Lost Children of the Far Islands Read Free Page B

arm, past teammates begging to know how he had done it and when he was going to show them how to hold their breath for that long.
    “Late for family dinner,” Gus said loudly, keeping a firm grip on Leo.
    “Thanks,” he said as they hustled out to the hallway, dodging other swimmers. Gus saw their coach heading their way. His expression was purposeful and not at all pleased.
    “Quick,” she told Leo. “Outside.” So they ducked out a side door into the parking lot of the school, their bare feet slapping the blacktop. Gus pulled sweatshirts out of the canvas bag that held their clothes. They yanked them on over their wet suits, and then hopped into blue jeans, Leo tugging his awkwardly over his suit. Their feet were too wet for socks, so they just shoved their sneakers on.
    They walked the few blocks home without speaking. Gus was waiting for Leo to say something, to explain what had happened back there, but he seemed lost in his own world. This was not unusual for Leo, but it was irritating. Finally, as they reached the driveway, Gus couldn’t stand it.
    “What were you doing?” she said. She stopped and pulled on Leo’s sleeve, so that he had to face her. “How did you do that?”
    Leo shrugged. “I dunno.” He tugged his arm free and started up the driveway.
    “Have you been practicing?” Gus persisted, following Leo. “Have you been, like, holding your breath in the tub or something? Tell me, Leo!”
    Leo stopped and spun around. His face was pale andangry. “I don’t know!” he said. “OK? I have no idea what happened. It just did. And to tell you the truth, it freaked me out a little. I wanted to come up, Gus. I started to level out, you know, to come up for air, and I
couldn’t
. I just … couldn’t.”
    “What do you mean, you couldn’t? Leo, what do you mean, you couldn’t come up?”
    But Leo pulled free, and taking the three steps to the porch in one jump, he yanked open the front door and was gone into the house. The door banged shut behind him.
    Gus followed him in. She felt a bit frightened, and a bit annoyed as well. Honestly, wasn’t it enough that their mom was acting so weird? Did they really need Leo to be weird as well? She slammed the door behind her.
    “Don’t slam the door!” her mother called from the kitchen. She sounded so normal that Gus relaxed a little bit.
    In the kitchen, Ila and her parents were sitting around the old farmhouse table eating pizza.
    “I thought you were going to Anna’s,” Gus’s dad said to her.
    “Oh shoot!” Gus had completely forgotten that she was supposed to go to Anna’s after the swim meet. “I’ll call her right now.” She went to the living room to grab the phone, saying over her shoulder, “Save me some plain slices!”
    Gus called Anna and apologized. She dodged herquestions about the swim meet by saying simply that Leo had been practicing holding his breath for months, and it was just a prank.
    Back in the kitchen, she slid into her chair and grabbed a slice of plain pizza. Across the table, Ila was picking the pineapple off her pizza and giving it to Leo, who was adding it to his slice. Ila never ate the pineapple pieces, but she always chose the pineapple slices of pizza, and would turn up her nose at any other kind. It was a mystery to her family, like so many things about Ila.
    “Did you tell them?” Gus asked.
    Leo shot her a look.
    “Tell us what?” their dad said. “You two won everything and are leaving us to train for the next Olympics?”
    “Ha ha,” Gus said. “No, about swimming underwater.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Leo said through a mouthful of pizza.
    “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” their mother said automatically.
    Leo swallowed noisily. “It was stupid.” He stuffed another bite of pizza into his mouth.
    “You mean
weird
,” Gus said. “Leo swam the entire one hundred underwater,” she explained to her parents. “He just went under and stayed under until the end. It was actually