Scuba 4Ever

By Phyllis J. Perry

Megan wins the ice cream contest and next day is on TV. Terri’s brother is pictured in the paper winning a school trophy. Her sister, Lynn, appears cheering at the basketball game.
Terri feels like a nobody until the scuba classes.
Terri, Megan, Brett, Brian, and Clarissa all audition for the school play and Terri is called back to read for the lead. Walking home, she slips on the ice and breaks her arm. Clarissa gets her role in the play...
Can anything else go wrong?
With her cast removed, she is just in time to take the trip to the Blue Hole to scuba dive. Again Clarissa causes more problems but Terri is at home in the water. Whatever else the future brings, has Terri found her niche?

She is confident it will be Scuba 4Ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Apr 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310763731

Phyllis J. Perry

Phyllis Perry held a number of positions in the Boulder Valley Schools, including teacher, principal and director of talented and gifted education. An award-winning author of more than eighty books, she has published seven books about Colorado, including two about Rocky Mountain National Park. She is a member of the Colorado Authors' League and of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. You can learn more about her and her books by visiting her website at www.phyllisjperry.com

Book preview

Megan wins the ice cream contest and next day is on TV. Terri’s brother is pictured in the paper winning a school trophy. Her sister, Lynn, appears cheering at the basketball game.

Terri feels like a nobody until the scuba classes.

Terri, Megan, Brett, Brian, and Clarissa all audition for the school play and Terri is called back to read for the lead. Walking home, she slips on the ice and breaks her arm. Clarissa gets her role in the play…

Can anything else go wrong?

With her cast removed, she is just in time to take the trip to the Blue Hole to scuba dive. Again Clarissa causes more problems but Terri is at home in the water. Whatever else the future brings, has Terri found her niche?

She is confident it will be Scuba 4Ever.

Award-winning author Phyllis J. Perry has published stories, poems, plays and articles in magazines such as Child Life, Hopscotch, Humpty Dumpty, On the Line and more than 80 books of fiction and non-fiction for both children and adults. Amongst recent publications are:

2001 Animals Under Ground Franklin Watts/Scholastic

2001 Animals that Hibernate Franklin Watts/Scholastic

2003 Mr. Crumb’s Secret Higsmith Press

2003 The Secret of the Silver Key Higsmith Press

2005 A Kid’s Look at Colorado Fulcrum Publishing;

2006 The Alien, the Giant and Rocketman Mondo

2007 Sherlock Hounds: Search & Rescue Dogs Mondo

2007 Colorado Fun Big Earth Publishing

2008 The Field Guide to Ocean Animals Silver Dolphin

2008 It Happened in Rocky Mountain National Park

2009 The Ghost in the Music Room Innovative Press

2010 Pandas’ Earthquake Escape Sylvan Dell

2011 Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Colorado History

2012 Bold Women in Colorado History Mountain Press .

2012 Hidden Away Custom Book Publications

2013 The First Rainbow Vesuvius Press, Tao Publishing

2013 Wonder World Custom Book Publications

2013 Too Many secrets Custom Book Publications

2014 Together Custom Book Publications

TOO MANY SECRETS

Should she tell? It all changes when a fire breaks out in the middle of the night, destroying her home…

Meg was looking forward to the winter holidays before returning to her last semester at Foothills Middle School where she hopes to be chosen as a cheerleader. To avoid changing schools, Meg finds a way to stay in town while the rest of the family moves in with her grandparents. She will live with old Mrs. Coles in her mansion on the hill.

But secrets weigh on Meg. Her brother has a secret as to the cause of the fire. Mrs. Coles keeps information about her health from her daughter. And Meg’s secret involves the robbery of Mrs. Coles’ silver. Which secrets should she keep… which should be revealed?

A story for teens and tweens…

WONDER WORLD

Summer vacation holds little promise for Oliver.

Offered a thirteenth birthday present of joining his grandmother for a vacation in Great Britain, he quickly accepts. With only several children and some unpromising adults, too late he realizes there are few others on the tour with whom he can make friends.

In England, Scotland, and Wales, Oliver finds friends in unpredictable places. He and eighty-year old Mr. Hahn spend time together, and he finds an ally in the Scots bus driver when he seeks to meet a popular British band. He achieves hero status when he fearlessly races after a thief and recovers a purse stolen outside York Cathedral.

By the time the Wonder World tour ends, Oliver has discovered that friends can be young or old and that friendship is forged in the most unexpected ways.

Friendship is a grand adventure…

TOGETHER

Holly woke in the hospital bed…

The Fourth of July accident had taken the lives of her mother and father, and she faced a future filled with both change and challenge.

Living with her grandparents on ten acres out in the country would be a lot different from living in town. It meant a new school, and new friends. When she is not invited to an ‘old’ friend’s birthday party, she realizes that she cannot live in the past.

Holly forms a bond with her Granddad when she studies to become a ham radio operator, and join him in his favourite pastime. When he has what seems to be a heart attack, a fall fishing trip almost turns into a tragedy. Holly’s new knowledge of amateur radio helps save the day.

Only when Gram and Holly bring Granddad home from the hospital does Holly realize how important the three of them are to each other… TOGETHER.

HIDDEN AWAY, a story about geocaching  and skateboarding, is intended for all enthusiasts and the young at heart, but particularly those aged 10-14.

Thirteen-yer-old Troy Thompson moves from Texas to

Boulder, Colorado  a month before he is to start eighth grade. Since he knows no one in town,  he turns to his hobbies of geocaching and skateboard to fill his summer time.

While looking for caches and practicing skateboard tricks,

Tory meets people some of whom become friends while others become enemies. The skateboard contest turns out to be a duel.

Geocaching is an outdoor fun activity where the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers called geocaches, anywhere in the world. Geocaches are currently in over two hundred countries on all seven continents, including Antarctica, and the International Space Station.

After more than twelve years of activity, some two million active geocaches are published on various online sites. Some estimates suggest there are more than five million geocachers worldwide.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phyllis J. Perry, grew up in a small gold mining town in northern California. She attended the University of California and later earned her doctorate degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

. The Author has published more than eighty books of fiction and non-fiction for both children and adults, and written stories, poems, plays and articles for magazines such as Child Life, Hopscotch, Humpty Dumpty, On The Line and The Single Parent.

She lives in Boulder, Colorado where she still enjoys the challenge of writing.

Copyright © 2014-15 Phyllis J. Perry

FIRST EDITION

All the characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

scuba

4EVER

A novel for teens and tweens by

Phyllis J. Perry

For by favorite scuba divers: Julia, Jay, Jill, and Emily.

CHAPTER ONE

‘Why can’t I take scuba lessons?’ Terri demanded. Her chin lifted just a little, and she gazed straight at her mother, ready for any argument. She’d thought about this for a long time and was not about to be easily put off.

Her mother sighed. Terri wasn’t sure if this could be a good sign or a bad sign. Did it mean her mother was weary and ready to give up the fight early? Or was it the sound of someone resigned to a long battle?

‘Why?’ Terri asked again when her mother remained silent.

‘First of all,’ her mother said, ‘it’s expensive, and…’

‘But I could help pay,’ Terri interrupted. ‘I’ve saved up a lot of money. Every penny from my baby sitting jobs and my birthday.

‘And it’s not just the money,’ her mother broke in. ‘You’ve  always loved to be in the water. But scuba diving isn’t exactly the sport that most people in Colorado take up. Kids around here get involved in skiing, or mountain biking, or hiking. Scuba diving is for people who live in California or Florida or on the Gulf of Mexico… not in a land-locked state famous for tall mountains.’

‘But the lessons are given right here at the Rec Center,’ Terri said. She picked up the brochure from  the coffee table to wave it in the air and emphasize her point, while with her other hand she impatiently brushed aside a strand of her long blond hair. ‘And the price of the lessons includes a trip to the Blue Hole in New Mexico where people in the class actually dive and get certified. New Mexico isn’t that far away.’

‘I know,’ her mother said. ‘I read the brochure like I promised you I would.’

Terri went on relentlessly. She had waited to get these few moments alone with her mother when no one else was around this Sunday morning, and she wanted to make the most of them. ‘The dive trip is planned during our spring break, so I wouldn’t even miss school.’ Terri paused and looked at her mother hopefully. ‘Everyone says Mr. Yeager is a great instructor. The best.’

‘But it’s dangerous.’ A worry line creased her mother’s forehead. ‘Something could go wrong with all that breathing apparatus when you’re thirty feet under water.’

Terri had anticipated this argument. ‘Megan’s mom said she  could take the lessons with me, and you know what a worry-wart she is. She would never let Megan do anything too dangerous. And besides, skiing is dangerous, too. But you and dad used to go all the time, and you let all us kids take lessons.

‘I know,’ her mother said. ‘And people do break bones, But most of the time you just fall on top of the snow.’

Forgetting for a moment how serious this discussion was, Terri giggled. ‘Most of the time. But when I fell on our last ski trip, I was buried in it up to my ears.’ She smiled remembering the wipe-out. Then she turned all her attention back to the art of persuasion. She got out of her chair and went over to where her mother sat on the couch in the family room. ‘But if I really study and take lessons and learn to do it right, scuba is as safe as skiing any day. Safer.’

‘Your heart’s set on this, isn’t it, honey?’ her mother asked, as she brushed back another strand of Terri’s hair and looked into her eyes. ‘Why?’

‘I guess it’s because scuba is something that would be all my own,’ Terri said slowly. ‘It’s not another hand- me-down. It’s something that I want to do that nobody else in the family has already done.’

And although she didn’t say it out loud, to herself Terri added, and done better than I ever will.

It wasn’t easy being the youngest Stinson kid. Her parents’ friends and the older teachers at school were always making comparisons. The music teacher thought Terri would surely want to play violin in the school orchestra just like your sister Lynn did. Mr. Berkey, the science teacher, told her only last week that she’d surely be winning a blue ribbon in the science fair in the spring ‘just like your big brother Tim did three years in a row.’

Couldn’t anyone realize Terri wasn’t Tim or Lynn? And she didn’t want to be like them, either.

‘All right,’ her mother finally said. ‘It’s the craziest idea you’ve ever had, but if you’re sure it’s what you want, you can take scuba lessons.’

Terri leaped up to give her mother a quick kiss. ‘Thanks, Mom!’ And then she went flying out of the room to go and tell the good news with her best friend, Megan.

Somehow until she wrote the words and shared them with her friend, it wasn’t completely real.

Quickly she went to her computer email and typed in ‘Megan.’ The rest of her email address popped right up. Terri was glad that Tim was sleeping late and Lynn had spent the night before at her girlfriend’s. It wasn’t always easy to get computer time around home.

Terri typed, ‘Mom said YES. I can take scuba lessons!’  And she signed it with her latest email address ‘scuba_4ever’

Monday morning at Centennial Middle School, Terri waited for Megan by their locker. She glanced at her watch for the third time. Where