Hello from Renn Lake

by Michele Weber Hurwitz

  “They know about the islands,” he says.

  “Great!” I shout. “Are they going to use them?”

  “It’s what I thought. They don’t have the budget or resources. They’re sticking with the current plan for all blooms. It should eventually go away on its own, depending on the weather.”

  “So?”

  He puts a hand on my shoulder. “So we just have to wait. It’s out of our control.”

  “But it’s not out of our control!” I yell. “We can do something! And we have to! It’s our responsibility to take care of the lake.”

  “Annalise,” Dad says. “Listen to me—”

  “No! Why won’t they try the islands? Or do anything? It’s dying! We have to get the algae off so the lake can breathe!”

  So Renn can talk to me. And listen.

  Dad moves toward me, arms outstretched. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. I promise.”

  Mom’s right behind him. “Gramps used to say—”

  “No!” I back away. “You don’t know that it’ll be all right! Some things are never going to be completely all right. What happened to me will always be there, no matter what you say or do.”

  Mom’s fingers flutter to her heart. Dad covers his mouth with a hand. Their faces. I’ve stung them. I threw those words like darts, when they had nothing to do with it. And the words can’t ever be erased.

  Zach and Maya are standing by the Thought Wall, surrounded by yellow squares. People’s wishes and hopes and feelings.

  “But I can help Renn,” I blurt, and run out.

  I weave around towering pine trees, their low branches scratching my arms. I stumble on the dirt path until I get to the last cabin. It’s empty.

  I fall onto the front step, my face hot and sweaty, curling into a ball and wrapping my arms around my legs.

  I hear heavy footsteps and look up. Zach and Maya are running toward me.

  When they get to the cabin, Zach’s wheezing a little. “You going out for cross-country or something?”

  “Ha,” I croak.

  “Are you okay?” Maya asks. “That was some big stuff back there.”

  I sniffle. “If they’re not going to do anything, I have to.”

  Zach shakes his head. “You heard what your dad said. They’re in charge. We need to be patient.”

  “Forget patience. I’m done waiting. I’m going to make the plant islands and put them in the lake.”

  “What?” Zach says. “Annalise, you can’t just—”

  “I can.” I picture the silver snowflake in Mrs. Alden’s window. “And I only have one question. Are you with me?”

  Neither of them says anything. Are they thinking this is the worst idea they’ve ever heard, or the best?

  I uncurl and stand up, brush off my shorts. “I guess it doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t, because I’m doing it anyway.” My voice catches. “I am not abandoning Renn.”

  Maya looks at me, then raises an eyebrow. “Interesting thing about Wisconsin. I’ve heard my parents talk about how it’s a home rule state.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that towns can make their own decisions about things that affect them.”

  “Hmm,” Zach says.

  Maya smiles. “Exactly.”

  “So…” I look from one to the other.

  “So I’m in if you’re in,” Maya says.

  Zach throws up his hands. “I’m outvoted. Where do we start?”

  I let out a breath. “With our own plan. We’re going to save the lake.”

  “Let’s meet first thing in the morning and figure everything out,” I say. “How to make the plant islands, what supplies we need, and, mostly, how to get them in the lake without anyone seeing. Or trying to stop us.”

  Maya pulls out her phone and groans. “I gotta get the boys. Mrs. Olsen needs to go back to work.”

  “But you’ll help tomorrow?” I ask.

  “I promised the boys I’d take them to a movie. They’ll be so mad if I don’t. I’ll find you as soon as it’s over.” She hurries off.

  Zach says he has some money left over from his birthday, and I tell him about my coin jar. “I have seventeen dollars and one cent.”

  “And I have about twenty bucks. I don’t know for sure, but that should be enough.” He pushes up his glasses. “You’re absolutely positive you want to do this? We could get in huge trouble.”

  “Not a doubt in my mind. Renn told me.”

  “Great.” He rolls his eyes. “We can explain that to the cops when they arrest us.”

  “Ha. Are you nervous?”

  He laughs. “All the time. It’s kinda like my permanent status.”

  “You can back out any time, you know.”

  “I’m not backing out.”

  “Good. Don’t tell anyone, by the way.”

  He nods. “I won’t.”

  “See you tomorrow, then. Nine o’clock, by the reeds.”

  We finally exchange phone numbers and say goodbye. I can’t face Mom and Dad yet, not after what I said, so I walk home and spend the rest of the day reading everything I can find online about plant islands.

  They don’t sound too hard to make. There’s a base with holes in it for the roots, and the top has soil and plants. The islands can be large or small. In pictures, they look like miniature floating gardens.

  I’m reading one last website when a text from Maya pops up on my phone: “U home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Meet me out back?”

  “Okay.”

  There’s no fence between our backyards, just a long rectangle of grass stretching from my house to hers, and Maya’s old swing set in the middle. When I come outside, she’s sitting on one of the swings, hands folded in her lap. I sit in the other one.

  “You look kind of lost and lonely without Henry and Tyler next to you,” I say.

  “Now that you mention it.”

  “You’re lost and lonely?”

  She digs her heels into the dirt patch below the swing. “I’m happy that you and Zach found something that might clean up the algae…but okay, I’m just going to say it. Do you and him have a thing?”

  “A thing? Me and Zach?”

  “Yeah. You’ve been spending practically every moment with him. We’ve hardly hung out.”

  “Because you’re babysitting all day and then you’re wiped out at night.”

  Her shoulders sag. “I always knew when one of us got a boyfriend, it’d change stuff…”

  “Maya, Zach’s not my boyfriend. He’s gay. We’re friends.”

  She covers her eyes with a hand. “Oh. Well, now I feel like a complete idiot.”

  I shrug. “It’s okay. I would’ve thought the same thing, I guess.”

  “Sorry. My bad.” She sighs. “This is what else I’ve been thinking: I’m never having kids.”

  “Really?”

  “At least, not twin boys.” She walks the swing back, then lifts her feet and lets go. I start pumping too. The metal frame squeaks and wobbles from our weight.

  “Are we too big for the swings?” she shouts, getting higher and higher. “Because it should be a rule that you never outgrow your childhood swing set!”

  “Agree!”

  First, we’re going the same; then she pumps faster and we’re swinging opposite. Maya’s hair loosens from her bun and blows wildly around her face. My hands get sweaty gripping the chains. For a few minutes, we’re eight again, swinging after school, kicking off our shoes in the air, laughing about the blimperfly and teasing each other and singing songs from the third-grade concert. “This Land Is Your Land”…“Down by the Riverside”…“Lean on Me”…I can hear them all in my head until the creaking of the pole gets louder and more threatening. I slow down,
and Maya does too.

  She reaches her hand out between the swings and I grab it. We hold on to each other, arms connected across the dirt. We don’t have to say anything.

  Her dad calls from the back of her house. “Maya? Oh, hi, Annalise.” I wave. “Maya?” he repeats. “The disaster that is your room?”

  She gives me a squeeze and lets go. “I told the dentists I’d clean it.” She rolls her eyes and gets up. “They also want me to donate part of my babysitting money to charity. Tzedakah. Doing what’s right. But I haven’t said yes to that.”

  “We’re counting on you to help with the fest, Annalise,” her dad says. “Lots of work to do.”

  “Can we still have it?” I ask.

  “It’s on the shore, not in the water. We’re going to have it, algae or no algae.”

  Maya walks backward toward her house. She crosses her eyes and sticks out her tongue.

  I laugh. “See you tomorrow.”

  “As soon as the movie’s over.” She does a double thumbs-up and goes inside.

  * * *

  —

  Later, when Mom and Dad get home and we all sit down for dinner, it feels awkward. Everyone’s quiet, even Jess. Her elbow is on the table and her face is propped up in her hand. She’s staring off into space. The clinking of forks and glasses echoes through the kitchen, as loud as if they’re being dropped, and we’re all avoiding each other’s eyes.

  After we finish eating, Mom clears the table, then starts rinsing dishes. Dad goes out to the porch and sits in the swing. The skin on Mom’s hands is shiny and glistening, and I can see the back of Dad’s head through the window, his loose-thread, wispy hair brushing the edge of his shirt collar.

  The words I spat out earlier are whirling around me like windswept leaves. I don’t know how to get them to settle. I don’t know what to say to make it better.

  That night, I hardly sleep. My heart’s too sore and my head’s too full.

  I wake up late the next morning, cotton-mouthed and disoriented. I sit up in bed, try to shake off the fuzziness, then remember I’m supposed to meet Zach. I text him and say I’m going to be late but I’ll get there as soon as I can. Brush teeth, get dressed, grab a granola bar. No one’s around; the house is sun-warm and quiet.

  I need to bring my coins to buy the supplies for the plant islands. I reach behind the boots in my closet for the jar, and…nothing. I feel around, pick up the boots and some shoes, and shove aside my backpack and a basket of books. It’s not there.

  I stand up, confused and starting to panic. Did I put it somewhere else, and don’t remember? Did Mom clean my closet and move it? I search the rest of my room, and when I get to my dresser, there’s a piece of paper in the exact spot where I used to keep the coins.

  Dear Annalise,

  I borrowed your money. I’ll pay you back, every cent, I swear. I needed it for the audition fee. I went with Amy and her mom. By the time you read this, I’ll have a part in the movie. Please don’t tell Mom and Dad. I have to do this. It’s in me as much as the cabins are in you.

  Love,

  JessiKa

  Your soon-to-be-famous sister

  I’m frozen next to my dresser, the note in my shaking hands. She took my coins! She didn’t borrow them, she didn’t ask, she just snuck into my room and helped herself. How will I be able to buy the supplies now?

  That day she asked me how much I had, did she have this in mind all along? And, she actually went to the audition, after Mom and Dad said no a hundred times! And I’m not supposed to tell them?

  I slam my closet door, then storm into Jess’s room. Heaps of clothes and spilled makeup are all over the floor. I tear out of the house, texting Zach to tell him that something happened and I don’t know when I can meet him. Twenty minutes later, I burst into the office. Mom and Dad both jump.

  “Hi. One, I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. I don’t even know where to start or what to say.”

  Mom gets teary immediately. “We understand, honey. Or at least we try to, but I know we’ll never be able to completely—”

  I wave a hand. “Two, Jess is gone.”

  “What?” Dad says. “What do you mean, gone?”

  I hand him the note. Mom reads over his shoulder. “No,” he says. “She didn’t.”

  Mom’s mouth is hanging open. “I can’t believe it. She wasn’t in the house, you’re sure?”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  Mom grabs her phone and scrolls through the contacts. “I don’t even have Amy’s mom’s phone number. I should’ve gotten it.” She calls Jess and we listen to the rings.

  Dad pulls his keys from his pocket. “I’m driving to Madison. Right now.”

  “Wait, let me try to get Amy’s mom’s number. I’ll call some mothers of the girls in Jess’s class,” Mom says.

  “No, I’m going. It’s just an hour away. She can’t pull something like this.”

  “We don’t even know where the audition’s taking place. You could drive all over the city. What was it, Celery Productions? I can’t remember!”

  “Cucumber.” I’m already searching on my phone for a movie being filmed in Madison. “Here.” I show Dad my screen. “This has to be it.”

  He grabs a sticky note, writes down the information. “It’s an alien sci-fi movie! That’s what she wants to audition for?”

  “Go!” Mom shouts. “I’ll keep calling her.”

  “I’ll find her,” Dad says, and rushes out the door. Mom and I look at each other. I hug her, say it’ll be all right. My arms feel strong around her.

  “If anything happens to Jess…,” Mom says.

  “Jessi-kuh? That girl is made of steel.”

  Mom cry-laughs, then steps back. “Annalise, I honestly didn’t know you were feeling all that. I can’t imagine what must go through your mind sometimes. We never wanted you to think it was your fault. That person’s choice wasn’t about you.”

  “I know.”

  She blows her nose with a tissue. “It’s terrible that you were abandoned. There’s no getting around that. But it happened.”

  I nod.

  “Now you get to decide what happens next.”

  We don’t say anything else, but it feels like my dart-thrown words aren’t as sharp. And the whirling leaves are slowing down.

  The door to the office bangs open and Zach comes in. “What’s going on?”

  Long sigh. “My sister went to Madison this morning.”

  He frowns. “Wait. By herself?”

  “No.” I turn to Mom. “I have to talk to Zach a sec, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I tip my head toward the door and Zach and I go outside. “My sister wanted to go to a movie audition in Madison, but my parents said she couldn’t, so she went with her friend without telling them. My dad just left to go find her.”

  “Whoa. How old is she?”

  “Ten.”

  “That’s pretty daring.”

  “Yeah, that’s my sister. She wants to be a famous actress and get out of Renn Lake as soon as she can. Anyway, she took all my coins. My money’s gone.”

  “That puts a little dent in our plan.”

  “Right. Unless your twenty bucks will be enough to cover everything we need. Although I don’t want you to pay for all this. You don’t even live here. It isn’t your lake.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I can ask Maya to help.”

  “Okay. But, actually, I was wondering, where are we going to get the supplies? Because if we’re keeping this a secret, we can’t ask one of our parents for a ride. After—don’t faint or anything—after going out to dinner with me last night, my dad thinks he had a breakthrough and he’s back at it. So it has to be somewhere we can walk to, right? Maybe, like, a garden center?”
/>   I knew this was coming.

  Zach asks, “Is there a place that’s close by?”

  “Yes.” I slowly raise my arm and point to Alden’s.

  I wasn’t sure the reeds would work. The girl and the boy are smart; they figured it out. But now they are stuck. Like Renn.

  Deep down in my depths, I know this is my fault. I knew that what I did would one day come back to haunt me.

  I was so angry that night. Watching those wild young men throwing things as if I were a garbage dump. First, the slick rubber tires. Two of them, rolled down my bank. Then the cans of paint, one after the other, poured into me. Torrents of red and black and orange, thick and pungent and stinging. And then the pocketknife, slipping from one of their hands and slicing through my waters.

  They were laughing. Punching each other. Drinking from bottles, which ended up in me too. It was a game.

  After they were finished, they left in their car, wheels digging into the dirt, fumes lingering.

  I erupted. I struck anything and everything in my path. My current was out of control.

  In the distance, I heard Renn’s voice, but I was too worked up to listen. I wanted revenge.

  I didn’t see the canoe at first.

  She was suddenly there, paddling along. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what had happened.

  I didn’t know about the baby.

  “Zach,” I say. “There’s something I need to do. Something I should have done a long time ago.”

  He nods, seems to understand.

  “I’ll text you later and we’ll figure something out.”

  “Okay.” He turns, meanders toward his cabin, stopping to put his ear to a tree trunk. His shoelaces have double knots.

  I walk back into the office. Mom’s in the same spot, holding her phone and staring at the screen.

  “Any news from Dad?” I ask. “Or Jess?”

  She shakes her head. “Not yet. And she’s still not answering. I’m going back and forth between being angry and worried that something’s going to happen to her.”