Seven Days a Skeptic

[Cactus]

Of all the things to be doing in a school - I bet the principal would have an absolute COW if she could see me now!

As far as regulation Olympic-sized swimming pools went, Bayview Secondary school had one of the finest in the state, complete with large changerooms, a full-scale diving platform, and audience seating for those that wanted to watch any of the various events going on during the course of the year. Naturally, with such a modern and expensive facility, there was ordinarily a staff (comprised mainly of student volunteers) on duty, but at present, the facility was totally empty.

Empty, that is, except for the girl doing a handstand on the very top of the diving platform.

She hadn't broken in, per se. She preferred to look at it as though a door had been convieniently left open, and she'd wandered inside for a swim. It was all innocent, and there really wasn't any malice about the whole thing. Of course, the real story probably wouldn't go over as well with the school administration. Thanks to a little well-placed tape and some foreknowledge of whom the less responsible pool staff were made the story sound a whole lot less like an accident, and a whole lot more like a deliberate attempt to avoid supervision.

Which brought her up to the top of the diving platform, currently in the kind of situation that would sink horror into the hearts of many an average student. Doing a handstand ten meters above the surface of the ground was the kind of thing that most people didn't do. At the thought, the girl smiled to herself, while still balancing perfectly still on the platform.

Jamie Li wasn't "most people".

The stunt was something that she'd been debating on doing for quite some time, and once she'd put her mind towards doing it, well...it had been an absolute project for her to try and figure out exactly how. Nobody but the school's diving team was allowed to use the six and ten meter heights of the diving platform, which made the idea a bit more...risky than she had originally thought. In fact, the hard part hadn't been figuring out exactly how to pull it off without getting hurt - that had in fact been simple. Getting in and getting access? Well, that was something else, entirely.

But here she was, standing on her hands, ten meters above the water, about to accomplish the goal she'd set out to do a couple of weeks before. It made her giddy, actually, and she was more than a little excited. Of all the ridiculous stunts that she'd pulled, this one probably took the cake and a half. That was cool, though.

Little risk, little reward! If you can get it easy, then it probably isn't worth doing...and this is gonna be fuuuun!

Finally, the moment of truth had arrived. Rotating herself so that she could get a glance of where the digital camera and tripod that she'd set up were (knocking it over would defeat half the purpose of doing this crazy stunt), she walked on her hands over to the back portion of the platform. A "running" start would be in order to get full effect and to maximize distance, but misjudging the length of the platform would probably lead to her falling awkwardly and possibly causing serious injury to herself.

Luckily for me, the only things screaming warnings at me about hurting myself are the signs plastered on the walls, and they're really just BEGGING you to do it anyway!

"Running" forward on her hands, Jamie moved towards the edge of the platform, and just as she reached the end, pushed off the edge and out towards the water below. The free-fall was an incredible feeling, and as she felt her body right itself, she got a view of the entire pool as she seemingly hung in the air. The moment felt like it lasted for hours, the excitement and the enthusiasm pasting a smile upon her face that she was sure wouldn't come off for hours.

Feeling herself start to get a bit too close to the water for comfort, Jamie turned her body around so that she could dive in, which would hopefully cause the least amount of pain to her relatively untrained body. The last swimming lessons she had taken had come when she was all of eight years old, so diving into a pool wasn't a skill that she had ever truly mastered. It came as very little surprise then, as she hit the pool with a less graceful dive than probably all of the swim team could have managed, knocking the wind out of her as she plummeted into the pool. Her awkward form landing in the pool ensured that the following day, she'd have a whole whack of bruises from which to remember the stunt.

As she surfaced from the pool, gasping a bit for air, Jamie blinked her eyes a few times and looked around to where she'd come up. Much to her surprise, she'd gotten some serious air on her attempt, and had gone just over a quarter of the way across the pool. Grinning to herself, she raised her arms in the air and cheered out loud.

"Wooooo-hooooo! That was freaking AWESOME!"

Her arms groaned at her, as the brusing had probably already started, but she really couldn't have cared less.

Whatever. That was totally worth any brusies that I got from it. I can't believe I got so far! Oooh, I wonder how well the camera captured the moment!

Making a mental note to remember to go grab the camera, Jamie didn't make a move to get out of the pool. Instead, she continued treading water around the mid-point and just relaxed for a bit. The dive HAD taken a bit out of her, after all. She sure as hell wasn't any kind of a diver. A gymnast, yes. Maybe a little similar, but still different enough to warrant a good few minutes to recouperate the energy that she'd spent on her ridiculous dive.

Wiping away some of the wet hair that was sticking to her face, Jamie sighed a little. If there was ever a time to relax, this might have been one of the better ones. Nobody was around to ask stupid questions, no teachers were around to yammer about rules and regulations, and best of all, nobody even knew that she was here. Until the pool staff got back from lunch (which to the best of her knowledge, had just started), this place would be totally empty.

Save her, of course.