the Big Time (2010) by Green Tim

Author:Green, Tim [Tim, Green,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-03-15T19:23:54.703000+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“I TOLD YOU G Money has the keys to this city,” Troy’s father said.

“But,” Troy said, hustling to keep up along the concrete sidewalk, “it’s a fish tank. You can’t just swim in it, no matter who you are.”

“Well,” his father said, still walking, “technically speaking, we’re not going to swim; we’re going to dive. But you could say swim.”

“Dive?” Troy said. They had reached the door to the entrance now, and his dad stepped up to the members window, where he gave his name to the person inside. A woman wearing a blue blazer and carrying a radio appeared, introducing herself as Christine Swimmer, the assistant manager of the aquarium.

“Right this way,” she said.

“I don’t know,” Troy said, whispering to his dad. “I had a goldfish once, and they make a disgusting mess.”

His father smiled down at him and tousled his hair.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “you’re going to love this. I promise. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You’ll be in a wet suit and breathing through a tube.”

They climbed a set of back stairs and emerged into a huge open space with a salty marsh smell like the time he’d gone crab fishing off the bridge leading to Jekyll Island on the coast. A metal mesh floor surrounded a round tank of water bigger than any pool Troy had ever seen. He sniffed and watched as a young woman wearing a wet suit dug her hands into a huge cooler, coming up with fistfuls of dead and bloody fish, which she tossed into the water. Colors flashed beneath the water’s churning surface, and two dark shadows cruised through the frenzy like a bad dream.

“Sharks,” his father said, nodding at the water. “You ever hear of that saying?”

“What saying?” Troy asked.

“‘Swim with the sharks’?” his father said, pointing to the water, then at two sets of wet suits, masks, and fins hanging from hooks on the wall. “Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe. They just ate. Come on.”

Troy followed his father through a door and into a locker room, where they changed into their bathing suits, then returned to the tank.

“Charlie and Melissa will help you out,” Christine Swimmer said, and two young people in wet suits appeared and showed them how to get into their gear.

Troy found himself stepping into a wet suit, wiggling his feet and hands to push them through their openings, and then sucking in his breath as Charlie zipped up the suit from behind. Troy slipped his feet into flippers and helped fix the mask on his face. Then Charlie strapped a belt around Troy’s middle that had pouches filled with plastic-covered weights. When Troy’s father put an arm around his shoulders, it almost made Troy’s worry disappear, but not quite.

“Okay,” his father said, “here’s the thing: You’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Troy said.

“Yeah, you are,” his father said happily, “but that’s okay. That’s the point of this. It scares me, too. Look at that whale shark.”

Troy looked to where his dad was pointing. A shadow twice as long as Gramps’s fishing boat cruised across the tank.

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