Quicksand Pond

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  The trouble was, she couldn’t get Terri Carr out of her mind.

  She sat on her bed with a book in her lap and worried about her. She kept an eye out the window in case the raft came past. Once, she thought she saw a figure on the pond in the distance. She ran for the binoculars, which were all the way downstairs. By the time she got back, the figure was gone, if it had ever been there, for a strange thing had begun to happen.

  The more invisible Terri was, the more Jessie began to see her anyway. She saw her in her dark, run-down house at the end of the pond, and in the CVS with a backpack. She saw her in the school bathroom when everyone ran out. She saw her when the barn burned and her brothers were accused, and people looked at her and thought her family had done it.

  She saw Terri in all these situations, and then she began to hear her. Terri was out there somewhere on the pond. She was waiting for Jessie to send her a sign, to tell her it was okay, they could start over.

  “I thought you were on my side,” Jessie heard Terri say. “I thought we were fixing up the raft for both of us. We had this great thing going. After everything we did, don’t you care anymore?”

  The trouble was, Jessie cared.

  * * *

  Richard Kettel was not enthusiastic about going to the police. If Julia hadn’t made such a fuss, he might not have bothered. All this finger-pointing over an inexpensive laptop (it was a cheap model) that he wasn’t using anyway because he was now writing by hand and the computer couldn’t access the Internet.

  “Are you going to tell them who did it?” Jonathan asked on the drive up. “Are you going to say it was Terri?”

  “No, because we don’t know it was. And you are not to say a word while we’re in there, is that clear? You are just a listener.”

  “Okay,” Jonathan agreed. “But can I look at the jail afterwards? I never saw one in real life.”

  “I don’t think there is one there,” his father said. “When they make an arrest, they take the perpetrator up to Providence or somewhere.”

  “What’s a perpetrator?” Jonathan asked, yanking on his seat belt. It hit him too high and pinched the skin on his neck.

  “It’s the guy that’s charged with committing the crime.”

  “Or the girl, if Terri did it, right?”

  “Enough about Terri. We’re not going to talk about her, remember?”

  The station was in a century-old building at the center of town that also housed the fire department. After Jonathan had inspected the two old-fashioned hook and ladders, they went over to the law enforcement side. A police officer in shirtsleeves took down Richard Kettel’s information.

  “So you believe this was a break-in?”

  “Well, they didn’t actually break in. They came in. The back door was more or less open.”

  “So this door has no lock?”

  “Well, yes. There is a lock, but we didn’t think we needed it. The house—it’s a cottage, really—is way down a dirt road near Quicksand Pond.”

  “The old Lopes place?”

  “I don’t know what it’s called. It’s right on the pond. Kind of in disrepair. We’ve been renting it.”

  “That’s the Lopes place. You have any idea who might have come in and taken your computer, sir?”

  “Well, no. We don’t.” Richard Kettel placed a firm hand on Jonathan’s neck. “We don’t know, but we thought it was a good idea to report it. Have there been any other break-ins around there recently?”

  “Nothing that’s come to our attention so far. That cottage is real out of the way. I wouldn’t think it’d attract thieves. Have you got other items in the house that could raise fast money?”

  “Raise what?”

  “That could be turned over quick, fenced. If someone did take your laptop, sir, it would probably be for the resale. People around here aren’t into computers. Internet connection isn’t too hot.”

  “I know.”

  Richard began to feel the futility of the whole visit.

  “I can send a man down to investigate.”

  “No, no. That will not be necessary. This happened a few days ago.”

  “Then I suggest you contact your rental agency about improving security at the house. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye out for your lost item, though I’d say there’s not much chance of recovering it now. If there’s another incident, it’d be helpful if you called in sooner.”

  “Yes, thank you. We’ll do that.”

  With the main business attended to, Jonathan would no longer be contained. His small body erupted from the chair and his voice rang out.

  “Do you have a jail in here?”

  The officer smiled. It was the kind of question people of all ages asked. “We do. A single cell for overnight emergencies. It’s in the back.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “It’s occupied today. So no, not today. Maybe another time.”

  “What emergency did they do?”

  “What?”

  “What did they do that got them put in?”

  “Sorry, sonny. That’s information I can’t give out.”

  The officer smiled apologetically, but Jonathan pressed on.

  “Well, is it a girl? If it’s a girl, maybe she’s already been—”

  “Jonathan!” Richard Kettel collared his son and marched him out to the car.

  At home he checked the locks. The kitchen door had an old-fashioned slide bolt that seemed perfectly adequate against intruders, both two-legged and four. (The horrifying image of that hairy creature, whatever it was, rooting in the trash with its needle-sharp teeth kept preying on his mind.)

  The front door had a weathered dead bolt for which there was only one key. He’d give it to Julia when she went out that evening with instructions to lock back up when she came home. She’d probably lose it on the beach, of course, and end up pounding on the door at midnight to get in.

  I’ll get another from the rental agency and have it duplicated, Richard promised himself, though it seemed ridiculous to be locking the front door of a house so far off the beaten track. The loss of one second-rate laptop, probably now in the hands of the vanished Terri Carr, seemed hardly worth worrying about.

  The truth was, he felt sorry for Terri. Maybe she hadn’t stolen the laptop to sell. Maybe she wanted it for herself, for schoolwork this coming fall. She looked like a bright kid. Perhaps a computer was the one thing that would change her life, improve her grades, make it possible for her to get into a good college on scholarship. You hoped for escapes like that with those kinds of people, those hard-luck cases.

  That evening Richard Kettel slipped the slide bolt into place on the back door, left the front door open in case Julia lost the key, and went upstairs to bed in a generous frame of mind.

  SIXTEEN

  The Kettels’ vacation entered the month of August with more rain and such fierce humidity that the pond sprouted an evil-looking greenish scum.

  Jessie’s mother called on Saturday morning and reported that the city was blazing hot. She sounded drained on the phone. After a hushed conversation behind the kitchen door, their father returned to say, “Your mother looked us up on a map. She saw the pond. She saw our house. I think she misses us!”

  “Is she coming?” Jonathan asked. “I want her to come.”

  “I asked her to. I told her she’d have two weeks if she came now. She said she’d think about it. We’ll have to be patient and wait and see.”

  “But where would she sleep?” Jonathan wanted to know. “There’re no more beds.”

  “I guess we’d have to figure that out when the time came,” his father answered in a voice that told Jessie he didn’t expect he’d have to.

  “I’m driving to town today,” he went on more brightly. “I’m dropping Jonathan at Philip’s house and then heading to the town library to do some background work. Anybody want to come? There’s Internet up there.”

  “There is? You never said!” Julia ran to brush her hair and put on her sanda
ls.

  “Jessie? We could have lunch there in the little diner. They have lobster rolls.”

  “No thanks. I’ll stay here.”

  “Sure?”

  She was.

  A short while later her family had climbed into the car and driven off. The house turned silent. She went back to her room and gazed out the window.

  An hour went by. Then a second hour. As a third began, Jessie found she could not for a moment longer be patient and wait and see about Terri Carr. She had to find her right away. There was something she needed to say. She set off on foot around the edge of the pond. She hadn’t gone far when she came across a sort of camp near the bank.

  Someone had made a fire. A few pieces of blackened wood were lying on the ground, still smoking. A plastic lawn chair was set up nearby. A flat rock had been laid over two other rocks to make a low table. Jessie sat down in the lawn chair. Not long after, she heard the scrape of the raft coming through the reeds.

  Terri showed no surprise at finding her there. She brought the raft neatly into the bank and jumped off in a businesslike way, without a greeting. Her clothes were sodden and dirty. Her black hair hung in tangles around her face. She set down a brown paper bag on the stone table.

  “I got bug spray,” she said without looking up. “You know, it’s not so bad outside at night as you’d think. After dark the worst is over.”

  “Are you sleeping here now?” Jessie asked politely.

  “Been here three nights,” Terri said. “Mitch has been on a tear. I’ve been keeping my head down.”

  “So you can’t go home?”

  “I’ve been home. Just not when he’s there.” She glanced at Jessie. “Hey, it’s not his fault, okay? I riled him. I forget sometimes how to handle him. I should know by now. I’ve lived with him my whole life.”

  Jessie could think of no way to answer this. She let a minute go by and started again.

  “Well, how’s the raft holding up?”

  “Look for yourself. It’s floating high and dry. I got all the way to the old Indian dam. Saw a big snapper.”

  “A what?”

  “A snapping turtle. You don’t see them too much these days. They’re shy, but you have to watch out. You wouldn’t want to go swimming with one of those around. It could snap onto your arm or your leg and drag you down. Once a snapper has ahold of you, there’s no getting him off unless you shoot him. And even then he won’t let go for a few hours.”

  “A few hours! Even if he’s dead?”

  “You know what? A snapper’s body can walk around without a head. And the head can snap without a body. I saw it happen to a dog one time. He got bit by getting too close to the severed head.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, it happened. I saw it!”

  The air between them warmed. Terri relaxed and grinned, revealing the whole expanse of her crooked brown teeth. Jessie smiled too, but warily.

  “Are you really sleeping out here? Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know, snakes?”

  “There aren’t any poisonous ones around here.”

  “Quicksand?”

  “Give me a break.”

  “No sign of the Peckham boys, I guess.”

  “Nope.”

  They looked at each other and laughed.

  “Listen, it’s beautiful here,” Terri said. “Yesterday around sunset there were these huge flocks of starlings that swooped around over the pond. They make amazing patterns high up in the sky, hundreds of birds all turning at once, like a cloud ballet. Have you ever seen that? Then night came and the stars got so bright. I just lay back and let it happen, like a movie. You should try it.”

  “Sounds amazing.”

  “You should do it soon, before you have to go home. I bet where you live has nothing like this.”

  “I’d have to persuade my dad. He won’t even let Julia walk home from the beach at night.”

  “So don’t tell him,” Terri said. “Sneak out after he’s asleep. I do that all the time. I’ll bring an extra blanket for you to lie on.”

  “Maybe,” Jessie said. “I’ll think about it.”

  Terri began taking supplies out of the paper bag: chips, apples, juice boxes, sandwich bread, hot dogs. She held up a Milky Way bar.

  “Want to split it? I got another one too. You could have a whole one if you want.”

  “No thanks. But thanks.”

  “You are one hard nut,” Terri said, shaking her head. “I never can give you anything you want to share.”

  She sat down on the ground, unwrapped the candy bar, and began to eat it. Jessie went over and sat beside her. They both looked at the pond.

  “How long are you going to stay out here?” Jessie asked.

  “I don’t know. Until I feel like going back. I’ve even been cooking here! Well, hot dogs mostly.”

  “I saw your fire. That’s how I knew somebody was here.”

  “I use starter fluid to get it going. And now I don’t even need matches, because I’ve got this.”

  From under the stone table Terri brought out a wand-like utensil that turned out to be a fire lighter.

  “Pretty cool, right? You can light anything with this.” She flicked a switch and a fiery tongue leaped out. “It’s the only thing that really works in the wind. I picked it up a couple of days ago at the hardware store.”

  She caught a look on Jessie’s face and added, “Not like that. I had money. I paid for it, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “No, really.” Jessie took a breath. “There’s something else. Something you should know that happened at our house. We got robbed. Someone came in at night and stole a laptop from our living room. My dad went and reported it to the police.”

  Terri said nothing. She pressed her lips together and turned her face toward the pond.

  “I know you didn’t do it,” Jessie said quickly, “but my family thinks that’s the reason you haven’t been around. You were always there before, and now, well, it looks bad.”

  “How do you know I didn’t do it?” Terri said, staring at the pond.

  “I told them why you weren’t coming anymore, that it was because of a different reason. I said the reason was just between us.”

  “Just between us.”

  “Well, it was really me. I’m sorry I said that about your plumbing and your family. I don’t know why I did except I got nervous. About the tools and the garage, and that someone might think it was us.”

  Terri was silent. One hand had risen up to her name charm.

  “Anyway, I thought you should know what happened at our house in case somebody says something. So you aren’t surprised or anything.”

  “Surprised?” Terri scoffed. “Who’s surprised? At school when anything’s missing, guess who they call into the office? I bet you can’t guess.”

  Jessie herself did a surprising thing then, something she didn’t expect to do. She reached out and touched Terri’s hand, the one that was holding the name charm. She covered Terri’s hand with hers.

  “I know you didn’t do it,” she whispered.

  Terri nodded. She got up and walked away to the raft and began to kick it methodically with one foot. The heavy platform rocked and bobbed in the water, sending out ripples into the reeds, which rattled against other reeds and shook their tufted heads.

  “You don’t have to worry about the tools anymore,” she said over her shoulder. “I went up there and took care of it.”

  “You put them back?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the garage?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s so great! I never would’ve dared.”

  Terri shrugged. “I went after dark.”

  “How did it look in there? Had they taken more stuff?”

  “I couldn’t see. It was pitch black. I just threw in the tools and left.”

 
; “You must’ve had to make a few trips. There were a lot!”

  “I did.”

  Jessie gazed at her in full admiration. When it came right down to it, Terri carried through. She didn’t make a big deal of it. She just went ahead and figured out how to do what needed to be done. Like fixing the raft, or handling her father. Or camping out by herself when she couldn’t go home.

  “Thanks so much, Terri. That’s a big relief.”

  “That’s why I did it. I knew the tools were worrying you.”

  “They were. Thank you.”

  Terri smiled. “So, we’re friends again, right? I’m so glad you came. I was hoping you would because I have this great trip all planned out for us.”

  “A trip?”

  “There’s this old pet cemetery behind a house up the road. You’ve got to see it! It has dogs and cats and a rabbit that was named Jumper, and even somebody’s goldfish. They’re all buried with little crosses and RIP signs inside an iron fence with a green gate. We could take the raft up the pond and sneak into it.”

  “Is it on somebody’s land?”

  “It’s behind a house, but they’d never see us. It’s like a jungle around there.”

  Jessie looked at her.

  “Really! I go there all the time. I buried Mungo there.”

  “Who’s Mungo?”

  “Our cat that died of rat poison. I took him over last year and dug his grave and nobody even knows. He was a great cat. I wanted him to be with all those other pets. We can visit him!”

  “He ate rat poison?”

  “Somebody gave it to him is what I think. Someone lured him with food and tricked him.”

  “They poisoned your cat? That’s sick!”

  “I know.”

  “That person must really hate you to do that. Can’t you report them?”

  Terri shrugged. “You can’t get people arrested for killing a cat. The best I could do was take Mungo to a good place to get buried. He doesn’t have a marker, but he’s in that ground. He’s got honor.”

  “Honor?”

  “Like the other pets. He had a real big heart. He trusted people too much, that’s what got him into trouble. Worse than that, it got him killed.”

  Jessie came to a sudden decision.