Chapter 4: Like a fish on dry land

The weekend went quickly for Luke and Jess. On Saturday, after the morning rush, they went shopping for Jess; they got him a bed, some new sheets, swim trunks, goggles, and a kick board. They spent to rest of the afternoon trying to rearrange the apartment, so Luke would stop tripping over Jess's bag of books. On Sunday, Jess found himself watching his first baseball game on his uncle's old TV. He didn't understand much, but he enjoyed spending time with Luke.

The weekend was a different story for Lorelai and Rory. On Saturday, Lorelai had to fill in for a maid who had called in sick at the last minute, so Rory was alone again. And after reading another couple chapters, she took to counting the number of rosebuds on the wall across from their bed. Sunday wasn't much better for the girls. They had just sat down to watch a Sunday afternoon movie; however, the fates were against them. The only channel that was working had some stupid sports thing on it.

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On Monday morning, Rory woke up early and a little nervous. She found herself starring at her mom's alarm clock until it went off at seven.

Lorelai turned over to hit her alarm and noticed her daughter's wide eyes, "Looking for worms, little bird?"

"No," Rory answered making a face, "I am just nervous about class this afternoon. What was I thinking I don't know how to swim."

"Calm down," Lorelai tried calming her daughter before her doubts sent her into full out panic mode, "That's why I sign you up for the beginners class instead of the super-de-duper sink or swim throw you into the deepest darkest water advanced class."

Rory's eyes got even bigger as her mom basically described her greatest fear of what the day held.

Lorelai saw that joking was going to cut it his time. "Rory, it will be fine. You don't want to be one of those kids who's afraid of trying new things do you?"

"No," Rory answered quietly.

"Right and you do know how to swim. You just don't know how to swim OFFICIALLY," Lorelai said using Rory's own words against her.

"Thanks mom," Rory added with a small smile.

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Jess, on the other hand, overslept and Luke had to wake him up at ten before he slept through breakfast. Well before he slept through the normal constraints of breakfast, living above a diner did change those rules a little.

So it was around ten-thirty when Jess was downstairs eating some health breakfast his uncle made him without asking him what he wanted. Just then Kirk ran in the diner screaming, "Help!!! Gilligan is up a tree!!!!"

"What?" Luke asked, this sounded crazy even for Kirk.

"My goldfish, Gilligan is up a tree," Kirk yelled.

"How did that happen?" Jess asked Kirk.

"Well you see I'm working at my mom's cat shop for the next couple of weeks, and it's kind of lonely there," Kirk started to explain.

"Get to the point Kirk," Luke growled already losing patients.

Kirk quickly continued, "I was lonely, so I brought Gilligan and the Skipper with me to work. And the mean store cat ate the Skipper and ran off with Gilligan, and now he's stuck in the tree in front of the store."

"Get out Kirk," Luke yelled.

"Aren't you going to help him save him?" Kirk asked pitifully.

"Sorry fresh out of coconut," was Luke's only reply.

Just then Kirk saw Taylor pass the window and ran outside screaming, "Taylor, Gilligan struck in a tree."

Jess looked at his uncle and started laughing so hard he almost fell off his stool.

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1:55 pm at the Litchfield pool

All the kids in the beginner's class were being dropped off by their parental figures, older siblings, or babysitters. Rory was nervously waiting among them with her mom and bejeweled swim bag. Lorelai had surprised her with the new and improved shiny swim bag less than an hour ago.

Luke and Jess were hanging around the outer edge of the small mob.

An official looking grown up then came out of the life guards' office or at least she look official in her red life guards swim suit and sun glasses; this fact was a little odd considering they were inside. "Hey guys, nice to see you again. I'm Tallulah, but you call me coach," she said for the benefit of Rory and Jess, "Okay parents see you in an hour. Kids hit the deck."

And with that everyone parted ways.

"Don't drown," Luke told Jess.

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After Rory had met her coach Lorelai was off to run errands for Mia. She only had an hour to pick up a whole list of requests. Of course, Mia hadn't meant for the list to be completed that day, but Lorelai wanted to please her, especially after this latest indulgence.

Luke had the opposite problem he didn't know what to do with himself for an hour (Ok dirty). It wasn't long enough to go back to the diner and he couldn't just sit around for an hour each day. So he decided to take a walk and see if he could find any thing to do (again with the dirty).

The beginners' class had just gathered and the coach had decided it would be good to introduce the two newbies to the rest of the team. "Ok guppies, we have two new members of our school (fish humor): Jess and Rory." However, when she introduced them she pointed at Jess when introducing Rory and vica versa.

"Actual I'm Jess," the newest male guppy informed the coach.

"Oh sorry!" the coach apologized, "Ok guppies, this is Jess and this is Rory," this time making sure to point at the correct child. She then proceeded to introduce the rest of the class: Joel, Eric, Brian, Trey, Becky, Lauren, Laura, and Amy. "Everyone here works in pairs and seeing that you're both new you'll be our fifth lane.

"Tweet" (insert loud whistle sound of your own)

"Everyone get in the water," the coach bellowed, "I want to see you flutter kick five laps. Don't forget your kick boards."

After they got in the pool, Rory turned to Jess, "What's a flutter kick?"

"No idea!"

"So what do we do?" Rory questioned.

"Copy what the rest of the class does seems like a good idea to me?"

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Both Rory and Jess were hanging their heads after class. It's had turned out to be harder than either one had expected. They were both sitting on the bench waiting for their rides when Rory pulled her book out of her bag.

Jess noticed the cover and was stupefied, "Your reading 20000 League under the Sea?"

"Yes." Rory answered in a very grown up fashion used to people being shock at the level or size of book she was reading.

"Me too," Jess told her.

This time it was Rory's turn to be stunned, but she quickly recovered, "How far are you?"

"Chapter 7," Jess answered proudly noting the challenge.

"Cool. I just finished chapter 10 this morning, but I probably just started the book earlier than you," Rory tried explaining.

"When did you start?" Jess asked; he not about to be shown up again today.

"Friday"

"Me too," Jess found himself repeating.

Just then Rory was struck by another brilliant idea, "We should read it together. "

"What?" Jess asked doing an awesome impression of this uncle reaction to Kirk earlier that day.

"It'll be just like school," Rory explained getting even more excited about the idea.

Jess didn't like the idea of school in the summer, but he could use a friend around this burg. "Great," he heard himself agreeing to Rory request.

"Cool. So tomorrow I won't touch my book to give to time to catch up ok?"

"Ok," Jess agreed again wondering how he was going to finish three chapters and research the basic swim vocabulary and strokes before tomorrow.

Just then both Luke and Lorelai appeared from different directions, each ten minutes late.

"Bye," Rory yelled as she ran out to the car knowing her mom would need to get back to the inn.

Jess just offered a hand as Luke walked up in him.

"How did it go?"

"Good," Jess smiled thinking more of Rory then the confusion that was class.

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That evening both Jess and Rory did some homework about the basic swimming strokes. Jess broke out his uncle dust filled dictionary and an old book of Luke's, while Rory searched the inn's library and Mia's collection of books in her office, neither one of them wanted to be that unprepared again. However, when Jess curiosity was satisfied he pick up his book and started reading like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile, Rory ate peanut butter sandwiches and watched TV with her mom.

Hey peoples thanks for reading and reviewing; I love hearing from everyone. Please keep it up; you help a lot. And newbie's feel free to drop me a line!!!

I've got a couple of really nifty scenes written; now all I need is the right scenario to put them in. Once everyone has gotten to know each other a little better. I really hope that some of you are enjoying this story because it's becoming a quite fun to write. I'm on a power trip or sugar high; the characters they are mine (insert evil laugh).

Now as a note to a wonderful reviewer: I don't like what happened in season six (all creativity and direction was lost) so there will be no Anna/ April angle in my story. This is pretty much going to be about Luke, Lorelai, Jess, and Rory with occasional appearances from other secondary characters. As you can already tell I'm a fan of Kirk's randomness.

By the by… I'm totally open to questions. I'll probably answer them.

As for tunes… I'm going to say "Orinoco Flow" by Enya. The reason being that this song used to play during the dolphin show at Sea World when I was little, so I always think of it was I'm swimming.

Anyway… for those of you still reading this story thanks for sticking with me and please, pretty please review!