39 pages • 1 hour read
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Team practice begins early in the morning, and the coach reveals that Etta has joined as a coach. They’ll practice both before and after school. They work on endurance, speed, and strength.
The next swim meet happens at Alligator Way Middle School. The team shows that the training is paying off. On the bus ride back, Etta tells the other coach that they have to work on a medley. When they stop at a diner for ice cream, Etta opts to stay on the bus, looking out the window sadly.
At school the next day, as a storm rages, Clara asks Bree to help with her math homework. They also see Keisha, the swimmer who was kicked off Holyoke’s team, pull up with her butler. The coach announces later that Keisha is joining the swim team, and she claims that Keisha will help the team win. The other girls wonder if she came spy on the team. Phillipa also worries that Keisha will take her spot in the relay.
At the third swim meet, Phillipa finds out that she’s sitting out the races. The coach has forgotten that other schools have diving blocks at their pools because they’ve never made it this far before. None of the girls, except for Keisha, know how to use them. Clara, Keisha, and Bree still manage to place. Bree’s dad still does not come to the meet.
A diving block is donated anonymously to Enith Brigitha, and the swim team starts practicing with it. Bree spends hours trying to perfect diving. Keisha comments pessimistically about their odds at winning the relay. Phillipa and Keisha then start to argue until Etta intervenes. She emphasizes that a team needs to work together.
Afterward, Bree, Clara, Phillipa, and Keisha ponder how to improve, deciding to think about each team’s strategy. They decide to infiltrate Holyoke Prep and ask Humberto to let them borrow the private school uniform costumes from a past play. He refuses at first, but the team uses flattery to convince him. He also decides to come along. Keisha begrudgingly decides to come and brings donuts, though she doesn’t say why. She is appalled when she realizes that they’re taking the bus.
When they arrive, Keisha gives the donuts to the security guard to distract him. They arrive, and it’s apparent that their uniforms don’t match. They find the pool and are overwhelmed by how nice it is. Bree feels intimidated.
Tinsley appears and starts to tease them, and Bree stands up for her friends. The swim coach appears and suggests that they leave. She then notices Clara and mentions how Clara’s mother put in so much effort to get Clara to come to Holyoke Prep the next year. She warns her not to mess it up by hanging out with the others.
On the bus home, the team gets into a fight. Keisha calls Clara a spy, Phillipa wants everyone to stop calling her “the Anchor” because she isn’t good at floating, and Clara wants Phillipa to take swimming more seriously. Bree tells them to stop.
At regionals the next day, the team is on edge. Bree’s dad doesn’t come. Before the meet, Etta gives Bree a picture of her middle school swim team and reminds her that friends and community matter more than winning. She mentions that coaching the team helped her remember that.
During her first race, Bree wins first place. She is determined to win but isn’t happy. The medley race is close, but the Enith Brigitha team wins, sending them to the state championship. However, Bree quits, returning the friendship bracelet Clara made her.
At home, she throws her swimming trophy, and her dad rushes in. She tells him it feels like he’d rather go to work than spend time with her. He reminds her that working two jobs has been difficult, but he wants to give her a better life. Still sad, Bree says he doesn’t like that she’s on the swim team and that she’s upset that Clara is leaving. She tells him she quit.
The story builds to a climax as Bree and her swim team slowly get more and more competitive with the other teams. Keisha’s arrival on the team creates tension since she is coming from Holyoke Prep, but, ultimately, Keisha will come to appreciate being on the Enith Brigitha team. In this section, readers also see Etta avoid getting off the bus to go into the diner, though, at this point, it is not clear why she avoids the establishment or Mari, who works there. Instead, the illustration shows her looking sadly out the window. This moment visually indicates that there is some tension between Etta and someone at the diner, but this won’t be resolved until the final section of the novel.
When Etta joins the team as a coach, the theme of Friendship as More Important Than Competition begins to take on a new meaning. With Keisha’s comments about the other girls and their reactions to them, Etta tells them they need to “start supporting each other or [they’ve] got zero chance of winning” (166). They have a tough time putting aside their egos and trusting one another. This trust is further violated when they sneak into Holyoke Prep to get a sense of the other team’s strategy and learn that Clara is transferring there next year. Violating this trust is especially difficult for Bree because she had worried for so long about making and keeping friends. She reacts strongly and ultimately quits the team, and her decision to return her friendship bracelet to Clara symbolizes the break between them.
The theme of Breaking Down Problems Into Manageable Steps advances in two instances. First, Etta says that “[they’ll] start with the basics and add to it little by little” in order to build the team’s strength and endurance (146). In doing so, the team members grow as swimmers. Second, Bree attempts to break down the strategy of other teams into pieces so that her team can replicate their formula for success. She sees it as “like any math problem” (167), and while their trip to Holyoke Prep is unsuccessful, her approach provides valuable insight into how swimming has reinforced for Bree that breaking down problems is a good way to address them.
Finally, The Lasting Effects of Segregation and Discrimination is shown to still be relevant when the swim coach at Holyoke Prep tells Clara to not ruin her acceptance at Holyoke “by pulling these stunts with this…‘crowd.’ [Holyoke Prep is] taking a chance on [her]” (180). By “crowd,” the coach is referring to the fact that Clara, Phillipa, Keisha, and Bree are all Black and that Clara should therefore feel lucky to join the team of white students at Holyoke Prep. Clara, in the eyes of the coach, is being saved from bad influences by attending Holyoke Prep, showing that racial bias and stereotypes still exist.
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