Between the lines

Delilah

EVERY TIME I GO TO SWIM PRACTICE, I AM the last one out of the locker room. I just don’t have any great eagerness to rush toward an hour of torture. I am the swimmer who comes in twenty-fifth out of twenty-five competitors, no matter what the stroke. I’m the one whose coach practically cringes each time she calls my name to get onto the blocks.

Today, though, I feel a little different. Maybe it’s talking to Oliver-but I actually think that today, I might not come in last during our mock races. After all, he seems to believe in my ability to do the impossible-so why shouldn’t I?

“Swimmers, take your marks,” my coach says, and I slip into the far right lane, hanging on to the edge of the pool in preparation for the backstroke. I fix my goggles and adjust my swimming cap, glancing down the row of my teammates. I’m next to Holly Bishop, who came in third in the state in the backstroke. Awesome. Farther down the line are some freshmen, and then in the far left lane is Allie McAndrews, the cheerleader, who (as far as I can tell) swims only because it gives her the chance to wear a bathing suit and flirt with the guys on the team.

There is an electronic beep, and I duck under the water and push off the wall, undulating in the first few meters. Already, it feels different to me, as if I am a creature of the sea-a mermaid, like the ones in Oliver’s story-with a tail so powerful I could outswim a boat, much less Holly Bishop. I break the surface and stare up at the fluorescent lights of the aquatic center, streaking blindly backward. I am a machine. I am invincible.

I do my flip turn and when I surface again I can hear my fellow competitors yelling and cursing-and my coach screaming my name. That’s how fast I’m going; nobody can believe that finally this day has come for ol’ Delilah McPhee. Any moment now, I’m going to feel it-the electronic sensor board that will the stop the clock and herald my win. There is a flurry of water rushing beneath me, and my outstretched arm smacks something hard behind me-

“Owwwww!”

Sputtering, I pivot and rip off my goggles to find Allie McAndrews holding her nose, which is now streaming with blood in the deep end. “Are you kidding?” she screams.

I look at her, horrified, and then at some of the other girls on the swim team who are dragging her out of the pool. “Everybody out,” my coach yells. “Bodily fluid in the water!”

“I… I’m sorry,” I stammer, wondering what Allie McAndrews was doing in my lane. But then I glance around.

Somehow, I’ve managed to cross five pool lanes, to the far left one Allie had been swimming in. And with my killer backstroke, I’ve probably broken her nose.

“How was swimming?” my mother asks as soon as I slide into the passenger seat of her car.

“I’m quitting. Swim team, high school, life in general.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” My phone beeps. There’s a new text from Jules, but I don’t even feel like telling her about my latest catastrophe. Besides, I’m sure she’ll figure it out at school on Monday when I become an even bigger pariah than I already am.

My mother glances at me. “Well, whatever it was, it’s nothing a double chocolate milk shake from Ridgeley’s Diner can’t fix. Let’s stop there for dinner.”

I know, for my mom, this is a big deal. We aren’t the kind of people who eat out a lot. We can’t afford to. “Thanks,” I mutter. “But I really just want to go home.”

“Delilah,” my mother says, frowning at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. I just have… a lot of homework.”

I successfully manage to avoid conversation for the rest of the ride home. When we pull into the driveway, I rush into the house and upstairs to my room. The book is lying on my bed, just where I left it.

I open to page 43 without even trying-the spine is developing a natural split there, I think-and find Oliver at the bottom of the rock cliff. He offers me a brilliant smile. “Did you enjoy swim practice?”

I’ve managed to hold it together through the end of practice; through the locker room, where everyone was whispering and giving me dirty glares; through the ten-minute car ride home. But now, in front of Oliver, I let go and burst into tears. As I do, droplets splash on the page. One lands on Oliver and bursts over his head like a water balloon, leaving him soaking wet.

“Sorry,” I say, and sniffle. “I had a pretty lousy afternoon.”

“Maybe I can cheer you up, then,” he says.

Just being here cheers me up, I think, and I realize that at swim practice, when my whole life was falling apart, the one person I really wanted to see was Oliver.

Who, technically, isn’t really a person.

I wipe my eyes. “I just practically drowned the most popular girl in my school-the same one I crippled last year. Monday morning when I go to school every single student in the building is going to hate me.”

“I won’t hate you,” Oliver says loyally.

I smile a little. “Thanks. But unfortunately, you don’t go to my school.”

“Ah, but maybe I could-sooner than you think…”

My eyes widen as I realize what he’s talking about. “You found another way out?” I would much rather talk about Oliver’s problems than my own.

“Well, I found some kind of portal, at the very least! I met with Rapscullio, and he’s a brilliant painter!”

“Painter? I thought he was a villain!”

“No,” Oliver says. “Remember, I told you, that’s just his role in the story. Anyway, he’s figured out how to paint an object onto a special canvas that’s an identical portrait of his lair… and have that object magically appear.”

“That’s how he creates Pyro, the dragon-”

“Exactly. But apparently the mechanism works even when the story isn’t in play.”

I shake my head. “How will that help? It’s not like Rapscullio lives here. He can’t just paint you into this world.”

“Yes, but I think I might be able to paint myself out of my own.”

I ponder this for a moment. “That won’t work. You’d just wind up repainted somewhere else in your story. Like a clone.”

“A scone?”

“No, a cl-Never mind.” I get up from the bed and start pacing in front of it. “If there was a way, though, to get a painting of my world into Rapscullio’s lair, then maybe-”

“I thought you might need some comfort food…” At the sound of a voice, I whirl around to find my mother standing in the doorway with a dinner tray. There’s a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. She peers around the room. “Who on earth are you talking to, Delilah?”

“My… a friend.”

My mother glances around again. “But there’s no one here…”

“Oliver’s on the phone,” I say quickly. “Speaker phone. Isn’t that right, Oliver?” He doesn’t answer, of course, and I feel myself blushing furiously. “It’s a pretty bad connection.”

My mother’s eyebrows raise. It’s a boy? she mouths silently.

I nod.

She gives me a thumbs-up and-leaving the tray-backs out of my room. “That was close,” I tell him, and sigh.

He grins. “What’s for dinner?”

“Can we be serious here?” I say. “I don’t suppose you’ve taken any art classes?”

Oliver laughs. “Those,” he replies, “are for princesses.”

“Oh yeah? Tell that to Michelangelo. Let’s say that someone painted over that magic canvas so it isn’t a portrait of Rapscullio’s lair… but instead a painting of my bedroom. And then you happen to start to paint yourself onto it. Logic says that-”

“I’ll wind up in your bedroom!” Oliver’s eyes shine. “Delilah, you are amazing!”

When he says those words, a shiver runs the length of my spine. What if he did show up right now, sitting on my bed? Would he high-five me? Hug me?

Kiss me?

At the thought of that, my cheeks burn like they’re on fire. I hold my palms up against them, hoping Oliver hasn’t noticed.

“Ah, now I’ve embarrassed you,” he says. “All right, then. You are not amazing. You’re perfectly ordinary. Run-of-the-mill. Completely dismissible.”

“Shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling. “I want to try an experiment. Have you got your dagger?”

“Of course,” Oliver replies. He draws it from its sheath. “Why?”

“Draw a picture of me. On the rock wall.”

He blinks. “Right now?”

“No, next Thursday.”

“Oh, good.” Oliver starts to put the dagger away.

“I was joking! Of course right now!”

Is it my imagination, or does he look a little green? “Right,” Oliver mutters. “A portrait.” He poises the tip of the knife over the granite. “Of you.” He steps forward, blocking my view as he begins to etch on the rock. Twice, he looks over his shoulder to peer at my face.

I think of all the beautiful paintings hanging in museums around the world-muses captured on canvas: the Mona Lisa, the birth of Venus, the girl with a pearl earring. “Voilà,” Oliver declares, and he steps aside.

Carved onto the rock wall is a disproportionate figure with bug eyes, snake hair, and a flat line of a mouth. Apparently, to Oliver, I look like a Muppet.

“Not bad, eh?” he says. “Although, I don’t think I quite captured your nose…”

No wonder; he’s drawn it as a triangle.

I hesitate. “No offense, Oliver, but you might not be the ideal choice to paint a picture of my room.”

He frowns at the portrait he’s drawn of me, and then smiles. “Perhaps not,” Oliver says, “but I know just the fellow who is.”