Gracie Under The Waves – Linda Sue Park (1)

Ian asked. “All of us except Ben,” Mom replied. Ian explained the choices to Ben: sit on the edge of the boat facing away from the water and flip over backward, or face forward and jump in feet first. “Scuba divers use the back-roll entry,” Ian said. “Jess, why don’t you show them?” Jessica flipped into the water, went under, and surfaced again. She made it seem easy.

“That looks like fun—I’m going in backward!” Ben shouted. Alina turned to Gracie. “I usually jump in,” she said, “but when I learn to scuba, I’m going to go in backward.” Gracie was relieved. When she had snorkeled off a boat before, she had gone in feet first; she was hoping that it wouldn’t make her look like she was afraid.

Well, okay, I am a little afraid. What if I hit my head on the side of the boat? “Ben, you’re with me,” Dad said. “Go ahead and get in the water, but then you wait for me, so we can leash up.” Gracie watched as Ben flipped backward into the water. She saw that his head didn’t come anywhere near the boat. He bobbed back up to the surface. “That was easy!” he shouted. “Gracie, you gotta try it!” Dad flipped in next. When he surfaced, he swam two strokes to draw alongside Ben, and strapped the leash around his wrist.

“You’re with me, girls,” Mom said. She, too, went in backward. Alina hoisted herself onto the side of the boat. “Want to go in together?” she asked. “Sure!” Gracie said. It was the perfect excuse for not going in backward. She clambered up next to Alina. If it were Virgie, they would have held hands, but Gracie felt too shy around Alina to do that. “Ready? I’ll count to three,” Alina said.

“Uno—dos—tres—VAMOS!” Gracie took a deep breath, then pushed herself off the side of the boat and splashed into the water. She went under, surrounded by the bubbles of her splash.

To the young people everywhere who are working to save our planet: May the future be in your hands. OceanofPDF.com Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Author’s Note Acknowledgments About the Author Books by Linda Sue Park Copyright About the Publisher OceanofPDF.com Chapter One “Gracie, what are you doing?”

“Researching snorkeling stuff.” “Snorkeling? Why? Can I help?” Gracie sighed. “No, because you’d need a tablet. Besides, you can’t type yet.” Ben flapped his hands. “I can too. I can type my name.” “You need to type way more than that. And you still don’t have a tablet.” “But I want to help! I want to help you, Gracie!”

Ben was right next to her, his voice loud and his breath hot in her ear. She shifted her chair to pull away a little. It would be completely unfair to say that Ben always ruined Gracie’s plans. It would, however, be both fair and realistic to say that Ben always had the potential to ruin her plans. Ben was four and a half years younger than her. “I’m six, but I’m closer to seven than six,” he liked to say. “Way, WAY closer.” His speech mode was set to LOUD and REPEAT; he was enthusiastic and energetic and never wanted to be left out of anything.

He was there every time she turned around. It seemed to Gracie that, except for at school, she lived her whole life with Ben in her space. “It’s because he worships you, honey,” Mom would say. “Being close to you is his happy place.” “That’s a real compliment,” Dad would add. Gracie would have gladly traded being worshipped for being left alone. Like at that very moment, for instance. She knew what was coming next. He would keep repeating himself, asking about snorkeling, asking to help, getting louder and louder, until Mom or Dad heard him and came in wondering what all the ruckus was about.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 9571d735c32b1d46
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,432,121 bytes (3.273 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780063346314, 9780063346291
• Pages: 137
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 167.34 minutes
• Total Words: 33,467
• Total Characters: 184,543
• Average Words per Page: 244.28
• Average Characters per Page: 1347.03

Most Frequent Words

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