Around us the concrete edges of the pool are lined with boats, which range from the impossibly professional to the downright raftlike. Some of them look like they could make it through the Bermuda Triangle, others like they might crumble under the strain of a light drizzle. Some are painted brilliant reds and yellows and greens, with elaborate cardboard sails and rudders, while others could easily be mistaken for oversized pizza boxes.
Ours is somewhere in between. It’s squat and square and covered with tape, but it looks sturdy enough. We didn’t have time to paint it, but last night, as we finished shoring up the sides, Teddy decided we needed to give it a name.
“It’s bad luck if you don’t,” he insisted. “How about theTeddy?”
I groaned. “I think we can do better than that.”
“Nobody can do better than theTeddy,” he joked, but when I rolled my eyes at him, he shrugged. “Okay, how about theSink or Swim?”
“A little too close to home.”
“TheSea You Later?”
“Too cute.”
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat?”
“Too long.”
“I’ve got it,” he said finally, his eyes lighting up. “TheLucky Duck.”
“Don’t you think it’s kind of tempting fate to put the wordluckyon it?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff,” he said. “Besides, I just won the lottery. If I can’t throw around the wordluckyafter that, what’s the use?”
But now, seeing the painted letters on the back of our boat makes my stomach twist. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that luck can change in an instant.
Teddy pulls off another piece of tape to reinforce one of the corners, and I watch him stick out his tongue in concentration as he folds it carefully around the edge.
“So is she seaworthy?” I ask, sitting down on the bleachers beside him.
“You tell me.” He pats the side of it, making the whole thing shudder. “You designed it.”
“Then youredesigned it,” I remind him, because though he held up his end of the bargain—we spent much of the weekend working on the boat together—he also made about a thousand suggestions for subtle improvements on my plans, insisting that it would increase our speed.
“Winning isn’t the point,” I told him. “We just need to make it across.”
He only frowned at me. “Winning is always the point.”
Behind us two girls from our class walk by, and I hear them whisper something about a yacht, then start to laugh. I can pretty much guess the rest of it, and I suspect Teddy can too, because he stiffens but doesn’t say anything.
The air around the pool is heavy and damp, and all the many voices of our classmates bounce off the tiled walls, making everything feel too loud and weirdly distorted. Already other students are filing in through the blue double doors at the other end of the bleachers. Teddy rips at the tape with his teeth, then spits out a stringy piece.
“I think it’s almost time,” I say, and he nods, but I can tell he’s distracted by something over my shoulder, and I turn to see two of his friends from the basketball team, J.B. and Chris, walking over, one of them sunburnt, the other wearing a Hawaiian shirt. They look like they just stepped off the beach. Teddy watches them with a dazed expression; it must be the first time he’s seen them since Mexico.
“Dude,” says J.B., extending a fist, which Teddy bumps dutifully with his own. “I can’tbelieveyou missed the rest of the week. It was awesome. I could’ve lived on that beach forever. I almost didn’t come back.”
“Well, we sort of had to,” Chris says, “since we ran out of funds after you took off.”
Teddy frowns. “I left you guys a credit card.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it goes, man,” J.B. says. “The tab just kept growing and growing—”
“And growing,” admits Chris, who at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed by this. “Things got kind of out of hand.”
“We ended up maxing out the card,” J.B. says, “which really sucked. For the last two days we had to give up all the top-shelf stuff and start eating tamales from that cart by the pool. It was pretty rough.”
“Sounds like it,” I say, and they both look over at me as if they didn’t until that moment realize I was there.
