I pedaled faster, away from my stepfather’s El Patio Restaurant, darting a glance over my shoulder. My fingers clenched the money pouch with three hundred and six dollars against the handle bar. Two p.m. sun cooked my scalp and shoulders. I pumped harder, my progress...
When I came up for air at the end of the last fifty yard sprint, my nemesis, Celeste, said, “Who’s that old hippie?” I peered at the far end of the pool thirty yards away where the girls in my lane stared. Dad. Stringy, dark blond hair fell on his shoulders as he...
I pedaled faster, away from my stepfather’s El Patio Restaurant, darting a glance over my shoulder. My fingers clenched the money pouch with three hundred and six dollars against the handle bar. Two p.m. sun cooked my scalp and shoulders. I pumped harder, my progress...
Swimming Records caught my eye as I thumbed through the fat almanac of world records and I slapped my palm down on the page. Jane Miller’s pencil stopped on the sheet of loose leaf where she’d been scratching out an essay on the Boston Tea Party—her quirky...
Amy Kuhns and I sidled up the swim team bus aisle past the upturned noses of the chlorine-silvered blondes, the fastest girls on the team, toward our usual spot in the middle. We could take ten seconds off our 100 Free times and still not blip onto their radar....
