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who spoke thick pidgin English with a happy smile.
    “Hey, Bethany!” Eddie said as the girls paddled by him.
    “Hey,” Bethany chirped back in greeting.
    Bethany paddled out farther than the others. She was gunning for the larger of the waves, and from her experience at this surf spot, she knew exactly what objects on the beach to line up with in order to get the most exhilarating ride.
    She didn’t have to wait long. A bump in the water appeared on the horizon and raced toward the surfers. Bethany guessed that the second or third wave would be larger than the first. She scrambled toward the bump that was now taking the shape of a swell by pulling powerfully with her right arm and compensating for the pull toward the right by correcting with the lean of her body.
    The first wave rolled under her board, unbroken. The second wave stacked up in front of her. This was the one!
    Bethany spun her board toward shore and paddled hard. Like a plane racing down the runway, she paddled hard into the wave. When it hit the shallow reef, the wave suddenly jacked straight up. The offshore winds tore away at the lip of the wave, casting off a plume of spray. Bethany took one last stroke and felt the bottom fall away. This was the critical point — the takeoff.
    With years of experience that made the difficult look effortless, Bethany planted her hand flat on her board and did a one-hand push-up. Then in one lightning-quick movement she drew her legs beneath her and bounced to her feet as both she and the surfboard dropped down the face of the wave.
    Now planted firmly on her feet with a strong but elegant stance, Bethany let gravity take her past the vertical face of the wave and out into the fl at water before throwing her weight and speed into a hard bottom turn that threw a sheet of spray into the air.
    Rising back to face the wave, Bethany found what surfers call the sweet spot — the place where the wave has the most speed and where the prospects of the wave curling over her in a tube were the most likely.
    Bethany’s heart soared! She was born for this. The wave stood up all the way across the end of the cove as it unwrapped on the shallow reef. A stall or misstep now would not only create a wipe-out but would toss Bethany up on the shallow, razor-sharp reef. She was unafraid.
    The crest of the wave began to pitch out. Bethany tucked her body down to keep the lip from hitting her in the head, and a spinning circle of powder blue and green water enveloped her in a tube. The sound changed to a kind of hollow, gentle roar, as if she were inside of a can.
    Bethany could see out the end of the barreling wave. She could see Malia smiling and hooting as she stroked out of the way and over the wave.
    It lasted only a second or two, and then with a terrific burst of speed, Bethany shot out of the tube and raced down the wall of the wave, pulling huge turns off the lip of the wave and ending her ride with a magnificent attempt to break her airborne record.
    Grinning from ear to ear, Bethany rejoined her friend in the lineup. “Okay, Malia, just one more for me. I’m starving!”
    “Right behind you,” Malia called after her.
    A medium-sized wave rolled in, and Bethany scratched toward it at an angle. Having spent a lifetime in the ocean and knowing this particular surf spot, she quickly read the incoming wave and positioned herself in the right place to catch it. A few strokes later, she was sailing past Malia, shouting “food!” at the top of her lungs.
    Moments later, an even larger wave scooped up Malia, and after a wild ride, she swept forward in a spray of white water to join Bethany as they paddled the rest of the way to shore together.
    Jenna wasn’t in the mood to admit she was wrong. But she couldn’t help thinking that the sun did feel pretty good and that the ocean was incredibly beautiful. She felt the ocean inviting her to wash off in its cleansing waves.
    Wading in up to her knees, Jenna felt the strong fingers of