Free Catching Genius by Kristy Kiernan Page A

minutes, then bring your cell phone and your keyboard down to me. Until we figure out what we’re going to do, you can consider yourself grounded. No phone, no computer, no television.”
    He stopped for a moment and then walked on, refusing to look back at me. My lunch forgotten, I watched Carson swimming circles in the pool, his hand held straight up in front of his head like a shark fin. Both the kids were terrific swimmers, but I couldn’t help watching them anxiously whenever they were in the water.
    Swimming was a skill that not only had I never mastered, but that left me with vague feelings of dread I didn’t want to fully explore. I could stay afloat, could paddle about with determination, but it frightened me more than anything else ever had, especially in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was more than the fear of sharks, more than the unknowable depth; it was the living water itself. It twined around my legs, its currents slipping their fingers about my calves, tugging at my ankles. It felt fat between my toes and fingers, as though its molecules weren’t willing to slide apart for me as easily as they did for everyone else.
    Estella was the swimmer. When we moved to Big Dune Island, my parents worked out an arrangement with Dr. Pretus that Estella would stay with him and his wife four days a week, something that would never be allowed in this day and age I’m sure, and would come home for long weekends. With an atypical bow to her age, she was forbidden to bring work home with her, and she spent most of those days locked in her room or exhausting herself swimming in the Gulf.
    Estella was transformed by the water, a mermaid worthy of her own fairy tale when she came up for air, her lips parted and her eyes half-lidded with exertion. Her slicked-back hair revealed beautifully arched eyebrows, her eyelashes spiked together as if she were wearing mascara, and water droplets clung perfectly to her lips. I would never have told her how beautiful, how sensual, she looked in the water. All I had in my family was my prettiness, and I wasn’t about to give that up to Estella too.
    When she retreated to her room, I imagined that she pulled out pencil and paper and devised her own mathematics course, because she would often go in wild-eyed and emerge serene, as though she’d gotten her fix.
    The doctors initially put her on a medication to calm her constant agitation, but our father felt that it dulled her genius, made her less agile-minded, and discontinued it himself. I don’t know what my sister thought of her medicated days, but I do know that I saw her smile more, and saw less of the rapid blinking and teeth clenching that made other people stare.
    Had our parents ever wanted to punish her for anything they could have easily found the method. Take away math and swimming at the same time and she’d be desperate in days. I wished Gib were so easy to figure out. Taking away the phone, the computer, the television—it had all been done before.
    I glanced at the clock again. Fifteen minutes had passed. With a sigh I headed upstairs and could hear him talking as I neared his room.
    â€œGib, let’s go. Off the phone.”
    He glanced up as I reached the door and held the receiver out to me. “Gram called while I was talking to Jamie. She wants to talk to you. Why didn’t you tell me we were going to Big Dune?”
    I took the phone without answering him and pointed to his keyboard before I greeted my mother. She was already talking as I raised the phone to my ear.
    â€œ. . . had the courtesy to at least call me back.”
    â€œHi, Mom,” I said, pretending I hadn’t heard her. “Sorry. Are we still on for Monday?”
    She was silent for a moment, mollified.
    â€œYes. I take it you don’t want Gib to come? He hadn’t heard a thing about it. And what’s this about him being grounded?”
    â€œHe failed algebra without telling