3.
When John Watson was four years old he took swimming lessons. It wasn't anything major, the assembled kids weren't expected to become Olympic swimmers but just to at least have some small skill in the feat of not drowning when dropped in over their heads. John and a row of other children lined along a wall next to an instructor, clinging to the side while they practiced kicking and ducking their heads under and were instructed to never ever swim underwater close to the side of the pool.
John was always a bit anxious about following rules. Unlike Harry, who was the reason the biscuits had to be kept up high and who screamed bloody murder whenever their mum tried to put her in dressy clothes. She had already gotten in trouble twice for running near the pool and with his parent's attention on her John was left to splash around the shallows by himself. This was before his lesson, before he knew much more than kicking his legs like a frog underwater. Swimming underwater was easy to learn, and when his feet could touch there was no reason to know any other style.
He did stay in the shallow end at first. A normal day at the pool involved splashing with Harry, until stopped, and swimming underwater and climbing out to jump back in, usually into a parent's arms. But Harry was already in trouble and not likely to play splash games, and there was no one to jump into the arms of, and there's only so much fun to be had swimming underwater before his eyes started to sting and water got up his nose and anyway it's no fun to try to show off or do tricks like an underwater flip if no one was watching. So he made up his own game.
First, he tried walking out as far as he could down the shallows until he had to stand on his toes to keep his head above the water. It wasn't very far. Then he went to the side of the pool. There was a bar to hold onto at the edge, just beyond the steps. Right there, where the bars were, was at least a foot too deep for John to touch. But he could hold onto the bars. For a while he did just that, playing at ducking under until his feet touched and then launching himself back up. Then he played at pushing himself away a bit before spinning around and catching the bar. It made a good game. He didn't stop to think about what would happen if he missed until he did.
Suddenly, he was too far away to grab the bar and too deep to touch and the only way he knew how to swim was underwater. Which would have been fine except that he had been told, many times, that he mustn't swim underwater towards the side of the pool. Common sense to most people might say he ought to risk it. But John was four, and following rules was important, so instead he sank until he hit the ground and kicked so that his head bobbed out of the water and he could breathe, for a moment, until he sank again. It was an odd situation. He couldn't swim but he wasn't panicked because of the bobbing. Maybe a little scared. And he knew he should call for help, call up to the lifeguard or over to his parents or someone, because he couldn't bob forever, but he didn't want to do that either. It seemed a bit embarrassing, needing to be rescued. So he sank and jumped and just wanting out for nearly five minutes before someone noticed him.
"You need some help?" a person asked. The guy looked quite old and grown-up to John, though most would consider him a young teen. He had an uncertain look upon his face, not knowing if John was jumping in the water for fun or if he was about to drown. John responded by latching onto the stranger before he could go under again, holding himself up.
"Ah," said the youth, when John said nothing but just clung slightly tighter than necessary and suddenly feeling a bit scared where he hadn't been when he was in actual danger. "Do you want to go to the side or the steps?" John still didn't answer so the stranger started towards the steps. "Are you alright?"
"John!" His father was suddenly there as well, "Are you alright, what happened?" John switched his death grip to his dad.
"He looked a bit out of his depth," the stranger explained.
"John?" his dad asked, and he looked a bit upset like John might be in trouble. For some reason he couldn't explain, John didn't want to speak, but he didn't want people to get upset either.
"I couldn't touch," was all he said in the end, and then, "He helped me."
"Thank you," his dad said. And the other said something about being glad to help before wandering back into deeper waters.
John decided to take a rest from the pool for a bit after that. Not a long rest though. When it was time for swimming lessons he was ready to jump back in. There might have been an important life lesson there, but all John really remembered, years later, was that he didn't like the feeling of needing to be saved.