The crowd, not realizing (thankfully) I’d had an out-of-mind experience, was cheering madly at my ‘endearing, showy tactics.’
I found myself grinning, despite the headache suddenly pounding at my forehead.
Any wonder about the vision vanished as Uzzy reached down and pulled me out of the pool. She squeezed my hand. “Congratulations, Dinger!” She squealed excitedly. “You've broken your previous record!”
I looked up at the scoreboard and saw I had indeed lost a whole 1.4 seconds off my previous record time. “Great,” I smiled. “I'm going to get some ice for this bump, Uzzy. I'll be back in a moment.”
“Serves you right for your showmanship. But hurry up,” she said. “You have another race after this next one. The four hundred IM is a big one for you.”
“I know,” I remarked brusquely.
“Great going, Dinger,” one of my teammates, a guy named Matt (I didn't know his last name) called out.
“Nice job,” another one said. “I'm going to run into the wall when I swim next time!”
I smiled brightly as I made my way to the locker room for ice. There was no denying I liked the attention. And it was pathetically cute a couple of swimmers were willing to copy me. But my head needed more immediate care than my ego at the moment.
A voice interrupted me. “Did something happen out there?”
I jumped in surprise, dropping the ice pack I’d found. “Elysian?”
“Up here,” the small dragon waved down at me from the top of the ceiling rods.
“What're you doing here?” I muttered bitterly. Why hadn’t I bought a cage for this thing when I’d had the chance? Do they sell dragon straightjackets?
“It's a good thing I came. Not only have I managed to get a snapshot of one of your klutz-moments–I'll save that for later–but trouble’s brewing.”
“I don't believe in–”
“In what? The supernatural?” Elysian cocked an eyebrow.
“Shut up.” I felt the frustration rise up again. That argument would do me no good, I knew.
“Anyway, I’m wasting time talking to you. Did you see something?”
Mikey’s profile flashed through my mind. I bit my lip. I didn’t want to go down this road again.
Elysian sighed. “Did you see something or not?”
I suppose I could have imagined it. I wasn’t sure. “No.” I shrugged, rubbing my head, careful not to touch the tender area I'd hit. “Does my head look okay?”
“Too big.”
“What do you mean, 'big'?”
“I mean you have a big head.”
“I do not.”
“Yes you do.” Elysian sneered. “A big head. A big ego.”
I frowned as Elysian began to giggle. “That's not what I meant, you–”
“Hey, Dinger, you're up, let's go!” Uzzy called from the doorway. “You have thirty seconds to get up on your racing block.”
“Okay!” I called back. When the door shut, I scowled back down at Elysian. “Just stay out of trouble, okay? I've got to go. This is my big race.”
“Watch out for trouble.”
“I'll be fine. I'll win, too,” I assured him easily, giving the small dragon a cocky smirk.
Elysian rolled his eyes as I headed out. “What I wouldn't give to just slap that smile of his off his face for good,” I heard him mutter as the door swung shut.
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
*☼*
Mikey was breathing extra-hard as I approached him. I was half-tempted to irritate him, like I normally would have done. Seeing the sincere, focused, and crazed look in Mikey's eye, however, easily convinced me saying anything would be harmful.
The hardness in Mikey’s expression was so uncharacteristic of him, even for a crazy version of him. I sighed. I supposed I should be encouraging.
After all, I'd never known Mikey, in all my years of knowing him, to take something as seriously as he was taking this swim meet. “May the best man win, Mike,” I called. Mikey's frown deepened, causing me to edge away, almost afraid.
Was all the pressure and chlorine causing him to act this way? Or was something more wicked at work?
I couldn't worry about it now. This was the last race of the night, and I had to focus. Uzzy was counting on me, after all, and so were all my numerous fans.
The buzzer sounded. We leapt off our blocks and hit the water one after another.
The four hundred IM wasn't a hard race for me; I'd done it maybe a thousand or so times before in practice, and I knew my limits. For someone who had long mastered all four strokes, I almost felt guilty Mikey was trying so hard.
After all, I wasn’t working hard at all, in my own opinion. Mikey must’ve been working ten times as hard as me, and he's–
Huh?
I nearly choked as I saw Mikey in the next lane over. Mikey's splashy freestyle was steadily overtaking mine. When did he start catching me? I began picking up my own pace, not concerned or anything, of course, but just wanting to give everyone a real show.
It was somewhat exciting for me to have a real challenge, because there were really so few for me. For Mikey, it looked like it only fueled him with angry jealousy.
By the time the two of us had reached the end of our breaststrokes, we were neck and neck, and held a significant lead over everyone else.
With one more lap, I sneaked another quick look at Mikey. My would-be friend was flailing all about, his body movements lacking the exact form and beauty of the butterfly stroke.
A half lap to go.
I sped up, having saved the last reserves of my energy. Mikey spurred forward.
Then it was over. The large splashes came to a stop as the two of us pulled off our goggles and looked up at the scoreboard. Both Mikey and I frowned at the results.
We'd tied.
*☼*
“Wow, what a great meet!” Uzzy was all smiles as she called Mikey and I together in order to pose for the newspaper pictures in a way which would make it seem like she hadn't really been trying to pose for the pictures at all. “You guys did great tonight. You know, you managed to break the record Hamilton set last year and finish in first place!”
“Yeah, just great,” I muttered, trying to somewhat sound happy with the news. I had one broken record and another record I would have to re-beat next time. Great. Just great.
Mikey didn't even try. He glared at me harshly, occasionally jerking his body like he was going to hit someone.
Elysian was nowhere to be seen as I headed out of the locker room with my stuff. I guess he’d been wrong about the trouble, I thought with a smirk. I liked it when Elysian was wrong.
“You cheated!”
“What?” I turned to see Mikey on verge of full-blown madness. My eyebrows arched in surprise at first, because Mikey looked like the human equivalent of a mad dog, minus the foam at the mouth. “Mikey?”
“You cheated!” Mikey shouted. This time it was loud enough that others were looking over at us.
I gritted my teeth, caught between pity and irritation. “Mikey, deal with it. We tied. Big deal.”
“You cheated!”
By now, we had a small crowd of witnesses. I didn’t want to have to do it, but there was no choice but for me to defend my honor in the way I knew best.
“No, I didn't. Get over yourself. You think practicing all week is going to help you beat me? It takes a lot more than a week or so of hard practice.” I smirked. “You're just lucky you managed to keep up with me. We'll see how different things are on Friday.”
“You!” Mikey let out a terrifying cry, revealing a frightening power. “I'll destroy you! You’ll never swim again when I'm done with you on Friday! I'll beat you, and not just once! You'll be crushed, humiliated, completely and utterly defeated–”
“Michael Nathan Salyards!”
I was never so relieved to see Mrs. Salyards than I was at that moment. (I’d been shocked speechless at Mikey’s threats.) I smiled at her and gave a frien
dly wave, but she was too distracted with her revenge-set son to really notice.
“I can't believe you're acting like this! Hamilton is your friend, for heaven's sake! I thought I raised you better than this,” she declared, grabbing onto his arm, trying to haul him after her as she continued her rant against his unsportsmanlike conduct.
But Mikey was strong enough and enraged enough to slip out of her grasp. He flung himself under her arm and launched himself at me, shoving me into the glass windows near the door.
I grunted in response, and tried to push Mikey off of me. “Mikey, stop!”
“I'll beat you!” Mikey continued to screech as he threw out punches. I managed to lock arms with Mikey, stopping him, and drive him away from the wall and the windows (we were dealing with Apollo Central–I knew firsthand how easily broken their building windows were).
“Stop it! You're just jealous!” I yelled back.
“I'll bury you, you hear me? I'll take you down and slaughter you!”
“Michael!” Mrs. Salyards came and pulled her son's arms, bringing his punching to a halt. “That's enough!”
Mikey whirled around, his eyes narrowed. Hate burned into his mother as he faced her. She stepped back, falling down. “Michael?” she asked, her voice betraying a hint of fear.
Mikey just let out another screech of rage and ran off.
For a moment we said nothing. Then I exchanged glances with Mrs. Salyards. For a long moment, we shared the same expression of shock.
“Are you all right, Hamilton?” Mrs. Salyards finally asked as she shakily got to her feet.
“Yeah, I'm fine.” I scratched my head nervously. I’m not good with moms. I looked over just in time to see Elysian slither out the door and head in my direction.
From one crazy to the next, I thought, groaning to myself. I decided I had more important things to worry about. Gwen was waiting for me.
“Where did he go?” Elysian asked me as I headed over towards the stands.
I moaned and slipped behind one of the stands, hoping above all else no one could see me or hear me. “Who?”
“That kid who was punching you.”
“Why? You want to congratulate him?” I asked.
“No. I think he might be in danger.”
“Mikey’s a jerk. He had a bad night and went off into the deep end. He’s insane.”
Elysian narrowed his eyes. “Do you ever really listen to me?” he asked, clearly frustrated again. He shook his head. “Look, you have a right to be angry at what he did, but I don't think you understand.”
“Understand what? That Mikey's gone crazy and he's obsessed beyond all hope?”
“Ah! Stop right there; there's always hope,” Elysian smirked. “And furthermore, you have to understand why Mikey's doing this. There's something wrong. Something that could be your fault, you know.”
“What? Why would you think that?”
“Well, you seem to do a pretty good job irritating me all the time with that fat mouth of yours! I don't think it's a huge assumption to say it happens with everyone else, too,” Elysian remarked, waving his arms in exasperation.
“You need to calm down.”
“You need to stay on track. What did you say to him?”
“What, you mean just now?”
“Anytime! Anytime at all! Anything you said in the last week that would make him angry with you!”
“Calm down!”
“Tell me what you said!”
“I don't know! Quit it, all right?” I glared down at the small dragon. “Look, I just got attacked. I only told him, after he was practically threatening to kill me, he wasn't ever going to beat me, and he was just jealous, and had to accept he was never going to one-up me.”
Elysian's jaw dropped. “What!? Why would you say that? Did you want to make him angrier at you?” He jumped up, beating his wings furiously. Reaching his claws out, he gave me a small smack on the face. “Who was it who just made a vow days ago to watch your words with people!?”
“Get away from me!” I yelled. “You know, for someone who's concerned about my being nice, you're doing a horrible job of it yourself.”
Elysian sighed. “It’s not about being nice. It’s about valuing others. And right now, your choices have crucial and irreversible consequences.”
I groaned. Another lecture from the hypocritical dragon. Just what I needed to round off a perfectly horrible evening.
“I’m leaving,” I declared, shoving him off my shoulder. “I’ve got a date. You know I don’t want any part of this anymore. Go bother Starry Knight about it.”
“Fine.” And with that, Elysian slithered out the door, once more out of my life.
Thank goodness he’s gone, I thought triumphantly. I craned my neck around the corner, seeing if I could catch a glimpse of Gwen. I saw her sitting a few rows up; she was texting on her phone.
Good, she hadn’t seen me. I smiled. I decided I would just forget Elysian had decided to ruin my evening. And Mikey, too.
“Dinger!”
I turned at the sound of my name. “Hey Jason.”
Jason came up to me and reached out a high-five. “Great going out there,” he said. “You and Mike sure put on a show. You okay?”
“Yeah, but I can’t believe Mikey would do something like that,” I admitted.
Jason shrugged. “Maybe he’s just stressed. I heard his dad was back in town again.”
“What?” That was surprising.
“Yeah. It’s bound to have him on edge.”
“I guess so,” I agreed, slowly shaking my head. I didn’t have a clear memory of Mikey’s dad, but I easily remembered how much Mikey hated him.
Jason shrugged again. “Well, hey, are you coming to the team after party? My parents are cool with me having a few friends over.”
“A few friends?” I inquired with a knowing look. “So you didn’t tell them it’ll be closer to fifty people?”
“Aw, come on. Only half of you guys will show up,” Jason assured me. “So, you coming?”
“Sure, sounds great.” And it was great. I’d needed a plan for Valentine’s Day for Gwen, right? This was perfect. And I really needed a party after Mikey’s little episode. “I’ll get Gwen and we’ll see you there soon.”
“Well, hurry. I got some cake from Rachel.”
I brightened instantly. “Will do, my friend. Will do.”
☼15☼
Whispers
There was no end to the rumors that found their way through the halls of the high school during the course of the next days. The students–well, those who cared about school spirit and stuff like that, anyway–were all abuzz with the gossip of what happened at the swim meet.
All of them might have been talking about how I, Hamilton Dinger, had once again broken a swim record or how Gwen and I were a such a cute couple, if they weren't so keen on telling about how Mikey had challenged me to a death match, threatened me, and tried to kill me on the spot when I defended myself.
Normally all this overflow of excitement would have ebbed by the end of the day, but what added to the excitement was Mikey had not gone home after the meet, nor had he come to school on Thursday or Friday. Some kids had filled in the blanks much like they filled in the blanks for their tests–with wrong guesses and things that flat out didn't make any sense.
But I was glad for the attention (no surprise there, really), and I was even a little thrilled the gossip had a more dramatic and mysterious tone than the usual news my classmates heard every other day. I jumped right into demonstrating how Mikey held the knife up to my throat, choking me, as he’d laughed cruelly and vowed he would not rest until he had seen the end of me.
However, by the end of Friday, even I was getting tired of hearing all the rumors. I'd heard varying degrees of Mikey's fate, ranging from Mikey being sent to juvenile hall to killing himself by drowning himself in Lake Erie. There were rumors he was hiding out, plotting some outrageous attempt to show up for Friday’s meet to get a ch
ance to beat me again, and there were reports he’d been sent away by his mother to one of those behavior modification camps.
I was willing to bet no one actually knew and that was why everyone thought they knew.
“Hey, Hammy,” Gwen waved as she started to walk alongside me.
“Hey Gwen. Looking forward to the swim meet today?” I asked with a smile. “I had a really good time after the last one.”
“I'm glad you enjoyed the party,” she said. “Did I tell you my parents were hoping to have dinner with you this week?”
Yes, she had, but it wasn’t like I needed to pay attention to something I’d already heard. I was already thinking about asking her out after the meet, and where we could go, maybe see if the gang wanted to meet somewhere afterwards.
My attention was caught again only when she mentioned Mikey.
“What about Mikey?” I asked, surprised.
Gwen sighed. “I feel so bad for him. He must be so emotionally tangled up inside.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“I mean, when someone runs away, it has to be because they have no place to go.”
“Yeah, sounds right.”
“I wonder what happened to set him off like that?”
“I don't know. No clue.”
“Laura told me someone said something to him, and that set him off. Do you think that's true?”
“Don't know, don't care.”
“Aren't you worried about him at all?”
That was the question that made me look over at her (I could tell it was one of those trick questions females give sometimes). Her honey-brown eyes were filled with concern for our mutual friend, I could tell, but she was clearly starting to be annoyed with the fact I wasn't as worried and fretful as she was.
“Honestly? I think he's fine. He's a big boy, Gwen, and he can take care of himself.”
Gwen huffed. “It's nice you're so loyal to him, Dinger.” With that, she turned around and stomped off.
Boy, she’s mad at me now, I thought glumly. She rarely called me “Dinger,” and when she did it was usually because she wasn't happy with me. Well, what was I supposed to do? Make 'lost' fliers and post them all around the town? Call the police? Consult my magic crystal ball? Go to grief counseling? I grumbled inaudibly to myself as I shut my locker.