Hello from Renn Lake

by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  Also by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  Calli Be Gold

  The Summer I Saved the World…in 65 Days

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Celia Krampien

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hurwitz, Michele Weber, author.

  Title: Hello from Renn Lake / Michele Weber Hurwitz.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Wendy Lamb Books, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: In Wisconsin, as her adoptive parents open their Renn Lake cabins for summer visitors, twelve-year-old Annalise, abandoned as an infant and protected by the lake, discovers a growing toxic algae bloom and teams up with her friends to save Renn Lake.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019023241 (print) | LCCN 2019023242 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9632-2 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9633-9 (library binding) | ISBN 978-1-9848-9634-6 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Lakes—Fiction. | Water—Pollution—Fiction. | Environmental protection—Fiction. | Abandoned children—Fiction. | Adoption—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H95744 He 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.H95744 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781984896346

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Before

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  After

  FYI

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Lake Geneva: I fondly remember our many summers together

  There are two beginnings of this story: mine, which goes back further than you can imagine, and the girl’s, which goes back only twelve years. From the day I first saw her in the bassinet, I knew we would be forever connected. The day she was left here.

  First, my beginning. When the glaciers were melting, ice and water shaped the land. My cousin Tru came before me, long curves of gray and green, and miles of muddy brown. As the ice carved jagged bluffs and a large, deep basin, I filled up with rain and snowmelt. Pine and linden trees sprouted around my shores, and the sun began to warm me.

  After much time passed, people arrived and settled nearby. People like to name things; they called us Nepew, the Menominee word for water. I gave them a place to cool off, to bathe and drink. Fish were plentiful. The trees had grown tall, and shade was abundant.

  Then other people came, wearing different clothing, speaking different languages, and things changed. There was fighting, blood spilled on my shore, and many died. I watched, silent and uneasy, unable to help. Afterward, nothing was the same.

  The other people, explorers, gave us new names. The tallest among them, a man wearing a fur coat, called me Renn, after the place he came from, Rennar. It sounded strange after being called Nepew for so long. He named my cousin Troublant, a French word that means “restless, troublesome, difficult.” Tru thrashed about, working up into a swift current as the man boasted how he had “discovered” us. When Tru calmed down, we had a good laugh. How can someone discover something that’s been around for ages? But the names stuck.

  The surrounding town was called Renn Lake, and I felt honored to have an entire village named after me. Troublant was eventually shortened to Tru, which made my cousin happier, and that’s how it is on maps today: the Tru River. We meet at my northern end, where Tru flows into me.

  People have come and gone. Around us, Wisconsin spreads out in shades and hues and textures, reaching high and dipping low. Each day, the sun climbs and descends, and I wake and sleep to its constant rhythm. The seasons blossom, then fade. Summers are busy and boisterous. Winters are snowy and quiet, a time for rest.

  I am content.

  For the most part.

  There are times when I see something terrible, and I’m reminded how I can only stay still and watch. My heart ripples and sinks like a giant stone, then shatters into a thousand tiny pebbles, whirling aimlessly through my depths.

  Like that day.

  There was a moonless sky. A fragrant, overgrown garden. An open door. The bassinet.

  It was just past dusk when I saw the woman. She was carrying a wrapped bundle in her arms. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. Then a little hand poked out as she went around the outside of a store, toward the back. She was only gone a few minutes. When I saw her again, her arms were empty. At first, I thought she was bringing the bundle to someone. But I soon realized that wasn’t the case. She slipped away, into the darkness.

  The bundle was a baby girl.

  I could not stay still and watch this time. I must help, I thought. I must try.

  I gathered myself up and propelled a surge toward the store. I landed with a loud slap, spraying the window. I startled the gray-haired figure who was inside sweeping the floor.

  And the baby girl opened her tiny mouth and cried.

  That was her beginning.

  “Jess! We have to get to the cabins. Come on!” As
I open the screen door that leads to the porch, there’s a muffled reply from my sister, somewhere upstairs. I bend over and reach underneath the wicker armchair to grab my flip-flops, then slip them on and go down the steps.

  Jess is gesturing dramatically in front of her bedroom window. She pauses when she spots me, then opens it and yells down, “I’m in the middle of a scene, Annalise!”

  “Hurry up and finish. Mom and Dad need our help.”

  She crosses her arms and stomps her foot. I can’t quite see it, but I know. Always the right foot. With all the stomping Jess does, I don’t know how her right leg isn’t shorter than the left one by now.

  “Why do we have to get there so early!” she shouts. “It’s the first day of summer vacation!”

  I’m about to remind her how much there is to do with all the guests checking in when I hear her thundering down the stairs. Jess says acting is her thing, not helping out with our family’s rental cabins on the lake. But she’s never tried out for anything—not at school or the community theater. Jess lets the screen door slam behind her. “Okay, fine. Let’s go.” She’s wearing a gold-sequined tank top; a flouncy, satiny white skirt; and wedge sandals. She’s also drawn major cat eyes with black liner and painted her fingernails neon green.

  I tilt my head. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  She twirls, then almost falls as she jumps over the steps. “Because I’m going to walk the red carpet.” She skips around a puddle, then parades to the sidewalk while doing a little wave. I smile and catch up to her. So Jess.

  She looks exactly like Mom did when she was little, with feathery hair, so light it’s practically white, and skin that’s almost transparent. I’m short, generously curvy, and have hazel eyes and pounds of dark ringlets. I don’t look like anyone in my family.

  I step over a fallen branch. “Did you hear the storm last night?”

  “Uh-uh. I fell asleep with my headphones on.”

  “It was scary. I thought a window might break or something.”

  “Whoa. I’m glad I slept through it.”

  She stops and poses with a hand on her hip, one leg crossed in front of the other. “Oh, you’re too kind. Yes, I’m wearing a new designer. From Paris. Chloe Jeanette Le Grand.”

  “Is that really a designer?”

  She laughs. “No.”

  We turn onto Sage Street. I’ve always wondered who named the streets in Renn Lake. There’s Main, Church, and Park, but no other spice-related roads. Sage is a mystery. Like me.

  We take Sage all the way to RL Middle. When we pass the building, it looks lonely, like it misses the kids. I’ll be back there next year for seventh grade. Jess is going into fifth and has one more year at RL Elementary.

  She stops her red-carpet walk and nudges me. “What’s that boy doing?”

  There’s a tall, skinny boy I don’t recognize standing in the center of the athletic field. He doesn’t have a soccer ball or a baseball or anything. He’s holding a book close up to his face.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “He looks kind of weird.”

  I glance at him again. “Interesting place to read.”

  “Yeah, really.”

  We keep walking, Jess wiggling her fingers and pointing to her neck. “Oh, my jewels? They’re from a very expensive, very exclusive boutique. All the celebs go there.”

  I grin. “You’re not just an actor, now you’re a celeb?”

  “Why not?”

  When we reach Main Street, the large wooden sign proudly announces: WELCOME TO RENN LAKE, WISCONSIN’S BEST KEPT SECRET. Located halfway between Madison and the Illinois state line, Renn Lake is the town, and Renn Lake is the lake. They’re symbiotic, like we learned about in science. They need each other.

  Jess turns to me and makes a heart with her hands. “I forgot to tell you. Happy found day.”

  “Thanks.” I catch a glimpse of Alden’s at the end of Main across from the lake, innocent looking, like it’s an ordinary store. I shiver a little, even though it’s warm out.

  Twelve years ago today.

  Jess fixes her skirt, which has twisted around. “Another special dinner tonight. So yay, more cupcakes!” She sighs. “Honestly, the best part about you getting two celebrations is that I love cupcakes.”

  “Really?” I huff a little. Jess would say that.

  She elbows me. “You know I’m only kidding.”

  We celebrate my birthday on June 2, the day the doctors determined I was born, and my found day on June 4. Mom and Dad started calling it that when I was five and they told me I was an abandoned baby. They would tickle my feet and sing a silly made-up song with rhymes for found day, like “homeward-bound day” and “astounding day” and “sounds like we love you day.” They stopped tickling when I got older, but they still sing the song. Every year.

  Even so, every year on this day, there’s a hollow space in my chest that Mom and Dad’s song can’t quite fill.

  I point to the sidewalk in front of the Main Street stores, wet and shiny from last night’s rain. “It almost looks like an enchanted secret passageway, doesn’t it? The way the sun is reflecting off the pavement.”

  Jess doesn’t reply. She pauses in front of the movie theater and waves. To no one. “It’s an honor just to be nominated,” she gushes, giggling.

  I smile. “You know you have to actually act in something before you’re nominated?”

  “I will!”

  “Like you played the guitar and cooked with all those fancy utensils Mom and Dad bought you? What were they? A garlic press, right? And a lemon zester?”

  “Don’t make fun of me!” She zooms ahead.

  I walk by Castaway, the secondhand shop, its white flag with the blue anchor waving lazily above the door, then the hardware and candy stores. Thick curls of ivy climb the front of the candy store, clinging tightly except for one long vine that lost its grip and is arching away from the building.

  I stop just before the last store—Alden’s Gift Emporium: Flora, Fauna, and Whatnot. I suppose I was Whatnot?

  Faded reddish brick. The wood door with a stained-glass cutout. A water bowl on the ground for thirsty dogs. A striped awning. So normal. Nothing that would signify what happened here four thousand, three hundred, and eighty days ago. I’ve never gone inside. Mom or Dad might’ve taken me when I was little, but by myself? No.

  I shade my eyes and scan the window. There are some plants, a gazing ball on a stand, and a kid-sized rocking chair, but…Mrs. Alden.

  Jess pokes my arm. “What’re you doing? I thought you said we had to hurry.”

  It hits me fresh. Mrs. Alden’s gone. She died a month ago. Mr. Alden closed the store for a while and went to stay with one of his sons. But now, under the “Whatnot,” it says: COME IN! WE’RE OPEN!

  Every morning on found day, when I’d pass the store on the way to the cabins, Mrs. Alden would be in the window, like she was waiting for me. Did she know? Did she remember? She must have. She always gave me a soft smile, a nod. And I nodded back. A little thing. A big thing.

  Mrs. Alden was the one who found me.

  “Are you okay?” Jess asks. It feels like she’s far away, and I’m inside a tunnel.

  A tear escapes down my cheek, drips off my chin, and blends into the wet sidewalk. I’ve thought about it before, many times, but without Mrs. Alden in the window, it’s like the view is clearer. My eyes are pulled into the store, to the back door, wide open to the garden. I picture a shadow carrying newborn me and then letting go. Putting me down. The shadow takes one step back. Then another. Then disappears.

  It isn’t just the why, which is bad enough, but there’s the how—how did he, or she, lay me in the bassinet? Carefully? Angrily? In a rush? Did he, or she, look back? Worry that I might cry? Or did the person simply slip away without a concern, vanishing in
to the night?

  Wisconsin’s Best Kept Secret isn’t Renn Lake.

  Jess gently takes my hand. “C’mon, Annalise.”

  I shake off her hand and run across the street. I have to get to Renn.

  At the edge, the water curls over my toes and I sort of melt down, my legs trembling, my whole body unsteady.

  Shhh. You’re okay.

  My quick puffs of breath fade into the glassy blue surface.

  It’s just wood, brick, glass. It can’t hurt you.

  The water is warm, more like end-of-summer water. A few specks of green, the color of Jess’s nail polish, catch in the sun.

  Lap, lap, lap. A soothing rhythm circles around my legs, as if the lake is holding me. My breath starts to slow. The trembling fades.

  You’re safe. You’re always safe here.

  I don’t actually hear Renn’s words. I sense them. Feel them.

  I have since I was three.

  “Annalise?” Her sister is standing near. “How come you took off?”

  She wipes her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m all right now. Go on. Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Okay.” Her sister skips toward the row of cabins.

  A baby linden leaf drifts toward Annalise and she leans forward, cups her hand, and carries it out. Some of them don’t get to grow up. She places the leaf on her open palm and smooths it from edge to edge. A few geese fly overhead, flapping and squawking. The long reeds bend in the breeze and graze my surface. I hear laughter; two teenage boys are playing on my shore.