Bone Deep (5 page)

“Okay, kids, today is our last lesson in the pool. On Friday we'll be diving in open water. Then Saturday you'll have your dive test. If all goes well you'll be certified divers. Cool, eh?” Tornado gave us the thumbs-up sign. I got goose bumps at the thought of it. “But hey, before any of that, you need to know one more thing — how to buddy breathe. It's an important procedure that just might save your life one day. Who can tell me what the steps are to safe buddy breathing?” My hand shot up. I'd studied the manual the night before and knew all the steps by heart.

“Okay, Pammy, tell us what you know.” I was getting used to being called something new every day and hardly even noticed it anymore.

“Step one is to signal to your buddy. If you're low on air do this.” I placed my hand against my chest with my fingers curled under. “But if you're out of air this is the signal to use.” I sliced my hand back and forth across my throat, the out-of-air signal. “Then you should tap your regulator with one finger — that tells your buddy that you want to buddy breathe.”

“Very good, Patty. I can see you did your homework. You one of those smarty bookworms?” Tornado sniggered. I rolled my eyes — if only he knew how far he was from the truth. “Okay, okay, just kiddin'. So once you've signaled your buddy — what then?”

“You should stay calm and let your buddy take three breaths and hand the regulator to you. Before you take a breath, press the purge button on the regulator to clear it before you inhale. Take three normal breaths and pass it back to your buddy. When you're both calm and breathing normally, signal your buddy that you're ready to go up to the surface.” I paused for a moment trying to recall one more important point. “Oh yah, it's important not to hold your breath, just exhale slowly when you don't have the regulator.”

“And why don't we hold our breath when ascending?” Tornado asked the group.

“I know, I know,” pleaded TB.

“Okay, Geronimo — tell us,” urged Tornado.

“Holding your breath while ascending can lead to an air embolism … that's where you get air in your blood veins and you feel like your entire head, guts, and body is going to explode.”

“Gory stuff, man, right on. But that's enough for now … don't want to scare everyone.” By the looks on some of the kids' faces I'd say it was too late to worry about that. Tornado turned to me.

“Okay, since you and your friend seem to know what you're doing you'll demo buddy breathing for the rest of the class.”
Why not,
I thought.
I've got all the steps down pat, so it should be easy
. Tornado gave us the signal and we got into the deep end of the pool. We had on extra weights so we dropped down fast. TB signaled that he wanted to be the first to practice being out of air and to share my regulator and air tank. Everything went perfectly. Then it was my turn to pretend I was out of air — it would be easy, since I knew more about it than anyone else in the class. I removed my regulator from my mouth and let it go. It floated behind my head. Then I gave TB the out-of-air signal. He took three deep breaths and passed his regulator to me. So far, so good. Then I pushed the purge button and took in three deep breaths. Then I immediately exhaled.

Wait! I wasn't supposed to do that.

The second after I exhaled I realized what I'd done. It's funny how when your lungs are empty your brain goes blank too. I started grasping around for my own regulator but couldn't reach it. Then I grabbed at TB's regulator. He kept giving me the hand signal to wait while he took two more deep breaths.

When he finally passed it to me I shoved it over my mouth. That's when I made my second mistake — instead of purging the water from the regulator I immediately began to inhale. Instantly my lungs began filling with water instead of air and I started choking. Then I got completely disoriented. I couldn't even tell which way led to the surface of the pool. As I tore frantically at my weight belt I saw the look of panic in TB's eyes. That was the last thing I saw before everything went black.

I don't know how long it was before I regained consciousness, but when I did I was laying flat on my back at the side of the pool and staring up at Tornado. He was shouting in my ear to “wake up.”

“I'm not deaf,” I moaned weakly. Then I quickly turned to the side and hurled all over his leg.

“So that's the thanks I get for saving your life.”

“Ah, sorry, Tornado. I, uh …” Someone handed Tornado a wad of paper towel. I looked up to the other students and to TB. If I hadn't been feeling as crappy as a flat cow patty I'd have laughed at the look on their faces.

“Okay, you guys, everything is all right. Pammy's mistake makes for a good learning opportunity for everyone. She exhaled too quickly, leaving herself with no air in her lungs. Of course the worst mistake she made was panicking — something you'll want to make note of in case you're ever in a situation like this.”
Great, now I'll always be remembered as the kid who lost it in diving school and nearly killed herself panicking.
“But don't be discouraged — the more you practice with this stuff, the more comfortable you'll get underwater. Just stick to the safety rules and procedures I've taught you and you'll be fine.” Right then I heard a loud whining sound. “Okay, Patsy, the ambulance is here. The medics are going to have a look at you.”

“No, I don't …” I tried rolling to my side to get up, but flopped back down, exhausted. I didn't have the strength to resist. Soon I was prodded and checked over by two ambulance guys.

“Hey, that was pretty exciting,” Tornado joked with one of them. “But that artificial resuscitation thing was tricky.” I looked over at TB and groaned.

“TB, please tell me he didn't do mouth-to-mouth,” I whispered. Just the thought of it made my stomach churn and I suddenly bent over and hurled again, this time on the medic's shoe. By the time they'd finished checking me out I was feeling a little better — physically anyway. The memory of it all was haunting me like a dream I couldn't wake up from. TB sat quietly by my side. He seemed to be in nearly as much shock as me. Besides nearly drowning, I now had a seriously disturbing image of Tornado giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — it was like a barf stain on the brain.

“I called your house and let your great aunt know what happened,” TB said.

“You called Aunt Beatrix! What'd you do that for?” I groaned while gripping my throbbing head.

“She sounded pretty calm, and said to tell you she's on her way.”

“Thanks, TB,” I said sarcastically. “Do you realize I'll never hear the end of this? Once Mom finds out what happened I can forget about the trip to find the
Intrepid
.” I stood up to grab my towel and felt dizzy. TB caught my arm, but I pulled away. By the time I came out of the girls' change room he'd gone home and Aunt Beatrix was there waiting for me with a taxi. Strangely, I was sort of glad to see her. And even better, she hardly said a word the whole way back.

It happened to be one of Mom's late nights at work and Aunt Beatrix agreed not to tell her so she wouldn't worry and come racing home. Aunt Beatrix made chicken noodle soup and fresh cheese buns. I wasn't used to her being so quiet — or nice. Strangely, I found it annoying. To get her going I sat hunched, elbows on the table, slurping my soup. When that didn't get a rise out of her I pulled bits of my bun off and started feeding Duff on my lap. But she still didn't say anything.

Finally I couldn't take the silence any longer, so I said, “I'll bet you're just aching to say, ‘It was a terrible way to learn a lesson, Peggy. Now you can see that diving lessons was a dumb idea.'”

But Aunt Beatrix didn't answer me, just sipped at her soup daintily.

“You probably think I should give it up,” I continued. “Well, you can relax. I am giving it up.”

Aunt Beatrix used her napkin to daub at her mouth and then rested her hands in her lap, posture perfect, manners impeccable. She cleared her throat, which was her signal that she was about to say something important.

“Peggy, my dear, you couldn't be more wrong. What happened today was just a small setback. I'm sure you'll get past this.” I didn't expect that from her.

“Well, it doesn't matter because I'm done with it, okay?” Aunt Beatrix smiled and the intricate web of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes made her appear almost sweet.

“You say that now, but give it a day or so and I'm sure you'll see you can't give in to fear. When life knocks us down we just have to pick ourselves up and keep going.”

I didn't have the strength to argue with her so I shuffled out of the kitchen and flopped down on the sofa to watch TV. I flicked through the channels looking for one of those mindless shows that don't require any intelligent thinking, hoping to keep my mind off the things I was too tired to think about.

Soon Mom came home and I could tell by the hushed voices in the kitchen that Aunt Beatrix was filling her in on the details. When she came into the living room I could see the concern on her face. She handed me a cup of my favourite mint hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. Then she snuggled in close and put her arms around me. Mom was my weak spot and knew exactly how to melt my hardened heart. I wiped angrily at the tears welling up in my eyes.

“I know what you're going to say, Mom. But my mind is made up. I suck at diving and I'm giving it up.”

“Peggy, it must have been a really scary thing that happened to you today.” That was an understatement if ever there was one. After a few minutes of silence, she continued. “If it was anyone else, I might say, sure, quit the diving lessons. But you're not a quitter, honey. You need to learn from today's experience and then go on to become the best diver.…” Then she paused. “… And underwater archaeologist in the world.” I burnt my lips on the hot chocolate when she said that. “Yes, I know about your plans, young lady. And by now you should know better than to try and keep secrets from your mother.”

“But how —”

“The day after you signed up for diving lessons I got a call from Dr. Hunter. We had a nice conversation … that is after I got over the shock. He told me about the expedition to find that sunken ship and how much you wanted to go along.” I could feel my stomach start to heave and took three deep breaths to settle it back down. “Oh, and I also spoke to TB's mom and learned that the scuba lessons was all your idea — not TB's.” My face suddenly flushed with heat and I wriggled nervously.

“I'm sorry I tricked you, Mom. It was a dumb …”

“Don't get me wrong, at first I was fuming over your deceptiveness and I'm still working on what would be the best consequence to give you for lying to me. But I also realize archaeology is your life's passion, Peggy. And going on this expedition would be an amazing opportunity that will help you to reach your goal of becoming an archaeologist one day. Even Dr. McKay agreed this was an important opportunity not to be missed.” Mom was pretty cool. While I was scheming about the right moment to ask her, she was waiting to drop her own little bomb. I leaned in to her heavily and kissed her cheek.

“Mom, I can still become an archaeologist. I just won't be the kind that excavates sunken ships or other underwater sites.”

“So that's it? You're going to quit diving and let the opportunity of a lifetime go down the drain?” I couldn't bear the look of disappointment on her face.

“Mom, I'm really tired. I think I need to go to sleep. Maybe we could talk about this tomorrow.”

“Okay, Peggy. But just remember this — sometimes life's best adventures start out like disasters. The thing is to not give up too easily and miss the surprise ending.”

I stumbled up the stairs, glad to have my room back to hide out in. I flopped down on my bed, pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes. I tried my best not to think, but it was no use. Besides reliving the images of nearly drowning over and over I kept thinking about what Mom said. Going with Dr. Hunter to find a sunken ship was definitely an adventure … but was it supposed to be my adventure? I glanced over at the nightstand where I'd left Captain Whittaker's journal. I wondered if I'd find my answers there. I picked it up and leafed through the pages of scratchy cursive words and finally settled down to read.

November 21st, 1811

We entered St. Catherine's harbour this morning with our flag at half mast. We received a full gun salute from the fort and we returned in kind.

When we landed I ordered the men to obtain a few essentials and then dismissed them for the rest of the day. They need time to come to grips with the passing of young Albert Smedley and I can think of no better way than to give them shore leave so they can unwind from the snarls of these recent drastic events.

Herewith are the known details regarding Mr. Smedley's death:

On the evening of November 18th I was in my quarters. I heard an unusual amount of cheering and cavorting coming from the men. When I went to see what all the merriment was about I learned that poor Albert Smedley was competing against Mister Wilson in a race to the top of the main mast. The true test of a sailor is to climb the height of the tallest mast. Wilson is one of my most experienced crewmen, while Mister Smedley was one of my clerks and certainly had not fully developed the strength or skills for such a feat. Unfortunately they were already near the top, where Smedley was about to make the fatal mistake of securing himself to the pulley. It was then that a strong wind picked up and it became imperative that we trim the sails. I ordered the men to come down immediately, but by then the young Smedley was fully stuck with fear. Wilson was instructed to help him to disengage from the mast. As he struggled to follow orders the lad tumbled off, hit the foresail, and was flung into the sea. Alas, like most of my men Mister Smedley could not swim. We tried throwing him a rope, but it was futile for the waves engulfed him like a hungry dragon. I had such a menacing reaction to the poor boy's flailing and calls for help that my men had to hold me back from flinging myself into the water to save him. No good would have come of it, for I, too, cannot swim and would have simply joined him at the bottom of the sea. Since that night not one of us has slept easy.