Caterpillars Can't Swim Read online

  Suddenly I can’t see her at all.

  Has she gone under?

  She must have.

  I wait a second, expecting to see her surface and start swimming. I can see movement under the water. At least I think I can. People naturally start to swim when they get into deep water. It’s a survival thing. She should be surfacing any second.

  I watch and wait.

  She isn’t coming up.

  Why isn’t she coming up?

  I watch for a few more seconds. I think I can still see movement, but her head doesn’t break the surface. This is crazy. No one stays under that long on purpose.

  What am I supposed to do?

  “Help! Someone help!” I scream it at no one, fear clawing at my throat as I start sliding out of my chair. I get down onto the ground and push up onto my knees, moving forward into the space made by the broken railing. I get to the edge and brace myself as if Steve is standing beside me yelling that it’s time to swim and telling me to stop being such a wuss.

  But it looks really far down. I think I can see where she is, but I can’t tell if she’s still moving or not.

  I don’t know what I’m looking at.

  I have to do something!

  “Help!” I scream it again, so loudly that I’m pretty sure my throat has started to bleed, and I push off, smashing my way toward the water. All four limbs immediately fly completely out of control as I try to use my thighs to pull my lower legs up into some kind of safe position.

  God, I hope I don’t land on her!

  I smash into the water, and it punches back at me, filling my mouth as I go down. I fight my way back to the surface and spit it out so I can fill my lungs with air. I take a deep breath and dive down, swimming around in circles, hoping I’m somewhere close to where she went under. I can’t see anything. I don’t have my goggles and even if I did, the river is a lot murkier than the nice chlorinated pool that I wish I was in right now.

  I can feel the panic bubbles filling me up like some kind of rapidly decompressing scuba diver. My thighs are kicking, but it’s hard because I have my braces and shoes on and they’re weighing me down.

  I can’t think about that. Can’t think about going down. Concentrate on staying up. Floating. I’m in the water. I love the water. It’s my friend. It keeps me up and lets me move. It won’t hurt me.

  I’m on the swim team. We won the county championship last year. Steve would tell me to stop whining and swim.

  I would tell Steve to shut up.

  I really want to whine because I’m scared shitless. How long has she been under? One minute? Three? How long have I been under?

  I grab at anything that comes into my line of pseudo-sight, but it’s mostly seaweed. I keep grabbing and grabbing until suddenly I feel a handful of what seems to be fabric. Praying it’s her skirt, I pull on it, hoping that I’m dragging myself toward the rest of her. My lungs feel like they’re on fire, and I want to breathe so badly that I have a sudden urge to just open my mouth and let the nice cool water put out the flames.

  I fight the urge away as I finally I brush up against her and manage to grab her arm. I twist my body and get one of my arms around her in the recovery position and start to pull her along as I head for the surface. We’re not very far down, and I quickly break both our heads out of the water and suck in as much air as I can. I look to see if she’s doing the same thing, but she just lies back on the surface, still and quiet, which probably means she’s not breathing at all, but I don’t really know for sure. I’ve only ever done lifesaving in training sessions in the pool with someone who’s pretending to be drowning and is usually laughing the whole time while Steve yells at us. I don’t know what someone looks like when their breath has really gone away.

  I swim for the shore, putting everything I have into it. I have to move my legs as fast as I can so that I don’t sink us both, and my thighs hurt like hell. My muscles are screaming at me to stop moving while my mind tells them to shut up and just keep going. It feels like it’s taking forever, but I don’t really have any idea how much time has passed.

  I get to the edge of the river and pull myself out of the water, digging my fingers into the ground, trying to get turned around onto my knees so that I can move. I drag her up onto the ground beside me. She’s not moving at all. She’s definitely not breathing, and I don’t know when she stopped or if I can get her started again.

  I have to do CPR but I’m shaking, and I’m not sure if I remember how to do it. I start compressions but I’m trembling so much I don’t know if I’m putting enough pressure or too much or if I’m even on the right part of her body. This is totally different from pretending with Cody while he makes puking noises every time I lean over him.

  Compress.

  Check.

  Definitely no breath. When did she stop breathing? How long before it’s too long?

  Breathe for her. Am I supposed to do that? I can’t remember!

  Scream!

  “Help. Someone help!”

  What’s the order? How many compressions am I supposed to do? I really can’t remember anything!

  “Help me. Please!” Maybe if I’m polite someone will come running.

  I keep going and going. I don’t know if I’m doing it right. I don’t know if she’s been out of air for too long. I don’t know anything. It all just goes on and on until I’m starting to feel like I’m running out of air too, and we’re both going to end up lying in the grass, passed out or worse.

  And then suddenly, unbelievably, she coughs, just like in the movies. Just a little at first, but then she starts making choking noises as she struggles to sit up.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, which is unbelievably stupid because she obviously isn’t.

  She opens her eyes and looks at me for just a second, and then they close again. I start another dose of panic until I realize that the cough seems to have jump-started her breathing enough that she’s still going.

  Okay. Good. She’s breathing. Now what?

  We’re still here alone. No one heard me.

  I’m going to have to get myself back up onto the bridge and find my cell phone so I can call 9-1-1. I look up at my chair. It’s a long way from here. I don’t know if it’s safe to leave her long enough to go and get it. What if she stops breathing again? Can that happen? Can she stop again once she’s started? What’s safer? Waiting or going?

  I scan the bridge as best I can from down here. I can’t see anyone. I don’t know what time it is. It could be an hour before someone decides to start their morning run.

  I can’t just sit here. I have to get up to my phone.

  I check one more time to make sure her breathing is steady enough that it feels safe to leave.

  That’s when I realize that I recognize her.

  Except that she’s not a her.

  She’s a him.

  Four

  Shit!

  I was freaking out so completely that I didn’t even notice the chest I was pushing on belongs to a guy.

  Jack…Paterson, or Petersen. Something with a P. Doesn’t really matter.

  Not just a guy, but someone I know. He’s actually in the same grade as I am, but we don’t share any classes this year. He was in my math class in grade nine though, and I think we were in the same grade six class and either grade seven or eight, too, but I’m not sure which. We’re not friends or anything, but I know him to say hi or whatever. I think we were in the same science group for a project once. Maybe not. I don’t know!

  I stare at him for a few moments, catching my breath and steeling myself to figure out how to get back up onto the bridge.

  What the hell is Jack doing here? Why does he look like this?

  He still has on the long yellow skirt that’s now all wet and muddy. He’s also wearing jeans and running shoes. Running shoe I should say, becaus
e one has disappeared. His foot looks sort of small and sad lying there without its shoe.

  A sad foot. Stupid. My brain must be soggy.

  He’s wearing a jean jacket over a T-shirt. His shirt is moving up and down so I know he’s breathing, but he still isn’t conscious.

  I have to get up onto the bridge to grab my phone. I push onto my knees again and take a deep breath, looking up at my chair. It’s been a long time since I’ve “kneed” it that far, and I’m a lot heavier than I was back then. It’s going to hurt. A lot. I wish I still had those kneepads. The ground is bumpy and so steep, it looks like a ninety-degree angle to me. Geometry…my mom would be so proud.

  I start to move away from Jack and then stop, looking at him again. I don’t know for sure what he was trying to do wandering around in the river at sunrise, but it’s obviously nothing great. I don’t know why he’s wearing a skirt either. Obviously I know that there are guys in the world who like to wear what most people figure are girl clothes…but not around here. Guys in our town have a pretty strict dress code.

  As in no guy would ever be caught dead in a dress.

  Shit! That was a stupid thing to say, even to myself. My brain needs to shut itself up.

  I reach down and pull the skirt off of him, rolling it down from the elastic waist and tugging it off from under his feet. I wrap it up into a tight, soggy ball and shove it under my arm.

  I don’t know why.

  I start moving through the tall grass, which keeps scratching my face and going up my nose, making me sneeze. The hill feels as steep as it looks and is full of rocks that bite me with every movement forward. My knees start to hurt almost instantly, but I do my best to ignore it, channeling tough Steve to get myself up to my chair.

  “Hey! Are you all right?” The voice comes at me from above, and I look up, eyes watering and snot dripping down my chin. Jack is lying behind me, wet and still.

  A woman dressed in full jogger’s uniform is standing beside my wheelchair on the bridge, looking down at me. She’s obviously not the most observant person in the world but still someone who likely has a cell phone and can call for help.

  “No! Call 9-1-1!” I scream it, my voice shooting out at her like a stray bullet, sounding totally panicked, which doesn’t make sense because I should be relieved now that someone is here. I roll off my knees and sit for a second. Now that help is coming, I probably should head back down to where Jack is, just in case he stops breathing again. Although I’m not sure if I have enough air left to do anything to help him if he does.

  Up on the bridge, I can see the jogger on her cell phone. She’ll be jogging down here in a second.

  I take the soggy mess out from under my arm and shove it under a bush, pushing it back out of sight. I have a feeling that Jack isn’t going to feel like explaining the skirt once he wakes up.

  Although I don’t really know him so I could be wrong. But if I am, then this is the right direction to be wrong in, I think.

  I don’t know!

  My mind is definitely waterlogged. I can’t get my thoughts straight. I just need to get moving and try to stop thinking.

  “Oh my god, are you all right? Is that your chair? Can I help you? I called the police. Someone will be here any second!” Her feet and voice both come crashing at me through the grass. She’s beside me before I make it back to Jack.

  “I’m fine. You need to check him!” I wheeze it at her because I’m trying to move fast on my now bloody knees.

  “What happened to him?” She shouts at me as she runs by.

  “He fell in the water. I don’t think he can swim. I did CPR.” I do my best to shout back. She says something that I can’t hear and kneels down beside Jack, laying her hand on his chest.

  He fell in the water? Where did that come from?

  “He’s breathing!” This time I hear her, the words acting like brakes as I just stop and fall over on the grass. Once I’m stopped I notice that I hurt. My knees hurt. My chest hurts. My head hurts.

  Steve would tell me to toughen up. I would tell him to shove it.

  Well, not really. But I’d want to.

  My mom will be up by now and wondering where I am. She knows I go out for a spin sometimes in the morning, but she doesn’t know I come here. She’ll be worrying soon. I should have kept moving uphill to my phone.

  “Can I do anything for you?” The jogger is standing beside me. She glances back up at my chair and then stares at my legs for a few seconds until she notices me watching her do it.

  I can hear sirens coming down Main Street. We don’t hear a lot of sirens here. Everyone will be wondering what’s going on. It will be the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in weeks. Yay.

  “I need to call my parents.” I push myself back up to a sitting position so that I won’t seem so pathetic. I wipe my hand across my face and look down at my knuckles, which are now totally covered in my own grossness. I was going to ask to borrow her phone, but she might not be too happy to share at the moment. Maybe she didn’t notice.

  “Oh, right. Of course. What’s the number? Here, I’ll dial it for you.”

  She obviously noticed. I give her my house phone number as I try to wipe my hands off on my wet pants without making the mess worse. “Don’t worry about that. It’s fine,” she says, smiling as she takes pity on me and hands over the phone.

  My mom answers on the first ring. I try to explain the basics to her while the sirens fill in the background at an ear-piercing level that makes it almost impossible to either speak or hear. The sound finally dies down as the cars stop at the bottom of the bridge. I hear the slamming of car doors and then several cops come running down the hill. I have to tell my mother that I need to get off the phone so I can talk to the police.

  I’m pretty sure the next feet I hear running over the bridge will be hers.

  The next few minutes are filled with more noise and confusion. The paramedics arrive about two seconds after the cops and head down to Jack. They stop by me first but I wave them on. I watch them checking his vitals and loading him onto the stretcher. He still isn’t conscious, which is weird. In the movies, once they cough, it’s all sunshine and happy thoughts and leaping to their feet, cured and ready to fly.

  “That’s your chair?” I look up, shielding my eyes from the sun, which has decided to join the party. Good. Maybe it will dry me off a little and I won’t look so pathetic when my parents show up. I squint up at a policewoman standing there sweating in full uniform.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll get the paramedics to send another team to help you back up into it.”

  “I don’t need paramedics. My parents will be here soon.” I just get the words out of my mouth when I hear my mother yelling from the bridge.

  “Ryan! What happened to you? Are you all right! Jason! He’s down here. Hurry. I think he’s hurt!”

  My parents both come running down the hill so fast that they’re stumbling by the time they get to me. My dad is still in his pajamas, and my mother is wearing sweat pants and a wrinkled sweater that she must have grabbed out of her laundry basket. Her face is as wet and snotty as mine. Mom’s always been a crier.

  She crash-lands beside me and grabs me in a giant hug.

  “Lynne, let go of him. We need to check that he’s not hurt before you smother him.” Dad’s voice comes into the craziness, calm and controlled like it always is. Nothing much freaks my father out.

  Mom immediately lets go of me and sits back. “Are you hurt?” she asks.

  Yes! Everything on me hurts.

  “No. Not really. Just my knees are sore and my shoulder from hitting the water the wrong way,” I answer in my manliest voice. My dad likes me to be cool like him. Which I am…out loud, anyway.

  My mother takes a Kleenex out of her pocket and starts cleaning my face. So much for manly.

 
“Let’s just get him back up to his chair. I think he needs a hot shower more than a Kleenex,” my father says quietly.

  “I’ll get an officer to help you,” my mother says, looking up at the steep hill. My dad can transfer me easily at home. I can put some weight on my legs if he’s holding on to me. But carrying me up a hill is a whole new deal.

  “I don’t need any help. I’m fine!” Dad practically shouts it at her as he gently eases me up and into his arms. My dad is not a yeller, especially not at my mother.

  I’m turning seventeen this year. I’m soaking wet and wearing my braces. I’m pretty tall although most people don’t know that. I am not exactly a lightweight.

  Dad carries me up the hill, holding me close like I’m four years old again. A cop comes over to help, but Dad manages to wave him away, stomping through the grass, puffing and panting like our dog when he sits too close to the firebox. I’m afraid Dad’s going to pass out, but I’m even more afraid to tell him to stop. He has a strange look on his face that I think is saying shut up and let me do this.

  It also could be saying my kid is an idiot, but I can’t be sure. Either way, he seems pissed, and I don’t know whether it’s directed at me or not.

  He gets me back to my chair and stands for a second, hugging me so tightly that I feel like I might literally stop breathing.

  As he finally places me gently into my chair and steps back to catch his breath, I realize that no one has actually asked me for any details about what happened yet.

  I guess the fun is just beginning.

  Five

  So maybe fun isn’t exactly the right word for it.

  I thought everything hurt when I was sitting beside the river. I was wrong. That was just the preview of the actual pain that I was going to feel after my shower. By the time I manage to get in and out of my bathroom, my shoulder is threatening to detach itself from my body, and my knees are so raw I’m sure I can see my kneecaps through what’s left of my skin.

  My father comes into my room and after one look at me sitting there all bloody and bruised decides that a shower was just the beginning of what I need. He loads me into the car, along with Mom, and we all head to the hospital to make sure the paramedics didn’t miss anything.