Chapter 15 - Inside at the Beach

XL had a good night sleep as always, and as usual he was up at 7 AM in time for breakfast. He soon had the rest of his family awake, much to their dismay. By 9:30 AM they had finished breakfast, purchased a "family all attractions" pass at the mall, and had arrived at the indoor water park.

After they finished with the change rooms, they met at the indoor beach. It was inside a huge building, which seemed to be as big inside as a football stadium. The roof was made of glass, held up with steel beams.

"Let's swim in the surf!" exclaimed Anna, who loved to swim. She threw her towel onto one of the many beach chairs on the shore, and ran into the water. It was a nice pleasant, lukewarm temperature, and after running through the water she soon was in water deep enough for swimming.

XL followed, running over the beach and into the water. At a distance it seemed like a wide, sandy beach such as one might find at a lake, but actually it was made of concrete, like the pool itself.

At the far end, the pool got deeper and narrower. It was from that end that the tall waves emerged, generated from machinery behind a wall at the end of the pool.

Larissa and Max had been on the shore with them, and they too entered the water. They liked swimming too, but they didn't have quite the same enthusiasm as XL and Anna.

They all swam in the waves for a while, far from shore. There were other people out there too, and some of them had paddled out on big yellow inflatable tubes, shaped like donuts. The waves were taller than XL was high, and he had a lot of fun riding each wave as it came splashing by.

After a while the waves stopped, so that people could swim who preferred calm water. XL, Max, Anna, and Larissa went back to shore.

"Let's go on the water slides," exclaimed Anna. There were many tall slides near the beach, each several stories high. Some of them reached almost to the steel and glass roof of the building.

Larissa had other ideas, however. "I'm going shopping with your dad," she said. "I need to buy some things, and he needs some new shoes."

"That's right," added Max. "Larissa wants to buy me some expensive shoes made out of genuine plastic." Of course he was kidding. Plastic had gone out of style ever since voomp had been invented.

"We'll swim for a while more," said Anna. "I have my cell phone in my locker, so when we're done here, I will call you."

"There is no rush," said Larissa, as she and Max walked away. "I can shop all day."

XL and Anna went to the water slides. They climbed the stairs multiple times, each time coming down on one of the various slides. They continued until it was almost lunch time.

"Let's change out of our bathing suits back to our regular clothes," said Anna to XL. "Then we can explore the marina."

XL agreed, and not long later they arrived at the small indoor lake, where a replica of the Santa Maria ship was floating. They saw a sign "to the sea lions." Heading in that direction, they crossed a bridge over the lake to the sea lion show. The show area had a small pool separate from the lake, with bleachers around one side. However, the sea lion pool was quiet, as it was not yet time for the show.

Not far from the sea lions, there was a dock with two submarines parked next to it. It looked like there was some work being done on one of the submarines. The side of the conning tower was open and there were also some metal parts on the dock next to it. There was a man kneeling next to the parts, with a tool box next to him.

"Hey, let's check this out!" exclaimed XL. "These must be the new submarines, to replace the ones that had been here many years ago."

As Anna and XL got closer, they could see one other thing too: the man with the toolbox was Fred. They recognized him from the photo that Florence had shown them previously. He looked older than he did in the photos, but it was obviously the same person.

They walked near the submarine to look at it, standing only a few meters from him. After a moment, he looked up from his work, and commented, "You like submarines?"

"I sure do!" said XL.

"These will be open to the public in a couple of weeks," said Fred. "The one next to this one is already fully tested and ready to use. It's a real submarine. It could go far under water, but of course here the water is shallow so it will submerge only a meter under the surface.

"Can I have a look?" asked XL.

"Sure," replied Fred. The three of them walked to the second submarine. It was floating high in the water, so that the whole deck was out of the water. Fred pressed a button on a remote control, and a large hatch opened up on the back end of the submarine. At the back end, there were stairs going down into the sub.

"Feel free to have a look," said Fred.

XL and Anna walked across a ramp between the dock and the back end of the sub. They went down the stairs. Inside there were benches long enough for a dozen people on each side of the sub, with oval windows on the sides. They walked along the windows, and looked out into the lake. They could see a few fish swimming around. On one side, they looked out on the poles that held up the dock. The poles were covered with green seaweed.

They climbed back out and found that Fred had returned to his work. Also, they noticed a women approaching Fred, followed by two small children. As XL and Anna walked back toward Fred, Fred said to the woman that he would finish up and join them for lunch in a few minutes.

XL approached Fred. "Thanks for letting me see the sub. It's really cool!" he said.

"You're welcome," Fred replied.

"By the way, let me introduce myself," said XL. "I'm Xavier Land, and this is my sister Anna."

"Pleased to meet you," said Fred. "My name is Fred, this is my wife Sheila, and these are our children Corrine and Jack. They're going to wait at the sea lion tank for a few minutes while I finish up. Kids, if you look closely, I think you will see that the sea lions are swimming around now."

"Do you like sea lions?" Anna asked the children. Jack nodded his head. "So do I," said Anna. Anna was always very understanding and friendly with little children.

"Well, come along and have a look then," said Sheila, and she and her children walked over to the sea lion tank.

Anna went with them, but XL stayed to talk to Fred. "Do you train the sea lions too?" he asked.

"Sometimes," answered Fred, "but we have other trainers too. Mostly I supervise, and my company has brought submarines back to the marina. These ones are fully computer controlled, so they won't get bumped around and damaged by unskilled drivers, like the old ones did."

"So they will just go by themselves?" asked XL.

"There will be a tour guide on board, to point out the different kinds of fish," answered Fred. Then he added, "You know Xavier, that you have a very unusual first name. But somehow it seems familiar."

"Well, my friends call me XL," he said.

"That's remarkable," remarked Fred. "My mother wrote me a letter saying that somebody called XL helped her."

"Yes, that was me," XL replied. "Right now I'm on vacation. And you must be Fred."

"Yes. It seems like more than an extraordinary coincidence to meet you here!" replied Fred.

"My family came on vacation, and we began our fun this morning in the water park," said XL. "But it's true that while we were here, I also wanted to meet you. You know your mother would like to meet you too, and also see your sister Susan again. Florence feels very badly about what happened long ago, and she wishes that things could be different."

"Well, that is a past that can't be fixed," said Fred. "She thinks she can just give some money in place of an apology, and make things right. But that's in the past, and I have a new life now. Anyway, it's really none of your business."

XL didn't know what to say. He thought for a moment, and said, "Well, it's very sad. Your children won't know their grandma. And what about your sister? Have you thought about informing her?"

"All I can say," answered Fred, "is that it was very tough for us when Susan and I left. Mom thought she had given us enough money for a new start, but it was barely enough and we had a lot of hard times. If she wants to make amends, tell her to send me ten thousand dollars more! Until then, I have nothing more to say, neither to her nor to you."

XL was shocked. Fred had seemed to be a nice man, at first. It just didn't make sense to him, that Fred should act this way. He wondered what to do. Should he contact Florence, and ask her to send $10,000 to Fred?

Choice A	Phone Florence and ask if she will pay the $10,000.
Choice B	Do not phone Florence. Try to find another solution.

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