“You’ve got to keep your kicking in rhythm with your strokes!” Penny yelled at Michael as they both grabbed the side of the pool. “If you can do that, I promise you’ll be able to control your speed and go faster and faster.
Your legs just keep working against your arms!”
“Michael,” I said from another lane, “let your legs control the rhythm at first. Make your arms follow their beat.”
Penny nodded agreement.
“Okay, I’ll try it again.” He started swimming. Twice on the first lap he broke his rhythm. Then it started smoothing out — two kicks to the stroke, three strokes to the breath. Three more laps and he only messed up once.
“I think I got it!” Michael said, popping up.
“You did!” Penny yelled and clapped.
I smiled at Michael.
Penny had Michael do a few laps really slow, one kick per stroke. Then faster and faster. He only broke rhythm once in a while. And he could feel how much easier it was to cover the distance when his legs and arms worked together.
We were plodding up to the three mile mark. I could tell Michael was tired. “Another one,” Penny said.
“Why?” Michael gasped.
“Because all of us can.”
I flashed her a smile. She was right — he soon got a second wind. We ran on toward the next milepost.
Four miles approached. Michael looked good.
“Go for five!” he said.
“We’re with you!” Penny said.
We
ran.
Soon Michael was slowing down. I was no spring chicken. Penny looked like she could do a marathon. We called it quits at five. I wanted to hug Michael, to feel the hot sweat on his body next to mine, but I didn’t find the courage.
We each picked an alder. “We’re going up together,” I said, “ten feet at a time. As high as Michael wants to go.” Free-climbing alders was the only thing we did that almost always scraped up our hands. I think that was part of the challenge, not letting that very real pain hurt us. We used to get scraped up in the wild woods, especially in the dark when we first started, but not anymore.
“I’m ready,” Michael said.
I looked at Penny. She nodded.
“First 10 feet,” I said and started shimmying. I had a tree that would take me up about 50 feet, but I doubted I’d need it all. I looked at Michael.
“I’m good,” he said.
“To 20 feet!” I said. We always wore jackets for this to protect our arms, but our hands had to be bare. Gloves just didn’t have the right grip. I looked at Michael.
“One more maybe.”
“To 30!” I could tell he was getting winded. In the trees, no amount of rhythm could compensate for his 125 pounds. Penny and I only had to carry 75 pounds up those slender trunks. Thirty feet.
“My arms are shaking!” Michael said.
“Grip tight with your legs so your arms can rest. We’ll go down in a minute.” I knew what shaking arms meant. He still had to climb down those 30 feet, and doing it in small chunks was safer. “To 25.”
We got down safely and went to find our lunch.
As soon as we returned to school after spring vacation, Michael announced that he would do his tests the second Saturday in April. He knew we had Search and Rescue the first Saturday. I faithfully carried my receiver in my purse everyday, but each morning I said a silent prayer that it wouldn’t go off at school. Everyone knew I could do all kinds of physical things. They knew I had rescued a little boy from a tree, but I hadn’t really told them about Search and Rescue.
The gym teachers knew because I kept my purse in their office during class so someone would hear the receiver if it went off.
But I wasn’t so lucky. Wednesday, March 30. Math class. An incredible beeping noise burst from my purse. Then three shrill tones. “Search and Rescue Alpha team, radio Central Dispatch. All other teams stand by.” I turned red. It didn’t even have a volume control. All the kids were looking at me.
“Ariel,” the teacher said, “I know about that, but maybe you should explain it to the class.”
I didn’t want to. I buried my head in my hands, I was so embarrassed.
“Tell them, Ariel,” a little voice inside me said. I knew I should. I took some deep breaths, then looked at them. I was sure my face was still red.
“Alpha team is just the three leaders,” I started. “Often they look into the situation before the other teams are called.”
“What are the other teams?” a guy asked.
I told them what each team did.
“Which one are you on?” a girl asked.
“Um . . . I’m pretty new, so I go wherever I’m needed.”
“What’s going to happen now?” another guy asked.
“The leaders are talking to Central Dispatch about it, and probably to the Sheriff or firemen or whoever knows about it, and they’re trying to decide if a rescue team is needed or not.”
“I thought firemen rescued people,” a girl said.
“They do, but they’re not trained for wilderness or water rescue. We work with them. Sometimes they just need more people than they have.”
“Do you get paid?”
“No. It’s just volunteer. But we get free training, and a free dinner at our meetings, and some free equipment. And everything we need during rescues is provided.”
“How often do you do it?”
“Go out on rescues? My first year there were three. The last one happened at 3:00 in the morning on Christmas!”
“I saw that!” a girl said. “I live out near Northside Marina, and there were ambulances and everything! Were you there?”
“Yeah. There and on the beach north of there.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
I chuckled at the memory. “It was low tide. A lady swam from the burning boat and just made it to the mud. The rescue boat directed us — I was on the support team then — and we had to slide through the mud to get to her. Then we were pulled back up the beach with ropes. We laughed all the way home because we were so muddy!”
“Yuk! I’d never do that!” the girl said.
“You’d let the person die, I suppose!” a boy confronted her.
“You know,” I stepped in, “I felt like she did until I started doing things that took me near death. You guys know the kinds of things I do. That taught me what life was all about.”
Just then the receiver went off again. “Search and Rescue teams, all clear.”
“When will you learn what happened?”
“We meet once a month for training. I’ll hear then.”
We finally went back to the math lesson. Teaching, I realized again, was hard.
I got lots of questions about Search and Rescue after that, even from people I’d never talked to before. Most of the questions were sincere. The one I liked most was if I was the youngest person on the team. I could truthfully say that I wasn’t.
Michael walked me home a couple of days later. We weren’t really talking about much. My hand brushed by his once, and I caught myself imagining holding hands with him, but I didn’t find the courage to make it happen.