How to Outswim a Shark Without a Snorkel (4 page)

“But
I'm
not the one going to high school!” I fumbled. “Why do I have to kiss someone?” My voice sounded higher than I wanted, and I could see by my little picture in the corner of the monitor that my ears were bright red. I flipped my hair to cover them.

“Duh! We have to do this
together
, remember!” she said. “Since I'm starting high school in the fall, we have to go by
that
time line! It only makes sense! Because that's the only way we'll get to keep the pact! It's
logic
, Ana!”

I considered this. It sort of seemed to make sense. But it didn't
feel
that good. Mainly because the thought of having to kiss someone this summer felt like someone shoving me onto a roller coaster without telling me. How was I supposed to do this without any preparation? I'd thought I had a full year to get ready.

“You're practically ready now with Kevin. Besides, you don't want me to have to kiss someone
alone
this summer, right?” Liv whined.

“No!” I said. But inside I was screaming, “
Yes!
” How come Liv didn't seem freaked out about this shorter deadline? Did that mean she was more ready to kiss someone than I was? Did she already have someone
picked
out
? I mean, yeah, if I
had
to kiss someone, I would definitely pick Kevin. He's a million times better than
Zack
, even though my binder from last year has Zack's name scrawled all over it with little hearts, but that's only because I was a royal dimwit back then. But could I picture kissing Kevin
now
?
Gah.

“Good.” She relaxed. “So we'll both get kissed this summer or have our eyes be eaten out by worms?”

I never did like that part of the pact, but we had watched a gross movie on the Scream Channel that night so it had given us the idea.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “First kiss this summer. No biggie.” I shrugged like I wasn't completely mortified.

God, I am such a liar.

“So what's this business you were saying about sharks and your grandpa?” Liv asked. By the way her smile curled, I could tell she had no idea I was secretly flipping out on the inside right now. I
hated
feeling like we were growing further apart, even with little things like reading each other's minds.

I opened my mouth to answer, but suddenly, the last thing I wanted to do was chat. I was afraid the truth would come spilling out of my mouth and she'd never let me live it down. I feebly knocked on the underside of my desk with my fist. “Oh. Hang on, Liv.” I swiveled in my chair, pretending my mom was at my door. “Okay, Mom,” I said to no one.

I turned back to Liv. “Sorry, I have to go. Mom wants me to help out with dinner.” I rolled my eyes, like I was upset to hang up. I couldn't remember a time when I
didn't
want to talk to Liv, ever.

“Sure, no problem! Talk later!” I held my smile as she waved good-bye and disappeared with a blip. I let my breathe whoosh out of me. Normally after talking to Liv I felt like I could do anything. Like I could take on the world. How come this time, I felt like I'd been hit by tsunami?

Was it normal to feel bad after talking to your best friend?

The blue whale is the loudest animal on earth, with a whistle that can be heard for hundreds of miles underwater.

—Animal Wisdom

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The water circulation system in the Marine Adventure Zone sounded like a gigantic gurgling heart as I leaned up against the fake rocks mounted onto the wall.

It had been almost a week since we'd found out Grandpa's surprise, and now the tanks around me were full of crystal clear water, with printed pictures of who would be living in them stuck to their sides. Epaulette sharks, sea horses, manta rays, and even some species I'd never heard of before. The animals hadn't arrived yet, but I could practically hear them taunting me. What would it be like to be a shark and not have to worry about kiss pacts?

“Hello, Ana!” Patricia popped out from the back room. I'd seen her around other exhibits before, but this was the first time I'd met her. A small sense of relief spread inside me as she shook my hand. She was older than my mom, but she had a kind smile and a small turtle badge that glittered on her chest. “So happy to meet you finally! Shep has told me all about you. I heard about your crocodile presentation last month. Congratulations!”

The cell phone clipped to her belt buzzed, startling her. “One sec, kiddo,” she said, turning to face the sea horse tank. “Patricia speaking. What's up?

“Uh-huh,” she continued. “Yep. No, she was hoping to show up today, but I got a call last night saying she couldn't make it.”

A pause.

I watched her talk, noticing how frizzy her hair was. She was like a poodle with a perm in this humidity. I smoothed mine down, just in case.

“Oh? Well, that's great!” she said. “I'm starting with Ana right now.”

My ears perked up. I gave her a questioning look.

“Sure,” she said. “Send her on over. I can talk with both of them.”

She hung up the phone and clipped it back to her belt. “Well, good news! You're going to have some company in here!”

“Someone who doesn't mind toothy sharks, I hope?” I touched a picture of a nurse shark against the tank, flattening out the edges.

Patricia laughed. “You bet! We've had a great response from schools since your presentation last month. Many parents have called to see if their kids can help out as volunteers in different areas.”

My heart lifted. “Oh yeah? That's cool,” I said. Surreal too, that people were paying any attention to me at all.

“Is the new person a student then?” I was hopeful. Patricia seemed okay, but it might be nice to have someone else my age to hang out with while I was in here. I felt a stab of sadness that Bella couldn't have joined in with me here, but she was so busy with her new historical cooking classes that she barely had any spare time.

“Yup,” she said. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper. “From your school too!” She reached to the top of her head for her reading glasses and settled them onto her nose.

My mouth went dry as I tried to remember what kids I knew who might be interested in hanging out at the zoo. Kevin?
If
only.
Maybe it was that girl with the braces who always drew ponies on her notebook?

“Um…let's see here…what was it again?” She flipped through a stack of papers from her pocket. “Annalise…? No, that's not it. Andrea? Addison?
Hrmm.
” She clucked her tongue. “I know it's in here somewhere. I should really know before she shows up and I mess up her name,” she muttered. “Right! Here it is! Ashley! Her name is Ashley!”

My hand slipped against the side of the tank and dipped into the frigid water below.

Ashley?!

I dried my hand on my shirt, blinking fast.

There was no way. Absolutely no way that prissy, perfect-haired
Sneerer
would volunteer to work at the zoo surrounded by messy animals. There was bound to be some other Ashley at our school. Even though I couldn't think of a single one. That girl who always wears a braid and reads romance novels in the cafeteria? Was her name Ashley?

I tried to wipe the mortified look off my face before Patricia thought I was seriously unhinged, but the rustle of the plastic tarp by the pavilion door made me whirl around. A young girl stepped inside.

A girl with arched eyebrows, pink-painted toenails, and a very,
very
familiar sneer.

“Hello,
Scales
,” Ashley said.

I couldn't find my voice. Obviously it was hiding somewhere now, cowering from the Sneerer beside me.

Speak.

Speak!
I commanded myself like a dog. I couldn't let her think I was scared. I had to say something.

Patricia clasped her hands together. “Excellent! Glad you found your way here! Ashley, this is Ana. Ana, Ashley.” She made the introductions as Ashley blinked at me. Every lash taunted me. “Looks like you two already know each other! That will make your time here extra fun.”

Ashley grinned. “For sure! Ana and I go way back, don't we?”

I gaped at her. “What are you doing here?” I wanted to sound like I wasn't completely mortified. But…
what
was
she
doing
here
?

She shrugged. Her shoulders glinted in the light with some shimmery bronze powder. Or maybe her skin was naturally super sparkly? Maybe she was a vampire that fed on human fear?

“What? A girl can't want to help out at her local zoo to get summer credit? You know we have to volunteer somewhere. I thought the zoo would be
perfect
.” She held her hand out and examined her nails. Probably making sure they were sharp for when she sprang forward to attack me like a leopard.

Assertive. Confident. Sophisticated.

Pick
one, Ana.

“Sounds like you two have a lot in common,” Patricia said happily. “Let me grab you some introductory forms. I've got them here in my binder somewhere. This place is such a mess!” She bustled to the other side of the room and knelt down by the big shark tank. “Forms, forms, forms,” she muttered, while Ashley stood there, rigid like some angelic statue.

I took the chance. “You can't be here.” I kept my voice low. “You
hate
this stuff. It's animals. And stinky. And
work
. Remember what happened
last
time you came here…” I glared at her. Finally some of the fire in my stomach was growing.

I didn't need to be scared of Ashley. I'd already shown her once this summer that she shouldn't mess with me. The whole thing was still lodged firmly in my brain as one of my scariest moments ever. It was my first big educational presentation in front of everyone, and what did Ashley do? She tried to mess me up
completely
. I'm talking smarmy stares, evil laughs, and
she
was the one that got my whole class invited to watch. She even had her little harpy friend Rayna film it so she'd have
evidence
when I panicked.

So I taught her a lesson.

And she deserved it.

I mean, it wasn't exactly
my
fault that Frankie went to the bathroom all over her sandals during my big presentation in June. And it wasn't my fault that camera crews were there to film it for my grandfather's movie, which got national coverage on all the major television news stations. And it wasn't my fault that for the first time in Ashley's life, people laughed at
her
instead of me.

Okay, maybe it was a little my fault. I
had
handed her the croc in the first place.

But she had it coming.

She clicked her tongue. “You're not the only one who can work, you know.” She stretched her arms over her head, yawning. My skin crawled at the thought that she was getting comfortable here. This was
my
space. Suddenly I wanted to work with the sharks. Anything to show her this was where I belonged and where
she
didn't. I wanted to grow a tail and turn into Ariel if it meant she would leave me alone here. This was my chance to adapt and prove to myself I wasn't destined to be fighting against my scaredy-cat ways forever.

“But why here? If you're going for volunteer credit, why don't you just work at an old-age home?” I blurted, but willed myself not to feel small next to her anymore. I had to stop this awful thing she did to me, making me feel like I was turning into a crispy, dead leaf that was going to crumble away in the breeze. I had to remember how it felt when everyone was on my side, and
she
was the laughingstock instead of me.

My next words felt like fire on my tongue. I darted a glance at Patricia to make sure she wouldn't hear. “I'm sure there are tons of places in the
mall
that will take you.”

She sniffed, still holding her smile. But I could see it wavering at the sides. “It's none of your business why I'm here,” she said. “All that matters is that you can't stop me.” Her words slowed as she drew out the next sentence. “And you,
Ana
”—she grinned happily—“are going to have to deal with it.”

For some reason, hearing her call me my real name was even scarier than when she called me “Scales.” I wasn't about to tell her that, though.

I shook my head. “Fine. You won't like it here, you know.” I knew I was right, so how come I could already feel my insides unraveling like an old sock that was being torn apart by a lion?

She nodded, her blond hair shifting on her shoulders like a bunch of silky yellow snakes. Medusa with better accessories.

“Whatever.” Her eyes darkened. “I'd be worried about yourself, not me.”

Something stirred in my chest. Is that why she was here? Was she trying to sabotage me?

Suddenly the room seemed to shrink, and my safe, awesome place to be myself felt foreign and menacing. Nobody would believe Ashley if she said something awful about me here, right? This wasn't
school
. She had no power over me here.

But I couldn't get my stomach to stop churning.

“Why can't you just leave me alone?” I sputtered.

“What makes you think this is about you?” she spat.

“Ready to get to work, guys?” Patricia was back with our forms. “You're pretty lucky that you know each other. I bet all the other volunteers here are working together for the first time!” She laughed in her jolly way. My eye wouldn't stop twitching.

Ashley nodded readily. “I know, right?
So
lucky.” She beamed and then, horror of horrors, wrapped her tanned arm around my shoulder. Her manicured nails dug into my skin.

“Great! Let's get you started. You can hang out in here if you want, but the most important thing is that you learn about each new species we're going to be housing. I've printed off all the information you need, so why don't you go over it and start to quiz each other on some of the natural history facts? There are pictures on each tank of all the animals too, so you can get used to where they will be. Ana, you normally work with the reptiles, so most of this will be new to you too, so you can learn together. This way when the new animals show up this week, you'll be up to speed.”

She smiled widely, and I could tell she was trying to make Ashley feel welcome. Like laying out a welcome mat for the devil. Next she'd offer her cookies.

“Sounds great!” Ashley cooed, grabbing her forms and tucking them under her arm. “Ready to go, Ana?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

What.

Is.

Happening?