It looks awesome!  It isn’t Olympic-sized or anything, but it has a deep end suitable for cannonballs.  It’s surrounded by beach chairs, one of which contains…

… a ripped blonde, looking at him with some bemusement.  She’s got the “where are your parents, kid” expression.

He glances at her and strides right by, unbalking.  He does not cannonball, but he gets on the diving board and turns his back to the pool and spreads his arms out and lets himself fall backward.  Splash.

He orients himself in the water and gets his head above the surface and goes "ptuh ptuh" and waves at mysterious blond woman.

Yeah, okay.  He gets a wave back.  She considers for a few moments, then calls out.  “You wanna play some volleyball?”  Nobody else likes volleyball, it sucks.

"Sure!"

Yeah!  Finally!  She acquires and tosses a beach ball twice the size of Lucky's head towards him, then belly-flops into the pool.

(it stings a little, but it's good practice to deliberately resolve not to burn backlash on stupid things, when you don't have a regular partner)

He giggles at her and attempts to bop the beach ball back in her direction.

Wrist-bump, aiming behind the kid.  “How’d you get stuck in here?”

He will dive energetically after the ball!  He is a decent swimmer, certainly for a twelve year old kid, but not terribly careful about volleyball form.  "I'm here with my sister," he says.  "She can fly."

"Huh.  That's cool."  Carol's form is quite a bit better, and she's an esper.  And she's got an adult's reach.

... maybe she'll just go ahead and stick to one hand.  Make it fair for the kid.

Oh, are they playing volleyball volleyball?  He kinda figured they were just bopping this ball back and forth.  He can get serious.

...he is still, you know, a twelve year old kid with no particular competitive level pool volleyball experience, though, so mostly this means sometimes hitting it harder.

Well, he's definitely doing better, anyway.  Or she's doing worse.  Certainly one of those.  "You from around here, or did she fly you in for the 'quake?"

"Nah, we're local."  Bop.  "She only just started doing esper stuff.  You're really good at this."

Return bop with just two fingers.  "Born this way.  I mean, being an esper doesn't hurt."  She shrugs.  "But I've always been pretty sporty, long as I can remember."

"It makes you like faster and stronger, right?" he says.  "As well as your powers."

"Yeah.  Get through Hell Week and it's like you're an Olympic athlete and a movie makeover all in one."  I liked my looks pretty well, but I don't have to focus on my macros the way I used to.  Probably should.

He treads water and bops the ball back toward her when it comes his way.

"How dangerous is backlash?"

"Knew a guy whose backlash was tiredness.  Sounds like nothing, right?  But you fall asleep in a dungeon, you're gone.  He almost died in Hell Week.  Went out on a hiking trip and fell asleep.  They hadn't found him, he'd've never woken up.  Even the dumb ones are bad."

She misses the bounce, because she's playing lefty-only.  Sets it and serves it back to Lucky.

He boops it back sadly.  He isn't sure whether he's allowed to talk about this.

She abruptly realizes that she's talking to a preteen.  "So, you know.  You wanna be careful.  You always get guiding.  Eventually it turns into what they call 'chronic' backlash, which is just you feel like sh-garbage.  And that makes everything feel bad.  You just gotta keep on top of it and you'll be okay.  Hasn't gotten me yet, so it can't be that bad, right?"  She racks up a tiny bit of backlash to see how the ball's going to go, then surges out of the water to intercept it and return serve with a finger-flick.

(Is this an objectively stupid use of backlash?  Yes.  Does she feel guilty for bumming out a kid and want to cheer him up by showing off esper athleticism with a bit of precognition?  Also yes.)

...okay yeah that was pretty cool.  He misses the return.

He giggles.  "My sister's lookin' for a partner."

"Same.  You hear about compatibility?"

"I know some espers can guide each other and some can't."