“Nix, not if he’s gone. I’m going to have a real swim.”
Thatcher looked at him in silence for a moment. He recalled the rules of the school regarding the swimming pool. No student was permitted under any circumstances to be alone in the pool. There must be some other person in the pool at the time. This provision had been made after the body of one boy had been found in the pool. He had gone in swimming alone and something had happened, and because no one had visited the tank the rest of that day or that night, his body was not found until the following morning. After that a strict rule had been instituted that no boy should enter the tank alone.
By staying there Pell was breaking this rule. Jeff wondered whether it was his duty to stay in the tank room until Pell had finished.
“It is not,” he finally told himself. “If he wants to break the rule let him. It’s his business. If he’s caught he can take his medicine.” And he turned back into the locker room.
He started to dress, slipping into his underclothes. Then by some strange freak he decided to brush his hair before dressing further. On his way to the big mirror at the end of the room he had to pass the tank room door, and out of idle curiosity he pushed it open and glanced inside. Pell was not to be seen.
Jeff stood there a moment puzzled. There was no disturbance on the surface of the water. Had Pell left the pool and come in to the locker room to dress? Jeff did not recall seeing him enter but perhaps he had come in while he had his back to the door. Perhaps—
Jeff gasped. As he stood there in the doorway he saw a hand break the surface of the pool. There was something horrible, something ghastly about that hand. It came up with clutching fingers. It seemed to be reaching vainly for something. The fingers worked convulsively, closed upon thin air, then disappeared beneath the surface again.
“Great goodness, it’s Pell! Something has happened to him. He is drowning!” exclaimed Thatcher.
Frightened almost to panic for a moment, Jeff rushed through the door and across the tiled floor of the tank room to the edge of the pool. From the marble slabs that lined sides and top of the pool he could see in the green-blue depths little Pell’s naked body twisting and turning convulsively under the surface. He could see his arms outflung and his clawing, grasping hands clutching and slipping at the smooth tile at the bottom of the pool. He could see his horribly distorted face upturned; his bulging eyes stared straight toward Jeff.
All signs of panic left Thatcher then. He realized that Pell’s condition was very serious. And somehow the fact that he alone was there to help the drowning Sophomore seemed suddenly to give him the courage and cool-headedness that was necessary in the emergency.