Acting Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

she is to the class.”
    Alex blew her whistle and we lined up to dive in. I went second after Lauren, and when I came up for air I was gasping from the cold.
    â€œHow is it?” asked Mei from the dock, her arms folded across her chest and her shoulders hunched. If she was cold now, the water was really going to wake her up.
    â€œFr-freezing!” I yelled. The water was so frigid it made my head ache.
    â€œColder than yesterday?” asked Courtney.
    â€œYes!” Lauren and I shouted at the same time.
    Alex blew her whistle at us. “Stop complaining and start swimming!” One by one, the others dove in. After everybody had screamed and groaned and gotten over the shock, we all started across the lake.
    â€œI’m never going to make it,” said Courtney when she came up for air. Her teeth chattered, and her lips were pale.
    â€œSure you will. It’s not that far,” I told her.
    â€œNo, I mean everything. This class. There’s no way I’ll ever pass it.”
    â€œMe neither,” said Mei, bobbing up beside us. Her black hair looked like it was painted on. “I thought I was a good swimmer, but she scared me to death back there.”
    I looked back at Alex standing on the dock with her whistle between her teeth, ready to blow it if we made a wrong move. “Hey, Alex. Instead of sucking on that whistle, why don’t you swallow it instead?” Of course she couldn’t hear me, but everyone else could. They all laughed at my joke, so I kept going.
    â€œI think Alex needs a nose ring,” I said. “Then she could hang her whistle from it. Wouldn’t that be a nice fashion statement?”
    â€œJD, stop!” gasped Lauren, treading water just enough to keep her head up. “I can’t swim and laugh at the same time!”
    â€œNo, don’t stop,” Courtney said, blowing water out of her nose. “It’ll take our minds off how cold we are.”
    â€œThese are the five areas we’ll be working on this summer: Marco Polo, belly flops, cannonballs, handstands . . .”
    â€œThat’s only four,” Mei pointed out.
    â€œAnd making Alex so mad she swallows that whistle!”
    Just then we heard the whistle blow. “Stop horsing around out there!” Alex called across the lake.
    Everyone cracked up, so then I said, “Hey, guys, let’s all turn around and neigh at her. C’mon, on the count of three . . .”
    I counted to three and then spun around in the water and neighed at Alex on the end of the dock, but we were so far away from her now, there was no way she heard me. No one else did it, but the others sure laughed their heads off.
    â€œThis class is going to be fun with you in it,” said Claudia, the girl who’d looked bored when Alex was talking and who’d kept checking her watch the whole time.
    â€œYeah, I was about to leave when she went on and on about how hard it was going to be,” put in Shelby, a skinny girl with bangs covering her eyes. “But when you stood up and made a big joke of it, I decided to stick it out.”
    â€œI fully expect half of you to drown before the class ends,” I said, making my voice growly like Alex’s. “And the rest of you better be willing to dedicate your lives to this class or I’ll shoot you at sunrise.”
    â€œThat’s just how she talks!” Mei laughed.
    â€œSomebody better tell her this is summer camp, not prison camp,” I yelled. It was so much fun to laugh at Alex while we were on the other side of the lake. She couldn’t reach us out here.
    â€œYou should tell her that,” Lauren suggested. “It would be so funny if you got out of the water and said that to her!”
    â€œYeah! Do it!” everybody else was telling me.
    â€œMaybe I will,” I said.
    â€œNo, don’t, JD. You’ve made her mad enough for one day,” warned Courtney.