Free Bluehour (A Watermagic Novel) by Brighton Hill

me before she left for a quick
bathroom break. She said I wasn’t supposed to pour the whole bottle
of oil in the pan and I certainly wasn’t supposed to cook the oil
on the highest temperature.
    The teacher was shocked when she saw the
fire. She grabbed a big bag of flour from the cabinet and poured it
on the blaze. To my surprise, the flames extinguished, but the
classroom filled with smoke and we all had to sit outside on the
grass for the rest of the period.
    On the brighter side, my parents were happy
with me all week because I did so much house cleaning. Jokingly
they said they wished I was always on restriction. I didn’t think
that was funny.
    And Lucy was happy with me too. Even though I
wasn’t allowed to go out with my friends this weekend as part of my
punishment, my parents let me take Lucy to the amusement park
because they considered that babysitting was in the category of
chores. We both had a great experience spending time together. It
was fun watching her eyes light up on the Ferris wheel. Mostly, I
enjoyed hearing all about her school week and her classroom
friends.
    But, during all my experiences, I couldn’t
get my thoughts off of Laurent. My mind continued to wrestle with
ideas like how he teleported across the classroom and how he found
my small sapphire ring in a vast ocean. I was as determined as ever
to figure him out.
    On Monday when I returned to school, I was
disappointed to see that Laurent was still absent. I started to
worry that maybe he returned to France and was never coming back.
The idea of never seeing him again disturbed me much more than it
should have. For the rest of the day I fell into a melancholy mood.
I just went through the motions of the day, but my mind drifted to
dark places.
    I was feeling so down that I almost decided
to skip swim practice. But, when I thought about the possibility of
being kicked off the team and not getting into Berkley, I thought
better of it.
    I took my time changing into my bathing suit,
just staring at the rows of gym lockers as I fastened my straps.
Because of my mood, I lagged behind the others. When I got out onto
the deck, I sat down on a bench along the gate and started trying
to stuff my hair into my swim cap. Most of the girls and boys were
already doing laps, but several stragglers were also on the benches
and others were still filing in through the gate.
    And then I saw him. It was Laurent.
    My heart began to race at the sight of him. I
bit down on my balled hand trying to calm myself.
    He was back. There he was leaning against the
gate combing his hair roughly into a ponytail which he tucked into
his swim cap. His body was gorgeous, a golden bronze.
    I wondered if he noticed me. Probably not.
But even if he had, he probably wouldn’t say anything. Goosebumps
raised on my arms as I walked over to the barrel to take some fins.
To my surprise, I caught him watching me. But, when I looked at
him, he quickly turned away. He seemed furious suddenly, almost
violent.
    I wondered if his feelings had to do with me.
It wasn’t possible. There was no way I could have had that sort of
effect on anyone, let alone a boy like Laurent Moreau. Even his
name was beautiful.
    Another guy was horsing around and bumped
into Laurent. To my disbelief, he grabbed the boy by the arm and
swung him around heatedly, yelling at him in French. My body
tensed. Then he released the boy and dove into the pool.
Immediately, he started doing laps. I was shocked by his energy; he
was unusually fast and strong in the water.
    I didn’t know what to make of his mood. My
heart didn’t stop racing. I wondered what he could have been so
angry about. But, he didn’t say a thing to me the rest of
practice.
    The next day at school in English class, I
was relieved to see that Laurent was there. The insides of my
stomach started fluttering when I saw him, but that only made me
angry. He didn’t even look in my direction. I noticed he was
sitting between the other très beaux