32It was to be Tami's first time in. but she had been kept out by
nothing more than parental restrictions so going in was merely one more
assertion of her new grown-up status. As for me. I was rushing towards
the object of my defeat with 26 years of accumulated fear clinging to
me.
"Ready?" queried Tom. "No", 1 wanted to shout, but 1 swallowed
the "No", fitted my mask as tight as I could. gulped in a massive lot
of air and did what 1 imagined was a surface dive. I'm sure it wasn't,
but Tom had one firm hand on my middle pushing me down and the other
hand I clung to with a vice-like grip. 1 wanted to breathe. Coral and
sea were a bluey white blur beyond my maskand I just wanted to breathe!
1 looked at Tom, arrow straight, swimming beside me. 1 had to breathe!
The sea rushed in on me and choking through all my body, I resolutely
shut my mouth and my eyes and moved through oblivion. Suddenly I felt
Tom shoving me upward. My head came up above the surface and once more
there was air to breathe. 1 gulped it greedily.
"You all right?" Tom shouted and I realized I had never let go of
his hand. "Yes, fine. Fine!" My ears were popping and my chest felt
as if someone had broken it in two, but I felt reassured by the si.ght
of Tami who came swimming up behind me in her leisurely amphibious way.
I crawled onto a coral rock and sat on it while Tami and Tom
bobbed in the water in front of me shouting congratulations. Only then
did 1 feel secure enough to look about, but I had waited too long. A
thick green fog filled the air plunging everything into ohscurity.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone and 1 was in a magic
place, a large dome-like chamber, whose walls and ceiling seemed to
have been sculpted of some rosy. lucent rock.