Diamonds bob playfully on little waves. They wink and twirl, bobbing underwater only to pop back up again. They make a kind of trail across the green water, out to the horizon where they meet up with the golden-pendant sun. Together, the diamonds and the sun will slowly dunk themselves into the water like an old person getting into a bathtub.

I guess I’m pretty lucky to live right next to the lake that the sun sets into.

I kick my feet in the cool water and watch as tiny diamonds go flying. The rough wood scratches my legs, so I stand up, a gentle wind blowing the water and summer heat away from me. Peering over the edge of the dock, I see – under my rippling reflection – little flashes of topaz. I lean down to look closer; the gems twist and turn nimbly, weaving in and out of each other. Their movement calls out to me, come on in! The water is so cool and fresh…

The heat of the sun licks my back as I lean forward even more -- and jump into the lake.

The cool water surrounds me, holding me up like an airy, pillowed throne. A silence rings in my ears – so loud that I can’t hear it. A peaceful, wet silence. I blink a few times, getting my eyes used to the feeling of water against them. The flock of topaz has darted away, but I can still see them in the distance. A velvety carpet of sand stretches out for as far as I can see, little bouquets sprouting out and swaying in the water. They are emeralds, lit up by the underwater sunlight.

I look up. The diamonds look even prettier from down here, big and almost too bright to look at. My lungs are gonna burst, I think. I can just imagine them popping like birthday balloons. I let out a few bubbles of breath and watch as little round opals rise up from my mouth, joining the diamonds on the surface.

I try to follow the topazes, but my chest is cramping from not breathing and my head feels funny. Staying down here without breathing is like trying to keep a bike moving without pedaling… and I’m gonna fall over soon. I give in, and let the water fly me up to the diamonds. The air is sharp to my throat. I push loose tendrils of hair out of my eyes, treading water and gathering enough breath to go back to my underwater kingdom of gemstones.

“Hey, you – little girl!” an excited voice says from the dock.

I look around – there’s an old lady swimming a long way off, under the sun and two men the age of my Poppy swimming to my left a few yards. I guess I’m the closest thing to a “little girl.” But since when are six year-olds little girls?

I sigh – he must think I’m five.

I twist around to see that the person who called my name must be the only person on the dock – a tanned man standing there in his clothes and baseball cap.

“You’re a really good diver… who’s your coach?”

I give him one of my funny looks and get ready to go back underwater.

“Wait!” he calls.

I look back at him. He smiles, and his white teeth are like pearls.

My Poppy always tells me not to talk to strangers… but this man’s beautiful pearl teeth catch my eye. I push myself in the water and glide over to the dock.

“I’m Brice, I’m a diving instructor – what’s your name?” His pearls gleam when he talks.

“Kylie.”

“Do you take diving lessons here, Kylie?” The pearls reflect the brightness of the sun when he says my name.

“Nope.” I pop my lips with the “p”.

“Can you show me another of your dives?”

A dive. The word is familiar, but I can’t match it with the action in my head. “What’s a dive?” I ask.

“A dive?” Brice’s face looks confused. “That’s what you did when you were going into the water… jumping in head first.”

“I did that?” I try to think back… Oh yeah! When I saw the topazes, I jumped in without looking away from them. I guess that was a dive. A good dive, from what Brice says.

His big, boney hand helps me up onto the dock.

“How do you do it?” I ask.

“Here – like this.” He puts his feet together at the edge of the dock and bends his knees, then puts his hands together over his head and bends down. He looks funny there, with his behind sticking out and his neck curled up so his face is looking almost at his belly button. “Come on,” he says kindly.

I giggle and make the position.

“There… that’s good!” he says, straightening up. “Now you jump.”

I look down at the water. The diamonds don’t look so pretty now. They look sharp, like thousands of teeny knives. And the gold sun looks a little rusty. The water is too clear; I can see the topazes plainly. They are dangerous sparks of fire – with big black eyes. Their movements call out to me …the better to see you with. I shudder.

“You alright?” Brice asks from behind me.

“Yeah,” I say, quiet and squeaky.

My back is starting to feel like something’s pushing on it too hard, and the bones in my arms are biting the muscles. The emerald bouquets look like they’ll grab me and pull me under the dock and eat me.

“Will I go under the dock and get stuck?” I ask.

“No, you won’t. Just think of keeping your chin to your chest and keeping your whole body straight.” Brice’s pearly voice is reassuring.

I gulp and close my eyes. And jump.

It’s true; the diamonds have turned into knives – they slap the bare space between the top and bottom parts of my bathing suit. I open my eyes. The topaz fire is swarming beneath me, and the emerald bouquets lick the gaps between my toes. I want to gasp, but diamonds come in my nose. I bob up to the surface with a cough. The diamonds that came in my nose seem to be coming out my eyes, and they sting.

“Oh my God,” Brice mutters. “Are you ok?”

I look back at him, wiping sticky bangs and diamonds out of my face.

“You ok, Kylie?”

“Yeah.”

“Here, I’ll help you up.”

He picks me right out of the water, then places me gently on the dock. The splintery wood pokes me. I stand up and put myself in the diving position.

“Kylie,” Brice says, “you don’t have to –”

But I don’t hear the rest, because the sound of a huge splash covers up his words – my own splash. Again, the knives cut into my belly. But this time I don’t let diamonds go in my nose, or emeralds lick me. I climb right out and look up at Brice.

“What was good about the one I did before?” I ask his pearls. They’re just barely showing in the triangle between his top and bottom lip.

“Well – you kept your body like a spear and made a nice arch, like this…” one of his hands makes an arch like a jumping dolphin.

I stand up and go back into the position. The diamond knives are all pointing at me. The emeralds look like long, hungry fingers. The topazes have burned down to embers, barely visible where they hide – waiting for rekindling – in the murk. I shudder. I step away and straighten my back.

Brice flashes his pearls.

“Why d’you want me to do it, anyways?”

“Well – I’m a diving instructor and I run a kid’s swim team at the pool. There’s gonna be a big county diving competition at the end of the summer, and when I saw your dive from the beach I wanted to see if you were interested.”

He kneels down and his face is level with mine. I didn’t notice before, but his eyes are like jades; they’re a kind of cloudy green, but they glimmer, too.

“You’d be diving off a diving board, high in the air.”

He shows me his pearls for a moment, then hides them again.

“I dunno…”

I try to imagine jumping head first off something high in the air. The flying feeling would probably be great… but then I’d fall. I don’t want to imagine how much diamond knives would hurt from way up there. And what if I hit the bottom?

“Well – you can think about it,” he says, his pearls ablaze and his jades twinkling in the setting sun. “Are you here with your mommy or daddy?”

“My Poppy owns the jeweler’s shop there by the beach and he lets me come and swim here sometimes while he’s getting ready to go home.”

“Well I’m gonna go say hi to your Poppy.”

I watch him walk down the dock back to the beach, his wet flip-flops making a noise halfway between a squelch and a pop with each step.

**

The boy who’s standing in front of me has skinny ankles. The stringy tendons in the back almost pop out through his pale skin. He’s shivering a little, and it’s not from cold – the pool building is like a greenhouse. He’s nervous.

It’s only me, him, and four other people left. We’re the finalists. When Brice was training me, he said that only the six finalists (out of hundreds of contestants) do the extra-high jump. I’ve practiced it, but I never thought I’d actually get to do it for real, so I didn’t work very hard. The boy with skinny ankles name is called, and he slowly, shakily climbs the ladder. He pauses for a moment at the board, bounces a few times, then jumps off. He slices into the water almost seamlessly. The audience roars. The boy climbs out of the water, grinning, and his coach hands him a towel and pats him on the back.

“Marcus, Kyla,” chants the voice on the loudspeaker.

Brice squeezes my shoulder and whispers a pearly, “stay focused, Kylie, you’ll do great!” then gives me a light shove towards the ladder.

I climb the white plastic rungs numbly, and realize when I get to the top that I’m panting. The air is heavy with chlorine, and it hurts my throat. I take a big breath and walk over to the board. The plastic is rough under my feet, almost like the splintery dock back at the beach. I close my eyes and let out the breath. Opening my eyes, I look down at the water; it gleams with little shards of glass. “Counterfeit diamonds,” my Poppy would say. The glass looks sharp. I wish that there were topazes and emeralds here – even fiery topazes and hungry emeralds.

Lots of little hands squeeze the inside of my tummy, little fingers poking at my throat and belly. I’ve learned that the water makes the bottom of the pool look closer than it is, but I still can’t get rid of the fear of hitting my head on the concrete. I sigh… everyone’s waiting.

I jump.

At first, it seems like it will be a perfectly good dive, but moments before I hit the water, I can already hear the huge splash my belly flop is gonna make. The cold glass cuts into my chest and legs, then I plunge underwater. The silence is different here, because of the motors that are always on. I know not to open my eyes – that the chemicals will make my eyes red and stinging. I don’t want to come above water. I want to wait down here forever. But my hungry lungs make me pop up and I glide over to the edge of the pool. The crowd is clapping halfheartedly, but I think I can hear my Poppy’s high, trilling whistle.

Brice helps me out and gives me a towel. He says everything’s gonna be alright.

**

On the car ride home, my Poppy tells me nice things – like that it’s not important to win, and that I should be happy to have been a finalist. I nod, and say a quiet “yeah” every time his words stop for a moment. He reaches into the back seat and taps my knee with his big hand. I’m still in my wet bathing suit, and wrapped in a towel so I don’t get the car wet.

He says that he needs to get something from his shop, and it will take him a few minutes. He pulls over and pops out. I quickly pop open my own door, and hurry across the road. In the middle, I remember that I forgot to look both ways. I step onto the long yellow lines and look right, then left, then run across. My bare feet slap loudly on the hot pavement.

But now my feet are on sand – and now splintery wood. I run out to the edge of the dock and sit down.

I look out across the water. The diamonds twinkle like before. The half-sun that I can see is shiny gold. The emeralds seem harmless, and the topazes aren't burning anymore. They all look perfectly good now, but I know that they’re dangerous.

I slip carefully into the water, the wooden dock scraping the back of my thighs. The silence is just as loud as before. The throne is just as cushioned as before. I can feel my hair swirling around my head, and the emeralds massaging my feet. For a few moments, I don’t open my eyes – just listen to the silence. Then, finally, my eyes blink open. There’s a topaz right in front of me! Its big black eyes are staring right at mine. I almost gasp, but remember I’m underwater. I reach out and touch it – it’s kind of slimy and cold. It doesn’t feel like the topazes in my Poppy’s shop, but it isn’t like a flame, either. It’s just a fish. Frightened, it turns and flies away into the murk.

_________

This is for Esmé's contest.

Oh, and if any of you have good ideas for a new title, I'm open to suggestions and willing to change.