The Light in the Lake

by Sarah R. Baughman

  “Sorry, Mom,” Tai says, shuffling the papers together. Then he stands up straight and runs his fingers through his wet hair. “Cold out there.”

  “It just feels cold because you got wet,” I say. “Besides, the lake won’t really warm up until later in July. And even then, you’ll want to be good and hot before jumping in, or else you’ll freeze when you get out.”

  “Hey, it’s refreshing,” says Tai, shivering. “And my mom says it’s still fine to swim in, even if it’s probably kind of polluted. Right, Mom?”

  Dr. Li shakes her head slowly, reorganizing the papers Tai scattered. Then she looks up. “I don’t want to alarm Addie,” she says carefully. “But yes, we are noticing some harmful algal blooms popping up in the shallow, warmest parts of the lake. Have you ever seen any, Addie? Kind of a bluish-green color on the surface of the water?”

  I try to remember if I’ve seen anything like that in Maple Lake. “I’m not sure,” I say. Maybe I should ask Dad when he picks me up, but then again, I don’t think he wants to talk about the lake any more than Mama does. Dropping me off and picking me up most days is probably more than enough for him.

  “The blooms often don’t show up until late summer, early fall,” Dr. Li says. “But people began reporting them this past year, and we’re on the lookout for more so we can confirm their presence and investigate causes.”

  “I mean… I know that every time we put our boat in or take it out, we have to check for milfoil,” I say. I’ve never paid much attention to it, but I think Dad has to remove it from the hull sometimes. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Eurasian watermilfoil,” Dr. Li says. “That’s what we call an invasive species—a plant that is not native to this area that is likely to cause harm to the economy, the environment, or human health. It’s different than the algal blooms I mentioned, but yes, it is still a problem.”

  “Could the milfoil be causing the algal blooms?” I ask. “Or, I mean, could the pollution in the lake make it easier for an invasive species like milfoil to grow?” Even though I don’t know exactly how it all works, it feels like these different problems with Maple Lake could be connected, like the fine threads of a spiderweb.

  “Good question,” Dr. Li says. “A debatable question, actually. Milfoil wouldn’t necessarily be connected to pollution the way harmful algal blooms are, but it does indicate an ecological imbalance caused by human actions.”

  Imbalance. I picture the lake teetering on one side, about to slide away; I guess I never thought of Maple Lake as being able to balance or not. I never thought it could be anything except what it was—blue and deep, fresh and cool. And sometimes cruel.

  Mr. Dale claps his hands together. “Great start,” he says. “Addie, I’d like to sit down and talk with you a bit more about what you’ll be learning this summer, and how you can help. Care to join us, Tai?”

  “Go with them,” Dr. Li says before Tai can answer. She pokes him lightly and he squeals, clutching his shoulder.

  “Owwww, Mom, my arrrrm!” he yelps. Then he looks at me and smiles, but he stands still, not moving toward Mr. Dale or me at all.

  Dr. Li pries the soccer ball away. Her movements are slow, even gentle, but her mouth is set in a hard line. Tai squeezes the ball a little tighter against his hip at first, then gives up and lets it drop into her hands.

  “Fine,” he says. “I’ll go.” He falls into step with me and leans toward my ear.

  “No offense,” he says. “I’m just not a huge science fan.”

  “No worries,” I say. This is my thing anyway. I tuck my hand into the back pocket that holds Amos’s notebook, fighting the urge to pull it out right away and write harmful algal blooms and imbalance and everything else Dr. Li was talking about—it’s all evidence of something. I’m not quite sure how it could possibly fit with Amos’s clues, but I want to find out.

  Chapter 9

  Mr. Dale leads us into another room with a refrigerator, sink, and table. “You can stick your lunch in the fridge if you want, Addie.”

  I do, then sit next to Tai in one of the chairs Mr. Dale pulls out for us.

  “Okay,” he says. “So, Addie, we talked about earning some credit this summer that would allow you to join the Science Club early. In order to do that, you need to demonstrate that you can think like a scientist. And that means following certain steps.”

  “Like scientific method steps?” I ask.

  Mr. Dale gives me a thumbs-up. “Care to summarize?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I’m a little rusty.”

  “I’m not,” Tai says. “You can thank my scientist mom for that. But I can condense it down for you, like way down. There’s what, six steps? I can explain it in three words, guaranteed.”

  “I’m intrigued,” says Mr. Dale.

  “Okay,” Tai says. “Ready? Here they are: Wonder. Learn. Share.”

  “Wonder, learn, share?” I repeat.

  Tai nods decisively. “You got it.”

  Mr. Dale laughs. “Nice,” he says. “It kind of works, and it’s so succinct. Perhaps I should be changing my curriculum.” He gives us each a handout anyway, filled with the actual steps we have to follow: make observations, ask questions, form and test a hypothesis, then analyze and communicate what we learned. I like Tai’s version too.

  “So what are we wondering?” Mr. Dale asks. “What do we need to learn?”

  I straighten up in my seat. “We’re wondering if Maple Lake’s polluted,” I say. “Or I mean, why it’s polluted. I guess we’ve observed it is, because of the harmful algal blooms.”

  “And we need to learn how bad the pollution is and where it’s coming from,” Tai says.

  “Exactly,” Mr. Dale says. “Tai, from what I understand, your mother believes you are quite capable of participating in this project with Addie.”

  Tai leans back and plunges an imaginary dagger into his heart. But then he pops up. “I’m not big on science, Mr. D.,” he says. “But I’ll tag along with my buddy here.” He holds clenched fingers in the air, and I bump mine back. As soon as our knuckles hit, I feel my throat catch and my eyes burn, just for a second. I look away, trying to forget the last time Amos and I fist-bumped.

  Mr. Dale pulls out his laptop and shows us a spreadsheet. “Here’s a water sample log,” he says. “It’s important, because this is where we keep track of the nutrient levels we find in different parts of the lake. We’ll be asking you and Tai to practice entering numbers every week, plus travel around the lake with us to help take samples.”

  “Are we going to start that today?” I ask.

  “You bet,” Mr. Dale says. “But before that, I want to show you one of those harmful algal blooms Dr. Li mentioned, so you know them when you see them.”

  Blooms sound so pretty, like some kind of water flower. I picture pink and white lilies nestled on their green pads. But that word harmful reminds me it’s probably not a flower at all.

  When Mr. Dale takes us outside and points at an almost-slimy green spot in the water, I wrinkle my nose. I wouldn’t describe these as blooms at all—little chunks of near-fluorescent green ripple with the waves. “There aren’t many,” he says. “Not yet, at least. But wherever they exist, we know the water quality isn’t perfect.”

  “It looks pretty gross, honestly.” Tai sticks his tongue out in a grimace.

  “Yup,” Mr. Dale says. “But how it looks is the least of our worries. These harmful algal blooms can take over almost an entire lake. Did you know beaches elsewhere in the state have been shut down because of it?”

  “Uh, I can see why they’d shut down,” Tai says. “Who would want to swim in that stuff?”

  “Nobody,” Mr. Dale says. “It’s bacteria. Cyanobacteria. It’s dangerous for people to be in water with harmful algal blooms like this because of the toxins that might be in there—not just in the water, but in the air too.”

  “But that couldn’t happen here.” My words just blurt out and as soon as I’ve said them, I know they sound
foolish, especially for someone who wants to be a scientist. I lower my voice. “I mean, how could it?”

  “I know it’s hard to imagine, Addie,” Mr. Dale says. “But we need to determine what’s causing this pollution if we want to keep it from spreading any further. All part of the learning step, if we’re going by Tai’s method. As we collect water samples, I’ll also be asking you to note on the map where you see harmful algal blooms. That will help us determine how far-reaching they are. In some parts of the lake, they might go away, but in the shallower areas, you’ll see them more often.”

  I look again at the patch of greenish-blue sludge, trying to remember if I’ve ever noticed anything like it before. I don’t think I have.

  But all of a sudden, I realize—Amos did. This must be what he meant by green parts. He just didn’t know what they technically were called, or how they got there.

  Amos wondered. He tried to learn, the best way he knew how. And he definitely wanted to share, first with me and then, he said, once we were sure, with everybody.

  I feel something in my chest break open.

  I didn’t help Amos. Mostly, I made fun of him for even thinking about a creature.

  His clues aren’t very scientific, but he was following the scientific method. And the mystery he wanted to solve feels important. It’s the job he never got to finish.

  Mr. Dale, Dr. Li, Amos—they all see something in Maple Lake. Something other people don’t want to see.

  But that doesn’t mean they’d agree. Dr. Li and Mr. Dale might not see a magical creature, and Amos might not have seen that Maple Lake was polluted.

  I decide right then that my job will be to investigate it all. If I see any other evidence of pollution that could help the scientists, or any clues that remind me of Amos’s, I’ll keep track of them.

  Mr. Dale sends Tai and me to start researching Maple Lake’s history on the computers in the lab. I know some of the facts already, but some are new. Like how the ice that used to cover Vermont was almost a mile thick. How every time the glaciers moved, they took chunks of earth and trees with them. How they made valleys, shaped mountains and lakes.

  “So, did that Mr. Dale guy blackmail you into this Young Scientist thing or what?” Tai asks, scrolling through web pages.

  He says it so casually, I almost burst out laughing. “Uh… what?”

  “You know,” he says. “Like, did he promise you eternal A’s? Or like, ‘Addie, I’m desperate, I need a student to help me this summer, and if you don’t, you’ll fail science forever’?”

  “Well, he won’t be my teacher forever, so that would be kind of pointless,” I say. “But seriously, I do want to be a scientist. Like your mom.” Saying it out loud feels big somehow, like I can’t back out. But it feels good too.

  “Well, you’re in for it.” Tai rolls his eyes, but his voice doesn’t sound mean. “My mom’s crazy. You’ve already decided you want to be crazy too?”

  “I guess,” I say. I might as well own it.

  “I have to admit, though,” Tai says, pointing to a picture of a white whale on the computer screen, “my dad would be totally into this whale thing. When I was younger, he used to take me to see fossils at the Museum of Natural History.”

  “Where is your dad anyway?” I ask.

  A cloud seems to pass over Tai’s eyes. “He’s back in New York.”

  I feel heat creep into my face; maybe I shouldn’t have asked. “Your parents aren’t together anymore?”

  “Oh, they are,” Tai says. The laugh that tumbles out of his mouth has a bitter sound. “Usually when my mom has a summer project somewhere, my dad and I stay in the city together. But he made me come this time.”

  I wait. I can tell there’s something more there, but if Tai doesn’t want to say it, I’m not going to ask. At least not now. I know what it feels like not to want to talk.

  But then Tai takes a deep breath and spins his chair away from the computer screen. He’s had his foot on a soccer ball this whole time, and he rolls it under his toes. Now he lobs it in my direction and I have to react fast to trap it with my foot. “How do I put this,” he says. “My dad thought it would be a good idea for my mom and me to spend the summer together because… well, let’s just say things get kind of tense at home.”

  “With who?” I ask. I lightly kick the ball back toward him.

  “My mom and me,” Tai says. “She’s super intense about my grades. I mean, my dad cares about them too, but it’s not, like, the only thing about me that matters to him. With my mom, well—let’s just say I’m not the child scientist she dreamed of.”

  “Maybe we should switch moms,” I say. “Mine’s not too happy about me being here.”

  “Really?” he asks. “Why?”

  “She’s just kind of paranoid.” Right now, I don’t know how to explain it more. “So if you’re not the child scientist, that’s okay. What are you instead?”

  Tai stands up and starts hopping over and around the ball, tapping it back and forth, showing off his footwork. He looks around before he answers. But there’s nobody in the room except us.

  “Promise not to talk about this while I’m around my mom?” he asks.

  “Of course,” I say. I wonder what the big deal is.

  “So… I made the soccer team at my school last fall,” he says. “Practices were every day, and I just told my mom I was staying late to get homework done.”

  “Wow,” I say. “How did you keep the secret for a whole season? Didn’t you have games and stuff?”

  “She was working so much,” Tai says. “My dad took me to the games. He probably told her what I was doing eventually. But I think this summer he wanted me to figure out how to talk to her about it myself.”

  To me, soccer doesn’t seem like it should be some big secret. Tai would be a natural. He’s bouncy and bursting, like a coiled-up spring. Whenever the soccer ball’s nearby, it’s spinning under his feet like a charm. If there’s something you’re that good at, I think, should you really be worried about showing it?

  “Why wouldn’t your mom want you to do soccer?” I ask.

  “Maybe for the same reason yours didn’t want you doing this Young Scientist thing?” Tai shoots back.

  He’s right. It’s not like talking to Mama about spending the summer on Maple Lake was easy, even though science seems as natural to me as soccer does to Tai. “Point taken,” I say. “Moms can be weird.”

  “For real.” Tai shakes his head a little, like he’s trying to shake off water. “Whatever. Here I am. I’ll leave it at that.”

  We both go quiet then, and through the open office windows, I can hear the waves. That’s what I love about water. It fills in all the empty places.

  “You shouldn’t feel bad, though,” Tai says suddenly. “I think it’s cool that you’re doing this Young Scientist thing. You’re into it. Go for it.”

  I picture Liza’s eyes. I hear her voice in my head. “Would it really be that weird for your mom to freak about it?… I just want you to be okay, Ad.” Her words stick, but I pry them away. Tai’s sound better right now.

  “Thanks,” I say. “And you’re into soccer. You should go for that too.”

  Tai sighs. “Guess we’ll both have to remind each other. Anyway, maybe this summer won’t totally suck after all.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe not.”

  Chapter 10

  After we’ve had enough of research, Tai and I head to the beach, carrying life jackets, water bottles, and a cooler out to the boat. It feels good to get outside; my eyes hurt from staring at the computer screen for so long, scrolling through web pages about glaciers.

  I set the cooler down next to the boat and wipe my forehead with one hand; it’s getting hot already, and my sunscreen’s melting.

  “So,” I say. “What would you rather be doing this summer?”

  “Besides awesome science in Vermont?” Tai smiles, and I know he isn’t being mean. “Oh, wandering the streets.”

  I snort.
“What does that involve?”

  Tai pulls a phone out of his back pocket. “Here, look,” he says. “My friends and I have a group text. Check out what they’re doing while I’m gone.”

  I lean over and squint at the little screen, full of pictures of kids squished together on what looks like a bus seat, linking arms on a busy sidewalk, balancing ice cream cones while they sit on benches. There’s even a group selfie where they’re holding up a soccer ball with a sign stuck to it: MISS YOU!

  “Cool,” I say. “Looks like they’re having fun.” Then I feel bad for reminding Tai he’s not with them. A new text pops up:

  How’s life in the woods? Bored yet? Tai scrolls faster and tilts the phone just a bit so I can’t see it. I want to explain that I already know it’s easy for people from somewhere else to poke fun at how rural our little corner of Vermont is, that I still love it here and always will. But Tai looks embarrassed, so I let it go. I don’t want him to feel bad.

  Tai thumbs a quick message. I crane my neck a little farther and my heart jumps when I catch what it says: Not really.

  I hear the thunk of a door closing at the biological station and look up to see Mr. Dale walking toward us through the sand.

  “Hey, guys,” he says. “All set for the boat?”

  I knew it was coming, but as soon as he says the word boat, I catch my breath. This will be my first time on a boat since before Amos died.

  Of course I want to go. Of course I don’t want to go.

  Tai tucks his phone back in his pocket, turns toward the dock. Tiny splashes of water against the shoreline fill my ears, getting louder and louder.

  I’m shaking under my skin. Every bone vibrates.

  Then, just when I think I might rattle to pieces inside, the warmth comes back around my shoulders and squeezes. I squeeze back and feel my bones go quiet. One more deep breath and I’m walking toward the boat.