How to Outswim a Shark Without a Snorkel Page 3

  PHYLUM: Supersmart Girls Who Are Also Lucky Enough To Have Hair That Always Looks Good; Best Friends Who Moved Away

  WEIGHT: Considering how much junk food she eats, I’m pretty sure she’s 80 percent sugar.

  NATURAL HABITAT: Hard to tell now, seeing how I haven’t seen her in person for months.

  FEEDS ON: Our video chats, musical theater (especially anything with singing boys in old-timey costumes), and as much red licorice as she can get her hands on.

  LIFE SPAN: She’s technically in another time zone eighteen hours ahead of me right now. Does that mean she’s living in the future?!

  HANDLING TECHNIQUE: Best friend since first grade, when I dropped my toast on her (grape jelly side down, no less). No special techniques needed.

  Even though she’d been living in New Zealand for the past couple of months, that didn’t stop Liv from helping me with my wardrobe choices. Before she moved, Liv and I used to spend hours on the phone and at each other’s houses. We even talked to each other on the phone at the same time as we’d chat online. But now it cost an arm and a leg (so said Mom) to call her, so Liv and I had been using the computer to video chat.

  It worked okay most of the time, except for the time when Daz heard us and gave me fake moose antlers from behind my back, which Liv thought was hilarious, but honestly brothers are the worst.

  “Arggh, fine,” I said. “Happy?” I backed away from the screen and spun quickly, slamming my arms against my sides. “See? Funny butt.”

  Liv’s eyes widened, and her lip curled up in false disgust. “You weirdo. You look fantastic! It doesn’t make your butt stick out. It makes you look like you have one! It’s a miracle! It stays in the keeper pile.”

  I slumped down into my chair and tugged the fabric lower against my knees. I still wasn’t used to all of this. When I decided I couldn’t spend my whole life squirreled away trying to pretend I was anonymous, I knew I’d have to make some changes.

  So far, tackling the “image” part of being my true self wasn’t very helpful. Really, I needed a new wardrobe. But since I didn’t have any money, I was getting rid of all the clothes that made me look like a ten-year-old, including my favorite Peter Pan T-shirt with the hole in the armpit, even though it was so-o-o comfortable.

  Okay, I might have kept that one. But I promise not to wear it in front of people, okay?

  “But it’s so short!” I said. “Are you supposed to see my thighs like this?” I squished a finger into my leg, watching as the skin turned white, then slowly left behind a reddish fingerprint.

  Technically I didn’t pick out this skirt. Sugar bought it for me last week, but I think she forgot that I would be wearing it instead of her. Unfortunately, I look less like a model and more like a twelve-and-a-half-year-old who’s got a weird pickle-shaped sunburn on her knees.

  Liv lifted her eyebrows smugly. “Trust me. It stays in the keeper pile. Kevin will love it! How is it going with him, anyway?” She disappeared off screen and returned with her mouth full. Her cheeks stuck out like a chipmunk.

  I shrugged. “It’s fine, I guess.” I squinted at her. “Liv, it’s practically midnight there. What the heck are you eating?”

  She grinned, showing off the mess in her teeth. “Izza eez an eat fie!” she mumbled.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, well that makes it clear.”

  She swallowed her bite. “It’s a cheese and meat pie. They love these things down here. Pies for breakfast, pies for lunch. Pies, pies, pies,” she sang. She took another big bite and held it closer to the screen. “Want fum?”

  I scrunched my nose and stepped out of the view of the computer, slipping out of the skirt. Once my robe was pulled on, I sat back down. My skirt sat in a pile on the center of the floor, like a swishy black hole that was sucking out my ego.

  “Okay. So quit changing the subject now,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Tell me how Kevin is. Has he put the moves on you yet?” She giggled like a madwoman, her eyes shining like giddy little pixels on my screen.

  I frowned. “I told you! He’s fine. We all had a good time at the dance, and he’s coming over later to hang out with Daz. So he’s fine. I’m fine.” I shut my mouth before I rambled too much.

  “The ‘fine-itis’? Come on. You’re a terrible liar. Your lips always do that thing when you lie.” She squinted at me, squishing up her lips.

  My hand whipped to my face. “What thing? They do not!”

  She smirked. “Sure they do! You think in a lifetime of best friendship I don’t know your lie face? You do this.” She pursed her lips together again, sticking them out like a duck. “You look like you’re slurping spaghetti when you lie!”

  “Okay, okay!” I yelled. I made sure my lips were loosey-goosey. “I guess I was sort of confused about the dance.”

  “Because he didn’t tell you he loved you and give you a giant smackeroo on the lips?”

  “No!” I said. I hid my lying lips. The truth was I was sort of afraid of kissing him. Or anyone, really. But that didn’t make me stop wondering if he wanted to.

  “I just don’t know what he’s thinking, you know? I hate that feeling.” I stared at Liv’s face on the screen. “We did slow dance four times. That counts, I think?” I thought back to the dance and how Kevin had gone to get me punch like guys in the movies do for their dates. “Maybe he only sees me like a friend?” I said.

  “Leilani says that when a guy likes you, he will make sure you know it,” she said. “Maybe he’s working up to it?”

  I rolled my chair away from the screen, making a face. Leilani was Liv’s new friend, and I couldn’t help but get a little peeved when I heard her name.

  Lay-lah-nee.

  They met when Liv moved into her new house, and she plays the flute and never seems to care that she’s yanking my very best friend away like some sort of kraken. So I’ve never actually met her and she could be a perfectly nice person, but still. Liv was always talking about Leilani’s opinion on stuff, like she was somehow smarter than us just because she had purple hair and was like eight months older.

  I returned to the screen, plastering on my best “Leilani’s-name-doesn’t-bug-me” face.

  “Maybe, yeah.” I poked aimlessly at my spacebar, trying to clean it. There had to be easily two years’ worth of toast crumbs in there.

  “Plus, he got you that totally sweet present before your zoo thing, remember?”

  My eyes slid over to the notebook that Kevin had given me before my presentation. I had been so nervous to be in front of people, but he had shown up to surprise me in his supersweet way and said I’d be great. I still hadn’t written in it; it was too perfect. I liked it better blank, full of possibilities.

  “Maybe that was only as a friend, though? I got you presents all the time when you were still here.” When Liv used to live up the road, we used to give each other little gifts like flowers or used books or special flavors of lip gloss. My heart hurt to think about it.

  “That’s true, but I am pretty awesome.” She fake-primped her messy hair. “Leilani’s already kissed a guy. She said it was super sloppy, and that he was super drooly like a dog. I think as long as you kiss someone by the time you’re in high school, you’re good.”

  I bit my lip. High school used to seem so far away, but now it was almost close. Only one year away. It was hard to imagine someone else’s mouth anywhere near mine. Did it feel like kissing your pillow? Not that I’d ever done that. Except that one time in sixth grade when Liv and I had that sleepover and watched Pride and Prejudice on the Women’s Channel. Even though I didn’t think that Mark Darcy guy was that hot.

  Although he did have quite nice hair. And I liked how he was super serious but also sweet to Elizabeth at the same time.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted a kiss. Maybe I did? Did the squirmy feeling in my stomach when I saw Kevin mean that I did? Or did it me
an that I was a total freakazoid who didn’t have the first clue about the opposite sex?

  Ugh.

  See? I can’t even think that word without feeling weird. Even though it’s totally scientific and not at all gross.

  “Oh!” Liv exclaimed suddenly. “How could I forget to tell you? Guess what happened yesterday!” Her eyes widened and a happy-sneaky look appeared on her face, like she was about to scarf the last handful of theater popcorn from the bag.

  “Umm…you ran into a real live hobbit?” I ventured.

  “Nooo.” She beamed. “Even better. Hang on. I’m going to show you.” She dashed away, leaving her empty chair spinning behind her. It was hot pink and squishy looking, instead of the green one she had when she had still lived here. I guess it would have been hard to pack stuff like chairs with a big move like that. It was weird seeing her in a new chair, somehow.

  She came back, waving a letter in front of her. “Check it out!” She unfolded the paper and tried to hold it steady for the webcam.

  “I can’t read that,” I said. “The letters are all blurry.”

  “It’s my transcript!” she squealed. “My parents were talking to the school board guy yesterday. You know, checking up on my classes to make sure I’d be okay here in their school system for the winter start.”

  “Yeah, and?” Oh man, it would be awful if Liv got held back a year. Were they supersmart in New Zealand? What if they were way ahead of us with lessons? I held my breath, ready to give her a pep talk.

  “I get to skip a grade!” she squealed.

  A cold fist gripped my heart. “You…what?” I sputtered. This wasn’t right.

  “Yes!” She grinned. She held her transcript to her chest. “They said I was too advanced and that I would be bored in eighth grade here, and their school system is different here with classes, and all the extra work I did to catch up for the move, and…I get to start high school this year! How cool, huh?!”

  My eyes blinked uncontrollably. “Wow,” I managed to say. My throat was tight. “That’s…insane. I thought we’d be going into high school together,” I said. I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my voice. “I mean, together, in different places. Obviously.” My face was hotter than the Serengeti.

  Liv didn’t notice. “I know! I was so excited when I found out. That means I get to go to classes with Leilani too. I was all worried that I’d be stuck alone in some class full of people with weird accents that I don’t know.”

  “Yeah. That would suck,” I said.

  Almost as bad as it would suck for me to go back to junior high while you’re in high school.

  I felt about two inches tall. I never realized it before, but I always sort of felt like Liv and I were reading the same book, you know? Like, the book of life or something, which sounds totally nerdy, but true. Now, instead of being on the same page as me, she was flipping ahead a few chapters, leaving me stuck in the dust like a tiny footnote. How was this fair? And how come she wasn’t afraid at all? If I found out I had to go to high school this year, I’d be pulling out my hair and rocking in a corner. What would I wear? Who would I talk to? You need time to get used to big stuff like this. And here’s Liv flouncing into ninth grade like it’s no biggie.

  I was just starting to get used to everything without her. Being in school without her. Eating vanilla shakes at Shaken, Not Stirred without her. How come after trying so hard to be okay with my life, things had to go changing again? First the sharks and now Liv.

  “Earth to Ana? Did you hear what I said?”

  I snapped back to reality. “Huh? Sorry, no…” My eyes were stinging, but she probably couldn’t tell from the pixelly image.

  “Our pact! Remember? We need to fast-track it!”

  I stared at her face on the monitor as I tried to remember. Pact? Liv had already missed the half-birthday pact last month. What other pact was there?

  “Um,” I said, trying not to hurt her feelings. “Right.”

  “Our kissing pact!” she squeaked. “We only have a month now instead of a full year!”

  “Oh!” I exclaimed. A dark feeling crept over me. Like a snake winding itself around my heart.

  Oh.

  See, Liv and I had made a kissing pact, back when we were eleven years old. This was when everybody in school started talking about kissing for the first time, but Liv and I weren’t really interested. We always told ourselves so long as we kissed a boy by the time high school started, we wouldn’t have to worry about being labeled as losers for the rest of our lives. We made a blood pact to do it together too, using a safety pin to prick our pointer fingers and smush them together like they do in the movies. My finger hurt for hours afterward.

  “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?

  Chapter 4

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

  —Animal Wisdom
>
  Huh. I always thought Daz was the loudest animal on earth.

  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.