L
aura stood at the edge of the playground, watching the other kids. This wasn't a good day. Sometimes someone would need an extra hand to turn a jump rope or an extra body to balance a seesaw. Not today. There was an empty seesaw, but Laura knew that it wouldn't do any good to go over there. She was sure she could sit all day and all night and all the rest of her life and not a single kid would bother to take the other end.
Laura didn't know why things were this way.
It could be worse,
she told herself, looking across the playground.
At least I'm not Debbie Dirt-Digger.
Laura took some small satisfaction in knowing that there was one person even lonelier than she was. She watched as Debbie knelt in the dirt on the other side of the playground and dug with a stick.
Every day at recess, Debbie walked past the slides and swing and seesaw, continued past the backstop, and went into the far corner of the playground. When she got
there, she picked up a stick and dug in the dirt. It was so much a part of the playground routine that Laura rarely thought of it anymore. Even the meanest kids had grown tired of taunting her. As Laura looked at Debbie, she almost felt sorry for her.
Suddenly Debbie raised her head. Her eyes locked with Laura's.
Laura wanted to look away. But that would mean losing some unspoken contest to Debbie. Maybe even moving below Debbie, all the way to the bottom of the invisible social ranking that followed Laura through school. There was no way she'd let that happen. She held the other girl's gaze.
Debbie smiled. The smile reminded Laura of a caterpillar stretching across a half-dried leaf.
Laura found herself walking past the slides and swing and seesaw and around the backstop. She felt as if she were being tugged through air as thick as syrup. She stood above Debbie.
“Hi,” Debbie said, still smiling. There didn't appear to be any happiness in her expression.
“Uh, hi,” Laura said.
“You don't have any friends,” Debbie said.
Stung by the blunt truth, Laura struck back. “Neither do you.”
“Yes, I do.”
Laura didn't bother to answer. It would be ridiculous to argue about something so obvious.
“I'll be your friend if you eat a bug,” Debbie said.
Laura was sure that she'd heard wrong. “What?”
Still looking at Laura, Debbie scratched at the dirt with her stick. “Eat a bug,” she said. Then she giggled. “It's no big deal. Birds do it all the time. So do shrews and moles. Eat a bug. Just one. Then I'll be your friend.”
This is ridiculous,
Laura thought, but she knelt next to Debbie.
A friend ⦠A bug â¦
Laura couldn't look away from those eyes. At the edges of her vision, she was aware that Debbie had stopped digging and was taking something from the hole.
Debbie's hand came forward. “Friends,” she whispered. She cradled something in her fist.
Laura, her eyes locked on Debbie's, reached out. She flinched for an instant as a soft and wriggling thing touched her palm.
“Quickly,” Debbie said.
Laura's hand moved toward her mouth. It was over in an instant, so quick she swallowed before she could even shudder.
“Did you chew?” Debbie asked.
Laura shook her head, then said, “No.” That would have been too awful. She wiped her hand on her shirt.
Debbie, her eyes still holding Laura, nodded. “Good. If you do that, they can't lay their eggs.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Debbie said. “Don't think about it. You'll have friends soon, lots of friends. And so will I. So will everyone. Bugs are so much nicer than people. They treat everyone the same.” She looked away.
As Laura lost Debbie's gaze, the world seemed to fade for an instant. When it returned, Laura was standing across the playground, watching the girl dig in the dirt. Laura frowned and brushed a small speck of dirt off her fingertip. For a moment, she thought she had just eaten a bug. But that couldn't be. No, she'd never do something like that. Her stomach fluttered at the very idea. Her stomach fluttered and wriggled.
Across the playground, Debbie hummed as she dug in the dirt.
I
t's a good thing the garbagemen didn't have one of those trucks that crush everything. Of course, I never figured things would go that far. When Dad tossed me into the can and carried me out to the curb, I thought he'd just let me stay there for a little while. It's not like I'd done anything really bad. All I did was play with his autographed Yankee baseball. I hardly got it a tiny bit smudged.
So I figured he'd be out sooner or later. I couldn't go back in. He'd said, “Stay there,” and I didn't want to end up in more trouble by disobeying. Then it got dark.
At least it didn't get too chilly that night.
The garbage truck showed up just before sunrise. The noise woke me. I guess I was sleeping pretty soundly. I'm glad I woke, though. The sky was turning from black to red and purple. It was really pretty.
The garbagemen didn't even look at me twice. They just lifted the can and chucked me in the back of the
truck. They've probably seen all sorts of things waiting for them on the curb.
I watched out for Dad as we drove away. I was sort of hoping he'd come after the truck and explain that it was all a mistake.
He didn't.
The dump turned out to be a lot nicer than I'd expected. It hardly smelled at all. Of course, I just might have been used to the smell by the time I got there, since the truck picked up a lot of garbage. There weren't any other kids, but I saw a couple of old televisions and an accordion.
The truck dumped everything at the edge of this huge mountain of garbage. I had to push my way out, but there was nothing heavy on top of me, mostly just food and paper and that kind of stuff, so it wasn't too hard to dig myself free. People sure threw out a lot of food.
I figured this was going to be it for meâI'd have to stay in the dump. But two or three minutes after the garbage truck left, the scavengers came by. They were driving an old, banged-up pickup truck. They stopped right next to me and one of them said, “Hey, look. Somebody threw out a perfectly good kid.”
“Well,” the other said, “don't just stand there. Grab him.”
So I found myself in another truck. They took me to a building and hosed me off. Then they tossed me back in the truck, along with other stuff they'd rescued from the dump, and drove to this big outdoor market.
They put me between a gas grill and a rocking chair. The grill had some rust on it, but it looked like it still worked. The chair was scratched up and the paint was chipped in several places, but the wood seemed solid. I felt pretty good. They could have stuck me with the old dishes and other cheap junk. Being with the grill and the chair helped raise my self-esteem.
A little later, a man and woman came along.
“Oh look, Horace,” the woman said, pointing at me.
“We have a rocking chair, Emily,” the man said.
“No, not the chair, next to it,” the woman said.
“Oh yeah. The boy. Hmmmm.” The man walked over and stooped down. He looked at me for a while, then nodded at the woman. He talked to the guy about the price, and they argued a bit, but not too much. Then Horace pulled out his wallet and handed over some money.
Horace and Emily took me home.
I like it here. I pretty much behave myself. Horace doesn't own any autographed Yankee baseballs. But if he did, I'd try really hard not to play with them. I might not be so lucky next time.
T
hey say Greenhill Lake doesn't have a bottom. They say the deepest spot, straight below dead center, goes down forever. As long as I can remember, we've been coming to the lake for vacation. We rented a cabin there every summer. It's always pretty much the same. Dad and his buddies sat at a table under a tree and played poker. Mom and the other women talked or read. My friends and I spent the days swimming or hiking through the woods.
The lake wasn't very big. I could swim across it the long way without getting tired. And the middle was easy to find. Joey Devon taught me how to do it. You swam out until you could see the white birch along the south bank. You had to line the birch up with the radio tower on the mountain. That got you in the middle, as far as east and west. Then you had to look west and line up the chimney of the third cabin with the sign on the highway. When
all of that was lined up, you were right smack in the middle of the lake.
That morning, I'd paddled out there on my blow-up raft. I was drifting around with my eyes closed when I got flipped. Once a raft is half flipped over, it's all over. There's no way to stop it, no matter how hard you fight.
So I gave up and tumbled into the water.
Joey's laugh greeted me when I came back up. I dunked him. Then we splashed each other until my arms got tired. I guess that wore him out as much as me, because we hung on to my raft and floated for a while, letting the sun bake us into contented lumps of warm laziness. On the shore by the cabin I saw my father chase off a couple geese with a handful of gravel.
“Enough of this lazy stuff,” Joey said. “I'm going to do it. Right now. I'm going for the bottom.”
“You're crazy,” I told him.
“Watch me.” Joey took a deep breath, let go of the raft, then jackknifed down. I watched until the murk swallowed his legs from view.
Just for fun, I held my breath, too. I knew I could go longer than Joey. It was easier for me because I didn't have to waste any energy forcing myself through the water. Sure enough, well before I felt the urge to breathe, Joey burst back through the surface, gasping.
“Told you,” I said.
“Told me nothing,” he said. “Look what I have.” He held out his fist, clenched shut. Then, slowly, like a magician performing a coin trick, he unfolded his fingers.
Dark, gritty globs dripped from his palm and plopped into the water.
Mud.
Bottom mud.
“No way,” I said, not believing what I saw.
Joey just grinned.
That's when I noticed something floating next to him. “You faker,” I said, grabbing the plastic bag. Sure enough, there was a trace of mud left in the bottom. Joey must have tucked it inside his swimsuit before he swam out.
“Got ya, sucker.”
I shook my head. “You didn't fool me for a minute.”
“Yes, I did. I thought your eyes would pop out when I showed you that mud.”
“Maybe you had me for a second or two.” I figured I could give him that much. He'd worked hard to pull off the trick. I had to admit it was pretty clever. I wished it weren't a trick. It would be great to touch the bottom for real. Too bad we didn't have some kind of air tank. I looked at the plastic bag. Maybe there was a way. I opened up the bag, then closed it, trapping air inside.
“I'm going to do it,” I said.
“What?” Joey asked.
“Make it to the bottom.” I took a couple of deep breaths, then swam under the water.
As I suspected, the bag was tough to bring down, but I hadn't filled it too much. I swam as hard as I could, pulling myself deeper and deeper. When I thought my lungs would explode, I exhaled as much as I could; then I
put the bag to my lips, pinched my nose, and breathed in the air I'd brought with me.
The bag gave me barely enough for a short gasp. It was a lot less than I'd expected. I sucked out all the air, then let the bag go and stroked hard.
I knew I'd never been this far before. It was totally dark. I pushed deeper, hoping my fingers would meet mud or sand or even rock. I thought about the time last year we'd found a bluegill at the edge of the lake, gasping weakly as it drowned in the air. While the adults had stood around watching, Joey had stepped forward and put the fish back in the water.
My lungs burned. I knew I'd have to turn away at any instantâthe farther down I went, the longer it would take me to get back up. I'd reached my limit. Maybe next time, or next year, I'd make it.
That's when I saw the glow.
Dim, weak, barely there. I blinked, wondering whether my air-starved brain was playing tricks on me. I'd read that divers start to see stuff if they go too deep or stay down too long. But tricks don't get this real.
The glow grew stronger, became a light.
The light surrounded a moving form, maybe ten feet below me.
I nearly screamed. That scream would have filled my lungs with water and cost me my life. I clamped my jaw so hard I thought my molars would crack.
The creature had arms and legs. But no hands or feet. The limbs ended in tentacles. It struggled upward, whipping
at the water, slowly pulling itself higher, like someone climbing a steep hill. As it got closer, I realized it was hugeâat least three or four times as big as a person. Our eyes locked. It stared at me with large, round orbs of white, each speckled with a thousand pupils that dilated at the sight of me. Intelligent eyes. I couldn't pretend this was a dumb sea creatureânot when its waist was wrapped in fabric that was fastened with a wide belt. Not when it wore an intricately braided band of metal around one tentacle.
The last tiny bubble of air spilled from my mouth.
Below me, a stream of something drifted from a slit beneath the creature's eyes. Mud, silt, some form of earth.
I'd come as far as I could, as deep as possible.
As I turned and stroked for the surface, I saw the creature do the same, heading back to whatever world it dwelled in beneath the bottom, its dense body dropping just as my buoyant body rose.
We shared a common failed effort.
I'd failed to reach the bottom.
It had failed to reach the surface.
The pale body reminded me of the time I'd been hiking with my uncle Ron. When we'd stopped to rest, I'd reached down and lifted a fallen log. Dozens of larvae wriggled on the exposed ground, blind and helpless. Before I could put the log back, Uncle Ron picked up a rock and smashed the life out of them.
I broke through to the surface and let the clean, sweet air above the lake fill my lungs.
“Make it?” Joey asked.
I shook my head, too winded to speak.
“That's what I thought,” he said. “We're never going to get to the bottom.”
I grabbed onto the edge of the raft and drank deep gulps of air. On the bank near the shore, our parents talked and played their adult games. I watched Dad throw a rock at another goose. Somewhere below us, creatures breathed mud and made their own light. They looked so different from us, but I was afraid we had a lot in common.
“Never reach it,” Joey said again.
“Maybe not.” But I knew we'd keep trying. And so would they. All I hoped was that the creature who finally reached us would be a kid like me.