Rumble and the Lost Castles of the Sea

"I'm not afraid of the ocean, mom," I said. "You know that." I was small for my age, and short, but I was strong. I'd gone to the gym every day since I was four years old.

"I know, Rumble. But... you're only six. You've never even been in a car before."

My mother had always worried about me, ever since her sister drowned when she was a teenager. My Auntie Alice was my father's older sister, and they were very close growing up. She died when she was seventeen, snorkeling off the coast of Hawaii with her boyfriend at the time. She got caught up in a current and carried away from her boat. Her body washed up on shore three days later. It was ten years ago now. The day before Mother's Day, which is why Mother's Day has always been hard for her, but especially so each year after Auntie Alice died.

My mother had named me after my auntie, who she talked about all the time when I was little; I even have some of her baby clothes in my closet at home - tiny socks, little shoes, an infant onesie emblazoned with "Aloha".

"I know how to swim," I said. "You taught me yourself."

"Yes, but... this is different. This is deep water! The waves are big! And there are rocks down there! And creatures!" To be honest, it sounded kind of scary to me too, and that's why I'd wanted to go diving in the first place: because Mother had never let me do anything dangerous or fun before!

"But you'll be right beside me the whole time," I said. "You won't let anything bad happen to me." Something about saying this made me nervous; I had never really seen my mother scared at all before, but now she looked like she might cry!

The thing is... we weren't going to be diving here in California where we live now - we were going to drive all the way back to Louisiana where we used to live before moving out west when I was a baby. We planned on diving just outside our town in a place called Lake Catherine, which isn't really a lake at all. It's an artificial lake that was created after people used to dump trash there, and then toxic waste. Eventually, it was turned into a lake, and now everyone wanted to live near it because it made their homes more valuable if they were near a lake.

So, there were several reasons why we should go diving at Lake Catherine: One, there's some old sunken treasure from World War II somewhere off the coast of the lake, and my Uncle Rick thinks he knows where it is. Two, my mother had just bought me new scuba gear that cost more than $200 each (on sale), so if I didn't use them soon, they might start rusting. Three, my uncle and mother both needed money – she'd just lost her job last week.

So yes: lots of reasons why we should go diving today at Lake Catherine even though Mother looked like she might cry! It's not unusual for her to cry during happy moments too: whenever I get an A+ on my report card, when something good happens on TV, when my Grandma calls us long-distance from New York City, or when she sees puppies playing together in the park. So, her crying while preparing for the scuba diving excursion wasn't really unusual for her either!