Risky Business (6 page)

“Cannonbaaaall!”
SPLASH!

“Oh no! It’s one of those kinds of parties, huh?” Jess laughed as they climbed out of the car with their beach towels and bags.

“I guess so. But that’s okay. It’ll be worth it when you taste Pastor Mike’s burgers,” Molly promised and pushed the car door closed. “He does something amazing with them. He adds oatmeal and eggs, I think. Oh, and lots of garlic salt. I’m already starving, just thinking about them!”

“I’m just thirsty right now. Do you think they have diet soda?” Sara wondered.

Thwack! SPLASH!

“What on earth are they doing back there?” Molly laughed as they went through the gate into the backyard. One of the church members had offered the youth group the use of their heated pool one last time before the Wisconsin autumn set in. “I sure hope the owners are out of town.” They went around the corner through the walkway of shrubs and turned to look at the pool.

Thwack! SPLASH!

Molly’s head snapped back as a wall of water slammed into her. All the boys, the dry girls on the other side of the pool, and Jess and Sara just laughed. Molly gritted her teeth and felt like she could hit someone.

“This is a new outfit, and I fixed my hair. I wasn’t even planning to get it wet, but now everything’s drenched.” Why was she whining? She begged herself to stop but just couldn’t.

“Oh, it’ll be okay. You look just fine,” Jess said, wringing out her towel.

“It is a pool party after all, Molls—everyone’s wet. Come on, smile.” Sara grinned. She lowered her voice to a whisper, still smiling. “You don’t want people to think you’re a poor sport.”

Molly took a deep breath and blew the air slowly from her lungs. “You’re right. I’ll lighten up.” She stripped off her soaked cover-up, revealing her new one-piece suit, and then gestured to Jess and Sara. “Hey, cute suits, you guys.”

“Thanks. Mine’s new. I can’t ever wear a one-piece.” Jess tugged on the waistband of the bottoms of her red-and-white-striped two-piece. “They don’t make them long enough.”

Sara wore a purple tankini with swim shorts.

“You know why I wear these.” She patted her hips.

Molly and Jess looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Changing the subject, Molly said, “Okay. Come on, girls. Since we’re already wet, let’s show these boys what a real cannonball is.” She winked and tied her hair back in a ponytail.

“You don’t mean …?” Jess looked horrified.

“Oh, yes I do. Come on!”

Making eye contact with no one, the three girls walked expressionless to the diving board. All eyes were on them—something was up. They looked at each other—still no expression—and stepped up onto the board. Sara went first. She took off in a run and jumped as hard as she could.

Thwack!
Immediately she tucked into a cannonball pose and landed with all her might on the surface of the water.
Splash!

The instant Sara’s feet lifted from the board, Jess had taken off running across it. She took advantage of the spring in the board from the momentum of Sara’s jump. It flung her even higher and harder than Sara, and she caused an even bigger splash.

Thwack! SPLASH!

Molly did the exact same thing immediatelyfollowing Jess’s jump.

THWACK! SPLASH!!!

When all three of them surfaced, the whole group erupted into cheers. “You win, you win! We give—truce?” A drenched Pastor Mike shouted from his perch on a deck chair.

When the roar settled into a soft buzz, he called out, “I think it’s time for some burgers. What do you think?”

Thirty minutes later they were all seated around the pool deck. Some were on deck chairs, some sat right on the concrete. A few of them were a little ways off in the grass. Everyone had a plate with a thick burger and a big helping of Mrs. Beck’s mustard potato salad.

With the students’ mouths too full of food to talk, Pastor Mike took the opportunity. “Hey, gang, did you see what happened when Sara, Jess, and Molly jumped into the pool like they did?”

“You call that jumping?” one of the boys called out from the back. Everyone laughed.

“Good point. But whatever you want to call it, did you see what happened when they did it? First Sara went. Her cannonball caused a pretty reasonable splash, but when Jess followedright in her footsteps, the splash, the water displacement, and the level of bystander soakage was much, much higher.”

“Tell me about it!” Brad Beck rolled his eyes and laughed.

“Molly went next. The momentum of her jump was fueled by the two who went before her. She couldn’t have pulled back the power of that jump even if she wanted to. If she had decided at the last moment that she didn’t want to do it, she wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it. She was committed to her choice whether she liked it or not.”

Molly glanced around her. All eyes were on Pastor Mike.

“A lot of life is very much like that. When one person leads the way and others follow directly in the path of those footsteps, misdeeds or wrongdoings become easier and easier while the effects of them grow deeper and much further reaching, causing much more damage every step of the way. By the time it was Molly’s turn to jump, she got the credit—or, depending on how you look at it, the blame—for the biggest splash.”

“We’ll go with blame.” Brad jumped in again.

“I just want to challenge you all not to let yourselves get pulled along in the wake of other kids’ splashes this school year. Be aware of the momentum of other people’s actions so that you don’t just get pulled along in their wake to go further and faster than you’d intended.”

Molly looked around the group—some of them were still paying attention to their pastor; others had become completely disinterested, like Jess. She turned off her attention when anything reminded her of church.
I’ve got to pray for her. Sara, too, of course, but Jess most of all
.

Molly snapped her attention back to the pastor. “… have any prayer requests or concerns? If not, we’ll close in prayer, and you can get back to your swimming.”

“I have something to say, Pastor Mike, if that’s okay.” Brad stood up.

“Sure, Brad.” Pastor Mike seemed eager—probably glad to have someone participate in the discussion.

“I just want to offer a cannonball truce and name the girls the winners.”

Pastor Mike rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air, laughing.

Brad picked up his white towel and waved it in the air. “I think we ought to give it a rest, or there won’t be any water left in the pool. What do you say, Moll?” Everyone laughed and waited for Molly’s response.

Molly stood and took a bow. “We accept the truce and the victory.”

Molly felt someone behind her as she put her books in her locker the first thing Monday morning. Her books slipped from the stack at the bottom of her locker to the tile floor. She struggled to set order to her things before they were spread across the hallway. Finally she could turn around. Expecting to see Sara and Jess, Molly jumped when she saw Kim—the popular junior who had been in the store on Saturday—and her three friends, Pam, Marcy, and Jade. Surprised, Molly waited for someone to speak.

Kim put her arm across Molly’s shoulders. “So, Molly, how are you today?”

“I’m great, Kim. What’s up? I only have a minute or two before class.”
Since when do they

like me? I’d better watch out for these girls—they’re up to no good
.

“Sure—us, too. We just wanted to talk to you about something.” She looked down at the pointy red toe of her shoe—the same red shoes Molly had used to outfit her mannequin on her first day of training.

Molly’s radar turned to high alert. Something just didn’t seem right. “Okay …? What’s up?”

“Well, you have the coolest job at the best store. And I was thinking—well, I should say, we were thinking—that you might like to share your discount with us now and then. You see,
we
both have something that the other wants, and we can help each other get it.”

Ah. So that’s it
. “Um … what exactly do you have that I want?”
The nerve
.

Kim steered Molly down the hall with her arm still draped over her shoulder. “Well, let’s face it. In this school, I have—
we
have—the power to make or break someone’s reputation. With us on your side, you could be one of the most popular girls. But with us against you, high school as you know it would be over.”

Molly stared at Kim with her mouth open. What nerve to come right out and say that! They never had anything to do with her before this.
Ugh
. If she didn’t do it, things could get really bad, but if she did, she’d be one of the popular girls. But at what price?

“I don’t know, Kim. I mean, I could get into lots of trouble for that. I could lose my job.”

“Oh Molly, you’ll never get caught. We’ll just try it once or twice. Okay?”

“You’re going to have to let me think about it.” Molly looked both ways down the hallway. “I’ve got to go now. Talk to you later.”

Later that afternoon, at the lunch table with Sara and Jess, Molly just picked at her food. “What’s wrong, Molly?” Sara furrowed her eyebrows.

“Hmm?” She looked up, elbow on the table, her head in her hands. “Oh, nothing,” she replied and then shook her head. “That’s not really true. Something is wrong. People are trying to get me to use my discount on clothes for them.”

“Who?” Jess demanded. She sat up straighter and looked around.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. The point is that I don’t want to be in that position, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

At that moment, Kim and company walked by, squeezing between students seated on the lunch table benches. As she sidled by Molly, Kim reached down and squeezed Molly’s shoulder and gave her a quick wink.

“Never mind. I know who it is.” Jess rolled her eyes in disgust. “It figures.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Sara asked. “I mean, can you even do that?”

“It’s really against the rules. I could lose my job. Not to mention, it’s dishonest.” Molly took a small bite.

“But I thought we were going to …” Jess looked confused.

“I know, Jess.” Molly waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I figured out a way to share with you guys that wouldn’t actually be wrong.”

Sara’s eyes lit up, and she sat forward. “Really? How?”

Molly pulled apart her sandwich and scowled at it. She dropped it back onto her lunch tray. “The discount is given as a perk for employees but also to make sure that we can wear the clothes for work. So, I figure that as long as you guys use the discount on stuff I can also borrow and wear to work once in a while, it would be okay.”

“Great idea. It’s a win-win.” Jess looked impressed.

“It’s better than nothing. But that means no jeans for me.” Sara put her uneaten cookie back in her bag.

“Maybe I could buy you a pair of jeans as a birthday gift or something, Sara. We’re allowed to do that.” Molly laughed. “It’ll be okay. You can eat your cookie.” She winked at Jess and then looked back at Sara. “Skipping one cookie isn’t going to change your whole body type anyway.”

“And Sara, for the last time … You’re. Not. Fat.” Jess softly pounded her fists on the table with each syllable.

“Oh, I know. I know. I’m just shaped differently.” Sara rolled her eyes.

“What I wouldn’t give for your waist—instead of looking like a little boy.” Molly sighed and drank the last of her juice.

“So, back to the situation with Kim. What are you going to do?” Jess wadded up her trash and lobbed it into a nearby trash can.

“Well, I’m not going to share my discount.” Molly looked up at the ceiling. “I wish there was a middle ground. A way to keep them happy but not break any rules.” There had to be a way.

“I’ve got it!”

Sara jumped, startled at Molly’s outburst.

“Got what?”

“I know just what to do to keep everyone happy but not get into any trouble.” Molly waited for Sara and Jess to become interested.

“Well? Let’s have it,” Jess demanded.

“We have these things called Bounty Bucks. During the next ten days we’re giving a ten-dollar Bounty Buck to customers for every fifty dollars they spend.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve used those,” Sara chimed in. “My sister and I saved them up. You get them at one visit, and then you go back at a later time to use them as free money.”

“Exactly. Like a coupon,” Molly explained. “What if I give Jess and her friends a bunch of those to use? It wouldn’t be sharing my discount, and they’re only coupons. It’s not like it’s free merchandise. I wonder if that would make them happy.”

“Can you do that?” Jess sounded excited.

“I don’t see why not. I’ll just have to grab a handful of ‘bucks.’ They’re out at the cash register for us to give out to customers.”

“Perfect!” Jess and Sara agreed.

They all stepped over the bench to leave the lunchroom.

“So, when can we go shopping?” Jess asked.

“We’ll have to do it like we’re just out shopping—you know, trying on clothes but not buying. Then I’ll have to go back and use my discount to buy the clothes you picked out. And remember, they have to be things I can wear, and I’ll have to wear them to work at least once. Okay?”

“Okay. Sounds good.” Sara nodded.

“So, when?” Jess asked again.

“Well, I work tonight and tomorrow. Youth group is on Wednesday, so how about Thursday after school?”

“Great. We can hang out at the mall for a while. I’ve been saving my allowance, and my grandma already sent my birthday money.” Sara stopped at the door to her classroom, waved, and went in.

“Sounds great.” Jess went into the room across the hall.

Molly continued down the hall alone toward her biology class.

Waiting just to the right of the door to Molly’s class, leaning back with one foot up against the wall, stood Kim. She looked Molly up and down, lingering over Molly’s new Magna outfit—jeans, high heels, and a khaki jacket. “Well, what’s the verdict? You’ve had time tothink about it. What’s it going to be?”

“Kim, I feel like you’re pushing me. Would you risk your job if you were me?”