Flip Turn

Chapter Three: Shoulders and Ice Cream

"Terra, head to the side!"

Gar held tight to the lane rope so he could see what was going on, watching as the girl swimming in front of him stopped on a dime, jerking up to see what she'd done wrong.

"Huh?" She spit the end of her pigtail out of her mouth.

Coach Bruce pointed to a row of lounge chairs on the other end of the pool, right in front of their lane. "Do you see those chairs? If you can see them while you're swimming, you're not breathing correctly. I want you to look at either side of the wall."

Terra tried to shrug and tread water at the same time, which didn't work very well and she ended up swallowing water and coughing a lot—Gar was really glad he'd grabbed the lane rope instead. "But that way is harder!"

"It will be easier if you get used to it, and I want to see you making an effort to do so. I just explained this, Terra."

Pink goggles looked over at Gar and Terra frowned. "It is harder; y'know. You should just pick your head straight up. He's stupid; he's telling us to do it wrong."

Gar had to kind of agree. Swimming was already hard without Coach Bruce trying to mess him up, but this guy just didn't know anything about what was fast and what wasn't. Turning your head to the side took so long because you had to really concentrate and make sure you remembered, and by the time you did that, you were out of air, and plus it made you swim all crooked. What was worse was that he was being so mean to girls. You just didn't do that, especially not to girls who were wearing pink.

"And, Gar, get off the lane rope. Now."

Rolling his eyes—his new goggles had mirrors on the lenses so you couldn't see inside; he'd asked for them just so he could make faces—Gar shoved the rope away, immediately feeling the water threaten to swallow him up. He was supposed to be working on breathing to the side, even though that was just so stupid, but it was all Gar could do to stay on top of the water. By the time he'd managed to lift his head up where he could actually breathe, he didn't have time to remember where he was supposed to do it.

Luckily, Terra seemed to agree, from what she'd said to him, though right now she was way ahead of Gar, and when he picked his head up again he had just enough time to see that she was trying to do what Coach Bruce had asked. But then he couldn't hold his head up anymore and had to go back under.

It was about six forevers before Gar got to the wall, and he held onto it as if it were about to be ripped away from him, resting his cheek on the hot concrete of the pool deck and listening to his heartbeat. Thinking that Coach Bruce should be happy because he finally had his head to the side, so ha, Gar noticed a girl on the other side of the starting block, sitting on the side of the pool with her feet in the water. She was swinging her legs back and forth absently, and Gar wondered why he'd never noticed that she was in his lane. Something about the way she curved in on herself and kept her head tucked down near her chest made Gar's eyes pass over her, somehow, without really taking in what he saw.

Well, anyway, he'd noticed her now.

"Hi," said Gar, not picking up his head. The girl didn't look at him. And didn't look at him. He tried again. "Umm, hi? Girl in the blue swim suit?"

The girl turned, slowly, and it took her a few seconds to see Gar from behind the starting block with his head on the ground. She bent her head a little, peering between the bottom of the block and that weird bar that some of the big kids held onto when they did backstroke starts. "Hey," she said.

"You talk funny," said Gar. It was true. Gar had never heard anybody sound like that. It was almost like she halfway didn't expect for anybody to be talking to her—and didn't want anyone to know that she didn't expect it. Also, her eyes were almost…purple. That was so weird. "I'm Gar, who're you?"

"Sorry," the girl murmured blankly. "And I'm Raven." She went back to swinging her legs through the water.

A blonde blob surfaced between Gar and Raven, and Terra waved at them as she drew in a big breath. "Hi, I don't know you yet, I'm Terra! Are you as fun as Starfire?"

"No," said Raven.

Lip stuck out slightly in an expression that Gar's mother usually called 'pouting,' Terra squeezed the water out of her pigtails one after the other. "Starfire's not here today 'cos she has to go to the dentist. But she doesn't have any cavities."

"I've never had a cavity," Gar announced, picking his head up and looking over to check and see if Raven heard. He couldn't tell. She didn't smile, or nod, or shrug, or anything.

Terra stared down into the water like she was trying to boil it all up with her eyes. "Neither have I," she said, the words falling out of her in a rush of air.

Gar was about to say something amazingly funny, but a loud voice interrupted him. A loud, familiar voice, because he'd gotten used to being interrupted by Coach Bruce—and the one time he'd tried to talk over him was one time too many. "We need to talk about that last 50."

Terra raised her hand. "Fifty of what?"

"Meters," said Coach Bruce dismissively. "Now, most of you are still not breathing correctly. I want you to look at the bottom of the pool when breathing out and turn your heads to the side when breathing in. This will reduce drag because your bodies are more streamlined. Does everyone understand?"

Gar looked around the pool. A few kids nodded, Robin among them—of course. Most of them just looked really confused. Finally, Gar decided to answer. "Nu-uh!" He shook his head, still holding the side with one hand.

A murmur of agreement told him that he wasn't alone.

Coach Bruce sighed. Loudly. "Alright, everyone watch Robin."

He asked them to watch the people who were doing it right all the time, and it was almost always Robin. Sometimes Karen or Wally, but usually Robin. It wasn't fair that he always got to do it and it definitely wasn't fair that he'd had so much more practice than everyone else. It wasn't exactly Gar's fault that he didn't get to swim with some guy who had millions of medals and was on T.V. and stuff.

Robin didn't say anything, just backed up until he was against the wall, then pushed off, arms in that position that Coach Bruce had called a streamline, and taking quite awhile before he actually needed to breathe. But once he did, Gar could definitely see how he was doing it, and somehow, the stupid rule about breathing to the side worked for Robin. Pretty much anything would work for Robin, though. Gar tried to push himself out of the water using the wall, making himself as tall as he could so he could keep watching.

"I still don't get it," said Terra after Robin had stopped swimming.

A boy in the far lane with dark skin—Vic, one of Wally's friends—seemed to have a small argument with himself, then spoke up, hesitant at first, "It's like you have a scoop of ice cream on each shoulder, and when you need to breathe, you turn your head like you're biting the ice cream."

"Ohhh, that makes sense!" said a girl who looked a lot like Terra, except she had short hair, to her chin, and what looked like a very expensive swim suit.

Gar looked from one side to the other, down at his shoulders, and grinned. Well, at least that would be fun, even if it didn't work.

Coach Bruce seemed to think about saying a few things but then must have decided that none of them were very good ideas. It was the first time Gar had seen him take awhile before he said something. "…Do you all think you can do that?"

"It'll be a piece of cake." The girl who looked like Terra smirked.

"Or ice cream," said Wally, poking Vic in the shoulder and grinning.

"Excellent, then let's try that 50 again. Remember: ice cream." Something like a smile was fast infecting Coach Bruce's face.

"Okay!"

Gar could almost do it this time. He still didn't really understand what the point was, because it seemed so much faster to do it the old way, but he liked the way Vic had explained it. He'd gotten all the way to the other end and was just about to turn around to try another lap when he tossed a careless glance behind him to see how Raven was doing (She was right behind him; Gar should probably let her go in front, but he didn't want to and she didn't mind).

Raven definitely wasn't doing anything like breathing to the side. In fact, she wasn't doing anything like putting her face in the water. At all.

"Hey, y'know, you have to put your face in the water before you can breathe," he said helpfully, sticking out an arm to stop her. He stumbled over the words slightly as he fought to put more air in his lungs.

Raven stopped, standing on the bottom of the pool after a fleeting look towards their coach. "I can breathe fine. But it looks like you can't."

Feeling his face get hot, Gar tried to distract himself with what he'd wanted to tell her in the first place. "But that's not the point—your face is supposed to be in the water."

"I don't want to," said Raven.

"But you have to!"

And then, Raven was slamming her hands into the water and making a huge splash, glaring at Gar before she squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head viciously. Gar was glad she closed them, because the way she was looking scared him. Not like she was mad—like something was going to get her. And he didn't want to watch. "I don't want to and I'm not gonna so shut up!" Not waiting for an answer, she skirted around him without even bothering to touch the wall and resumed swimming, head out of the water just like before.

Gar watched her for a few seconds before he decided that he really didn't feel like being made to do pushups for standing on the bottom, so he pushed off the wall and tried not to think about the way Raven's eyes had looked before she closed them. It made his stomach feel heavy, like it was going to drag him down to the bottom of the pool and keep him there forever. He kicked real hard and made himself concentrate on breathing and ice cream.

At the end of practice, Coach Bruce made them all get out of the water and listen to some stuff about the swim meet on Thursday—he glanced over at Terra's blue lips and said they could get their towels first. The swim meet was going to be really fun, it seemed like. Gar knew they sold a lot of candy there.

"And no sugar or carbonated drinks under any circumstances." He crossed his arms over his chest with finality, totally unaffected by the immediate wave of complaining. "You can have it after you're finished racing, but if I see you eating candy or drinking soda during competition, I am going to confiscate it."

"What's 'conscifate' mean?" Terra pulled her towel tighter around her shoulders, teeth chattering as she said it.

"Confiscate, and it means that you will no longer have it."

Vic raised his hand. "How are you doing seeding? Can we request events?"

The way he said it sounded like Coach Bruce was going to grow a flower garden or something, and Gar had to bite down a giggle.

"That's reasonable," said Coach Bruce. "You may request one event. Anyone who would like to, see me after practice. Any more questions?"

"What time do we have to be there again?" asked the girl who looked a lot like Terra as she twisted her bracelet around and around her wrist.

Wally snorted. "You need to know so you can spend more time on your hair, Kitten?"

"Shut up, you—"

"That's enough. Four-thirty, as I've said at least six times today; do not be late."

Kitten nodded and went back to playing with her bracelet. Then, nobody else had any more questions, so Coach Bruce said they could go and that anybody who wanted to ask for an event should wait till after the big kids swam their warm-up.

Gar didn't ask because he didn't want to stay at practice for extra time—and besides, he didn't know any events, and all he'd ask for was an easy one, and that would just make Coach Bruce so mad that he'd probably put Gar in all the hard things on purpose. He hoped he could remember everything for Thursday. But there was a lot… Wondering if you could get disqualified for not doing the ice cream breathing thing (at first he'd been really excited when he'd heard you could be DQ'd, but then Coach Bruce had gotten really mad and said that it definitely didn't mean you could go to Dairy Queen—it was really dumb to name something like losing after an ice cream place), Gar headed for the bike rack.