The Silver Crown and the Deep End

The craft table at the community pool smelled of glue and chlorine. Elif stood behind it with a box of cardboard strips. Every Saturday, the children made something before their swimming lesson.

Today they were making crowns.

"Gold or silver?" Elif asked the first child in line.

"Gold," the boy said. "And please make the points sharp."

Elif gave him a strip and a pot of paint. Behind him, thirty children pushed and talked.

Her little sister Una stood at the end of the line. Una was seven, and she had not said a word since they left home. She held her towel in front of her like a shield.

"You can make a crown too," Elif said. "It is free for the sisters of helpers."

"I don't want to swim today," Una said.

"I know. Just make the crown first."

Una took a strip and chose the silver paint. She added a blue stone made from folded foil. It was not the best crown in the room, but it was neat and careful. Elif closed the ends with tape and set it on her sister's head.

"You look like a queen," she said.

"Queens don't put their faces in water," Una said.

Elif had no answer to that. Una had been afraid of water since last summer. A wave had pushed her under at the beach. Since then, even a bath made her hold her breath.

The lesson began at ten. The coach, a tall man with a whistle, lined the children up along the shallow end. He asked them to blow bubbles on the surface. Thirty faces bent down, and thirty little clouds of bubbles rose.

Una sat on the top step with her feet in the water and her crown still on. She watched the others carefully. Elif, who was helping from the side, crouched next to her.

"Only your chin," she whispered. "Try it once."

Una shook her head. A tear slid down and dropped into the pool.

"That's all right," the coach said, kneeling on her other side. "The water will wait for you. It has waited for everybody."

By eleven, the lesson was over. The children ran for the changing rooms, leaving wet footprints on the tiles. Una stayed on the step, and the crown stayed on her head.

Elif remembered a silly story the older helpers told every year. It might help.

"Do you want to hear something strange?" she asked. "People say a crown made at this table can grant one wish. You must wear it by the water and say the wish in your head."

Una looked up. "Is that true?"

"I have never tried it," Elif said, which was honest.

Una said nothing. She only touched the blue foil stone with one finger.

At noon, their mother called the front desk. Her bus was stuck, and she would be an hour late. Elif's boss agreed that the girls could wait inside. The pool closed at twelve, so the building soon fell silent.

Elif mopped the tiles near the changing rooms. When she came back, Una was sitting at the pool edge again. The lights above the water hummed softly. The surface was perfectly flat, like a sheet of glass.

Una's lips were moving. She was not talking to Elif. She had her eyes closed, and her hands were tight around her knees.

Elif stopped where she was. She did not hear the words, and she did not want to. Some wishes belong to one person only.

Then the water moved.

It was not a wave. It was one slow ripple, and it travelled the wrong way, from the deep end to the steps. Elif watched it cross the whole pool. It reached Una's crown and lifted it gently from her head.

The crown landed on the water without a sound. It did not sink. It turned once and floated away across the pool.

"My crown!" Una cried.

"Leave it," Elif said. "I will get a net."

But the crown moved faster than a net could reach. It glided past the ropes and into the middle. The blue stone caught the light and flashed. Una jumped up and ran along the edge, following it.

"Una, stop!" Elif called. "It is too deep over there!"

"I know!" Una answered. "But it is mine!"

She was already on the steps again, going down one at a time. The water reached her knees, then her waist. Elif kicked off her shoes and followed, her heart beating hard. She had been trained for many things, but not for a floating crown.

The crown stopped in the middle of the pool and waited. Una stood on her toes and stretched out her arm. She could not reach it.

"Elif," she said in a small voice. "I have to go under to get closer."

"No, you don't. I can swim out and bring it back."

"It's my wish," Una said. "I think I have to do it."

Elif hesitated. Then she moved next to her sister and held out one hand. "Take it, then. I am right here. If you feel afraid, stand up."

Una took a very big breath, so big that her shoulders rose. She closed her eyes and put her face into the water.

Elif held her hand and counted in her head. One second passed, then two, then three. She got ready to pull her sister up.

At five, Una opened her eyes under the water. Elif bent down and saw what Una was seeing.

A fish was swimming in front of her sister. It was not a real fish. It was small and silver, and it seemed to be made of the lights from the ceiling. Its tail moved in a slow, easy wave. Every time it moved, a thin line of light followed behind it.

Una lifted her head for air and laughed in surprise. Then she went back under.

The little fish turned in a circle. Una kicked her feet, one then the other, exactly as the fish moved its tail. Una floated forward, first with her chin on the water, then with her whole face in it. She was swimming. It was an awkward, splashing kind of swimming, but she was moving.

She reached the crown in six kicks. She grabbed it, turned around and came back with her head up and her mouth wide open.

"Did you see the fish?" she shouted.

"I saw it," Elif said. Her voice shook. "I saw everything."

Una stood in the shallow water, dripping, holding the soaked crown against her chest. The silver paint had run, and the blue stone had come loose.

"I wished to swim like a fish," she said slowly. "But I did not turn into one."

"No," Elif said. "You got something better. A fish came to teach you."

"Will it come back?"

"I do not know," Elif said. "But you know how to kick now."

Their mother arrived half an hour later, still out of breath from running. Una told her everything at once, with both arms in the air. Their mother listened to every word. She did not say that fish are not made of light. She only held Una tight and said, "Next Saturday, you can show me."

When they were gone, Elif stayed behind to switch off the lamps. She picked up the crown from the bench where Una had left it. The cardboard had softened, and the foil stone was gone. She hung it on the back of the lifeguard chair to dry.

The water lay still again. Near the deep end, one last silver ring spread across the surface. It touched the wall and disappeared.