Bobby poked his head in the room and shouted, "Cascade Plunge opens today!"
Neighbor Dorothy said, "Oh, I see… Well, everybody, I guess we can say that summer is officially here. Bobby has just informed me that the pool is open." Mother Smith hit a few happy chords of "By the Sea, by the Sea, by the Beautiful Sea" while Bobby stood there, chomping at the bit to be released. His mother said, "Well, go on but for heaven's sake, don't hit your head on the diving board!" Everybody at home heard a faint voice disappearing into the background saying "O.K." and the slam of the door.
Bobby knew the shortcut to everywhere in town through the back alleys and was at the pool in two minutes flat. As he had whizzed by their houses, the ladies listening to Neighbor Dorothy heard all about the saga of how last year he had been showing off for some girl and had cracked his head on the diving board and had knocked himself out cold and had to have three stitches. Most people would have learned their lesson and not gone near the pool, but not him.
Bobby loved the water. His mother did not know it but he had already been swimming out at the Blue Devil several times. That was fun but not like Cascade Plunge. To him there was something wonderful about the certain smell of chlorine on hot, wet cement, and swimming underwater in that clear, aqua pool water streaked with wavy strips of white sunlight something about the quiet under there, the whole world above muffled and far away. And then, too, there were girls at the pool. He wanted to show off for a girl in his class, not the same one he liked last year, a new one. She was a tap dancer, and when Bobby, who Dorothy had to practically drag to the Dixie Cahill dance recital, saw her solo to "Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me," he thought she was as cute as a pair of new yellow shoes.
Bobby ran up to the big cement building with blue sky and white clouds painted over the sign that said CASCADE PLUNGE and dug in his jeans for a dime and got his locker key and ran on in, practically pulling all his clothes off before he reached the men's changing room. He was in such a hurry that he almost tripped on his bright orange swim trunks.
He quickly locked his locker and ran out from the shadowy dressing area into the shining white sunlight. There it was. At last he had reached that oasis of shimmering crystal-clear water he had been dreaming about all winter, and the sight of it almost took his breath away. It looked like a big lake, sparkling like a thousand diamonds in the sun, surrounded by a sea of hot white concrete. Oh, it was all too much. He was far too excited to wait another minute and he ran and flung himself into the pool. He swam underwater for a while and came up right beside Monroe and they immediately began to splash water at each other while all the girls around them who didn't want to get their hair wet screamed. Let the fun begin!
At about 4:30 that afternoon when Bobby had not come home yet, Dorothy said to Anna Lee, who was in her bedroom with Patsy Marie working on their movie-star scrapbooks, "Anna Lee, I'm worried about Bobby. He's been down at that pool six hours. Would you and Patsy Marie take a walk over there and tell him to come home, he's had enough for one day." Anna Lee groaned as if her mother had just told her that she had to build an Egyptian pyramid by hand. "Oh, Mother, do I have to?"
"Yes, I'm worried he might have cracked his head again."
"But, Mother, if he wants to knock himself silly on that diving board, I can't stop him."
"Please, for my sake."
Anna Lee sighed monumentally and got up. "Come on, Patsy Marie, let's go. But I don't know why you let him go down there in the first place.
All he does is swim around underwater all day, pinching people and acting like a jerk." What she said was largely true. At the moment Bobby and Monroe were swimming around underwater, pestering everyone they could. The best fun was to dive down and swim between unsuspecting people's legs and scare them to death. Bobby was having a grand time. The pool was jam-packed with potential victims. He had just gone between one pair of legs when he suddenly saw another pair nearby and swam over and went for them. He thought this was hilarious until he realized a second too late that the pair of legs he was now swimming under belonged to none other than Luther Griggs. Big mistake!
Bobby swam as fast and as far away from him as he could but not far enough. Just as Bobby emerged at the surface, gasping for air, Luther was right behind him and rolled over on his back and kicked him as hard as he could and caught him right between his shoulder blades.
Bobby did not know what hit him. The powerful kick knocked the wind out of him and sent him flying toward the deep end of the pool. Luther swam away, laughing his head off, but Bobby did not come back up.
Having seen Bobby drift around underwater all day, nobody paid much attention to him, even the lifeguard, who had his hands full with a pool crammed with excited kids.
It wasn't until some minutes later that Macky Warren, who was standing around talking to Norma, looked over and noticed that Bobby was floating around on top of the water, facedown. He was not moving.
Macky ran over to the side of the pool and reached in and jerked him up by his hair and pulled him out. Bobby was unconscious and had already started turning blue. A few minutes later, when Anna Lee and Patsy came strolling into the pool area, they noticed a group of people gathered around, looking at something on the side of the pool. Anna Lee wondered what it was but did not think much about it until she got closer and realized it was a person on the ground. Norma blurted out, "Oh, Anna Lee, I think he's dead!"
Anna Lee walked over, still not knowing who it was. Suddenly everyone moved aside. When she looked down and saw Bobby's lifeless body lying on the cement she almost fainted. The lifeguard was gasping, counting out loud, giving him artificial respiration, desperately trying to get him to breathe. Unable to move, Anna Lee screamed over and over, "That's my brother!" In that minute before Bobby finally started to cough and spit up water, the thousands of irritating things he had ever done were forgotten. All Anna Lee wanted was for him to be alive.
When Bobby finally did come to and opened his eyes, he looked up and when he saw so many people peering down at him it scared him to death.
He didn't know where he was or what he was doing on the ground. When his eyes began to focus a little better, he suddenly recognized his sister's face, as she knelt down beside him. He was so happy to see her that he threw his arms around her neck and wouldn't let go.
Still in a state of shock, not really understanding what had happened, Bobby began to shiver and to cry. Anna Lee held him and said, "It's all right, you're all right, Bobby, I'm here." Even when the lifeguard picked him up and carried him into the pool house and laid him down on the couch he would not let go of her hand. They covered him with a blanket and rubbed him all over to get his circulation back. After a while he sat up and had a Coke. He was a bit shaken by the ordeal but apparently none too worse for the wear. When he felt well enough Anna Lee got his clothes out of the locker and helped him dress and they walked home together, his arm around her waist, her arm around his shoulder. As they got closer to the house they saw their mother out standing on the sidewalk.
"I've been worried to death," she said. "I was just about to go down there and find you. What were you doing all this time?"
Anna Lee squeezed his hand and said, "Nothing. I was just fooling around talking to some people, that's all. It's my fault."
The next day Bobby decided it was in his own best interest and a matter of personal safety not to go back to the pool anytime soon.
Particularly as long as Luther Griggs was still lurking around. So he stayed in his room and read comic books.
At about 12:30 that afternoon, Monroe came running through the side yard and knocked frantically on Bobby's window, his eyes wide open as if he had just seen a Martian. "Let me in," he said. Bobby opened the window all the way and Monroe climbed across the sill flush with excitement. "Whoa… wait till you hear what just happened to Luther!"
"What?"
Monroe put his hands on his head, walked around the room, and exclaimed, "Fantastic! It was fantastic… You should have seen her. Wham, a right cross right on the chin and then bang, she let him have it again with a left hook and another right. Oh, she was great."
Monroe danced around the room demonstrating the fight. "Wham… barn!"
"Who?" asked Bobby.
"Anna Lee!"
Bobby couldn't believe it. "My sister Anna Lee?"
"Yeah."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not, I saw it. She came down to the pool a little while ago looking for him and she went over and jerked him up by his shirt and told him to pick on somebody his own size. Then she hauled off and knocked him flat on his back. When she got him on the ground she just about kicked the stuffing out of him. He was crying and everything. It was great. You should have seen it."
"Anna Lee?"
"Yeah, and she told him if he ever bothered you again she'd get Billy Nobblitt on him."
"My sister?"
Monroe flopped back on the bed. "Boy, are you lucky. I wish I had a sister like that."
"He really cried?" Bobby smiled.
"Oh, yeah, she had him begging for mercy."
That night at dinner Bobby looked across the table at his sister with new eyes, filled with awe and admiration. Although nothing was said,
their relationship began to change after that day. Gradually, the thought of how wonderful it would have been to be an only child slowly faded away, and they finally quit tattle telling on each other every chance they got. They even began to share their own little secrets. It had only been a slight adjustment but it was to make all the difference in the world. As Dorothy remarked later, "It's so pleasant not to have the children at each other's throats night and day. I wonder what happened?"
Although Dorothy was relieved she no longer had to worry about her own children killing each other, from time to time she still worried about Betty Raye Oatman. She had never received a letter from her. Often, she wondered if the girl was all right. She even called the minister out at the Highway 78 Church of Christ, but he had no idea where the Oatmans were.
Betty Raye did not find the envelope that Neighbor Dorothy had slipped into the side of her suitcase until a few days after she had left Elmwood Springs. Inside was fifty dollars in cash and a short handwritten note.
Sweetheart,
Take this and buy yourself a little something special or just save it for a rainy day if you want. Please don't forget us and come see us again.
Your friends,
Doc and Dorothy Smith