Take Charge by Melody Carlson Page A

on the wrong side of bed today,” teased Emily.
    “I’m going for a swim,” said Carlie, jumping to her feet and taking off toward the ocean.
    “I’m coming too,” called Chelsea.
    Carlie ignored her. Mostly she just wanted to be alone. She ran past the low waves out to where the water came to her waist. As usual, it was cold, but she didn’t care. She dove in and began to swim. She swam for a while, not even bothering to look back, not caring whether Chelsea was trying to catch up to her or not. Carlie was a good swimmer. She’d even considered going out for swim team, but then they had moved. Finally, she was starting to get tired, and she turned around and looked back.
    Chelsea was about twenty yards behind her, waving frantically. “Come back!” she yelled, “you’re going too far!”
    Carlie was surprised to see how far she was from shore. Tired and cold, she began to swim back. But as she swam she noticed she didn’t seem to be getting very far. And that’s when she remembered the tide. Her dad had warned her many times about the tides. He’d told her not to swim too far out on certain days — that she could get caught in the tide and be pulled out to sea.

chapter twelve
    “Go back!” Carlie yelled at Chelsea. “Don’t come out any farther.”
    “No,” said Chelsea. “I’ll swim back with you.”
    “No!” screamed Carlie. “Go back, we’re getting caught in the tide!”
    But Chelsea stubbornly swam toward her, not turning around until they were both swimming side by side, both trying to get back to the shore.
    “You should’ve turned back,” panted Carlie as she paddled hard. “That was stupid.”
    “That’s my middle name,” said Chelsea.
    “You shouldn’t have wasted your energy.”
    “Just swim,” said Chelsea.
    So they swam and they swam, but they didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the shore. If anything, it seemed they were steadily going backwards, getting sucked out into the enormous ocean. Carlie tried to see if her friends had noticed they were missing, but she couldn’t even see the beach from out there.
    “I’m tired,” panted Chelsea. Her eyes were red and full of fear now. “What if we can’t get back?”
    “Just tread water,” said Carlie breathlessly. “Try to save strength.”
    They stopped swimming and simply treaded water, trying to keep their heads above the occasional waves that splashed. Carlie could tell they were steadily moving farther from shore. She felt desperate now. And totally helpless. How could she have been so stupid?
    “What’re we going to do?” cried Chelsea.
    Then Carlie suddenly remembered what Morgan had said about taking her problems to Jesus. “Pray!” screamed Carlie. “We’re gonna pray!”
    “I don’t know how.”
    “Dear Jesus,” cried Carlie. “Please, help us! Please, please, help us! Morgan said you could. Please, help us.”
    Then Chelsea started to pray in a similar way. For several minutes, both girls were crying and praying so hard that they didn’t notice the orange and white helicopter hovering over them.
    “Look!” screamed Carlie, pointing to a life raft that was slowly being lowered down into the ocean.
    Soon they were both pulled onto the raft and wrapped in blankets. It wasn’t long before a coast guard cutter came along and picked them up. They were given hot tea to drink as they were transported into Boscoe Bay. The cutter docked and a small crowd of people hurried over.
    “You girls got caught in a rip tide,” one of the sailors explained as he helped them down the ramp. “It’s luckyyou’re all right.”
    “Chelsea!” screamed Mrs. Landers, running over to her daughter.
    Soon there were people all around them. Carlie was surprised to see that her mom and two little brothers were there, as well as Morgan, Emily, Amy, and even Morgan’s grandmother. Carlie ran over to them and threw her arms around her mother and brothers.
    “We were so scared, mija!” cried her mom as she held