Up for Air

For my mom, Elizabeth Morrison, with so much love and gratitude

Chapter 1

The loudest kind of quiet filled the classroom. Pens scratched paper, erasers squeaked, and desk legs groaned as the clock on the wall tick-tick-ticked. Faster and faster, it seemed, even though Annabelle knew that was impossible.

She was almost out of time.

And the thing was, she got extra time. She and the four other seventh graders with “learning accommodations” got forty-five minutes longer than the rest of the kids, who’d already pushed in their chairs and turned in their exam booklets and burst into the hallways to celebrate the start of summer. But forty-five extra minutes didn’t do Annabelle any good when her brain had gone as hazy as the harbor on a foggy day.

She ran her fingertip across the skinny blue lines in the booklet where she was supposed to be writing her essay. The essay that counted for 25 percent of the history exam grade, as Mr. Derrickson had told them over and over. She traced one, two, three lines across the page and wished she were staring down at the thick black lines along the bottom of the pool.

She didn’t need those black lines to guide her from one end of the pool to the other anymore. Her body always stayed straight, and she knew exactly how many strokes to take before it was time to flip underwater and push off the wall, propelling herself back the other way. But she still liked knowing they were there, as familiar as everything else about swimming. The glint of sunlight on the pool’s pale blue surface. The mingled scents of sunscreen, chlorine, and greasy snack bar food. The splash of diving in and the cool welcome of the water.

The learning specialist, Ms. Ames, put her hand on Annabelle’s wrist.

“Just write down anything you remember, okay?” she whispered. “Like we talked about. That way Mr. Derrick-son can give you credit for what you know.”

So Annabelle took three deep breaths, the way she always did before a race, and tried to tune out the clock’s echoing tick and the other kids’ frantic writing.

She managed to fill up half the page . . . but she knew exactly what Mr. Derrickson would do when he read what she’d written. He’d scrawl question marks in the margins with his green pen. He’d write, “Irrelevant,” and “Please answer the question,” and “Where is your thesis?”

She flipped through the rest of the test. All those multiple-choice questions with all those choices that sounded right. The fill-in-the-blank section Mr. Derrickson had insisted was “easy-peasy.” “Automatic points for anybody who’s studied at all.” Right.

“Okay,” Ms. Ames said from the front of the room. “Put your pens and pencils down, please. And congratulations! You’re officially done with seventh grade!”