Escape Velocity

Chapter Fourteen

Rattled by my great-grandmother's terrifying experience, I waited as long as I could before heading to the pool. When I arrived, hotelguests sat in cushioned chairs away from the area designated for our water-walk. A bunch of little kids began chasing each other near the cordons. Noise echoed off the tiled walls of the indoor pool. Thank god Olivia had agreed to do the race. I'd never considered we'd have an audience.

Someone should figure out a way to weaponize little-girl squeals. Instant world domination.

I steadied the shoes as Olivia slid her feet into the flip-flops glued in the shoes we had carved from the polyurethane foam blocks. I leaned over to her and said, "Gives a whole new meaning to the idea of 'boat shoes,' doesn't it?"

Olivia groaned at my joke and sat on the edge of the pool. She drew in her knees and tried to keep her feet flat, but the shoes bounced awkwardly on top of the water. She pleaded with me. "Help me hold them still. They're about to fall off. We should've used more Velcro to keep them on."

"Well, if you fall over, you want your feet to slip out. I'm not about to let my teammate drown." Olivia gasped as anxiety stuttered across her face. I patted her arm and said, "You'll be fine."

Olivia relaxed her shoulders. "I wish we'd had time to do a test. Look at everyone else. No one is taking the same approach as us."

"Exactly. That's why we'll win."

Kate yelled over, "Hey, what's with your flaps?" She pointed to the bottoms of our shoes. "You've attached them in the wrong direction for the hydrodynamics. They should be parallel to the direction you're moving, not perpendicular. And the shape of your shoes? What a joke." Her laugh had a sneering quality.

Olivia opened her mouth to reply, but I held my hand up to stop her. No sense letting everyone know what our plan was.

Ms. Voorhees blew a whistle. For a moment, there was no sound but the gentle lapping of water. "You have sixty seconds to establish your balance and prepare to walk."

Olivia bumbled her attempt at standing but didn't tip over completely. Before Olivia stabilized, Melisse was already in place and throwing a victory sign at Kate. Christina had fallen over and was struggling to regain her balance. I hugged myself tightly and tried to will her upright with my mind alone. When she managed it, I finally exhaled.

Observing Olivia, Ms. Voorhees said, "You have twenty seconds to straighten out before we start."

Kate smirked. "We'd leave you in the dust. If there were any."

Olivia readied herself to push off sideways. Holding one thumb up, Olivia said, "See you on the other side."

"Go!" Ms. Voorhees shouted.

Laughter from the crowd rose with each awkward step. Christina reminded me of a newborn giraffe. I leaped up and yelled when Olivia took a slight lead.

And then there were the rubber flaps Kate had made fun of. They were parallel to the direction Olivia moved. Because she moved sideways. That also meant the shape made more sense. Her sidestepping gait was easier to control, and her stride gained more distance than the labored forward shuffling of Melisse and Christina, both limited by their tethers that prevented a lateral drift of the shoes. Olivia's resistance training to develop her thigh strength didn't hurt either.

Poor Christina faltered from the beginning. The ropes they used to control the shoes were too short. As Christina strained, one of the ropes broke and, with every movement, her left leg floated away from her right. My leg muscles strained sympathetically. She seemed headed toward a slow-motion sideways split, but before it happened, she leaned back and fell into the pool.