Page 16 (2/2)

They hit hi to hurt hi him under once more This time he touched down on the bottoasp for air He clutched at the float, but one of the boys yanked it away, giggling loudly

Duck was filled with sudden rage He had one good thing in his life, this pool, one good thing, and noas being ruined

“Get out!” he shrieked, but the last word glub-glub-glubbed as he sank like a rock

What was going on? Suddenly he couldn’t swim He was on the bottom of the pool, in the deep end, under ten feet of water He kicked at the tile botto to shoot back up, but his foot shattered the tile and sent pieces of it spinning through the water

Now panic took hold What were they doing to him?

He kicked again, both feet as hard as he could But he did not rise to the surface Instead, both feet punched through the tile He rose not at all In fact, he was still sinking His feet were sinking through the tile, scraping through jagged mortar and crumbled concrete, down into mud beneath

It was impossible

Impossible

Duck Zhang was falling through the bottoround beneath the botto in quicksand

Up to his knees

Up to his thighs

Up to his waist

He thrashed madly but he only fell faster

Broken tile scraped his flanks Mud slithered into his bathing suit

His lungs burned His vision was blurring now, head pounding, and still he fell through solid earth, as if the ground itself were nothing but water