Welcome to Gaia! ::

Manny seemed to have forgotten that she was eager to answer the question and dropped her hand to return the wave. Well, everyone else seemed to be just answering. "Don't run when the ground is wet," she tossed into the mix, "And don't go in when the lifeguard is gone."

Harper grinned a bit and cleared his throat, "Dunk people in the deep end?" He suggested. Such had always proven true from his very brief experience, Sunny was too tall to be effectively dunked in the shallow end...

Manny laughed a little when Harper mentioned that, then took on a more serious face. "Um," she started, "Don't dive into the shallow end." That was a good one, most pool bottoms were concrete like the sidewalks after all, and falling on the sidewalk hurt.

Ms. Lindy laughed goodnaturedly at Harper, but she tapped the pen on the board. "I think we're going to go with Manuela's idea," she said. "I can see where you're coming from, Mr. Piercings, but no dunking sounds like another good rule to follow on our trip. Believe me, kids, never ever dive into the shallow end. You could crack your head open like a melon!"

On that happy thought, she wrote down the new ideas. "Swim in the shallow end if you don't feel confident," Ms. Lindy said out loud, scribbling. "And let's make that don't pick on anyone. Good stuff!

"We'll be getting the pool code of the pool we're going to to study next week," the teacher continued. "Some pools don't like you doing some kinds of jumps - no cannonballs, frinstance - or diving at all, unless there's a diving board. But until then, we're going to raise awareness of general pool safety. We're going to make posters to stick up around the school! I want you to pick a rule and then do a drawing illustrating that rule, okay? Just like a real safety poster. So it might look like this!"

Ms. Lindy quickly drew a rectangle on the board, writing NO RUNNING! at the top. Then she drew a stick figure (it appeared to either be running or had severely malformed legs) with a cross through it. "Unfortunately you won't be able to mimic my amazing art skills, but you can try," she said, putting the pen down and grabbing a stack of paper from her desk. She dumped this stack cheerfully in the center of the table. "Make these as colourful as you can, okay? We want to get people's attention. Ready, steady, go!"

Go? What? Harper looked around for what to do, but his sight was soon locked on the teachers drawing. "Is that Jacoba?" He asked with a giggle, pointing at the stick figure with the 'running' legs on the chalkboard.

He glanced at Manny and decided to grab his own paper; deciding a picture of someone breaking their neck because they were diving in a shallow end would be fun.

Antony, reluctantly, searched through the rules and came out with the lifeguard one. For a moment he stared at it, having never seen a lifeguard in his life.

Then he decided to draw his father in his swimming trunks and with a sign over his neck that said "lifeguard." His art was actually very good for a child. But not perfect. It would have been much better if Shade was standing in front of him.

Biting his lip in concentration, Harper carefully drew the sideways torso of a stick figure. His line work was unsteady and bumpy to say the least.

Then, carefully, he drew a crack in the neck and the head going off in a different direction. "How do you spell 'neck'?" He asked nobody in particular, not having a single clue how to spell anything.