Flip Turn
Chapter Four: Half a Second
The marker tickled Terra's arm, and she watched with interest as the little trails of black ink stained her skin.
Robin was writing on her arm. Which was funny to begin with, because Terra didn't think Robin had ever drawn on anything but paper in his life—living with Coach Bruce would be even harder than just swimming for him, and he'd probably be so mad if somebody drew on his walls.
Anyway, Robin was allowed to do this. He was writing her events on her arm, at an angle where she would be able to read them without twisting herself up like a Terra-pretzel. He was writing them in tiny, neat handwriting, because everything about Robin was tiny and orderly and way too neat for a seven-year-old. Not like it would help all that much, because Terra didn't understand what the numbers and symbols meant, but everybody else was doing it, so she needed to.
"So, that one's the short free…and that one's, umm…oh my god, am I in butterfly?" She pointed, and he swatted her hand away.
"No, that's backstroke, and don't get your finger so close; you'll smear it." Robin went back to writing. The tip of the marker was cold and kind of fuzzy. This was almost as fun as the day she'd decided to finger-paint in her garage, which had been really great until her daddy had caught her and made her clean the whole floor. And wash all her clothes. And her hair.
Terra felt something right behind her, then a chin resting on her shoulder. A blur of red hair out of the corner of her eye told her exactly who it was. "Hey, Starfire," she said, trying not to move her arm as she turned to look at her friend—Robin would be mad.
Starfire indicated one of the symbols on Terra's arm with a tanned finger. "I know what those letters are. 'SF' for Starfire, yes?"
"No, for short free," said Robin, dropping Terra's arm after he'd written the last symbol and telling her that she had to be really careful not to touch anything for at least five minutes. "Terra's swimming short free, breaststroke and backstroke. You're swimming…" He glanced at her arm. "Short free, long free and butterfly."
At the last word, Terra spun around to face Starfire, pigtails smacking against her cheeks. "Why are you in butterfly?" It was the hardest stroke, it was so hard, you had to be really strong like Coach Bruce to do it—Starfire had to be insane. Or maybe it was just because she wasn't from this country…she'd said she was from Africa and always liked telling Terra about the ways that things were different there.
Starfire shrugged. "The name is very pretty. Like the clip you had in your hair last week."
"But—but you'll get DQ'd!"
"I kn-oow," sang Starfire. "That does not matter to me; I want to try everything." Her giant smile faded into concentration as she looked down at the ponytail holder in her hand. "Will you please help me with this…I think it is a rubber band, and I have to have it in my hair—Coach Bruce said."
Terra nodded and began pulling up Starfire's hair—it was hard because there was a heap of it, and the other girl had to kneel down because she was so much taller.
Warm-up had been even more confusing than regular swim practice—and loud, and big, and fast, and scary. She'd had to swim with the entire team, not just the ten and unders, and all the big kids splashed too much when they turned in that way that was like a somersault in the water. And they yelled a lot. And whenever a big kid was behind her, Terra had to get out of the way real fast because they'd run her over like the animals that she saw on the side of the road when her mommy drove her to school. She tightened Starfire's ponytail and hoped that the rest of the swim meet wasn't like that.
"'Kay, I'm done…"
She barely got the words out when a lady in a blue flowered shirt started talking over her—and that was easy to do, because she was talking into what looked like some kind of speaker, and it made her voice louder. "Eight and under girls medley relay!" barked the lady, and the way she said it wasn't exactly mean…but when your voice was that loud, you always sounded kind of mean.
Terra looked around frantically for Robin to ask him what that meant, but then the lady was saying "Markov, Terra!" in that almost-mean voice and Terra really didn't want to make her mad, so she walked over to her and hoped she was standing in the right place.
The lady led her over to a row of benches, sat her down on the first one right between Raven and Kitten, and went back to get Starfire. Terra leaned over Kitten's shoulder, trying to read the pink card she had clutched in her hand. Kitten glared and scooted away, hiding it with her forearm. Terra moved up a bench because that's what everybody in front of her was doing.
"You're swimming breaststroke," said Raven quietly, after Terra had begged Kitten for just one look at the card, with no success. "Because you're second. It goes backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle."
"How'd you know that?"
Raven shrugged. "I read the rule book." They moved up another bench.
Too soon, they ran out of benches and it was time for Terra's team to move behind the blocks. Except, Terra and Starfire had to go to the other end of the pool, following behind a bunch of other pairs of girls. A man in a white collared shirt told them to hold hands and remember that they were in lane number three. When they finally got there, Terra wanted to make Starfire stand in front of her but Raven had said that she was supposed to be in front because she was swimming breaststroke—why did that matter?
The man behind the starter's stand said something in a crackly voice that Terra didn't understand. It was a good thing that Raven did, because she climbed carefully into the water along with five other girls—Terra noticed that she clung to the bar below the blocks, using it to pull herself in instead of going all the way underwater like the others.
Coach Bruce was sitting on the other side of the pool where nobody but the officials was allowed, next to the other team's coach, a lady (who was old, but nowhere near as old as Coach Bruce) with blonde pigtails like Terra (except not today because Coach Bruce had made her wear a swim cap, and it was tight and itchy and she hated it). The pigtails made her look a lot younger than she probably was—and Terra thought that only little girls were supposed to wear pigtails. The other coach poked Coach Bruce with some pieces of paper that she'd rolled up. He didn't seem to like that very much.
"Take your mark," said the starter, and everything went silent. Terra knew exactly what that meant but didn't see how Raven was supposed to do it for backstroke. She really hoped that the starter hadn't meant everyone.
A beep cut through the quiet, and it wasn't like a whistle but it still meant go, Terra knew that, and she watched as Raven carefully pushed off the wall, head held out of the water at an angle that couldn't possibly be comfortable. Terra and Starfire cheered for her until Terra's throat felt like an elephant had sat on it, and she got so excited wondering if Raven would be able to beat the girl in lane four that she almost forgot about swimming. But Starfire shook her arm and pointed, and Terra realized that she'd better get ready, yanking her goggles over her eyes and standing right on the edge of the pool deck, toes hanging over, gaze locked on Raven to make sure she didn't go before the other girl's hand touched the wall. Coach Bruce had said that would get you DQ'd and that it didn't mean you got ice cream.
Raven touched. Terra jumped, holding her breath as she hit the water.
She tried to remember the things they'd learned in practice, but her brain didn't work right with all the screaming and the guys with stopwatches at the end of the lane, so she just settled for thinking about nothing and trusting her legs and arms to move the right way. Her heart was beating really fast, and it was all she could do to find more air every time her head broke the surface, always just a little bit closer to the wall, and her arms felt like limp spaghetti noodles and her legs were on fire and just when there wasn't any more strength left within her, she was touching the wall with her fingertips and a pale blur above her head vaulted off the block in a perfect dive (Terra didn't know how to do that)…and Terra slowly turned, clutching tightly to the wall and looking down the lane at Kitten swimming butterfly.
The guy with the stopwatch in Terra's lane had to pull her out of the pool; she was too tired to do anything but raise her arms so he could grab them, and she stumbled a little bit when he set her on the pool deck. It took a few seconds before she could do anything but suck in air, and at last she was able to focus on what was going on in the water, Starfire swimming the last lap of the race—and not swimming it very well, either, since she kept forgetting what Coach Bruce had said about breathing to the side. But every time she picked her head up, she was smiling, so that was good enough, probably.
"Yay, we came in third!" Terra screamed once Starfire touched the wall.
Over in the next lane, a taller girl with brown hair and dripping-wet shoulders rolled her eyes. "Oh, awesome, because there were only three teams, you know."
Terra stuck out her tongue. This girl was clearly stupid and didn't understand how well they'd done. She turned around real fast, crossed her arms and stomped off to the other end of the pool, weaving around grownups with headsets in search of Raven and Kitten.
"You're, like, really good at diving, you know," Terra said as soon as Kitten was close enough to hear her.
"I know." Kitten smiled a little half-smile and turned up her nose. "Come on: my daddy's sitting by the lifeguard stand and he said that he'll buy me and all my friends anything we want to eat."
Terra kicked her stomach when it begged for just a little bit of candy and followed Kitten while she tried to think of some healthy snacks.
"Where are we going?"
"C'mon, we're watching Wally and them swim butterfly!"
Gar pulled Terra by the hand as they ran over the grass, mud squishing between their toes. Terra cringed when they got to the little plastic pool that everyone was supposed to step in to clean their feet off before they went onto the deck. It was so dirty, the water all brown and icky with leaves caking the surface; it wasn't going to clean anybody's feet so why did they have it there? They splashed through the pool, ducking under the lady with the stack of cards and the machine that made her voice loud—Terra wasn't afraid of her anymore.
By the time they got to the rows of benches, Terra was way out of breath. Wally was sitting on one of the last ones, right next to "and them": Robin and a boy named Roy who didn't come to a lot of the practices because he was trying to do archery and swim team at the same time. Terra looked around for the girls because she didn't care all that much about the boys—remembering boys, she immediately dropped Gar's hand and wiped herself off using her bathing suit, hoping that her cootie shot would protect her. It took a minute to find them because they were sitting in the row of chairs behind the blocks, and the only girl she recognized from her team was Kitten, who was wearing a pink jacket over her suit, one with gems sewn into the fabric that reflected the fading sunlight (Starfire was already finished with her race, at the other end of the pool trying to pull herself out, stopping to wave at Terra and Gar like she was trying to wave her arm right off her body). . Karen Beecher was with another group of girls, seated behind the boys, and Terra remembered that that was because she was ten, and the nine and ten year olds weren't supposed to swim with people who were eight or under.
"Gonna win, Robin?" Gar asked, smirking.
Robin shrugged and tightened his goggles, passing them from one hand to the other without looking up.
"No, I'm gonna win!" Wally stood up suddenly and rested his forearms on Robin's head. It kind of looked like there was steam coming out of Robin's ears.
"Not if I can help it," said Roy with a glance over at Terra. "I'm really strong 'cos of archery, so I hope you're faster than last year."
She felt a tapping on her shoulder. "Hey, if you kids aren't swimming you need to find someplace else to watch." The card lady was standing right behind them, though she had her machine at her side so her voice was normal this time.
"Sorry," said Gar, while shoving a brightly colored bag of something that looked a lot like candy behind his back. "We'll go stand over there," he added, pointing to the opposite side of the pool.
At the blocks, the starter was saying those things with his crackly voice again, and Kitten had shrugged off her jacket and was standing with both hands on the block, ready to step up. "Bye, Kitten! Go real fast!" Terra screamed, poking her head through two grownups so she could see better. Turning to Gar, she narrowed her eyes at him and poked at his bag of candy. "You're not s'posed to have that and Coach Bruce is gonna throw you off the lifeguard stand."
"He won't if he doesn't find out!" Gar smiled, showing all his teeth—and the candy stuck between them, yuck. Boys were so disgusting.
"Take your mark."
Beep.
Butterfly wasn't Terra's favorite stroke to swim (that one was breaststroke because you got to swim like a frog) but it was her favorite to watch. She'd seen Coach Bruce swim it once and it had looked so…easy. Like he could do it in his sleep. It had made Terra feel very small, like she knew she could never be that good, or even half that good, but she didn't even care because just watching was enough. Besides, Terra didn't care about being a good swimmer. She was fine with watching the better people.
Kitten got second, and there were six people in her lane this time so that would show that stupid girl with the brown hair who thought that mattered. She climbed out of the pool all by herself, gracefully picking up her jacket from the back of the chair. Her butterfly wasn't quite as graceful, but at least she had a great dive.
The boys had to swim after the girls. Ha, ha, ha.
It was hard because Terra didn't know who to cheer for. But she realized pretty quickly that this was one race that was between Wally and Robin. Roy was good, but in the way that Kitten was good. Wally and Robin were good in a way that wasn't quite normal, and Terra thought that maybe this was why they called it butterfly, because they did kind of look like they were flying on top of the water, a little bit. It was effortless and fluid and right when they did it: Robin because he was so serious about it and could probably use math to tell you the exact right way to move your arms, even though you wouldn't know what he meant; Wally because you could just tell that this was what he was supposed to do, what he'd been born to do. Terra wasn't sure who finished first and didn't think it mattered. It pretty much looked like a tie and what did half a second matter?
"Wow," said Terra.
"Wow." Gar nodded in agreement, handful of candy halfway to his mouth in a gesture that didn't quite make it.
Apparently, it did matter who'd gotten that half second, because when they were all packing their bags, Robin looked like he'd rather spend the rest of his life at the dentist than have to stand next to Wally for one more second.
"Geez, what's the problem?" Wally handed him a towel, but Robin just ignored him. He leaned over to Terra, so close that she could see his freckles. "I think he's mad at me for beating him."
"It was just half a second," Terra offered with an apologetic look at Robin. "Maybe not even that. It was, like…" She snapped her fingers as quick as she could, having to try a few times before she actually made a sound. "That much."
"It's not your fault," said Robin, zipping up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder as he stood. That bag was almost as big as he was—which wasn't very big, even though he was bigger than Terra.
"It's not my fault, either! All I did was swim," Wally said.
Robin stared at him as if he was looking right through him into the trees that rimmed the perimeter of the grassy field. "I was talking to you."
"Oh."
But Robin didn't hear that because he'd already pushed past him towards the pool deck, head down. Terra bit her lip, pretending to be very busy with peeling her swim cap off her head. It pulled at her hair with a weird, prickly sensation. Then she decided not to think about how sad Robin had looked, because she wasn't allowed to leave until everybody had cleaned up all of the mess, and she had to help.
After a million years of folding up wet towels, Terra leaned against the pool gate, looking around for her mommy, but found the other team's coach instead: a tiny girl with dark brown curls was running up to her, yelling something that sounded a lot like "Coach Harleeey!" The coach made to pick the girl up but sort of missed, nearly dropping her on the pavement, but she seemed to think this was very funny and just dissolved into giggling, patting the side of the girl's ponytail and touching her nose as if she were pushing a button.
Terra was pretty sure that it wasn't a good idea for Coach Harley to be around kids. She had a smile that looked like she maybe wanted to break things.
Then, luckily, Terra found her mommy and could stop wondering how many kids on Coach Harley's team had drowned. She had a long, green skirt and a fabric headband in her hair. Terra grabbed her hand and told her that they were allowed to leave.
She noticed Raven as she was hoisting a folding chair into the van—well, okay, she was helping with the folding chair. Looking down at her sandals, some expression on her face that Terra couldn't read in the darkness, Raven was talking to Coach Bruce about something. Or at least, she was listening to him talk about something: she was really just standing there, hands useless at her sides and chin pointed downward. Terra waved at her, and called her name when it looked like she just didn't see. After she had repeated it a few times, Raven did look up a little bit, straight at Terra for just half a second (like the half second that Robin was so worried about).
She knew she'd seen. But Raven didn't wave back.