Cathie ignored the matching sarong, finding the one made of far less exotic and expensive fabric, and a straw hat, both her own choice. Silently she made her way down stairs. The plush carpet felt glorious under her tired feet. The staircase was negotiated slowly as she had felt dizzy when she had dashed down them before, a legacy she supposed of the almost gone bump on her head.
Entering the family room the tiles felt blessedly cool on her tired, hot feet. She could see Chloe waiting impatiently on the pools edge and, thankfully, couldn't see her father.
'bout time.' Chloe complained seconds before her feet hit the water.
Swimming underwater the little mermaid reached the other side put out by the fact that after a graceful dive Cathie had beaten her to it.
'Can you dive? I can't, I only belly flops and it hurts.'
'Yes, it's easy. Want me to teach you?'
'Could you?' Cathie knew she meant "would she?", but maybe asking whether she could was more appropriate. She didn't know if she could. She didn't know anything about what she could or couldn't do.
'Are you having swimming lessons this summer?'
'Uh, uh.' Shaking her head the little girl proudly announced. 'I can swim. Watch me.' Chloe then proceeded to do a combination of dog paddle and duck dives to the other side.
'See?'
'Can you swim over arm and with your face in the water? Look, like this?' With perfect technique the older mermaid swam two lengths and, despite being hampered by the t-shirt, performed a perfect tumble turn at either end, finishing up on the beach, shaking, the exertion a trifle too much for one so soon out of hospital.
'Can you try that?'
A cross between a paddle steamer and a downed helicopter then made its way across to Cathie, also arriving exhausted. Cathie tried not to giggle too loud. If there was a name for the stroke she didn't know it. It definitely fell under the banner of freestyle.
'We can work with that but how about I teach you to dive first?'
Breathless the youngster could only gulp and nod.
It took just 5 minutes to turn are near disastrous belly flop into a passable dive. Lead up techniques that involved breaking the skill down into component parts made the task easy. The progression was so smooth that Chloe never even looked like going splat.
Darlene watching from the kitchen reminded herself to add that little piece to Ethan's puzzle.
Cathie and Chloe spent the next half an hour cavorting in the warm water, playing tag, water polo, 'Marco Polo' and even trying freestyle again.