Sink or Swim Read Online Free Page A

Muchnick replies. “We’ve finished last in three meets out of four, and we swim against our archrivals, the Carbondale Catfish, on Friday. You’re just the thing we need to lift the Stevenson Sardines out of their slump. An actual fish. I can just picture the headline: ‘Sardines Drown Catfish in Virtuoso Swimming Display.’ We’ll be on our way to the division finals in no time!”
    â€œTechnically speaking, I’m not a fish, sir. I’m a mutant dinosaur.” I am starting to panic.
    â€œTechnically speaking, I wouldn’t care if you were an armadillo,” Principal Muchnick snaps. “Whatever you
were
, you’re a Sardine now, Drinkwater. Don’t try to wriggle out of it.” Principal Muchnick laughs at his stupid joke. “You start practice tomorrow after school.” He returns to his desk. “Craverly, you go locate the appropriate parental approval forms while I call Coach Grubman and give him the good news.” He grabs the phone.
    â€œBut I don’t know how to swim, sir. I can’t even tread water.”
    â€œYou have flippers, scales, and a tail, Mr. Drinkwater. You’ll learn.”
    â€œNo offense, Principal Muchnick, but I don’t really want to learn.”
    â€œDo you really want to graduate from seventh grade?” Principal Muchnick smiles at me. He looks just like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
. Only scarier.
    â€œBut sir,” I plead. “A person should have the freedom to choose his or her own extracurricular activities. Shouldn’t they?” I feel that dull ache you get at the bottom of your throat when you are trying to stop yourself from crying.
    â€œWhat do you think this is, Drinkwater, a democracy?” Professor Muchnick bellows. “You’re in seventh grade and what I say goes. Period. Now get out of here before I sign you up for the Marines.” He holds the receiver up to his ear. “Willard Muchnick here. I’ve got some terrific news for you, Coach Grubman. Are you sitting down?”
    I stagger out of his office. I am so light-headed from smelling Principal Muchnick’s cheap cologne that I stumble as I make my way down the stairs and nearly flatten a fifth grader, who runs away, screaming for his mother.
    How am I going to get myself out of this mess?

4
    FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
    â€œMAYBE YOU’LL
LIKE
being on the swimming team,” Sam says. “You never know until you try it.”
    â€œFat chance,” I mutter.
    Sam and Lucille and I are on our way to my house after school. My mom is making us dinner tonight. We’re also going to do our homework, learn ten vocabulary words, and watch a scary movie if there’s time left over.
    We take the shortcut past Devil’s Hill and double back around Crater Lake, the deepest body of water in southern Illinois. It was formed when a giant meteor crashed to earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, over sixty-five million years ago, wiping out most of the planet’s dinosaur population.
    At that point, according to my mom, a few of my distant dinosaur ancestors mutated and swam to safety at the bottom of lake. Many millions of years later, my Mom’s mom, a mutant dinosaur named Nana Wallabird, crawled out of the bottom of the lake and onto dry land, and married Grampa, a human. And that’s how I eventually became scaly old me.
    â€œGive it a chance,” Sam says. “Being on a team can be a fun and rewarding experience.” He pulls his collar up around his neck as a few wispy flakes of snow begin to whirl around our heads.
    â€œIf you think being on a team is so wonderful, why don’t
you
join one?” I ask.
    â€œI’ve been on the chess team for years,” Sam answers.
    â€œThey just
call
it a team,” I say. “Everyone knows it’s really a club, Sam. Come on. And for your information, there are eight zillion good reasons I don’t want to be on the