We have finally reached the halfway point between Pan Pacs and the Olympic Trials! We have spoken to many of last year’s Pan Pac medalists to see what their plans for next summer are. Almost all of the medalists are heading to the Trials to try to win a spot on the team, except one unexpected teen.

Alex McDonnell, gold medal winner in the 100 back, has seemed to have disappeared from swimming all together. All of her times haven’t changed in the past eight months, and neither have her results. Has this gold medalist given up on making the team?

The words made my heart burn. The article was barely an article, yet it hurt so much inside. I scrolled down to look at the comments.

What a wimp! Probably had one bad time and gave up. None of these teen medalists ever appreciate what they have earned!

Anybody check to make sure she’s not dead?

Disappearing after a swim like that, maybe she was from the future!

My eyes started to burn like they were about to tear up. I clicked into the comment box.

“Give her a break. Maybe she just had a personal problem.”

Almost immediately another comment popped up:

If she had some personal problem, I’m sure we would know about it. The internet knows everything.

I sighed and clicked out of the page. Charlie stuck his nose onto my lap and let out his own sigh.

“Oh Charlie, I bet you don’t know how this feels to be loved and then hated.”

He lifted his head and gave me a quizzical look.

“Oh, duh. I guess you do. All that BSL is hard on you guys these days, huh?” I scratched the top of his ears, flipping his ears everywhere.

I had saved Charlie from a kill shelter right after Pan Pacs. He was just one of the thousands of pit bulls put in kill shelters every day. It had always killed me inside to see so many die every day just because of what breed they were.

My mom wasn’t a big fan of dogs, but after the Pan Pacs, I finally convinced her to save Charlie. He and my cat, Shirley, were basically my best friends.

Charlie raised his head and licked my hand.

I laughed, “Silly boy!”

Charlie never failed to make me smile.

Charlie ran out of the room, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, grinning. I shut my laptop and got off of my desk chair and followed him out of the room.

“There you are Alex, I was wondering where you were! Coach Will called a little while ago. He wanted to talk to you tomorrow at the pool. He says you don’t have to get in if you don’t want, but he needs to talk to you. You think you can talk to him tomorrow?”

I sighed, “I guess so, as long as I don’t have to get in.”

“Thank you, Hun. I’ll shoot him an email later to let him know you will go.”

I half smiled and went outside.

Charlie was running laps around the backyard. His tail waved in the air. When he saw me, he bolted towards me and jumped on me.

“Charlie, you know you aren’t supposed to jump on anyone. Down.” I pointed towards the ground and turned my waist slightly until he dropped back to the ground. “I’m sorry bud, but you are way too big to be jumping anymore. Plus, Mom doesn’t want you to.”

He looked up at me sadly. I picked up a nearby tennis ball and threw it across the yard. “Go get it boy!”

He stood still, staring at me.

“Go get it!” I tried to sound excited, but I knew he knew I wasn’t.

I sat down on the edge of the patio. He sat down next to me and watched two birds fly by.

“What do you think Coach Will will tell me tomorrow?”

He looked at me, then looked away.

“Yeah, I guess he probably will come up with some crazy way to get me in the water, but I don’t want to.”

Charlie gave me a look like I was crazy. He loved water. Anytime we gave him a bath, he would just slash around. We had always wanted to send him to a boarding place near us when we went on vacations, since it had two dog pools, sprinklers, and really nice kennels, but they wouldn’t let us board him there because he was a pittie.

Charlie licked my face and looked over at our tree. I heard a flutter and shaking of leaves.

Even with all the discrimination Charlie got, he never seemed to stop smiling; even when he was asleep he was smiling.

I wrapped my arm around him. “You really understand me don’t you Charlie?”

He looked at me again and then got up and ran off. He came back with the ball in his mouth.

“About time you got that Charlie boy! Now drop it so I can throw it.”

I grabbed the ball in Charlie’s mouth and tugged on it. He held on tighter and started to pull away like we were playing tug-of-war. “Come on Charlie, drop it!”

He kept pulling harder, so I let go.

Charlie gave me a weird look, almost saying, “Why did you let do?”

“That ball isn’t for tug-of-war, silly!”

He dropped the ball, but when I reached to grab it, he grabbed it again and held it.

Inside I could barely hear the clock ringing, but Charlie shot inside. I followed him in and grabbed his water dish and food bowl to refill them.

“You always know what you want and when you want it. You never seem to give up on something you want!”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N:

Since I am really stuck on The Rebellion (soon to be Burning Bright), I decided I would write the first chapter of my NaNoNovel, but since it is my NaNoNovel, I don't plan on writing any more until November. 

Also, a little about Pan Pacs. Pan Pacs, long name is the Pan Pacific Games, is the half way point between each Olympic Games (so the next Pan Pacs is next summer (2014)). They are basically the swimming Olympics that aren't the Olympics. 

If you ever have any swimming related questions that you think I should explain, let me know so that I can explain them better in the story, since I've been swimming on a team since I was seven, sometimes I forget what people don't know about swimming, like the fact the race doesn't start with a gun (shocker, right?).

Anyway, I'll be back in a little over a week to update The Rebellion.

I think this Author's Note got way too long, opps.

~Ella

PS: The lovely lady in the picture is a girl named Brooklyn that is adoptable in New Jersey from Pitbull Kisses Rescue and is the model for Charlie, though of course since Charlie is male and Brooklyn is female, there are some slight differences.