Fourteen Kids at the County Pool

The High Board

The kids hit that water like a flock of starlings on a stubble field. Kim set up her cooler on the grass inside the fence. I grabbed two chairs in the shade and watched the little ones like a hawk.

There were four lifeguards on duty that day, all high school and college kids home for the summer. The head guard was a tall girl with a whistle and a sunburned nose who looked about nineteen.

The big boys went straight for the deep end. They did a few off the low board first, warming up, splashing each other, being fourteen.

Then Logan climbed out and looked up at the high dive.

The high dive at our county pool is three meters. When I was a kid it looked as tall as the elevator. Logan had gone off it the summer before, twice, and come up grinning both times.

Tanner had never once gone off it. Everybody on Elm Street knew that. He’d climbed it a dozen times and climbed back down a dozen times. The guards used to tease him about it, kindly.

Logan went up first. He stood at the end of the board and bounced once and looked down at Tanner treading water at the bottom.

“Watch this,” he hollered. Then he grabbed his knees and went off in a cannonball that sent water clear over the rope into the shallow end. The little ones shrieked.

Logan came up shaking his head like a dog and swam to the ladder. Tanner was already standing at the bottom of the high dive steps with his hand on the rail.

I watched him climb. Every rung. He went slow. About halfway up he stopped and looked down, and I thought he was going to turn back like always. Then he kept going.

He got to the top and walked out to the end of the board. The guard in the near chair sat up straight and put her whistle in her mouth, the way they do when a kid is taking too long.

Tanner didn’t jump. Instead he turned around on the board and looked down at the deck, at all the kids from Elm Street, at Logan standing at the bottom of the ladder dripping wet.

“Logan,” he called down. His voice cracked so bad it went up an octave. “I gotta tell you something first.”

The guard took the whistle out of her mouth. The whole deep end got quiet.

“It wasn’t you,” Tanner said. “With Ben. I’m the one who threw his noodle out to the deep end. I dared him to go get it. You’re the one who got him out. I was scared she’d never let anybody swim again. I’m sorry.”

Then before anybody could say a word, he turned back around, took three steps, and jumped. Feet first, arms flailing, yelling the whole way down.

He came up sputtering and grinning, the first time he’d grinned all summer. And Logan was already in the water, swimming out to meet him. He dunked him once, gently, and they both came up laughing.

“Cannonball next time,” Logan said. “Feet first doesn’t count.”

“It counts,” Tanner said.

“It doesn’t count,” Logan said.

Then the two of them climbed out and got back in line for the high dive, one right behind the other.