Free Mask on the Cruise Ship by Melanie Jackson

funny. They weren’t quite the same. There was one difference. I refocused the lenses. Huh! I was right.
    I was just pursing my lips to form my favorite word, weird , when it happened.
    I was shoved roughly from behind and sent hurtling into Mendenhall Lake.
    Let’s be more precise about that.
    Into ice-cold, deep Mendenhall Lake.
    Forget the principle of flotation. I’d been pushed so hard I just sank. No cormorant, I. I went into the blue and then black depths, where all of me froze but my brain. Then, after I briefly, longingly, pictured Mother, Madge, Jack and Wilfred the cat, my brain numbed, too.
    Except for a single, almost calm thought: The image of my loved ones breezed by awfully fast just now. Is that all there is?
    Is that all there is? That was a song. My dad had played it a lot. Peggy Lee sang it. Dad had really liked Peggy Lee.
    Numbed, I was growing comfortable. Didn’t feel like moving at all. Dad … I could see him now. My dad had crisp black curly hair and black eyes so bright and full of life they practically gave off electricity. “Hey, Dinah,” he’d say, starting up a CD. “See if you can sing this one.”
    Dad?
    I don’t know if I tried to call out to him. Ever after I thought I did. More likely — at least, this is what everyone said — water filled my lungs, and it was then that I started coughing and spewing out bubbles. And thrashing around in an effort to punch through that deep, blue-black cold.
    Anyhow, I’d always believe that the thought of Dad forced me to the surface again.
    Something grabbed me by an armpit. Something sharp. Must be the cormorant’s beak. The beak dragged me up, up, out of the water.
    After several huge wrenching coughs, I could breathe again. I gasped, “Did you run out of fish?”
    â€œTrust Dinah to be thinking about food,” said a familiar, rather shaky voice next to me.
    I opened my eyes — they’d been squeezed shut. I was sitting on the pine needle floor. Madge was kneeling beside me, her face pale, frightened and tender at the same time.
    Jack was on the other side of me. He had me gripped in another bear hug, as if he feared I might get away from him.
    He was sopping wet. He’d been the cormorant.
    â€œWe’re going to revise our swimming lesson plans,” Jack informed me. His voice was unsteady too. “Since you seem unable to be around water without falling into it, I’m first going to teach you how to tread water. That way, next time, you can keep your head up while waiting for me to fish you out.”
    I could see how my impromptu plunges would get to be tiresome for Jack. I tried to apologize, but my teeth were chattering too badly.
    â€œC’mon,” said Jack, hoisting me. “Let’s take our shivering bones down to the Visitors’ Center. Maybe they have some towels.”
    â€œPaper towels, for sure, in the public washrooms.” Madge allowed herself the ghost of a smile. “You can cover yourselves with them and pretend to be mummies.”
    They each took one of my hands and we hurried down the path. “I’m not letting this kid near a glass of water without supervision,” Jack informed Madge.
    I wanted to speak, to tell them that I was sorry. That it hadn’t been my fault: someone had shoved me.
    But what finally chattered out from between my teeth was: “I saw Dad.”

Chapter 10
A memory in the deep freeze
    T hey didn’t believe me.
    They also didn’t believe that I’d be able to do a show in the evening. On that point, anyway, I was able to prove them wrong. I belted out just the same as always. Maybe more so, because I remembered how numbing those dark depths had been and how I’d almost given up and stayed there.
    Nope, I wanted to live, and to live was to sing. In fact, I blasted out “Who Will Buy?” so loudly that people strolling by on the deck heard and crowded in to