“Have a good time, Wendy,” Mrs. Jonson called as Wendy opened the car door, “I’ll see you in an hour!”

“See ya,” Wendy said absentmindedly. She turned to face the building and took a deep breath. “‘Face up to your destiny,’” she quoted resolutely and strode inside.

She headed through the glass doors and then breathed in the familiar, stuffy air of the pool area.

“Ah, Wendy,” her coach, Mrs. Kéorla, smiled, “nice to see you.”

Wendy nodded. “Have you seen Josh? Is he coming?”

“Josh?” Mrs. Kéorla asked. She shrugged. “He’s still coming as far as I know. Why do you ask?”

“I wanted to talk to him about something,” Wendy explained.

“Oh,” Mrs. Kéorla said. “Well, he should be here, so no worries!”

Wendy could tell when her lips spread apart that her smile was visibly forced. But Mrs. Kéorla was already looking away. Wendy took off the shirt that she had put over her swimsuit and slipped into the shallow end of the water.

“Brr!” she exclaimed. “It’s cold!”

“When is it ever not cold?” Mrs. Kéorla asked with a grin in Wendy’s general direction, eyes still glued to her clipboard.

“Whoohoo!” two girls screeched, coming in the door and diving headlong into the deep end.

“Wow,” Wendy rolled her eyes at her teammates. “Subtle much?”

“C’mon, Wendy,” Fiona, one of the girls, said, splashing Wendy, “don’t be such a wet blanket!”

“Just be a wet Wendy,” Fiona’s friend, the other jubilant girl, Ophelia (Ophie for short), grinned.

The rest of the team slowly filtered in. Josh came last and took his time setting his stuff down and getting into the pool. Wendy bit her lip, willing her mind to think logically. When would be the better time to talk to him? Before or after class?

But she didn’t have to decide because, as soon as Josh was in the pool, Mrs. Kéorla tore her eyes from her clipboard and clapped her hands. “Alright!” she said in a loud voice so that it echoed off the high ceiling. “Let’s do some laps.”

“How many?” one of the other boys asked.

“A hundred,” Mrs. Kéorla said with a nod.

Wendy exchanged a shocked glance with Ophie and Fiona.

“You’re joking, right?” Fiona asked, turning wary eyes on Mrs. Kéorla.

“Nope,” Mrs. Kéorla smiled. “Off with ya now!”

Wendy sighed and started paddling towards the deep end. She was pretty sure she’d sink like a stone after 100 laps. The laps went by slowly. Wendy didn’t exert herself too much in anticipation of the length of time she’d have to spend swimming. The view of the pool grew dull and boring.

“How you doing?” Fiona asked.

“Tired,” Wendy admitted after the 12th lap.

“Alright, stop!” Mrs. Kéorla said.

“We’re only halfway through the 12th!” Ophie protested.

“Do you know how many times 8 goes into 100?” Mrs. Kéorla asked.

“No,” everyone chorused.

“Twelve and a half times,” she replied. “Between all of you, you have done 100 laps. Congratulations!”

Wendy laughed and flipped onto her back in the water, sighing in relief.

“That exercise,” Mrs. Kéorla explained, “was to teach you how to work as a team. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to explain the moral because you all took longer than I thought—”

“We thought we were going to have to do a hundred!” Fiona protested passionately.

Mrs. Kéorla smiled. “But let’s get moving onto some other things,” she finished.

Wendy suffered through the rest of the hour, stealing quick glances at Josh. He did seem rather seclusive and hadn’t said a word to anybody the whole time. A perpetual scowl seemed cemented on his face.

As soon as Mrs. Kéorla said, “See you all next week,” Josh was up and out of the water. Wendy quickly scrambled out after him.

She would’ve lost him if Mrs. Kéorla hadn’t called, “Josh, I believe Wendy wanted to talk to you.”

Josh reluctantly turned back around and walked to Wendy. Wendy’s heart beat faster and leapt without permission into her throat.

In the words of Alfred Sprock, she told herself nervously, “Ain’t no plexiglass that can stop the truth!” And I s’pose there ain’t no angry boy either.

“What?” Josh demanded. Wendy cringed slightly. He sounded angry.

“I, I was just wondering if you were OK,” she stammered.

Josh crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t say anything.

Wendy wanted to lash out but bit back her tongue. She remembered something her mom always said. “If someone gets in a fight with you, even if it wasn’t your fault, you have to be able to find SOMETHING you did wrong! Apologize for it.” Wendy took a deep breath to steady herself.

“Look,” she said, “I’m really sorry about hurting you in so many ways—”

Josh raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Verbally, I mean,” Wendy corrected herself. “And, in the words of just about every book character I know, ‘I’m sorry.’ I just really wanna be here for you even if you don’t wanna tell me what’s wrong.”

Josh looked surprised. “Well,” he said hesitantly, “I’ve just been going through a tough time.”

“I’m sorry,” Wendy said and found she truly meant it.

Josh shrugged. “Did you know my parents are—were—divorced? My dad got remarried, and I live with him.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Wendy said, secretly wondering where he was going with this. Was it his new mom that was bothering him?

“Well, my real mom died a few days back,” Josh explained. “As much as I hated her for agreeing to the divorce and leaving us and never asking to see me, I loved her, you know?”

“She probably just figured that it was best if she gave you time to settle in,” Wendy suggested. “I think that’s what I would do. And, in the words of Patrick Henry, ‘The price we pay for loving pets or people is the pain we feel when we lose them.’” Wendy felt so awkward. It was that one moment she always hated: the moment when words were so inadequate.

Josh shrugged. “Anyways, she sent me a letter right before she died—said a letter would be easier to keep then an Email—and said that I’d ‘see her again’ and this was ‘not the end but the beginning.’ I don’t know what she meant.”

“Was she a Christian?” Wendy guessed.

“Yes, how’d you know that?” Josh looked mystified.

“It’s part of our beliefs,” Wendy explained. “Jesus, God, said of a man that he was not dead but asleep. He said the same of a man’s daughter. A lot of people didn’t understand Him when He said this. But then He raised those people from the dead.”

“Will He raise my mom?” Josh asked, obviously not getting the point of this.

“Well, probably not,” Wendy hesitated. “But your mom, if she wanted to, will be in heaven with God. God will come back one day, and He’ll take everyone who wants to go to heaven with Him. That’s what your mom was talking about. When the world thinks of death, they think that people will never rise again. But when Christians think of death, they think of it as sleep. And,” she added with a smile, “unless if you’ve never slept, you’ll know that you’ve always woken up when afterwards.”

Josh gave her a shy smile. Then he frowned. “But she’ll just die again and repeat the process!”

“You know,” she said with an embarrassed chuckle, “I’ve never been good at explaining what I believe in small sentences. But the world fell into sin. God’s perfect. And, um, when we go to heaven, He’ll teach us how to be like Him.”

“Perfect.”

“Yes! Exactly,” Wendy said, relieved that he was getting it despite her floundering. “And then He’ll recreate earth and no one will ever die again. In the words of Lily McKinley, ‘Fear not, good will overcome!’”

Josh hesitated. “I’d like to learn more,” he finally said.

“Umm,” Wendy looked at her watch, “I kind of have a ride in sixty seconds. But I have church on Sabba— Saturday if you wanna come.”

“Sure,” Josh replied with a nod.

“Cool.” Wendy quickly gave the directions and the time at which Sabbath school started and then left, hoping she’d made an impact to her enemy. After all, in the words of… Oh, just never mind.

THE END