“Ow! Ugh, damn it…” Jace grumbled as he pulled his used Goodwill bike off the ground and checked for any new scars on his elbows.

Millie and Wes, chilling out against the shaded wall of the Target building’s back side with sodas from its café, watched him clean himself off and return to the bike seat to grudgingly try again—after his tenth tumble onto the rear parking lot’s asphalt.

“I don’t think we’re quite ready for that moment where you say, ‘you can let go now, Dad,’ and I reply with ‘I’m not holding you!’” Wes remarked. “Keep trying, bud.”

“Keep trying? This is crazy! I’m supposed to be learning how to do this on soft grass!” Jace exclaimed, and then after Millie snickered, added, “Great secret technique.”

She shrugged. “It worked for me. All the bruises and scars just make you want to try even harder to get it right, like your life depends on it.”

Jace grimaced as he applied another spray of antiseptic onto a fresh cut on his arm. “Seriously, that’s enough for today. I’m wearing my swimming suit under my shorts and it’s chafing like crazy, and if I keep getting sliced up back here, the water park’s going to give me an infection. We’re supposed to meet up at noon.”

“Ah, that’s right, AquaZone opened yesterday,” Millie replied. “I’m a lousy swimmer anyway, but I wouldn’t be caught dead there, taking a bath with a hundred people in a giant petri dish. Yuck. But… have fun if that’s what you want to do.”

“All right, all right,” Wes said and stepped up to his new car, this time a little more modern Honda black station wagon from 1993, for some extra space. “Let’s get your bike on the roof rack and we’ll head to the park. You’ve earned a break.”

“Man…” Jace sighed and rubbed his sore muscles. “What a rough week…”

• •

After they dropped off Millie, Wes pulled into one of the few spots available in AquaZone’s dedicated parking lot, close to its small side entrance instead of the park’s main gateway. Jace, wearing a t-shirt, flip-flops, and his swim suit, hopped out, the $10 that he needed for a ticket crumpled up in his hand. He didn’t dare bring his old, very-not-waterproof cell phone to a waterpark, but that was what schedules were for.

“Have fun, and I’ll be back for you at four, sharp,” Wes reminded him from the driver side window. “Try not to drown, okay? Your legs could give out in the deep end.”

“I never liked the wave pool anyway,” Jace replied. “Oh, anything special you can remember about today? Must’a been memorable, it being the gang’s first visit and all…”

Wes scrunched up his face for a moment in thought and answered, “Hm, this one’s a bit fuzzy, but the other guys might maybe act a little weird. Can’t remember why.”

He gave Jace a wave and drove off, the bicycle rattling on the car’s roof as he did so. After a wait in line, Jace got a ticket and proceeded to the entrance—where the side park’s sole mascot, the shade-wearing water droplet Hydro Boy, watched guests enter from above on the marquee. Jace grabbed a blue towel and proceeded into the water park, filled nearly to capacity with hundreds of people, a lot of them probably tourists.

Everything had a colorful fresh coat of paint and had yet to be sun-blasted or water damaged to oblivion, with the smell of chlorine as pervasive as the sunlight sparkles bouncing off of moving water. The park was smallish, so nearly all of it was visible right at the entrance area. King Arcade was just past the wall several hundred feet away, with the screams from the Red Demon coaster just barely audible.

Jace didn’t need a tour from Wes this time; the park barely changed at all by 2020. It had a short yellow water slide, a large, enclosed twisting blue one, and a tall red one that started at the top of a fake snowy mountain, which held both its support beams and an always excessively long line. The slides all fed into the big main pool, which was Jace’s favorite place here—he liked the shallow, curving, fake beach part the best, and the pool even had its own island in the middle, though it was always full of visitors.

Elsewhere was the nearly-as-big wave pool that still scared him a bit, a kiddy pool and watery playground with plenty of fountains, a log plume with a splash zone, two beach-themed cafés, a relaxing inner-tube river, and the Vortex, the park’s one roller coaster, with a downward loop “whirlpool” section notorious for making riders sick.

“Jason!” he heard a few voices calling out. “Yo, Jason!”

He found them surrounded by the crowds, chilling out poolside as they waved at him. Nearly the whole gang was there, Ash and Zach looking cool in their sunglasses. Sadie had her pink goggles around her neck, but other than Colin, who had a hat above his glasses, the rest lacked sun protection. All the boys, however, did have on light-colored shirts—like most of the guys around. Jace was used to that water park norm.

Jace sped-walked over, tossing off his flip-flops on the way, and, already used to the warm water, went past the others and jumped off the edge and into the deeper end. Once his head was back above water, he flipped around and gave them a big grin.

“Ya like swimming, or something?” Wessy asked.

“Yeah, definitely,” Jace replied. “Did you guys just get here?”

“Uh-huh…” Sadie said. “But we haven’t done anything yet, other than sit here and chat and dangle our legs in. The place is just… way too packed.”

“It’s not going to get any less busy. C’mon, get in! Or we could wait in line for a slide.” Jace looked at them again and saw a little trepidation. “Something up?”

“Ah, it’s just…” Colin gawked around at everyone in the pool and walking by. “We’ve swum at the community pool plenty of times, but this is… I mean…”

“There are so many tourists!” Jared said with some agitation.

“Yeah, so?” Jace questioned. “Are you embarrassed or something? I mean, we’re all wearing shirts… And it’s not like Sadie and Ash are in, like, tiny bikinis.”

“That’s what I said!” Zach replied. “I’d get in and have a good time, but not when they’re all like this. Maybe it’s because it’s our first time at a water park…”

Sadie self-consciously crossed her arms over her stomach—perhaps to try and hide that last little bit of baby fat she still had—and said with a forced, nervous grin, “It’s just kinda weird. At the pool, it’s mostly kids or old people… But here…”

Ash, a beanpole, finished for her, “You see these people? They’re super models! The guys not wearing shirts are, like, a bunch of waxed buff dudes, and there’s also teenage girls in two-pieces that… honestly, kinda make you feel bad about yourself.”

“What a bunch of…” Zach muttered.

“Wow,” Jace stated. “Guess you’re just not used to seeing half the town in their swim clothes. They won’t make fun of you, guys. Come on. There’s a heat wave.”

“Exactly! It’s the perfect time to cool off!” Zach argued. “Look, none of us are supposed to be ripped or anything. We’re still only fifth-graders. I don’t get you guys.”

“It never used to be a problem, at least not back when we were last swimming at the end of last summer,” Colin stated. “Now we’re all suddenly… weird about it.”

“Not me, man. I’d run around here wearin’ nothin’ but my shades if it was legal.”

Sadie winced. “Yeah, thanks for that, Zach…”

Arthur then came over with two orange ice pops and handed one to Ash. Jace had never seen him without his glasses, but he didn’t seem to be squinting.

“Oh, hey, Jason’s here,” he observed. “And he’s actually in the water.”

“You see okay without your glasses?” Jace asked.

“Yeah. We’re farsighted. Just need ‘em for reading, so they’re in a locker with our mom’s stuff. Guys, can we get going before the waterslide lines get really backed up?”

The rest of the gang looked at each other, mumbled a bit, and finally fully left the water and got to their feet—at which point, Jared began staring at something in the distance. As they began to make plans, Jace pulled himself out of the pool, and drew attention to himself, what with the war wounds and several waterproof Band-Aids.

“Whoa, Jason…” Wessy was the first to speak. “You get into a fight with D’ or Hutch and lose or something? You’re looking pretty banged up.”

“Um, yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of training… For the big Bullet Water game.”

“You’re pretty hardcore, huh? Anyway, yeah, let’s hit the slides first.”

Arthur replied, “All right, and then we can… Seriously, Jared?”

Surprised like he had been caught doing a bad thing, he exclaimed, “Huh, what?”

“Are you staring at my mom again? That’s really messed up, man.”

“Really, Jared?” Ash added with a disgruntled sigh.

Jace turned around and spotted the twins’ mom, sunbathing and reading a magazine on one of the loungers strewn across the fake beach. Her two-piece was pretty skimpy and she was athletic, so he could kind of understand why she was attracting gazes from guys passing by, and even some from a certain tween.

“Hey, your mom’s… you know…” Jared had no idea how to defend himself against the twins’ stares, so he changed the subject. “Water slide time!”

He then hurried over to the end of the line for the tall red one.

Twenty minutes later, they finally made it to the top of the last set of stairs and reached the summit of the mountain, where a teenager no older than sixteen exhaustedly guided kids and adults into the water jet pool that would propel them down the slide. They happened to be flanked by two chubby older men on the way up, both of whom decided to be among the few guys in the park who didn’t want to wear shirts.

But Jared, Zach, and on occasion Arthur as well hardly seemed to notice them, as their eyes often meandered elsewhere, to other sights in the crowd. Jace, Wessy, and Colin were oblivious to it, but Ash and Sadie certainly took notice.

“Next…” the teen waterslide guard said to Colin, who was first up.

He stepped into the little pool, where he removed his glasses and slid them into a protective plastic case that was tied around his neck. It was the first time Jace had seen him without his eyewear in full light, but unlike the twins, Colin looked like he could barely see and had to basically shrink his face as he sat down in front of the jets.

“There’s the old Colin right there,” Wessy commented, mostly towards Jace. “He walked around like that most of fourth grade until his parents finally got him glasses.”

Looking a little nervous about it just prior to going down, Colin nevertheless pushed himself off and onto the slide once the teenager gave the signal.

Jared laughed. “Hope he doesn’t run into the fat guy who went before him.”

“Ya mean like how Homer Simpson got stuck in that old episode?” Zach replied.

“Yeah, exactly!”

“Rude, guys,” Sadie said with a sigh and went up for her turn.

After she strapped on her goggles and fearlessly shoved off, Jace went next, having already gone down the slide dozens of time. The instant the teenager opened his mouth to clear him, he pushed, laid back into the rushing water, and enjoyed the ride.

The slide, sometimes called “Red Demon Jr.” or the “Aqua Demon,” was eight hundred feet of swerves, curves, and towards the end, a few rises after a long drop that simulated waves. The first two seconds at the top also gave riders a nice view of both parks, but at the bottom, they needed to be diligent about getting away from the drop area. Once Jace hit the water, he quickly swam away and joined Colin and Sadie.

“Yeah, those two are kinda being jerks lately,” Jace heard Sadie tell him.

He paddled up closer to them and asked, “Wait, who are the jerks?”

Sadie spun around in the water as Ash crashed down behind them and answered, “Don’t tell ‘em I said anything, but Jared and Zach… Something’s up with them.”

Colin shrugged as much as he could in the water, replying, “Guess I don’t see it.”

“Y-yeah, I don’t really get it, either…” Jace said, but thought he kind of did.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Ash asked once she too had joined them.

“You see it, right, Ash?” Sadie replied. “Jared and Zach. You totally see it.”

“Oh, yeah. That. Arty’s starting to act kind of weird, too. So have a bunch of other boys at school. ‘It’ must be starting. Caught my bro looking at a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue last week… Gross.” Ash stopped talking just before Arthur joined them.

Treading water with his bicycle kicks as he thought about things, Jace realized he might have actually had some vague idea what was going on; he may have seen it before, back in 2020, in his former friend Austin during the last half of fifth-grade.

He just hoped it wouldn’t get in the way of any friendships, or the mission.

• •

It was mostly Jace who led the way to the other attractions throughout what was left of the day. They did the log plume ride next, which had big fiberglass fake trees that only sat six per log—Jared and Zach, purposely or otherwise, ended up in one with three high school girls. What with the limited seating, the wait was long, despite the ride lasting maybe twenty seconds and being little more than a steep drop into the large but shallow splash zone that also drenched anyone on the nearby walkway.

Wessy took them to the wave pool afterwards, just to check it out; it was far too occupied to be much fun. Jace didn’t leave the shallow end, and even just watching the mass of swimmers bob up and down in the machine-made waves made him a little sick.

Following a snack break, they chilled out in innertubes and floated down the river, which attracted more of the older set, but gave them a chance to hang around and chat for a bit. Jared and Zach were the least entertained with the particular “ride.” To kick things up again, they then suffered through the forty-minute wait to get on The Vortex, drying off long before they boarded what was the entire park’s only other coaster. Colin came the closest to throwing up, but managed to hold it together.

After they returned to the main pool and tried the other two slides, they found themselves chilling at a familiar locale—a playground, but of a larger, wetter variety.

“Aw, man, the school should install fountains and sprinklers and stuff like they have here,” Wessy said, watching water jets spray the other forts and the younger kids stepping on them to increase the spray height elsewhere, much to their amusement.