“The fuck are you doing?” Ryan yelled across the water.
Tristan struggled to stay afloat, arms chopping. His T-shirt bubbled around his face and threatened to swallow him.
Ryan streamed through the water, rose, and barreled down on Tristan’s head, plunging him under. It happened so fast. It went on forever. Cally was steps away, conceivably she could do something, but it felt like watching TV. Everyone gathered around the pool and stood there, waiting to see how far Ryan Harbinger would go.
Finally Tristan pushed out from under Ryan’s hand, gulping the air, panicked, like a lost little kid. Abigail and Emma yelled at Cally to get away from the edge, but she couldn’t move a single limb.
“Want more, faggot?” Ryan pushed Tristan under again.
“Stop it!” someone, not Cally but Dave Chu, yelled.
“You like it, fag?” Ryan was grinning at Cally now. “You like it?”
“Please,” she said, too quietly to matter. She backed away to huddle with Abigail like they were nothing more than spectators.
When Mr. Gifford charged out of the locker room, eyes on his clipboard, Ryan released Tristan and vaulted out of the water. He was back with the boys before the teacher looked up. Tristan broke the water’s surface, heaving for air.
“Tristan Bloch!” Mr. Gifford yelled. “What the hell are you doing in the pool?”
Everyone laughed, so Cally did too. She guessed Tristan would regret having given her the silver crane, would be disappointed at the kind of girl she had turned out to be. She’d saved herself.
—
Cally found the note in her locker the next day after school. A sheet of binder paper folded into impeccable quarters, her initials neatly printed on the front in pale blue ink. The handwriting was not what she’d hoped for: Ryan’s hurried scrawl.
She unfolded the note.
Dear Cally Calista Broderick,
You might not think I watch you but I do.
Every day in class, and at recess, and when you come to Ms. Flax’s room when I’m there because of my acommodations. In PE I see you when you run the mile around the marsh and you cut through the long part and go into that clump of trees with that asshole Ryan H. (I’m sorry Calista but he really is an Asshole.)
You might not think that anyone in this School sees you but I do. I mean sees you really. Did you know that you have the World’s most beautiful skin. It smells like rasberries. And you have the smallest softest blondeish hairs on your arms. I know this because I touched you one time, in algebra remember? You were reaching for a fresh pencil and I reached across at the exact same second and Boom!! I touched your bare skin. You might of thought that was an accident Calista, but what if it wasn’t?
Sometimes when I’m watching you I think about
I think that you are Perfect. People say Elisabeth Avarine is prettier than you just because she has a better nose but you shouldn’t beleive them, I don’t. First of all your hair is longer and wavier than Elisabeth’s. And second, when you look at you, you can tell that you aren’t Brain Dead. I mean I can tell that you think about things, like I do.
Calista, sometimes when I’m watching you I think about this day back in sixth grade. We were all standing on the flats during PE and looking up at the ridge of Mount Tamalpais, The Sleeping Lady. You know the Legend: The Mountain Witch sent her daughter Tamalpa to cast an evil spell on a Miwok warrior who went up the Mountain alone. But Tamalpa stole his gold headdress and all his power. The warrior didn’t care because he was already in love with her. Tamalpa fell in love with him too. She couldn’t help it. But she knew that she would only destroy him, so she poisoned herself with Deadly black blossoms. Then three girls came and covered her with a purple blanket, and the Mountain changed itself into her shape. Like a wizard. Or a ghost.