“Me? Look, I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.” I started moving toward the door. “And now I’m late getting to a pool party, so…whatever.”
“Hey!” he called after me. “I do appreciate it!”
I nodded and waved and clanged out the door.
I hit the sidewalk, and I should have been relieved, but my stomach was suddenly squooshy again. André had been a hard-won ally. Someone who’d gone from distrusting me to being my friend.
And here I had totally played him, too.
Just like I had my grams.
I tried to shove the thought from my mind as I jangled through the Pup Parlor door. “Hey, Vera! Hi, Meg!” They were busy shaping pouf balls on the ankles of a large poodle.
“Sammy!” they both cried.
I laughed. “It’s always so nice to come here.”
“Always so nice to see you!” they said in unison. Then Meg added, “Holly’s upstairs. Thanks for dragging her out to this. She’s still a bundle of nerves.”
She was, too. I found her sitting on the edge of her bed with her backpack on her lap and a kind of wide-eyed fear on her face. I plopped down next to her and laughed. “I can’t believe you!” I shook my head and said, “You’ve survived so much—this pool party is not gonna kill you!” I stood up and grabbed her arm. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
She pulled back. “You know how mean they can be.”
“Who? Girls?” I sat down again. And something about Holly’s battle with nerves calmed the squooshies of my own stomach. “Look, it’s not a beauty pageant. We’re playing water hoops! To the death!”
“But Marissa told me Heather’s going to be there.” She looked at me. “Heather calls me Trash Digger. Still. Did you know that?”
I didn’t, but I wasn’t about to let Heather ruin the day. “She calls everybody something. I’m Loser, remember? Who cares? Just stay in the pool—I’m sure she won’t even get in. She’ll be afraid to get her hair wet.” I pulled a hideous face and screeched, “I’m mellllllting!”
Holly laughed and then smiled at me. “Thanks.”
“So let’s go!” I jumped up. “Water hoops—to the death!”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Brandon McKenze’s mother is a stay-at-home mom. And, according to Marissa, since she’s only got Brandon to stay at home for, she’s made a career out of being involved in his life. She’s PTO president, coordinates school book fairs and fund-raisers, and helps out at swim meets.
Brandon’s father is an eye surgeon. Or more like a vision surgeon. He does those laser treatments on people’s eyes so they can get rid of their glasses, and he’s kind of a celebrity in Santa Martina because television ads for his “world-renowned vision center” run all the time.
Personally, I think the ads are kinda cheesy, but judging by Dr. McKenze’s gorgeous brick castle of a house, with its fairy-tale climbing ivy and acre of circular driveway, they’re effective.
“I had no idea,” Holly gasped as we took in the house from the street. She let out a low whistle. “And I thought Marissa’s house was over the top.”
“It is,” I laughed.
“Are they in competition?”
I didn’t get the question at all. “Competition? Who?”
“Marissa’s family and these guys.”
“I don’t know,” I said as I grabbed my skateboard. “I never thought about it before.”
She picked up her skateboard, too, and walked with me up toward the house. “Well, have they always been rich?”
“Marissa’s family made a ton of money on the stock market.” I nodded up at the house. “These guys moved here when Marissa and I were in fifth grade.”
“So only a few years.”
I shrugged. I didn’t think the subject was very interesting. Who cared? Both families were obviously really rich.
Then we heard, “Hey, wait up!” from behind us, and when we turned around, there was the DeVries Nursery truck, making a teen girl delivery. Marissa scrambled out first, followed by Dot.
“Call ven you vant a ride home, ja?” Mr. DeVries said out the passenger window.
“I will!” Dot said back, and we all waved goodbye as he pulled away.
Marissa was wearing sparkly green flip-flops, green shorts that were kinda, well, short, and a white halter top. She was also wearing a sun hat and oversized sunglasses, and was lugging along a big duffel full of who knows what that was totally throwing off her balance.
“Stop scrutinizing me,” she said, flip-flopping toward us.
“Am I scrutinizing you?” I asked, all innocent-like.
“Duh,” she said, and I know her eyes rolled behind her movie-star glasses, even though I couldn’t see them.
“How are your parents?” I whispered when we were walking side by side.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said under her breath.
So I dropped it and just tagged along as she led the way, following pool-party-thataway signs around the house to the backyard.
Brandon’s backyard is definitely over the top. Besides the pool, which has loungers, patio tables, and chairs all around it, there’s an enormous covered patio, plus a row of cabanas for changing clothes and a bathroom cabana. All that makes sense, especially if you’re going to invite a bunch of teenagers over and you don’t want them dripping through the house or peeing in the pool, but just because it makes sense doesn’t mean that most people have those things.
Shoot, most people don’t even have a pool.
And as if that’s not enough luxury for one backyard, there’s also a putting green on the far end of the property.
“Wow,” Holly and Dot whispered as we wound around the walkway that led to the pool area.
“Yeah,” I said. “Can you believe people live like this?”
I spotted Brandon with a group of his high school friends, and saw his mother, who was directing some girls I recognized from the softball game as they brought platters of food out to a long table on the patio.
Marissa suddenly skidded to a stop. “She’s here already?”
My focus instantly switched to the direction Marissa was looking, and there she was, the Bummer of Summer herself, laying an oversized hot-pink towel over one of the lounge chairs.
“I hate that she’s here!” Marissa seethed. “And look at her, acting like she owns the place. This is my cousin’s house!” Marissa’s feet were planted, but the rest of her was shooting forward. She looked like a fancy-schmancy poodle yanking on an invisible leash.
“Eeeeasy,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “The best thing you can do is act like you don’t care, remember?”
“There’s Danny!” Dot whispered. “On the patio!”
People suddenly seemed to be coming from everywhere. From inside the house, from behind us, from a flagstone walkway winding through shrubs and palm trees on the other side of the pool…. I felt like a boulder in the middle of Teen River.
“Can we park somewhere?” I asked.
Marissa snapped to. “Yeah. Let’s stake out our territory.” Then she marched straight for a lounger on the opposite side of the pool from Heather, laid out her towel, and got her bag all…situated. You know, first she had it on one side of the lounger, then she moved it to the foot of the lounger, then she put it on the other side of the lounger, and finally she pushed it halfway under the lounger.
Holly, Dot, and I just stood by, watching.
“What are you staring at?” Marissa huffed. “Grab a seat before they’re all gone!”
I shoved my skateboard under her lounger and dumped my backpack next to her bag. “Done.”
Holly did the same.
Dot looked around uncomfortably. “There aren’t that many loungers….”
Marissa was not happy with our junk everywhere but didn’t actually say anything. She just sat down and swung her legs around. “Which is why you need to grab one before somebody else does!”
I took Dot’s bag out of her hand and put it next to
the backpacks. “We’re not here to lounge, Marissa. We’re here to play water hoops.” I sorta frowned at her. “This is no way to compete with Heather.”
Her jaw seemed set in cement.
“You don’t want to compete with her this way. This isn’t you!”
She crossed her arms and tilted up her nose. So after a minute of just standing there, I shook my head and said, “Come on,” to the other two and took off.
While I led Holly and Dot over to the patio area, Marissa stayed put, glaring through her movie-star glasses at Heather, who was casually rubbing herself down with sunscreen.
“Sam-my!” Brandon called when he spotted me, and when we were closer, he said, “Holly and Dot, right?” They nodded and smiled, and he slung his arm around my shoulders and called out to the world at large, “Everyone! This is Sammy, Holly, and Dot!” Then he turned to me and dropped his voice. “Where’s Marissa?”
I pointed across the pool.
“That’s Marissa?” he said.
Brandon’s mother was suddenly right beside us. Her eyes twinkled at her son. “She’s a teenager now, you know.” She smiled at me and said, “So nice to see you again, Samantha,” then turned to Holly and Dot. “Welcome!”
She was off again before we could say anything back, and Brandon wasn’t shy about putting us to work. “We’re kinda behind on everything. Can you bring out the hoop and divide the skullcaps?” He pointed toward a flagstone walkway. “It’s all in the storage shed back there.”
“We’re on it,” I said, heading out.
“And suit up!” he called after us. “No lounging around!”
“Tell that to your cousin!” I called back.
We meandered back to the “storage shed,” which was actually a cabana for stuff, hidden among shrubs and palms. “I feel like I’m at a resort,” Dot said when I handed her the plastic tub of blue and red water polo skullcaps. “And everyone’s being so nice.”
I grinned over my shoulder as I reached for the hoop, which is a mesh net lashed inside a kind of floating pyramid. “Enjoy it while you can—in a few hours it’s back to the real world.”
Holly accepted the bulky hoop and murmured, “Hard to believe that for them this is the real world.”
Dot laughed. “How easy would getting used to this be, huh?”
We both agreed, “Very!”
Anyway, we gathered the stuff and were leaving the “shed” when I noticed the faded purple water hoops ball. “Hey, the ball!” I said, grabbing it off the shelf.
“That’s it?” Holly asked. “I thought it’d be a basketball.”
“It’s weird-looking,” Dot said, taking it from me.
I remember thinking the same thing the first time I saw it. It’s only about eight inches across, and it’s rubbery and squooshy, with long tunnels of air running through it.
“Won’t this sink?” Dot asked.
“Oh yeah,” I laughed. “And the color makes it hard to see underwater.”
We went back to the pool area, and the first thing I noticed was that Marissa was no longer on the lounger.
And neither was Heather.
I chucked the hoop in the water near the middle of the pool, then started sorting the skullcaps into red and blue piles. “I can’t believe they have their own skullcaps!” Holly said. “But I’m glad.” She held one up—they were the tie-under-the-chin-with-ear-holes variety. “Can you imagine you know who putting on one of these?”
“No!” I grinned at her. “See? It’ll definitely be safe in the water.”
“Poor Marissa,” Dot whispered. “She told me all about the kiss.”
“The kiss? What kiss?” Holly asked.
So real quick I caught her up on our little spying fiasco, and then Dot added, “I wish she’d just forget about Danny. I don’t like him.”
Holly frowned. “Yeah. He’s too slick.”
We’d finished sorting the caps, so I scanned the backyard for Marissa.
“I don’t see her, either,” Dot said. “Maybe she’s getting changed?”
Just then one of the cabana doors opens, and out steps the lime green two-piece.
Really, that’s all I see at first—the suit.
For one thing, it’s really bright.
For another, it’s definitely the suit Marissa used my money to buy at the mall.
Ruffled top.
Wide-belted bottom.
Only as the suit moves away from the cabana, I’m having an awful time making sense of what I’m seeing. It’s like one person’s head has been put on another person’s body. But as hard as I blink, the image doesn’t change.
And finally it hits me that I am seeing what I can’t believe I’m seeing.
It’s Marissa’s bikini, all right.
But it’s wrapped around Heather Acosta’s body.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Isn’t that Marissa’s suit?” Dot asks when she hears me gasp. “She showed it to me on the way over!”
And I’m sorry, but my own advice about ignoring Heather was now out the window. I got immediately fried over Heather’s unbelievable nerve. I mean, stealing someone’s swimsuit and faking like it’s yours might be insane, but for Heather it’s a typical stunt. And good luck getting it back. She’ll just sneer at you and whisper, “Got a receipt, loser?”
So while I’m getting madder and madder and my mind is flashing with all the dirty, rotten, unbelievable tricks Heather has pulled on me in the past, another cabana door opens.
An identical lime green bikini comes walking out.
And this time, Marissa is inside it.
My jaw drops.
My eyes pop.
Dot whispers, “Whirling windmills! They’re wearing the same suit!”
Now, if this had been two guys in the same swim trunks, no one would have cared or even noticed. And if the swimsuit had been, you know, some happy Hawaiian print or something, maybe it wouldn’t have been so glaring. But this suit was neon-bright and not exactly risqué but kinda…daring.
And on top of not wanting your fashion statement stolen, who wants to be twins with Heather Acosta?
Not Marissa, that’s for sure. The minute she realized what was walking a few yards ahead of her, her jaw dropped, and behind the movie-star glasses she was still wearing, I’m sure her eyes popped.
Heather must’ve picked up on the fact that something weird was going on, because she looked over her shoulder through her movie-star glasses and instantly skidded to a halt.
Holly summed up the situation nicely: “Uh-oh.”
We were around the pool and at Marissa’s side in no time, but Heather was already facing off with her, pointing at the cabanas. “Go back in there and take that off right now!”
Marissa just stood there.
“Why would you want to wear it?” Heather said, looking her up and down. “You must be so embarrassed!”
And then does she follow up by saying something about looking like twins or even copycatting?
No.
She wobbles her head and says, “It looks so much better on me.”
Which was a big steamy pile of manure—it actually looked way better on Marissa.
Holly steps forward. “Get over yourself, would you, Heather?”
“Stay out of it, would you, Trash Digger?”
Well, I’d been trying to stay out of it, but this was too much. “Go back to your sticky little web, Heather. So you guys have the same suit. So what?”
Heather sneered at me, then turned it on Marissa. She pulled the sunglasses down low on her nose. “Why don’t we ask Danny who looks better, huh?” Her sneer grew bigger. “Oh, never mind. I know what he’ll say.” She gave an evil grin. “He kissed me, you know.”
This was obviously meant to light Marissa’s fuse, but before Marissa could react, I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah, yeah, we know.” I snorted. “And then you dumped him out the window into the mud and made him crawl home. Must’ve been some kiss.”
Well, that totally
lit Heather’s fuse. Her firecracker eyes sparked as she tried to figure out how we knew about her little kissing calamity, and the conclusion she jumped to did not happen to involve us spying through her window.
“That sneak!” she snarled. “I’m gonna kill him!” Then she stormed off, most likely in search of someone I’d been kinda looking out for since we’d arrived.
Casey.
I tried to push him from my mind, and I focused on Marissa. “Now will you please go put on your one-piece? We’re here to play water hoops, not fight the Great Bikini War.”
“I didn’t even bring my one-piece,” she whimpered. And as we followed her back to her lounger, I could tell she was about to break into tears. “First Danny, then my suit?”
“You look way better in it than Heather,” Dot told her.
“Way,” Holly confirmed.
“But you’d be having way more fun in the water,” I said. “Come on, Marissa. Take off those glasses, get in the water, and just be you!”
Just then Brandon hoisted a megaphone and called, “Time to do battle! If you’re playing, come on over here!” He slung his arm around a very tan, very blond guy, obviously also a high school swimmer. “I’m Red leader. Andrew here is Blue leader. To make it fair, we’ll pull players by age—youngest first.”
I tried to drag Marissa down to the gathering, but she refused to go. “Maybe later,” she finally said, shaking me off.
So the rest of us went over, and after the dust had settled, Holly and I were on Brandon’s team, and Dot was on Andrew’s.
As usual, we were the youngest players.
And three out of only five girls willing to get wet.
The rules of McKenze-style water hoops are easy—anything goes. The exact number of players doesn’t matter, as long as it’s pretty even. There are no timed periods—you play until you’re exhausted or famished or both. There are no “handling” rules—you can move the hoop. You can submerge the hoop. You can even get out of the pool, just as long as at least one foot stays in the water.
What you’re not allowed to do is hold on to another player. Latching on to the ball while another player is holding it is fine. You just can’t latch on to the player.
So there’s basically just one rule: Don’t drown or cause to be drowned.