❝ ＥＶＥＲＹＯＮＥ ＯＵＴＴＡ ＴＨＥ ＰＯＯＬ ❞

Sweltering heat from the gentle summer breezes leaked from the eye-catching clear blue sky into the oval of glass separating Gummy's apartment from the pleasantly hot air outside.

"Bam boozie! It's today!" Gummy screamed with joy, his excited azure gaze examining the date that the sunlight of this pleasing morning had landed upon across his calendar.

His eyes focused on the final box remaining in the sea of numbers, yet to be scribbled out. Gummy smiled as he sent multiple lines of crimson ink across the no longer blank text reading '31'.

He snatched the sheet of 'May' away from the collection of paper forming a calendar pinned to his peach coloured walls, his beaming smile growing as his cobalt gaze of enthusiasm met the following date.

June 1st

The first day of summer...

"Today! Today! Today!" Gummy cheered in a melody, dashing out of his bedroom coated in the gleaming sunlight from the cloudless sky outside, the snatched page still in his grip.

Meanwhile, Harry was slouched comfortably within the cushions forming Gummy's pastel green couch, (Y/n) by his side and Kala crouched by his toes. He giggled as the sensation of a brush wiped against his miniscule toenails, the vivid colour of yellow coating them with the touch of nail polish.

"Hold still, Harry!" Kala chuckled, all effort contributing to keeping her hand sturdy to apply the polish as her companion's feet shuffled across the cushioned stool supporting them.

"But it tickles!" Harry added, laughter also tickling him inside as he couldn't keep still.

Moments later, the sound of footsteps pattered across the ivory floorboards as Gummy came into view. (Y/n) smiled in response to her boyfriend's appearance, ecstatic happiness crossing his face.

"IT'S TODAY!" Gummy screamed with joy, the sheet resembling the completed month of May wafted towards his friends slightly confused faces.

"What's today, Gummy?" Kala questioned.

"The first day of summer! And you know what that means!" Gummy continued, swiftly returning to his bedroom, furthering the confusion filling the now silent atmosphere.

Crashes and bumping sounds echoed from one room to another, Gummy emerging out of the division moments later. He tugged at something - something large, inflated, and a deep shade of blue.

Whatever it was, it brushed many other items out of the room as though a shepherd herding sheep. Gummy frequently turned his gaze towards the sea of toys and other bits and bobs surrounding his feet so as not to trip over anything.

He pointed towards the item gripped tightly in one hand, now becoming visible to his companions to be an inflated swimming pool.

"It's pool time!" Gummy concluded, his friends observing with curiosity and his girlfriend smiling at his adorable behaviour.

Kala turned to Harry as Gummy pressed the aerated material into the open doorway leading into the corridor of the apartment block. Squeaking and uncomfortable groans overlapped one another as Gummy eventually popped through the doorway with the enormous swimming pool. He turned to face the tip of the pool, happily tugging it further down the corridor in a much more manoeuvrable stance.

Kala sighed. "I hate the first day of summer..."

Harry groaned in agreement. "Yup. Me too..."

~

Groans of effort filled the peaceful breeze of the summer atmosphere as Gummy continued to tug the mountainous inflated material through the final doorway. The deep blue pool squeaked between the wooden frames, Gummy scrunching his eyes closed to concentrate on putting all his strength into luring it to the outside world.

Seconds later, the bouncy navy material hopped onto the luscious grassy ground, caving Gummy into the dip that formed where the water would be collected when filling it. Gummy shook his head, only darkness surrounding him as the pool trapped him underneath. He pressed the center of the material, the light inflated pool floating off of him in the summery breeze.

Gummy grabbed the aerated swimming pool just in time, restricting it from becoming a victim of the wind. He bounced it back onto the emerald grass, inhaling and exhaling quickly as he became out of breath.

Hands raised towards Gummy's azure gaze, his eyes squinting as he examined the almost empty landscape.

"Nope... nope...

There!"

His beaming smile continued to grow as Gummy tugged the pool effortlessly down the garden, the sound of squeaking against the lawn overlapping his shuffling shoes.

Seconds after manoeuvring the pool into the perfect place, Gummy dashed to the small metal tap attached to the saturated blue paint of the apartment's outside wall. He quickly spun the slightly rusted tap to activate the water supply, scooping up the vermilion rubber tube connected.

Gummy kept the hose in his grip as he returned to the pool, crystal clear water quickly flowing through the tube and splashing into the bouncy material. Although the pure liquid was rapidly filling up the pool, Gummy became impatient rather quickly.

"Faster! Faster! Faster!!" He screamed, now frowning.

"Oh man-o! This is taking forever!" Gummy continued, his creamy white shoes crossing the luscious lawn once more to replace his rubber tube.

The water currently pouring out of the deep red tube formed a trail of droplets beside him as he swapped it for a larger rubber hose. Gummy returned to the pool, a more increased amount of water following him like his shadow before he directed it to fill up the pool.

He smiled as the amount of water splashing into the swimming pool increased by the second, his grin spreading from ear to ear as the pool became almost overflowing.

"Last one in the pool's a rotten egg!!" Gummy cried, tossing the hose to the side as the water supply came to a close.

He leapt towards the body of water, the deep blue sides of the inflated pool bouncing with the sudden movement as he splashed into the glistening flow.

His friends became aware of the commotion outside, (Y/n) being the first to locate Gummy as she reached the mahogany doorway leading to the humid air surrounding the building.

She smiled warmly, leaning against the doorway as she happily watched her boyfriend splashing within the pool at a slow pace of lightened floating.

Gummy used his hands as oars to paddle through the water, a joyous grin crossing his face and a variety of vibrant colours decorating the inflatable ring keeping him from sinking.

Kala and Harry emerged, only to be greeted with some cheeky splashes of relaxingly cold water from their excited pal. Kala flinched at the sudden freezing sensation, Harry yelping in surprise.

"Come on in! The water's fine!" Gummy called.

Kala's emerald gaze widened in shock as Harry's groans began to quiver, overlapped by the sound of nervous nail biting. (Y/n) face dropped a little as she approached her companions, (f/c) paws slowly crossing the now soggy grass of the sunlit lawn.

Gummy frowned. "You guys are sure acting weird..."

His smile returned. "What's the matter? You're not scared of a little water, are you?" He chuckled, teasing.

"I'm not afraid of water!" Kala pouted. "I just don't like it! Is that a crime!?"

Gummy frowned once more. "I don't think so... lemme check!"

He pulled out a large brown, almost black, book, appearing stacked up with enough paper to have a million pages with 'LAW' engraved with golden text on the cover. Gummy's green jelly fingers quickly flipped through each page, azure gaze scanning the cursive text of each sheet of creamy white paper.

"Nope... nope..." He muttered to himself, searching to see if not liking water was indeed a crime.

"Eating a pool's not a crime..." Gummy continued, another page passing by.

"Nope... no... nope!" He slammed the book closed, the unbelievable amount of pages crammed in between the cover crashing onto the lawn behind the pool as he tossed it over his shoulder.

"Nope! No law against it! It's just... well, water! And you're not afraid of anything!" Gummy continued, earning a nervously averted gaze from Kala.

"Maybe I'll try..." She mumbled back with anxiety. "But baby steps..."

Gummy smiled. "That's the spirit! I'll only splash you with baby splashes!"

He turned to Harry. "And what about you, Harry?"

Gummy's anxious chameleon companion froze with fear, his voice stuttering to the point he couldn't form a sentence to reply with.

"I-I... um... I-"

"Speak up, buddy! I can't hear you-"

"I NEVER LEARNED TO SWIM!" Harry blurted out.

Gummy gasped. "Oh my!"

He brought out some deep red arm bands, Harry's quivering amber gaze examining them with a confused frown.

"These will keep you afloat while you learn!" Gummy said with reassurance. "Swimming is like riding a bicycle - once you learn, you always fall off!

Or... something like that!"

Gummy chuckled nervously, handing the arm bands towards Harry as he politely accepted then in his trembling hands.

Gummy turned to (Y/n) - she smiled towards her boyfriend, already aware of the question about to be asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm alright with water and pretty confident with swimming." She stated with determination.

Gummy smirked, observing as his girlfriend dashed back into the multi coloured apartment. His friends watched with confusion as she returned moments later; her regular outfit becoming a salmon coloured swimming costume tightly fitted from her shoulders to her thighs while wrapping her torso.

Gummy smirk grew as (Y/n) bounced onto the edge of the azure swimming pool, a light splash and a ripple of glistening water surrounding him as she effortlessly slid into the pool.

(Y/n) giggled as her boyfriend cheekily sent some droplets of water speeding towards her face, a smirk crossing her face as he flicked some water back in response.

Kala rolled her eyes, ears twitching as another voice entered the humid breeze of the summer's day.

"Yoohoo!" Came the extremely recognisable voice, earning stares from the rest of the group already enjoying the tropical weather.

"Break out the sunscreen! I'm ready for my all over tan!"

It was Granny Peters - a grey and black striped summer's attire covering a small amount of her rounded body while a frilly white hat was perched atop her neon pink hair. She tossed herself onto a nearby sunbathing seat, quickly becoming comfortable under the multi coloured parasol glued to the ground behind.

Attentions shifted as another, more serious, voice came booming from the other side of the garden. Mr. Kronk soon came into view - dressed in lifeguard clothing while bringing a lifeguard seat towards the pool.

"Right, lifeguard on duty!" He shouted, setting up his seat by spreading the legs of the ladder across the luscious lawn below.

"There are rules to being around a pool..." Mr. Kronk continued, now nestled into his navy blue stool of a lifeguard seat, raised higher above anyone else to give himself a sense of importance.

"...and I'm going to make sure you follow all of them!" He continued.

Gummy frowned, irritated that his neighbour had to come and ruin the fun. A cheeky smirk soon crossed his face, however, as an even cheekier idea crossed his mind.

(Y/n) gently splashed her arms into the water beside him, intrigued by what he could be planning to do now...

Gummy threw his hands down the glistening clear water, a tsunami crashing over the bouncy edge of the bright blue pool and heading straight for Mr. Kronk.

The sea of water collided straight with Mr. Kronk's grumpy face, an angered expression appearing as the splashes soon soaked into the grass.

"Rules!? We don't need no sinking rules!" Gummy shouted, scrunched up green fist in the air with fury before bashing it back into the water with a splash.

His azure gaze eyed up Mr. Kronk's squinted view from behind his golden tinted sunglasses.

"Everybody out of the pool! Now!"

~

(Y/n) sighed - head in a hand as the other nervously plucked some strands of grass out of the patch of luscious lawn she was seated on, legs spread out until her toes touched.

She attempted to block out the angered sounds of Gummy and Mr. Kronk arguing and tossing anything they could find at each other in fury.

(Y/n) listened in on the conversation her sister and Harry were sharing by her side to keep her distracted.

"This is not working for me, Harry! Don't like water!" Kala groaned, shaking her head as droplets of water came shooting out of her cornflower blue fur.

She didn't want the memories of the last few minutes to come flooding back - all those times she was accidentally pulled into the pool by Gummy...

"And I still sink like a stone..." Harry grumbled, disappointed at his many failed attempts of at least staying afloat.

"There's only one thing to do." Kala continued.

"Quit? Give up? Run away? Surrender to the inevitable? Wait, that's four things-" Harry attempted to guess.

"If I'm afraid of the water, and you can't swim in the water, then we must get rid of the water!" Kala stated.

(Y/n) continued to listen in, stomach churning a little at her sister's final suggestion. She understood that the water being present was inconvenient for the both of them, but that shouldn't mean it's the right thing to do to take the enjoyment from Gummy...

She turned her attention back to her boyfriend, sighing that he was still aggressively bashing Mr. Kronk with anything he could find, his miserable neighbour doing the same in return. At this moment, it was two bright red inflatable surfboards...

(Y/n) couldn't take her thoughts away from her sister's idea, her conversation with Harry continuing moments later.

"But if you're afraid of it, and I sink in it, how do we do anything about it?" Harry's panicked voice inquired.

"When is water not water?" Kala asked.

"Wait! Wait! I know this one!" Harry cried, his brain doing overtime to come up with a solution.

"Have no fear, my friend, I have a plan." Kala continued.

(Y/n) became more nervous, the patch of grass between her legs being almost bare as she stared down at it to ignore both sides of the current situation.

Her (f/c) ears twitched, however, at the sound of Mr. Kronk's frustrated shouts, alerting her to take a peek at what was stressing him out so much.

She smiled to see it was Gummy...

"That's against the rules! No diving boards higher that three feet!" Gummy's miserable neighbour shouted, perched back onto his lifeguard seat.

(Y/n) raised her (e/c) gaze higher and higher until she caught sight of her boyfriend - many feet above the inflatable pool as he quickly climbed the ladder of a towering diving board, hand movement struggling to keep up with speeding feet up each silver step.

(Y/n) kept her eyes on Gummy, although she became distracted by her sister and Harry, passing her from within the vibrant apartment block to the pool multiple times. The sound of something crashing into the pool caused her (e/c) gaze to shift to notice her sister pouring ice cubes into the swimming pool.

"We cool this off enough with ice cubes and it'll freeze. Then no more water!" Kala instructed to Harry, who nodded and followed her overpowering pace back into the building.

(Y/n) frowned at their selfish actions before Gummy's voice lured her attention and gaze back over to the cloudless sky where a tiny version of him could be seen.

He leapt onto the deep blue panel of the diving board; the paint appearing to be brand new as it glistened in the now lowering sunlight.

"Ha! You can't stop me!" Gummy screamed down to his irritating neighbour, still calling out 'against the rules' with every step Gummy took across the springing board.

Gummy's cobalt gaze saw the distance between himself and the ground, his stomach churning a little with nerves as he took a deep breath. He noticed (Y/n) out of the corner of his eye, still sunk into the soggy grass in the shadows of the multi coloured building, smiling towards him. He smiled back, his nerves fading with reassurance.

Gummy turned back to face the view from the edge of the wobbling board, his feet tight to the surface so he wouldn't bounce off the tip of the slab. He could see everything - every building in every street, every tree in every park...

Gummy took another deep breath, eyes closing for a few seconds as he brought himself together. He raised his arms, preparing for his legs to launch himself into the water below.

His girlfriend continued to observe, with both amazement and anxiety, as she tried to keep her eyes off of her sister and Harry continuing to overflow the pool with frozen cubes.

Gummy's legs bent a little, all concentration building up to allow him to take that one jump. However, the sound of Mr. Kronk's voice distracted him...

"Against the rules!! Against the rules!!"

The same three words pounded in Gummy's head, his gaze turning to his irritating neighbour from the edge of the board. He frowned, groaning at the tiny Mr. Kronk he could just see from underneath the board, still screaming loud enough for his words to be clear from such a distance.

"Get down from there!!"

However, Gummy soon lost his step from distraction, the wobbling slab of freshly painted plastic bouncing as he swung from the edge down into the humid breeze of the invisible blanket of air below.

He shrieked to begin with, becoming more comfortable as he continued to fall. Gummy chuckled, almost enjoying the sensation. (Y/n) observed with panic, (f/c) paws now buried in the grass and hands covering her gasps as her boyfriend sailed at great speed towards the now completely frozen water.

Gummy hadn't noticed this - probably because he was so engaged with the experience of falling that he couldn't take in anything else. He smirked, dangerously swinging himself so his chest now faced the water rather than his back as he edged closer to the pool of ice.

However, the pool of ice soon became a trampoline as Gummy's jelly like body bounced against the frozen substance. He shrieked a little from surprise at first, springing up more and more each time he bounced against the ice and back down.

Kala gasped. "Didn't figure on Gummy bouncing..." she groaned at herself in annoyance that she didn't take Gummy's jelly consistency into account...

"We've gotta save him!" (Y/n) panicked, observing Gummy's effortless boings alongside her sister.

"Wait, what's he doing?" Harry interrupted, causing both his feline companion's attentions to focus on Gummy.

He was midway through a bounce, before bringing something out, strapping it to his back, and fiddling with it. Suddenly, something came shooting from behind him, quickly becoming raised above him and turning his uncontrollable bounces into perfect floating.

Gummy drifted to the ground, landing neatly onto the ice without causing a crack. The colourfully patterned material crashed in front of him, revealing his proud smile.

"Never go swimming without a parachute, I always say! Let's do it again!" Gummy cried, leaping back onto the luscious lawn with excitement.

"Sorry! Pool time is over!" Mr. Kronk groaned, collecting his lifeguard gear and heading back into the eye-catching building.

Granny Peters shuffled in her sunbathing seat, a little alert like she had been asleep for quite a while. She processed the