doing.”