Chap­ter XXV opens with Mibs and Bob­bi prepar­ing to change into their swim­suits by the pool, mark­ing the begin­ning of a piv­otal moment in the sto­ry. Mibs, usu­al­ly a con­fi­dent indi­vid­ual, is tak­en aback by the poor fit of her swim­suit, which makes her feel self-con­scious and vul­ner­a­ble. This is a sharp con­trast to the more self-assured char­ac­ter she has been before. Bob­bi, on the oth­er hand, steps in as a com­fort­ing pres­ence, exud­ing a grown-up con­fi­dence in her cher­ry red biki­ni. She helps Mibs adjust the straps of her pur­ple one-piece swim­suit, offer­ing both prac­ti­cal assis­tance and emo­tion­al sup­port, which has a notice­able effect on Mibs, boost­ing her con­fi­dence and help­ing her feel a bit bet­ter about her appear­ance. Bobbi’s encour­age­ment is exact­ly what Mibs needs to regain some sense of con­trol and com­fort in a moment where she felt exposed.

Once they man­age to get dressed, the girls make their way out­side to join the boys, Will and Fish, near the pool. The scene that unfolds is vibrant, with the pool area described as a mix of charm and chaot­ic ener­gy. Will is already in the water, swim­ming effort­less­ly, while Fish stands off to the side, prepar­ing him­self for what might be a more cau­tious dive into the pool. The mood light­ens as the boys start a play­ful water fight, exchang­ing play­ful insults and laugh­ter. In the midst of this play­ful chaos, Will unex­pect­ed­ly kiss­es Mibs, caus­ing her to feel flus­tered and con­fused. This kiss, unex­pect­ed and spon­ta­neous, adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to Mibs’s grow­ing emo­tions. Fish, see­ing this inter­ac­tion, steps in with a warn­ing to Will about how he should behave around Mibs, caus­ing the group to shift into a slight­ly more seri­ous dynam­ic, even though the fun con­tin­ues. The com­plex­i­ty of emo­tions that begins to sur­face in Mibs fur­ther enrich­es the moment, leav­ing her unsure about how to process the sud­den affec­tion she has just expe­ri­enced.

As the boys con­tin­ue their water games, Mibs finds her­self caught in a whirl­wind of emo­tions, which prompts her to reflect on her feel­ings for Will. She becomes more intro­spec­tive, try­ing to under­stand what she tru­ly feels as she watch­es Will inter­act with the oth­ers. Bob­bi, ever per­cep­tive, notices Mibs’s grow­ing dis­com­fort and teas­es her about Will’s clear affec­tion toward her. This play­ful teas­ing forces Mibs to acknowl­edge her own feel­ings, although her respons­es are uncer­tain, fluc­tu­at­ing between shy­ness and curios­i­ty. She finds her­self ques­tion­ing whether she is ready to explore these feel­ings more deeply, unsure of what it all means. Her inter­nal con­flict high­lights the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ties of ado­les­cence, where every inter­ac­tion feels height­ened and sig­nif­i­cant, espe­cial­ly in the con­text of rela­tion­ships that are just begin­ning to evolve.

Dur­ing this qui­et moment of reflec­tion, Bob­bi opens up about her own strug­gles. As the preacher’s daugh­ter, she con­fides in Mibs about the pres­sure she feels to con­form to a cer­tain image and the weight of soci­etal expec­ta­tions that she con­stant­ly bat­tles against. This admis­sion of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty helps the two girls bond on a deep­er lev­el. They share a can­did con­ver­sa­tion, dis­cussing their respec­tive chal­lenges, their desires for free­dom, and their evolv­ing sense of self. For Mibs, it’s a rev­e­la­tion that she is not alone in feel­ing the pres­sure of grow­ing up and try­ing to rec­on­cile who she is with the expec­ta­tions placed upon her. This shared under­stand­ing pro­vides a sense of con­nec­tion, help­ing Mibs real­ize that she’s not the only one strug­gling with the com­plex­i­ties of iden­ti­ty and the tran­si­tion from child­hood into young adult­hood.

As the chap­ter draws to a close, Mibs and Bob­bi float togeth­er in the pool, reflect­ing on the idea that life some­times feels sur­re­al. They both share the sen­ti­ment that it feels as though they’re nav­i­gat­ing a strange dream­scape, where the rules of child­hood seem to blur as they step clos­er to matu­ri­ty. This intro­spec­tive moment encap­su­lates the bit­ter­sweet nature of their growth, as they begin to move past the inno­cence of child­hood and enter a more com­plex, uncer­tain future. Their con­ver­sa­tion marks a key turn­ing point, not just in their friend­ship but in their per­son­al devel­op­ment, as they start to nav­i­gate the emo­tion­al intri­ca­cies of ado­les­cence. The chap­ter leaves the read­er with a sense of qui­et con­tem­pla­tion, as Mibs and Bobbi’s shared expe­ri­ences illus­trate the trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery, growth, and the com­plex­i­ties of nav­i­gat­ing new emo­tions, rela­tion­ships, and expec­ta­tions. Their evolv­ing bond and the real­iza­tion of the chal­lenges ahead remind them of the impor­tance of per­son­al growth and the strength that comes from under­stand­ing one’s iden­ti­ty in the face of a rapid­ly chang­ing world.