Elisa was about even with the South Shore girl, swimming cleanly but not as powerfully as Annabelle had seen her swim before. And after she made her turn, she started losing ground.

“Come on, Elisa!” Annabelle called.

Elisa could go faster than this! Maybe she’d pulled a muscle on one of her early strokes? The B team girl from South Shore was almost even with her, and the rest of the South Shore team was shouting. But still, no one really cheered Elisa on.

The South Shore A girl touched the wall first. Then Elisa and the South Shore B girl, so close together that Annabelle couldn’t tell who’d come in before the other.

The rest of the South Shore girls rushed the pool, but Kayla and Ruby stayed where they were. Elisa pushed herself up and out of the water, and she pulled her goggles up to wipe her eyes.

“We’ll get them next time,” Annabelle said. “You still swam fast.”

And that’s when the official approached to tell them. “North Shore Sands,” he said. “You’re disqualified for an early start on the butterfly leg.”

But . . . butterfly leg?

That was Annabelle! She thought she’d timed it perfectly. Her big toe had still been touching the end of the block when Ruby had reached the wall. Hadn’t it? She’d never been called for leaving early in any of her races. Never.

That’s why Elisa hadn’t swum her fastest. Elisa must have seen the line judge raise her flag. She’d had to swim her leg anyway, but she’d known from the beginning that it wouldn’t count.

“It’s okay,” Ruby said. “It happens.”

She patted Annabelle on the back before she walked away, but she probably only meant It happens when you let middle school kids swim with the high school team.

“We have lots more races left,” Kayla added.

She gave Annabelle a quick hug, and Elisa leaned in to squeeze Annabelle’s shoulder.

“You swam really well,” Elisa told her.

But it didn’t matter.

We could definitely use those points, Connor had said. And in her first medley relay, Annabelle hadn’t earned the team any points at all.

Later in the meet, Annabelle swam the 100-meter fly and the anchor leg of the team’s third-best freestyle relay team. The relay team came in fifth, so they didn’t earn any points, either. She managed to earn some when she came in second to the really tall, strong girl in the fly, but when the final scores were tallied, her team had lost by five. Even more than they’d lost by last summer. With her on the team, they were worse than last year, not better.

After the meet, she sat between Elisa and Kayla. Usually, there was something satisfying about the way her muscles stung after a meet, but today her whole body just felt tired. Empty. She barely listened as Colette told them what they’d done well and what they needed to improve on, because she already knew what she needed to improve on. Not getting her whole relay team DQ’d.