“Oh, my name doesn’t mean anything like that.”
“How old are you?” Ash asked curiously.
“I’m eleven,” I told them. I saw Ash and Gray exchange looks. “What is it?”
“Are you stupid?” Gray asked. “That why you’re older but in our class?”
“No! My dad’s in the Navy. We move around a lot.” The boys exchanged looks again, and I knew they didn’t believe me. “I’m not stupid!” I almost stamped my foot in temper.
“Want to come into the water?” Jett asked me as he waited patiently.
Shaking my head, I took a step backward. “No.”
“She’s stupidandchicken.”
I glared at Gray as he bobbed in the water, smirking at me. “Am not.”
“Then get in,” he said as he nodded at the pool edge.
“I can’t swim,” I repeated his brother’s earlier words.
“Not going to learn standing on the deck though, are you?”
“I don’t want to learn.”
“See? Stupid.” He laughed as he looked over at his cousin. “She’s nothing but a chicken.”
Ash started to laugh, and Gray made clucking sounds like a chicken. Jett tried to hide his smile, but his brother was now flapping his hands about like wings. His challenging glare was making me angry, and to show him I wasn’t a chicken, I jumped into the water.
And I sank like a stone.
My arms scrambled frantically, and I took a huge breath as the water rushed into my mouth, and I screamed, which only caused me to swallow more.
Hands grabbed my arms, and then my head was out of the water. Clumsily and painfully, the boys dragged me to the end of the pool, where I coughed and choked out the water that I’d swallowed. I was crying, but I didn’t care that they were going to make fun of me.
A big white towel was wrapped around me as a hand rubbed my back, and I looked up at Gray as he watched me with concern.
“Didn’t say drink the pool,” he said softly. “Thought you said you weren’t stupid?”
“You okay?” Ash asked me as he watched me with wide eyes.
“I think so.” Scrubbing my nose, I looked at all three of them. “That was a bit stu . . . silly,” I admitted.
“I think you were brave.”
Looking at Gray, I felt a flutter in my tummy. He thought that I was brave? “Really?”
“You can’t swim, and you jumped into the water anyway,” he said as he nodded. “You’re a daredevil. Like us.”
“Reckless,” Jett murmured in agreement as he sat beside me. “You want to try again?”
No, but as I looked at the three of them, I found myself nodding. “Maybe in the shallow end?”
The three boys laughed and were soon hauling me up to my feet and throwing the towel onto the lounge chair.
“C’mon, we’re going to teach you how to be arealDevil.”
* * *
