Surface Tension Page 4

  It's got a normal-type tire valve on it, so that shouldn't be too much of a pain, because I can use the battery-powered air pump we keep in the trunk.

  It takes forever to fill this thing up, but it's worth it. It's so huge. It's way taller than I am. It's heavy too. I can't carry it. I roll it across the lawn, along the property line, but it's so uneven that I can only balance it for so long and then it takes on a wobble and goes down with a weird, rubbery echo. I have to lift it up like I'm in the World's Strongest Man competition on ESPN. I get it going with a little momentum and it goes straighter.

  Once it hits the rocks, I give it an extra push and it rolls the rest of the way by itself and splashes into the water. A few pebbles stuck to it on the ride across the beach. The sound it made when it rolled across the rocks was sweet. It was like a laser battle in a space movie.

  I jump into the lake and splash water all over it. This thing is black, so it gets really hot in the sun, but I keep it wet so it doesn't get too hot. I jump up and into it and flip myself around so I'm facing up with just my arms and ankles holding me in and my butt dipped into the water. My back sticks to the rubber a little. That's another reason I have to keep it wet.

  It's just perfectly warm. It feels like I'm lying on the big, fat stomach of some giant. I close my eyes and just float. I look at the sun through my eyelids. It's all orange and yellow and pink and red. I can't tell if I'm seeing my blood through my eyelids or if I'm actually seeing through my eyelids. If I open my eyes for just a second and look up at the sun, I get a big yellow spot in each of my eyes, and then they split into two more and I can move them around by moving my eyes. And sometimes there are these strings and dots and clear things that float by like they're underwater. I can only look at them with my peripheral vision, though, because if I try to focus on them, then they jump around like crazy.

  I feel so relaxed. Maybe I'll stay out here the rest of the day, just floating. My stomach feels calm finally. When I was home, all I did was worry about going back to school and if I had the right clothes for eighth grade and about that video audition. I forgot about that.

  Also, before we came up here, on the last day of school, that whole thing with Brad and the water fountain kept running through my head. How he cut in front of me in line and then I pushed him out of the way and then he pushed me back.

  I should have hit him in the face right there. I should have gotten in a fistfight right then. I don't know why I didn't. I didn't want to get expelled, I guess. But still, I would have fought him right there if he had hit me, but he didn't. Instead, he was like, “Meet me behind the gym after school and I'll kick your ass.”

  So then I was just stuck thinking about it. I kept thinking about how I didn't want to get hit in the face and how I didn't want to get beaten up. And everybody in the whole school heard about it and kept coming up to me and saying, “I heard you're gonna fight Brad. I heard you're gonna fight Brad.”

  It was stupid, and people were even coming up to my best friend, Steve, and saying stuff like “If Luke gets his ass kicked, you're not going to jump in, right?”

  And he said that he wouldn't jump in. That was stupid too.

  Anyway, by the time school was over, I was so scared I couldn't even think about fighting. I just went down the hallway and got on the bus and went home. Everybody thought I was a wimp, I'm sure, but I hope nobody remembers that next year. If everybody remembers it, next year is really going to suck.

  That's what I like about being up here, though. I don't have to worry about all that stuff. I wish we could move here.

  It's Thursday, and the Richardsons have gone to work.

  Mary's here, though. I can't figure out what she's doing over there. She's just walking around inside the big cottage in a big pink bathrobe.

  She's got a towel too. Maybe she's going to take a bath in the lake.

  She's coming out of the house. She's walking over to me where I am at the picnic table. She's holding a towel and a bottle of shampoo.

  She's walking right toward me. She's smiling. She says, “Hi, are your parents home?”

  “No. They're out grocery shopping.”

  “Oh shoot.” She turns like she's about to go back to her house, but she only turns halfway, like she's still deciding something. She says, “I couldn't … Could I borrow your shower real quick? Ours doesn't have hot water.”

  She's got these big blue eyes and they're wide open, hoping I'll say yes.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Oh my gosh, thank you so much. You're a sweetheart.”

  I take her inside and show her the bathroom. She goes right in and shuts the door behind her. I wonder why she's not taking a bath in the lake like her parents and her brothers do. I guess I should stay in here till she's done, in case she needs an extra bar of soap or something.

  She starts the shower. The water pressure sucks and the walls are so thin I can hear her breathing in there.

  I sit down on the couch and read Produce the Corpse. I'm at the part where the detective is about to figure out that the guy who's been helping him find the killer is really the killer himself. That's my favorite part.

  The water turns off and I hear Mary getting ready to come out of the bathroom. I hold the book like I'm reading, but I'm just looking at the bathroom door.

  Mary walks out with her bathrobe on and her hair wrapped up in a towel like a turban. She looks like a movie star.

  “Thanks so much.”

  “Sure.”

  “See you later.”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  “Bye.”

  I watch her walk toward her big, perfect cottage. I wish she would take me with her. I wish I could be part of their family, but not have her be my sister.

  I like my old bunk bed, even though it's not too comfortable. I like my Star Wars sheets. I like the two old posters on the wall from the previous owners. The Porsche poster is okay, but I really like the E.T. poster with the little kid's finger and the alien's finger almost touching.

  I can't sleep, so I just lie on the top bunk with my eyes open and look up at the patterns in the knotty pine. I like being so close to the ceiling. When I was a little kid, I used to make up all sorts of stories about the swirls in the wood. I used to imagine they were galaxies and I was a god looking down on them. I used to like to think about things like that, but now thinking about that stuff seems boring.

  I close my eyes and try to sleep, but the night here is so quiet it's loud. The bullfrogs out in the creek and the crickets chirping. The willow branches scraping against the roof. The creek working on the rocks. The dogs barking down the road. The owl hooting.

  I wish I had a new book to read, because I'm already sick of all the books we have here. I wish there were a book about a kid in a cottage near a lake, and all he wanted was a kitten from the farm up the road, but his parents wouldn't let him have one, even though the kitten was free.

  So the boy got this idea that if he found a special kind of rock, which only existed in this one place in the world, then everyone would understand how much he wanted that kitten, and they'd let him have it because the rock was so powerful and so special.

  And after that, after he had the kitten and the rock, everyone would understand how powerful he was. And everyone would let him do anything he wanted, and he'd get to leave the stupid family in the small, stupid cottage and go join the other family in the big cottage. And he'd sit on a throne with the kitten on one side and the luckystone on the other and be the king of the whole lake.

  Then he'd water-ski and take baths in the lake and always win at Boggle, and all the creatures, the bullfrogs and the crickets, the owls and the dogs, would all worship him and do his bidding. And Mary Richardson would be his queen.

  We're at a baseball game in some town that always takes us like forty-two thousand hours to get to. I don't know why every time we go on a vacation, we have to drive around the whole time going places and looking at things, when all I really want to do is b
e underwater. Stupid Roger, Kay, and Claire are here too for some unknown reason. When are the parents going to get it through their heads that Claire and I are never going to be friends and they should stop making us spend time together?

  The only good thing about this baseball game is the food. They've got everything. Hot dogs, candy, ice cream. I could eat this food every single day.

  The only other good thing about baseball is the foul balls. I want to get a foul ball this year. I just want to get one if I can. I brought my glove and everything.

  I bet I could catch it if one came my way. I played T-ball for one season when I was little. Claire was on that team too, I think, but she switched to softball because the boys were too competitive, or I gave her too much crap. I was good, though. I played second base and I could hit too, but then I tried to play the next year and they took the tee away and some coach for the other team pitched to us.

  Claire still plays softball, I think, because she's wearing a baseball hat for Kiwanis softball, with her ponytail poking through the back. She's sitting right in front of me watching every pitch and talking to her dad about it. Her ponytail keeps switching back and forth in front of my face like an actual pony's tail. I'm trying to watch the game, but her pony-tail is distracting. I want to dip the end of it into the ketchup for my curly fries. Roger would probably beat my ass if I did that, though.

  Some guy just hit a foul ball so high that it went up over our heads and out into the parking lot. That was awesome.

  There's a bunch of kids out there running after it. They're just sitting out in the parking lot waiting for foul balls. That is so cool. I want to do that.

  I say, “Mom, can I go out into the parking lot and try and catch a foul ball?”

  “What, honey?”

  “Can I go out and try and get a foul ball?”

  “No, sweetie. Watch the game.”

  “Can I go if Claire comes with me?” I could bring the mini-parent along for supervision. I don't care about the game. I just want to catch a foul ball.

  Mom looks at me sideways and then looks over her shoulder at the pack of kids out there scrambling around cars and running free, and then she looks down at Roger and he shakes his head in such a tiny way that I could barely even see it.

  “Not this year. Maybe next time, when you're a little older.” She turns back and watches the game again. The guy at the plate hits another foul ball. This is a beauty. It arcs up and over everything, back into the parking lot, and right through somebody's windshield. That was so awesome. I could hear the window shatter. The pack of kids runs over, and some kid pulls the foul ball out of the wrecked car. I need to be out there.

  “I'm not a baby.” Mom just shakes her head. Dad stares straight ahead. This stinks.

  Claire is spending the night, which sucks. I guess Kay and Roger had too much to drink at the baseball game, and they don't want to drive all the way home. They're sleeping on the foldout couch in the living room, and Claire is in my room on the bottom bunk.

  I was so tired when we got home I just got in bed. I was going to brush my teeth, but Claire has been taking a shower for about twenty-five minutes. What is that about? This cottage is so small you can hear the water from every room in the house. It's really rude, I think, that she's taking such a long shower while I'm trying to go to sleep. Even worse, she's using up all the hot water, so even if I had wanted to take a shower, I wouldn't be able to.

  Taking a shower in someone else's house is so rude. It's so much worse than anything I ever did to her when we were kids. Like the time we were playing in her backyard near the chestnut tree and I threw one of the spiky chestnut things in her hair, it got snagged, and they had to cut it out. This is so much worse than that.

  Finally, she's done taking a shower. She puts her pajamas on and comes into the bedroom and stinks up the whole room with her cucumber and strawberry and minty-fresh smells. Disgusting, now I'm never going to get to sleep.

  I like it here during the week because there aren't too many people around. The Vizquels and the Richardsons have to work, so they're really only around on the weekends. The Bells' cottage, right across from ours, is empty at the moment. I don't know what happened to them. They used to be around a lot.

  Since they're not here, I go out on their dock with my fishing pole and some night crawlers and try and catch some bass. I cast my line deep into the seaweed bed, where the fish like to feed, but it just comes back with seaweed on it. I know it's not seaweed, because it's freshwater, but I don't know what else to call it. I'm not going to catch anything, so I just sit down on the dock and look around.

  There's a storm coming. I can tell because the water in our cove is choppy, and it's a south wind, and every time there's a south wind, there's a storm. I overheard Mr. Richardson tell Mike that once.

  There's a family renting one of the cottages farther down the lake. They must be from out of town, because they look like they're right out of an L. L. Bean catalog. The parents are wearing matching yellow fleece pullovers and khaki shorts, and they have two little kids, a boy and a girl, who are in matching green bathing suits. The mom and daughter are looking through the stones on their beach. I hope they don't find a luckystone—that would suck. The dad and son are getting their Sunfish out for a little sailing trip. I want to tell them that there's going to be a storm, because of the south wind, but I also don't want to talk to them, because then I'll have to talk to them.

  I hear them talking in a different language. I don't know what language it is, but it sounds weird. Could be French. It looks like the dad is telling the boy how to put the mast together on the Sunfish.

  The boy has a life jacket around his neck, but it's not tied. It's just hanging there. If he goes in the water, it'll pop right off his head. The dad isn't wearing a life jacket, even though he should be. If Mom were here, she'd give him a lecture.

  They push the Sunfish into the water and hop on. They probably think that because there's a south wind, it's a good day to sail, but they're wrong, because I can already see the storm clouds over the power station.

  They paddle out beyond the end of the dock and put the sail up, and as soon as they do, they fly out into the water.

  The wind is so strong. I almost shout to them that a storm is coming, but I don't. They probably wouldn't understand me anyway.

  The Sunfish picks up the wind even more and they shoot out across the water toward the other side of the lake. It's two miles from here to there, and on some days it looks close, but today it looks like there's a whole ocean between here and there.

  They go farther and farther out toward the center of the lake, into the swells of the waves. The little Sunfish disappears behind a wave and then shoots back up again. Those are big waves. I've never seen them so big on the lake.

  I look over at the mom and daughter. They're not even paying attention. Okay, this could be bad. What if they capsize their sailboat? What if they drown?

  Nobody is here to save them. The Richardsons are gone, and they're the only people I know with a boat fast enough to get out there and save them.

  I look out at the water, but I can't see the sailboat anymore. I scan the whole lake, but I don't see them anywhere. The sky is getting darker, and I see the rain like a gray sheet coming across the water. The power station is gone.

  I hope those people know what they're doing. I look back at the mom and daughter, but they've gone inside. I guess I should just mind my own business and forget about it.

  I've only got four days left to find a luckystone ring. It's not going too well. I know I'm not going to find a luckystone on our beach. Our beach is only a few feet long, and nothing good ever happens on it. The Richardsons' beach is about forty feet long and covered in stones, and I bet there's one there somewhere. I don't think there's anyone home at the Richardsons' right now, so I walk slowly across their beach, looking straight down. I open my eyes wide and look at every single stone.

  I wish I had a metal detector that I could sw
eep over the beach, but instead of detecting metal, it would detect lucky-stones.

  “What are you doing?”

  I think it's Mom for a second, but I look up and it's not. It's Mary.

  “Huh?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Oh nothing. Sorry. I didn't realize I was on your property. I'll go back. I'm sorry.”

  She laughs. “No. I'm not mad. I'm just curious. What are you up to?”

  “Looking for a luckystone.”

  “Oh, that's fun. My brothers and I used to do that when we were little. I almost never found one, though.”

  I smile at her, but I can't think of anything to say.

  She says, “Okay then, I'll let you get back to it.” She turns and starts walking back to her house. I want to say something to her to make her turn around and stay, but I can't think of what it would be that I would say.

  I almost call out to her and ask if she wants to help me look, but I don't. She turns around anyway, though, like she can hear me thinking, and says, “Hey, do you want a gingerbread man and some milk, by any chance?”

  “Sure.”

  She motions for me to follow her, and we walk up the steps toward the screened-in porch. I can't believe I'm finally going inside their cottage. She opens the screen door and holds it open for me. The door creaks as I'm passing through it, and I already love this house. It smells like gingerbread and furniture polish.

  There's dark hardwood floors and wicker furniture everywhere. Our cottage is filled with nasty carpeting, plastic chairs, worn-out jigsaw puzzles, and peppermint stick ice cream. Compared to our cottage, this place is like a museum. There are perfect little lamps on the tables and dark oil paintings on the walls. There are tiny closets, and stairs going in different directions. The wood floors are clean and shining everywhere.

  I follow Mary into the kitchen, but I walk slowly so I can look at all the pictures on the walls. They're all black-and-white, and every one is of Mary and her brothers through the years. The boys are dressed in suits and have their hair flattened down with oil, and they look really uncomfortable.