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of me come to their feet and start looking around. I did three more short blasts.
    They started yelling for people to get out of the pool. The lifeguards at the shallow end started ushering people out of the water. It was a little like the scene from Jaws when someone saw a shark. Everyone hurried to get out as though they all realized that there was danger.
    “What’s up, Morgan?” Trent, my supervisor, yelled at me. Trent had buzzed his brown hair. I had no idea what color his eyes were because he always wore sunglasses: outside, inside, in the dark. Always. And he called each of us by our last name as though that made us all more grown-up or something.
    “I saw someone go under. He hasn’t come back up.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Was I? It was too late to have doubts. I nodded. “Absolutely.”
    “Okay.” Using his radio, he called in for the waves to be manually shut off. When the waves are going, we can’t see into the pool very well. Since the summer had started,we’d never had to shut off the waves. It was a big deal, but I just didn’t see that we had a choice.
    My mouth had gone dry. I didn’t know if I could blow my whistle again if I had to.
    There was a loud thunk as the wave machine was cut off before it was timed to shut down. Trent was going around to each lifeguard telling him or her to look for a drowning victim.
    All the guests were out of the pool now. The waves were calming. But the pool was just so big that it was hard to get a good look. It didn’t help that the sun was reflecting off the water.
    “Anybody see anything?” Trent yelled.
    All the lifeguards were shaking their heads.
    Trent walked back over to my station. “Where’d you see him go under?”
    I pointed to my zone. I climbed down from my platform. “Should we swim across the pool, search the floor? Maybe he got caught on something.”
    “You wouldn’t happen to know his name, would you?”
    He would have to ask.
    “Uh, yeah, actually, I heard someone call him Romeo.”
    The disadvantage of working at a water park is that everyone wears sunglasses so it’s really hard to know what anyone is thinking, but I noticed Trent’s jaw dropped a little as though he thought maybe I was playing a prank on him.
    “Romeo?” he asked. “You’re not serious.”
    “Yeah, I’m afraid I am. Maybe it’s a nickname.”
    He lifted his radio. “Suz, could you please announce that” — he shook his head — “that Romeo needs to report to the supervisor at the shallow end of Tsunami?”
    The announcement echoed over the park. “Romeo, report immediately …”
    It really sounded stupid. I heard a few people laugh, but most were like me: worried.
    “Let’s go, Morgan. If you see him, let me know.”
    We walked to the shallow end of the pool and I started scanning faces. “I really think we need to go into the pool,” I told Trent. He walked the area, he never sat on the lifeguard platform, so I felt obligated to point out, “There are blind spots —”
    “You the supervisor?” I suddenly heard.
    Trent and I spun around.
    Romeo stood there looking as perplexed as I felt. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. I could see his eyes clearly. They were a pale gray, almost silver. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone with eyes that shade before. The fact that he had intriguing eyes added to my anger.
    “Where were you?” I demanded to know.
    “Uh, the restroom?” He said it as though he wasn’t sure. “Is that against the rules?”
    “I didn’t see you leave the pool.”
    He shrugged. “Didn’t know I needed your permission.”
    “You don’t. Sorry for the trouble,” Trent said. He looked at me. “We’ll talk later. Get back to your station.” Blowing his whistle, he started walking through the crowd. “It’s okay, folks. False alarm.”
    “Should I be flattered that you were worried about me or insulted that you thought I’d drown?” Romeo asked.
    “Even strong swimmers drown,” I grumbled before I turned on