Free Fast Slide by Melanie Jackson

Chapter One
    Her fingers dug into my arm.
    â€œCome on, Clay. Say we’ll take lunch break together. Please ?”
    I shook her hand off. I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice. “No, Aggie. You’re nice and all, but I don’t want to have lunch with you. Now get lost.”
    Aggie stared at me with her pale gray eyes. Everything about her was pale: her bleached hair, her skin, her lips.
    Aggie Wentworth was a summer employee at North Vancouver’s new jungle-themed water park, Safari Splash. She was a cashier in the souvenir shop.
    I was a lifeguard at the Boa, a two-hundred-thirty-foot waterslide that twisted down Grouse Mountain. The Boa was the most popular ride at Safari Splash. It was the fastest—and the loudest. The tube was like an echo chamber. It amplified every crash of the rubber rafts against the tube wall. Also, every scream and every sound of the passengers, including the occasional cuss word.
    The noise only made the Boa more appealing. People who had come to the park planning to try only the easy rides would hear it and decide they couldn’t miss out on the excitement.
    My job was to make sure every passenger got out of their raft and safely onto the landing platform. After churning around inside the Boa for the fast winding drop, passengers were dizzy. Left on their own, they might topple into the landing pool.
    The end of the tube was like a Boa’s mouth, complete with fangs hanging down. It was corny, but people loved it. They snapped up the I rode the Boa! T-shirts at the souvenir shop.
    Boa guard—a dignified start to my résumé. I’d wanted to be an apprentice lifeguard at Kits Beach. My swimming medals and my Royal Lifesaving Society certificate were enough to get me a job there.
    But Mom insisted I take this job. She and Dad were friends with the owner, Bill Costello. In vain I’d argued, yelled, sulked. So, here I was, stuck hanging out at the landing platform with Aggie.
    Aggie giggled. “I like your intense routine, Clay: that fierce scowl, those smoldering blue eyes…”
    That made me laugh. It was too true. I curved my fingers into claw shapes and growled at Aggie. She was fun. At least she had been till she got clingy.
    The first couple of days here, I hadn’t objected when Aggie tagged along with me at breaks. I was glad to meet her. I didn’t know any of the other kids. They all lived near the water park and went to the same school. I was the stranger. But then Aggie began glomming on to me. I couldn’t shake her. It was like I’d become her obsession.
    With the back of her hand, Aggie wiped a band of sweat off her upper lip. Her pale eyes studied me, worried. “That growling thing you did just now. Was that a lynx imitation? Were you making fun of lynx?”
    This was so left field, I just stared at her.
    Aggie confided, “I’m afraid of lynx.”
    She glanced around the park, and then I got it. The Lynx was a ride at Safari Splash. The slide was fairly tame. It was only a triple spiral before splashdown.
    I laughed at her. “Lynx is nothing. It’s Boa that’s the safety hazard.”
    We’d had to close the Boa briefly last week after someone hit their head against the tube wall. It was some idiot not obeying the rules. He took off his safety belt. When the Boa reopened, it was even more popular than before. People loved the idea of risk.
    Aggie shook her head. She was gripping my arm again. “I’m not kidding, Clay. Lynx is dangerous.”
    I tried to pull away. She raised her voice. “Please don’t ignore me, Clay.”
    People were pausing to stare. I knew what Aggie was up to. She was trying to embarrass me into agreeing to hang out with her at lunch.
    Through the waterslide tube, I heard passenger screams. I heard the raft crashing against the Boa’s sharp twists. Soon the raft would slam into the landing pool.
    Prying Aggie’s arm loose, I pushed