“You ready for this?” she asked Annabelle.

And then there was Connor, right next to Elisa.

“Of course she’s ready,” Connor said. “She’s Hummingbird!”

Ruby was there, too, her reddish-brown hair still straight and sleek around her shoulders. Annabelle’s wavy blond hair only looked that perfect if she had her mom blow-dry it with a round brush, and she wondered if Ruby had blow-dried her hair just for these few minutes before the swim meet started. Ruby smiled, which made her face even prettier than usual.

Except then she said, “I really hope Annabelle’s ready. I want to win the medley relay!”

“Yeah, we could definitely use those points,” Connor agreed. “Last year South only beat us by three the second time we raced them.”

Annabelle’s heart rate picked up, racing even faster than it had during the hardest part of practice yesterday. And during warm-ups, she kept hearing Connor’s voice in her head.

We could definitely use those points.

She couldn’t hold on to the image of herself leading the team to a victory at the Invitational, but maybe that was too far away. Maybe she needed to start smaller and work her way up. She tried to imagine herself speeding across the pool today with the water giving way, but even inside her head, the swimmers on either side gained on her, and Ruby turned to Connor and said, I told you she doesn’t belong on a high school team.

After warm-ups, Annabelle reached her arms over her head to stretch them out. Jeremy and Mia were across the pool, on the second row of the bleachers, and Mom and Mitch sat front and center. Mitch blew Annabelle a kiss and gave her a thumbs-up. Annabelle caught the kiss with her hand low around her stomach so nobody else would see.

“You good?” Elisa asked, and Annabelle must have nodded. “Then let’s go line up. It’s time.”

There was another relay group from Annabelle’s team and two teams from South Shore. She spotted the A group from South Shore immediately. They were jumping up and down, psyching each other up, and they were huge. Even Elisa was shorter than all but one of them. And the tallest girl with the giant shoulder muscles was probably their butterflyer.

Against middle schoolers, Annabelle had an advantage because of her height. But this girl had longer limbs than she did, and how could she compete with someone that strong?

Kayla and the other three backstrokers lowered themselves into the pool.

It doesn’t matter who’s swimming next to me, Annabelle told herself as she stretched her arms some more. She had to focus on what she could control. Swim her own race. That’s what Mitch would tell her.

The buzzer went off, and Kayla and the three other swimmers pushed off the wall. Kayla’s start wasn’t great, and the two South Shore girls got out in front of her. A tiny part of Annabelle wanted Kayla to fall way behind, so if they lost it would be her fault. But that was terrible. Kayla was her friend!