Ensorcell

Swim

The Guppies competition is on a Saturday, so the students don't have to wear their school uniform. So, Melony wore her pepto pink dress that has sparkly blue ruffles around the puffy sleeve cuffs and the puffy skirt. She also wore her lavender hat with a small bee brooch that would flutter its wings one every minute on the dot. She was giddy with excitement for her friend.

She went straight to the bleachers labeled. The Guppies were there and so are many of the swimmer's parents, excited to see their kids. The swimmers were getting ready and people weren't allowed to talk to them until after the competition, which is supposed to be starting in twenty minutes. The bleachers across from her is labeled The Minnows. Their side is equally crowded, with mainly parents and siblings and a few friends of the swimmers. Melony decided to read a book while she waited.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. It's George, red in the face and looking pleased.

"This," he signaled to the man and woman next to him "is Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Ella's parents." After he had introduced them, he left.

Mr. Brown looks a lot like Ben, with curly black hair and jeans. Mrs. Brown looked exactly like Ella, except with lighter hair and not as many freckles. She wore overalls over a blue sweater.

"Hello, I'm John." He introduced himself while holding out his hand. She gave him a weak handshake. "So, you're Ella's friend?" he asked, "we've heard a lot about you." Melony couldn't tell if that was a good thing or bad thing. Melony was quiet, and barely gave one-word answers. The girl knew that she had to be red in the face by now. Melony hoped that they would be leaving soon.

"What's your last name by the way?" Mr. Brown asked.

"Everest." He gave a smile while his wife scrunched her face ever so slightly, like she was going to sneeze but decided not to.

"Wow," Mr. Brown said, "I went to school with your parents. But they were about, I don't know, about three years ahead of us. Right honey."

"So, are you an air magic user like your family?" Mrs. Brown asked. Melony gave a fast head nod. She was starting to sweat a little now, she felt like she was in an interview, and she wasn't happy about it.

Mrs.Tilly stood near the edge of the pool and blew her whistle, which silenced the crowd and got everyone's attention. "Hello everyone," she said in a booming voice "the competition will be starting soon. Thank you." The swimmers walked in a straight line towards the lake. The Hocus school is on the left in a turquoise uniform that had Minnows embroidered on the back.

On the right is Ensorcell swimmers in black swimsuits with Guppies written on the back in gold letters. Melony noticed that Ella's skin looked even yellower, and her short hair is staticky, she was constantly popping her knuckles out of nerves. Her brown eyes roamed everywhere from the pond, to the bleachers, to the coach, and back to the bleachers again. She looked at everyone's face until she found her family and friends. She kept her hands at her side when she gave them a little wave.

Round one is between a boy named Luke on Minnows and a boy named Jack on the Guppies. The whistle blew and both boys dived into the water. They changed quickly, their necks had gills and their feet and toes became webbed. They shot through the water quickly in a long straight line. The pond is long, and they had to go from end to end. The minnows won round 1, their point showed up on the electric board.

Ella stood in the middle of the line, so five rounds later, it was her turn. Currently, the guppies are ahead two points. Ella was going up against a tall girl named Rebecca, they got into possession before the whistle blew. When the high pitch sounds, both girls threw themselves into the water and took off. Melony thought about how strange it is to see Ella with gills and webbed fingers. As they cut through the water like a knife through butter, Melony noticed that little bubbles would float from their gills every once in a while.

Ella won by half an arm's length and Melony swelled with joy for her friend. She even found it hard to breathe when she wasn't sure who would win. When the swimmers popped out of the water and on solid ground, they shook hands and congratulated each other.

In the end, the guppies had won by one point. The last few rounds were a close call, and nobody was sure who was going to win. When the competition was over, Melony jumped up and ran over to Ella. Her pink frilly dress swooshed as she moved, both girls hugged and Melony congratulated her friend. Ella had a huge smile on her face, Melony had never seen her smile so big. The Browns came over and Melony quickly moved aside, blushing. They told Ella how proud they were and gave her high fives.

The school had a small party that the parents could attend. The party is pizza, punch, and no school for the rest of the day. Melony talk to other air kids and Poppy. The four kids were talking and laughing when Ella and Hattie came over. Ella pulled Melony aside to talk.

"Hey," Ella said "I was wondering ... how do you play Aromatics?" she said it in a whisper, embarrassed to be asking now.

"Well, most of us are finders," Melony explained "we find objects that are worth so many points. There are usually 50-100 objects. There are 5 snatchers that try to steal the objects from us. Our snatchers keep the other snatchers away. We put objects in a basket, that's what there trying to steel. If you manage to catch something with a lot of points, you can keep it in your pocket. But only one thing. You'll have special binoculars to watch of course. They can see through clouds and stuff."

Melony could talk about Aromatics forever, and she nearly did. "I think we'll do pretty well. Ms. Puffin's been training us pretty hard. She even uses lightning on us. It's not real lightning of course." Ella listened to her friend for a long time.