Splash! We hit the murky water of the moat.
Upside down, and swamping fast. Oh, no! Amanda was head down!
I rolled to the side. “Don’t drown, Amanda.” Scrambling, I tipped the sphere, but it kept rolling back to its worst possible position, with Amanda’s head down in the water and her wacky silver dress flowing down and showing me her pink bikini briefs.
Okay, so it wasn’t the worst possible position.
“Amanda!” I pulled at her. “Roll this direction. Flip over. Come on.” With one massive tug, I righted her, and she landed on my lap. “Can you breathe?”
She spluttered, the spray hitting me square in the face. “I popped it. It’s damaged.”
“But are you all right?”
She nodded, her face a sheepish apology. “Can we still win?”
Seriously? She could focus on the contest in her current state? Go, Amanda Starkey. That was a move worthy of a downed-on-the-ice Reedsville Rhino.
Around us, other couples floated or spun helplessly on the moat. “None have reached shore yet.”
“Then we’ll show them.” She twisted around, extracting herself from my lap, and stretched an arm out one of the gaps. “You count, and I’ll row from my side and you row on yours. Team Amandavin cannot lose.”
“Amandavin! What about Calanda? With my name first.” We paddled to the rhythm I called, making surprisingly good progress. “Or, better yet, Turnerstark?”
“Turnerstark? Sounds like a former-Soviet republic. What about Vinnerdakey, with both our names’ last syllables?”
“Now we sound like … a chipmunk.”
“Calvin!” she shouted in that gurgly voice from the cartoon. “Just row the boat ashore, hallelujah!”
We pressed and pressed, until a gust of wind swept us backward.
Parley and Ellen approached the island.
“They’re winning,” I said, rowing even harder. Parley the newly minted weirdo could not beat us. He’d tell me his groaner jokes gave him superpowers. “Come on.”
“Calvin.” Eyes wide, Amanda twisted around to look at me. “Is it only me, or can you touch bottom?”
I stretched my legs down through the holes beside where her crown had flattened the sector. Oh, yeah. “Run!”
We Fred-Flintstoned it across the pond, tripling our speed and reaching the shore and tumbling out of the sphere, a photo-finish of the bride and groom.
“We win!” I hauled Amanda’s arm into the air in triumph. Then I did my signature victory dance—the one Parley hated most—right up in his space. “Take that, pal.”
“We need an impartial judge to make this call.” Parley pulled Ellen to his side. “And why are you celebrating here next to me when you should be dancing with your sopping wet lady love over there?”
Lady love? Oh, right. “Hey, Amanda.” I winced. She was a mess. Gorgeous, but messy.
Ellen hurried to Amanda’s side, motioning for the inflate-a-ball staff to bring some help.
I hung back. Ellen had it handled. I elbowed Parley. “My Serious Girlfriend is a good competitor, right? We’re a match.”
“I smell a fake.” Parley folded his arms and eyed me like he knew everything. “That woman is totally not your type.”
“What do you mean? Look at her. She’s gorgeous. And I always say—”
“Yeah, yeah, that your favorite color is blonde.” Parley had heard my junior high joke too many times. Fine, he wasn’t the only source of inane jokes. “But she’s … different.”
Crazy, perhaps? “The elf costume is just a phase, I’m sure. She does look good in it.” My excuses sounded lame.