The Light in the Lake

by Sarah R. Baughman

  And sure enough, Mama shakes her head. “No, Addie,” she says. Then softer: “Honey, no. You don’t need to go out there. You just stay close. Stay right here with us.”

  “Cake!” Aunt Mary calls, scurrying in from the kitchen with a big plate balanced on her hands. If she can tell how hard the air in the room got, how everyone froze up like icicles dripping halfway off a too-hot roof while she was gone, she doesn’t show it. She puts the cake right in front of me and lights a match. The candles catch and burn.

  I blow all twelve candles out in one try, but as Mama wipes her eyes and everyone claps, I realize I forgot to make a wish.

  Chapter 6

  So you talked to your parents?” Mr. Dale asks, glancing over my application essay.

  “Um—yeah,” I say. I mean, technically, I did. We just didn’t totally agree.

  Mr. Dale’s dark eyes narrow, and he runs his hand over his buzzed black hair. “Hmmm,” he says. “You know I’ll be calling them, right?”

  “Calling them? Oh yeah—sure,” I say. “Obviously.” I look at the wall.

  Mr. Dale leans back in his chair, crosses his hands over his chest, and smiles. “You know, Addie,” he says, “when I was your age, I was really into skateboarding. You know what my parents weren’t into?” He looks at me, waiting.

  “Um… skateboarding?” I ask, glancing quickly in his direction.

  “Bingo,” says Mr. Dale. “So guess how they felt when they found out I was sneaking over to the skate park in Bridgeport after school instead of staying for basketball practice like I’d been telling them.” He sucks a quick breath in through his teeth.

  “Probably not so great,” I say.

  “Bingo again,” says Mr. Dale. “What I’m saying, Addie, is that your parents need to be on board for this.”

  “On board. Definitely. They will be. I mean, they are.” I look back at the wall.

  “Ohhhkay,” he says slowly. “Terrific. I’ll give them a ring later today.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Dale,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Not a problem. And Addie—I’m glad you applied. It’s a great opportunity.”

  You have no idea, I think. I know from Mr. Dale’s stories in class that he goes home to a wife and three little kids, two dogs, and a very old, cranky cat that meows too much. He probably hasn’t heard silence in years. He doesn’t know how loud it can feel in a house.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I, uh—I really hope I can do it.”

  Mr. Dale just smiles. “Fingers crossed,” he says.

  The next day after school, I’m only half listening as Mama and I drive a mile past the mountains and rolling pastures until we get to town, where Teddy’s store and the post office and bank and library sit in a short, pretty row. I wish I could find the right words to talk to her about the Young Scientist position again.

  Since the Walmart came in farther down the road, Teddy’s is one of the only little town stores left around here. You can’t get the kind of stuff they sell at Walmart—they butcher all their own meat and sell milk and yogurt from farmers like Uncle Mark. Teddy’s also has free coffee in a pot that’s always on, and a basket of candies for little kids.

  What’s probably most important is that we all know Teddy, and we know Teddy Jr., who took over after his dad retired. We know their whole family. I’m pretty sure we’re third cousins once removed or something.

  “Well, look at the lovely Lago ladies!” Teddy Jr. exclaims as soon as we walk in. He’s made it his personal mission to expand the store by bringing in more local produce.

  Mama smiles. “Oh, stop, Teddy,” she says. “How’s business?”

  “Booming,” Teddy says. Then his forehead wrinkles up and his voice drops. “And how are you?”

  Mama sighs and looks at him. For a while, she doesn’t speak. “Oh, you know,” she finally says. “We’re going to be okay.”

  Teddy gives her a hug, then looks at me, his eyes glistening. “You’re not too old for candy, are you?” he asks, and grabs the basket from the counter. I focus on choosing a caramel so he can’t see my eyes.

  Every time we go to Teddy’s, we can count on running into someone we know. Probably more like five people. Which is why, when Mama sends me to the deli counter for sliced ham, it’s not surprising at all to find Barbara Ann in line ahead of me, picking up a package of chicken drumsticks.

  “Hello there, Addie,” she says. Her hair’s sticking out every which way like usual and she’s wearing a big flowy shirt that looks patched together from about a hundred different-colored cloths. Then she leans in close enough for me to smell her watermelon gum and whispers: “How’s the tooth?”

  I look over my shoulder before answering and sure enough, there’s Mama heading down the aisle. I don’t feel like explaining why Barbara Ann’s talking to me about teeth of any kind. But at the same time, my insides kind of sparkle just thinking about the tooth, stashed in my desk drawer next to the notebook.

  “It’s good,” I whisper back. “I carry it around a lot, but right now it’s in my bedroom. I’m keeping it safe.”

  Then Mama reaches us, carrying two jars of pasta sauce. “Barbara Ann!” she says, and her eyes light up. Mama puts the jars in the shopping basket I’m holding and reaches around Barbara Ann’s shoulders for a hug.

  “Laura,” Barbara Ann says, squeezing Mama extra tight. Even though they don’t see each other as much as they used to when Amos and I were young enough to need babysitting, Mama says there will always be certain people in life who make it easy to just pick up where you left off, and Barbara Ann is one of those people for her.

  Barbara Ann pulls away, gently touching Mama’s elbow. “Addie and I were just catching up. She was updating me on her birthday gift.”

  “Birthday gift?” Mama asks. “You mean the phone?”

  I flush hot, willing Barbara Ann not to say anything else.

  Mama doesn’t know about the tooth, I think. And she can’t know.

  But I should have known Barbara Ann better. It’s not like she’d ever lie to Mama, but she also doesn’t tell her everything. She used to sneak us packs of gum when she’d come to babysit and as far as I know, Mama never found out.

  “The Young Scientist position,” she says, winking at me. “I heard all about it from Mr. Dale at school. And it certainly is a gift to let Addie do that.”

  Mama sighs. “Well,” she says. “I got a message from Mr. Dale on my voice mail. But it’s not really a sure—”

  “A wonderful thing for your girl,” Barbara Ann says, her eyes kind.

  “Wonderful?” Mama asks. “That wasn’t exactly my first thought.”

  “Joining the Science Club a year early is a great opportunity too,” Barbara Ann continues. “It’ll give Addie experience at the high school. Could open up some doors for college later on.”

  “College,” Mama repeats. “It’s gotten pretty expensive, you know. And besides, I’m not sure we want Addie that far away.”

  Barbara Ann’s eyes twinkle. “You thought about going once too,” she says. “Back when you—”

  “That was a long time ago.” Mama’s biting her words off at the end. I can see her stiffening as she speaks, turning away from her friend.

  “You know,” Barbara Ann says, “I like to think the ones who learn the most about Shoreland County might be the likeliest to stick around.”

  “Really,” Mama says. It isn’t exactly a question. She’s cocking her head now, looking at Barbara Ann as though she can’t quite decide what to think.

  “Sure,” Barbara Ann says. “The more they know, the more they’ll care enough to stay. Think of Jake Alderson’s son, the Agency of Natural Resources officer. Spent all day long in the woods with his dad growing up, and I guess he couldn’t get enough of it, so after he went to school and learned what he needed to know, he came back.”

  “Well,” Mama says. “I’m not sure that caring more about Maple Lake is really the point.”

  “But staying could be,” say
s Barbara Ann.

  Mama’s eyes get wide and she looks from Barbara Ann to me. Hurt and hope fly over her face like birds.

  “And you know what else,” Barbara Ann continues, snapping her gum as though she hasn’t noticed Mama’s reaction at all, “the best way to step clear of a fear is to walk right through it.”

  In the car on the way home, Mama stays quiet. It isn’t a far drive, but I roll down the window so I can feel the June air and watch our mountains, soft and green, sliding past. When we pull into the driveway, Mama turns off the car but doesn’t move to open the door.

  “She sure was acting a little loopy today,” Mama says.

  “Barbara Ann?” I ask.

  “I mean, there’s nobody calmer in a snowstorm, even with thirty wild kids in her rearview. But what she said about the lake—” Mama chokes back the word. “What she said about knowing a place. Did that make any sense to you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say, even though I think Barbara Ann probably had it right. “I mean… you and Dad grew up on Maple Lake too.”

  Mama and Dad know Maple Lake better than anyone. Better than Amos or me. Definitely better than these scientists who are coming to study it. And they stayed.

  “We did,” Mama says.

  “And you’re still here.” I wish Mama could see things a little clearer sometimes.

  “We are.” Mama looks straight ahead, her knuckles tight on the steering wheel.

  I shrug again. “I want to learn about it, anyway. The lake.” Then I stop. Mama sighs and leans her head back against the seat.

  I reach out and, before I can stop to think about whether she’ll want me to or not, I touch Mama’s shoulder. It’s the kind of thing Amos would have done. I’m surprised to find her skin warm, soft. I think of her heart, pumping so hard under her loose cotton shirt.

  Mama turns, cups my face in her hands, and looks hard into my eyes. All of a sudden I have this memory from before—Mama, in the shallows, splashing water at me while I splashed back, laughing. Amos and Dad were tying up our little boat. It was really hot that day, I remember, and I loved the feel of the water raining in bright pellets against my face. After one especially big splash, Mama took a few jumps through the water and cupped my face just like this. “My little girl,” she said.

  She doesn’t say it now. But from somewhere deep down, I hear the words again, clear and true, and I know the Mama from before is still there, underneath this new one. Finally she pulls the key out of the ignition and tugs the latch, giving the sticky door an extra push. As she gets out and leans over into the back seat to grab our plastic grocery bags, I hear her mumble: “Maybe it won’t hurt.”

  And that’s the last I hear about it from her. Later that week, at school, Mr. Dale shakes my hand and congratulates me on being the Young Scientist. At home, Dad puts his arms around me and reminds me I’ll need to carry my iPhone when I go out to the biological station, as though I could have forgotten. He even gives me a thin plastic case for it—“Hundred percent waterproof,” he says, slipping the phone inside and handing it over.

  But Mama doesn’t say a thing.

  Chapter 7

  On the last day of school, in homeroom, Mr. Dale sneaks in some extra science time and puts Liza’s moon sketches under the document camera again. He says something about nature and patterns repeating and tells us to look for those patterns when we’re outside.

  Amos was looking for where the patterns changed instead. Where things didn’t look the way they were supposed to. If he could see the whale tooth, I know he’d say it was too big to be a whale tooth, that the creature it came from would have to be something altogether different.

  I turn over my moon chart and start sketching what I remember of white whales.

  What if—

  I remember Amos’s clue number four, about the flecks of gold, and as I sketch in the whale’s tale and blunt nose, I begin adding tiny scales, all over its body. Liza would be so much better at this, and I think about sliding the sketch onto her desk, asking her to help. But I still want Amos’s notebook to be just mine.

  I add a long, winding tail, and more scales. It’s not that I actually believe Amos was right. But aquatic biologists don’t just study the water; they study what lives in the water. And I know they’re finding new species all the time.

  What if they didn’t all leave? What if some stayed behind—and grew—and changed?

  “What is that?” Darren’s voice pops behind me and I can feel him bouncing on his heels just over my shoulder. I cover the drawing with one hand and look up fast. I must have zoned out, because the document camera’s off and all the kids are milling around, cleaning out their desks and cracking dumb jokes.

  “What is what?” I mumble, flipping the paper back to moon phases. I just don’t feel like dealing with Darren right now.

  Hurt sparks in Darren’s eyes and he shakes his head. “You never used to be so weird,” he says.

  I don’t look up at him. “You never used to be so annoying.”

  Mama used to bring Darren home from school with Amos sometimes on her days off. She’d feed them crackers and apples and lay her hand on Darren’s head like she was a little bit his mama too.

  In school teachers complained he couldn’t sit still, but he and Amos would sit together for hours, up in the maple tree in our yard or at the kitchen table with Legos spread out around them, and I never knew what they were saying, but I would watch them, their heads bent toward each other, their lips moving.

  Once we started middle school, Darren didn’t come over so much anymore. But at lunch I would see Amos take his tray over next to Darren, who usually sat alone. And I would see their heads bend just like they did when they were little, and Darren’s lonely look would slip away.

  Now I feel Darren’s eyes on my paper, and I sit as still as I can. But he doesn’t move away. Instead, he comes around to the front of my desk.

  “So,” he says, “you doing the Maple Derby?”

  The Maple Derby is this fishing competition for Shoreland County kids that happens at the end of June.

  I don’t say anything at first, and Darren keeps talking, looking down at his shoes. “I know it’s kind of weird timing,” he says, “since the other derbies happen in the fall or spring, or winter for ice fishing.”

  I think of Amos, clapping Darren’s back at lunch, telling him jokes. “Yeah,” I say, trying to muster the energy to keep talking, not shut him down completely. “They probably made this one up to keep kids busy once school gets out.”

  Amos and I never signed up. We were always out on the lake anyway, and Amos said he didn’t like competition when it came to fishing. All those boats crowding the water, vying for spots. He didn’t even want to know if anybody else knew about Dad’s supposedly secret spot for perch. Besides, Darren won the contest just about every year, and I kind of had the feeling Amos didn’t want to risk taking that away from him.

  “You can do it, Ad,” he’d tell me. “If you want.” Still, I could always hear hesitation in his voice, and I didn’t really want to fish without him anyway.

  But for some reason, today, I say “Maybe” to Darren. His eyebrows go up.

  “Maybe not,” I continue. “Haven’t decided. I’m helping Liza with her 4-H calf this year.”

  “Well, let me know if you need some tips on fishing,” he says. Inside, I grumble. Darren knows Amos and I have been fishing our whole lives. I don’t need fishing tips from anyone.

  But as he rocks back and forth, kicking his heavy boot heels, one after the other, I know Amos would say, “He’s just excited, Ad,” and let it go. Amos would remind me that Darren spent most of the summer haying and cleaning calf pens at his neighbor’s farm, and we both knew that the money they gave him for helping out went right to his Gram. That the Maple Derby was a big deal to him, and he was a skilled fisherman. Maybe it felt good for him to think he could help someone.

  But Amos isn’t here, and my heart feels all bottled up. “I�
��m good,” I say, and look back down at my paper until Darren moves away. I watch his shoulders hunch, his head hang, as he twists a plastic bag full of stuff from his desk in his right hand. It hits me that I’ve never seen him with a backpack. Maybe he doesn’t have one.

  Later, I think about finding him and—I don’t know. Asking him for some tips after all, even though I don’t need any. Maybe even showing him my drawing. But by the time I clean out my locker, he’s gone, and Mr. Dale’s telling me when to show up at the biological station next week, and to be sure to pack a lunch. Liza waits outside the classroom door; I catch her eye and she mouths “Come on!” The buses won’t leave for another five minutes, but Liza likes to pick her seat early.

  “I’ll be there at nine,” I tell Mr. Dale. “My dad says he can drop me off.”

  “Perfect.” Mr. Dale holds out the bowl of wrapped peppermints he always keeps on his desk and nods at me to take one.

  “Thanks,” I say. “See you next week.”

  On the ride back to her house, Liza’s quiet. I feel the same urge to say something to her that I felt too late with Darren. So I try asking about her art portfolio, about Rascal, but she doesn’t say more than three words at once. She leans against the window like some kind of weight is pushing her shoulders down.

  But she still waits for me to get off the bus and walk up the lane, and after we drop our backpacks off, she hands me a granola bar to take to the barn.

  By the time we get into the calf stable, Liza seems a little lighter. She brings me to Rascal’s pen and hands me a small halter with a rope attached.

  “She’s pretty adorable,” Liza says as Rascal wobbles over. “And not afraid, at least not compared to a lot of them. You picked a good one.”

  “What should I do with the halter?” I ask.

  “Nothing yet,” Liza says. “Just hang it on the hook there. Try petting her instead.”

  Rascal lets me scratch her neck, but when I rub her ears she tosses her head up and skitters away. Liza laughs. “It just takes time,” she says.