I'm fairly certain that I am making several mistakes here, so I apologize in advance for any and all mistakes that I make. Before I copy and paste the short story here, I would like to take a couple of moments to explain why I am posting it on this site and to give you a couple of warnings. The reason why I am posting it on this site is to get feedback and ideas. As you will find out (if you haven't already) my grammar is not the greatest, and I am a novice (which is a really nice way of saying I really don't know what I am doing.) Based upon the feedback that I receive, it will result in changes in the story to make it better, or at least more readable. As you can tell, there is not a name to the story yet. You would have thought after working on it for over a year now, that I would have a name to it. I guess I was too busy thinking about how to write the story to give it a name. Since I value people's feedback, first mission that you all can do if you really want will be to create a name for the story (Hopefully I can change the title of thread later.) Please note that I consider this a rough draft and will be subject to change. No without further ado, I present you Chapter 1

Lucas Martin was sitting in a hard steel metal chair that was cold as ice with fluorescent lights shining above him. There were no windows for him to look out of. What he did get to look at, was the walls that were a dull white that had yellowed some due to age. There were three empty metal chairs sitting across from them. Lucas was waiting for them to fill as he sat along side his parents. He already knew what was going through their mind. He wished he could talk to them, but he didn't have the words to say. He never had the words to say. He could never talk, even if his life depended on it, during any time he thought or he knew he was in trouble. He knew that his parents were wondering what his fate was going to be. Was he going to get kicked out another organization, again? He had been in soccer, only to get kicked out after he accidentally kicked another boy. Who cared about the boy beating him up the previous day? When he was in lacrosse, he got kicked out for punching a boy in the face. He had to defend himself somehow. The previous day he got a swirly from that boy in the locker room. He was certain it was going to happen again. They tried the Y with him, where he got kicked out for throwing a fit after he was pushed down the stairs by someone else. No matter what, the result would be the same. He would get kicked out without having the chance to defend himself

In school he was known to be a trouble maker. He would often get into fights with his classmates or teachers. He refused to do any work because he found it stupid or irritating, all because he had to write in cursive. He would not follow the teachers instructions, because when did it ever get him into a better position? The school would only keep him long enough where he would be counted in the general school population, get the money for him attending the school there, then expel him. He was one of those students where he would cost more money than what they could receive to rehabilitate him.

Lucas had blue eyes, brown sandy hair. He was average height for his age. He was considered to be fit, just ask the kids and teachers he fought. His skin was always well tanned. It was naturally darker in the summer than the winter. The tan made his freckles stick out, especially on his face and arms. He often liked to wear shorts and a t-shirt. Even when it was the middle of winter and way below freezing.

He lived in the small called Agawam, Massachusetts. It was a small suburb of Springfield, right off of the Connecticut river. There was a major highway that went through the town, emptying out to minor streets as its users were rushing home. The town was known for the mom and pop stores and a Six Flags amusement park. The town had many gentle rolling hills, and all expect that business district were covered in trees. The tallest buildings beside the roller coasters were white churches with its large spires.

Finally, Lucas thought

Three men came in. Two of them were middle aged and looked they could have a family The third one looked a lot younger. The oldest of the lot sat in the middle of the table. He was the Scoutmaster. The youngest of them sat to his left. Lucas noticed that his parents looked nervous. It looked like they already knew what the conclusion was going to be. They waited for the conversation to begin. Lucas knew that this was the “beginning of the end” lecture. The Scoutmaster spoke, “You know why we are here. There is no reason to chew the fat. We've tried everything with you son. We tried moving your son into different settings. First we changed troops with him, and that didn't work. We tried having him in several different patrols with different settings, that didn't work with Mr. Gardner's patrol being the latest. You son isn't fitting in. He refuses to get along with anyone in his group. To be honest, I'm not sure that he even wants to be here.”

The oldest man looked at the youngest who had a round face with short blonde hair and blue eyes. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He looked like he was the only one besides Lucas not professionally dressed.. In Lucas opinion he looked really fit.

He continued, “John is new to us. He just graduated collage. He has an office job in Springfield. He was looking to volunteer his time. We believe Lucas would benefit from him greatly. He would be working with Lucas on a one on one bases. We believe that Lucas would benefit greatly from this. John would be serving under Mr. Gardner, so Lucas would never be alone with John. As Lucas makes progress, and John deems that he is ready to, he will be allowed to do some activities with the group. The only request we have is not to have him come back until September. That will give us some time to plan and figure out how to exactly proceed.”

John added, “I will have a zero tolerance policy. I expect Lucas to listen to all instructions that are giving to him, and I expect him to no longer be a distraction. Our first meeting will be at a swimming pool.”

Mr. Martin asked, “what if we do not want this? I don't want him to have all of this attention. I want him to be treated as everyone else. ”

Mr Gardner said, “No one is forcing you to do anything. If you do not want to proceed with this plan, please do not bring you son back. We are trying help Lucas. As I have discussed with you many times now, if we want Lucas to change, we need to change. We are not going to keep doing the same thing to expect a different result. As I mentioned, I will be on of his teachers this year in the middle school for his 6th grade year. Lucas can be saved, but he is only going to be saved if we change how he is being treated. ”

Mrs Martin said, “Why don't we give this a try? We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We have never tried this before.”

“We'll give this a try. If I see him getting worse, he is out.” Mr. Martin said


Sam Townsend was in the eight grade. He was skinning for his age yet he towered above everyone else. He had red hair, blue eyes. He was sporting a left black eye that stuck out like a sore thumb. He obtained a few days ago from running into a post, that broke his glasses that he normally wore. He had a very outgoing personality and he was well liked. You would always find him on the bottom of a pile rather if was football or whether it was him wrestling anyone and everyone that he could get to wrestle with him. He had a very sharp mind and he was considered to be in extremely good shape. During meetings, he was that one boy that would always be talking to someone else. He would be the one boy that managed to find himself getting into some trouble out of curiosity. If there was a button, he had to push it. If there was an idea, he had challenge it. If there was a way of doing something, he would find a better way to do it.

Sam had been offered a new role that had yet to be explained to him He was waiting at the swimming pool a day before he was suppose to be in a general scout meeting with everyone else. Mr. Gardner and John was standing at the bleachers as Sam and Mr. Townsend walked to them. Mr Gardner said, “Sam, the reason why we asked you to come today is so that way you can start to help. We figured that you would be a natural good fit and that you would benefit from this. Today you will be working with John on an activity that we have planned. You will be making sure that it is safe and refining it, if need be.”

Sam asked, “Is this my new role.”

“No, it will become clear with time what your new role is. You will be coming to these planning meetings for a while until your role does becomes clear.” Mr. Gardner said.

“What exactly am I doing today?” Sam asked

“Well, I have to go.” Mr. Gardner said

Mr. Gardner left as Mr. Townsend went to the bleachers and sat down.

“Today we are practicing an activity that is going to demonstrate why it is important to have swimming skills.” John said

“I've always liked swimming.” Sam said

“Good, why do we teach this skill?” John asked

“So no one drowns.”

“Right. What type of strokes are there?.” John asked.

“Well you got the forward stroke, the backward stroke, the butterfly.”

John interrupted, “Why do we teach these different strokes?

“I really don't know.” Sam admitted.

“That is the point of the activity that we are planing. It will be to teach others why it is that we teach different strokes.”

“So what am I doing today?” Sam asked

“Learning how to be rescued” John said

“What?” Sam asked, as if he already knew how to be rescued but didn't want to be.

“You are going to learn how to be rescued. You know how to rescue someone, right?” John asked

“I know about the throw and reach method. You only go in to rescue someone as a last resort.” Sam said.

“And how did you learn that?” John asked.

“Well, Patrick told me.” Sam said

“Well, the boys we are working tomorrow won't have that knowledge. What would you do if I told you to rescue someone and you have no knowledge of that information?” John asked.

Sam was silent for a minute. John said, “don't make this into rocket science.”

“I would go in?” Sam asked.

“That's what I would do. First, you are going to practice rescuing me. I am going to pretend to be drowning. Then I will practice rescuing you as you pretend to drown.” John said.

Sam asked, “Why?”

John said while taking off his shirt, “Well tomorrow first of all, you will be the one pretending to drown. They will be trying to rescue you. I don't want to give too much away. They told me you were smart, I want you to figure this out on your own. We are going to pretend that you could not reach me, which means you have to go in.”

Sam took off his shirt. He watched John jumped into the pool and go into the deep in of the pool. Within a few seconds he started to pretend to drown. Sam jumped into the pool. He headed toward John as fast as he could. When he got to him, John grabbed Sam by the arms so that Sam could not use his arms at all. They both started to sink toward bottom of the pool. Sam struggled to get free. He couldn't. He was surprised how quickly he was running out of air. He didn't know when, but at some point he had to be let go. He found himself at the surface, gasping for air. He didn't know which way to go. Anyplace was better than where he was currently at. He felt like he was being pushed. He finally found himself toward the edge of the pool. He saw John pulling himself out of the pool. Sam tried to do the same thing. He was surprised how much strength that was taking out of his arms. When he finally got out of the water, he remained on the ground, trying to catch his breath. John asked, “What were you thinking?”

Sam laid on the ground while still trying to catch the breath. He couldn't answer the question. John said, “You really thought that was going to work? Aren't you suppose to come up from behind and announce yourself?”

Sam started to feel stupid and annoyed. How could he have forgotten all of that? He wondered if this was going to be the type of treatment that he was going to be subject to from now on. John said, “You now know what they are going to do tomorrow.”

Sam interrupted by asking, “Why did you grab my arm?

“If you are really drowning, and someone comes in front of you, what are you going to do?” John asked

“I'm going to grab them.” Sam said without thinking.

Then he thought about it it.

“I just gave you their perspective, although they will find this fun.” John said

“How?” Sam asked while pulling himself into a sitting position while putting his feet into the water.

“Because unlike you, who was trying to impress me, they will see this as a challenging puzzle where failure is always an option. All you got to do is keep them safe.”

“Why couldn't you just tell me about this?” Sam asked

“As you have concluded, when someone is drowning, often times the person who is doing the rescuing is not thinking. If you were drowning, you are going to find anything and everything to grab onto. That is the natural response. Not the right response, but a natural one. What we did was simulate a normal world situation. Since you now know how it feels to be latched onto when you are trying to rescue someone, you now know how to keep them safe. That is something you can't talk about and expect to go smoothly. Now we are going to change positions. You are going to pretend that you are drowning, and I am going to pretend to rescue you.” John explained.


Sam jumped in as fast as he could. This was his chance, a chance of revenge. He waited until John went into the pool. He waited for him to approach.. When he got close enough, Sam jumped as high as he could. He was stunned. John was able to move back so quickly away from him. When Sam went back down, he felt two hands around around his shoulders as his head was being submerge. He was being dunked. That wasn't suppose to happen. He was suppose to be the one doing the dunking. Within a couple of seconds he floated back to the surface. John had already began to swim back to the surface. Sam followed. Maybe he could get John before he got out of the water Nope, it was too late. John pulled himself up followed by Sam a few seconds later. John didn't look mad. In fact he looked like he was quite the opposite. John said, “I thought you were going to be pretending to be drowning, not trying to dunk me.”

Sam said slyly, “I missed.”

John laughed

Sam said, “Now you know how I felt. ”

“May I remind you that what I did was in control compared to what you did.” John replied.

“I was just trying to....” Sam trailed off, the last part sounded really bad.

Most unfortunate for him, John finished his sentence, “have some fun. I completely understand.”

Sam waited for a couple of minutes before hejumped back into the water. He waited for John to come, this time he was bound and determined to do the drill right this time. When John tried to rescue him, Sam put all of his weight on John, trying to pull him down. He was successful. Yet how long should he do it for? What was a few seconds? How long did it feel? Maybe this was a good thing that he was practicing with an adult. Had this been a kid he was sure they would have been hurt. He let go of John. He waited for John to come up. John slowly came up. He waited for John. A minute seemed to pass, and another minute. He could have sworn that John was faking it, but was he? Maybe he should do something, but what? He said, “John....”

John lifted his head over water. His breathing was under control. He said, “What?”

Sam asked astonished, “How did you do that?”

“Just years of training myself. I'm not a professional. If you wait long enough, you will generally float back up to the surface. May I recommend that you do not try to hold them under water that long. Second why didn't you do anything”

“Well, I thought you were faking it. I got scared. How long should I pull them down for?” Sam wanting to change the subject

“For about a second. Just say 1 Mississippi at regular pace. Don't forget, if you don't see them coming up right away, make sure you help them get back to the surface. Look at how disorientated you became, and I only held you down for only two seconds.” John said

They practiced the drill several more times situation until Sam was comfortable and confident.

John said, “now if for some off chance you would someone would know what to do, do you know how to be rescued?”

Sam said, “I think so.”

John said, “lets make sure. I don't need you or the other person drowning because you don't know how to be rescued.”

It was a good thing too that they practiced it. Sam panic for a second when he was being “rescued”. He was not use to someone coming up from behind him. After choking on water for several minutes, he finally got it down. He didn't know that planning for a simple activity was so complicated. Yet he was confident that he would be able to keep everyone safe long enough, so that even he was to get into trouble, John would be able to help him out.