Rescue at Lake Wild

by Terry Lynn Johnson

  “No, sorry, I didn’t notice. But it’s okay, we’ll search. Right after I get back. I was just about to get more ice.” He jingles the keys in his hand.

  That’s when I notice what he has in his other hand. A bright green ax.

  I gape at him as he stashes it in the back of his pickup. Maybe Jack’s wrong. Maybe there are lots of green axes.

  Cal winks at me as he hops in his truck and drives off.

  My mind plays back the conversation where my parents had asked if Cal had a summer job and Marley said he worked on his dad’s farm. His dad’s a farmer. Could Cal be the killer? All this time, the killer has been dating my sister? But he’s so nice.

  My knees feel like gummies as I start toward the hedgerows on the side of the house. I have to find Jack and tell him.

  The sound of a vehicle pulling up behind me makes me stop again. Is that Cal back already? I whirl around . . . and freeze.

  Mom steps out of her car. Her eyes bug out as she takes in all the people on her lawn. And then they land on me.

  25

  “What in heaven . . . ?”

  “Uh, Mom. Hi. I thought you were in Boston?”

  She slams the car door. “My flight was canceled.”

  I watch as she absorbs the music, the laughter, the bonfire, the coolers, the blankets, and the yoga poses.

  “Where is she?”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” I begin. Lame. Of course, it’s exactly what it looks like, but it feels like something I’m supposed to say.

  Marley chooses that moment to come around the corner. “Cal, are you back so—?” She stops dead, her mouth hanging open.

  “Yes, it seems I’ve surprised you,” Mom says.

  The hedges beside Marley start shaking. Mom gasps and covers her heart.

  Marley doesn’t even flinch as Jack crawls out. He stands, twigs sticking out of his hair, and gapes at us. Then he turns to crawl right back in.

  “Oh, no, Jack,” Mom says, recovering quickly. “You come with me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jack spears me with accusing eyes as if this is my fault. Why does everyone blame me? He brushes past toward the car.

  “I’m sure Aaron is around here somewhere,” Mom says. “I’ll take the boys home. When I get back, I expect all of this,” she spins her hand in the air, “to have vanished. And then we will have a long chat about responsibility.”

  Once Mom leaves with Jack and Lid and Aaron, Marley starts hollering for everyone to go home. There’s a lot of complaining, but Marley can be a scary force when she wants to be. In short order everyone’s packed up, stuffed in their vehicles, and gone. Then it’s just me and my sister left to clean up.

  “Marley,” I say, “the kits are missing.”

  “Not my problem.” She tosses a stack of blankets into the garage.

  I grab an empty cooler and slide it out of the way. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Not now.”

  “I think Cal’s the one who shot the kits’ parents.”

  “What?” Marley stops her frantic cleaning long enough to look at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I count on my fingers. “Someone was over by the channel and shot two beavers. Then they went to Mr. Kang’s house and cut down his trees with an ax that’d been painted green. They tried to make it look like a beaver did it! Maybe to frame Mr. Kang for shooting the beavers, I don’t know.”

  Marley makes an impatient noise and picks up an empty garbage bag. “You’ve been hanging around Jack too long. How do you even know the person went from the channel to Mr. Kang’s? And I don’t see the connection to Cal.” She stomps a can on the ground and pitches it in the bag.

  “The connection is Cal’s dad is a farmer. He’s a landowner who hates beavers, so there’s motive. And he has a green ax. Lid did a track! He found the shotgun shells—Jack has them. And he found butts, though he ate those.” I pause. “Does Cal smoke?”

  Marley snorts. “No, he doesn’t smoke. See? Before you go . . . accusing . . .” She trails off and gets a strange look on her face.

  “What?” I demand.

  She shakes her head and stomps a can.

  I growl in frustration. This conversation is pointless anyway. “The worst news is the kits are missing. Someone from your stupid party let them out so you have to help me find them!”

  “Are you serious? That’s the worst news? Hello, did you not notice Mom? She’s coming back any minute. What do you think will happen if we haven’t cleaned up?”

  She’s right of course. A heavy silence settles over us as we pitch garbage and mull over our own personal nightmares. By the time Mom comes home, I’m anxious to just get it over with.

  She orders us into the kitchen, where we sit at the table. I ignore something sticky on the floor by my foot. Mom unwraps her scarf and sets it on the placemat in front of her. She folds it in half and then in half again, smoothing it out carefully.

  “I see that some things need to be fixed around here,” she begins. “Starting with you, young lady.” She points to Marley.

  My sister makes a face and crosses her arms over her chest.

  “We’ve let you have too much freedom. I see that now. Too much free time and not enough responsibilities. Well, that’s going to change right now. You’re getting a job.”

  “What?” Marley slams her hands on the table. “But I have one. I look after Madi.”

  “Not anymore. You’re going to start working at the feed store. They’re looking for summer help. It will all be arranged.”

  “The feed store?” Marley moans. She covers her face and then crumples dramatically into a heap on the table.

  “I can’t understand why you don’t take more of an interest in things, Marley. Why can’t you be more like . . . other people? You should want to work toward something other than boys. You need goals. You need to find a hobby, something that you love to do.”

  “We can’t all be perfect like other people.”

  “You need more commitment in your life. If not, then you’ll work to productively fill all the time on your hands.”

  “Can I be excused?” I say. I’ve got the uneasy feeling they’re talking about me, and for the first time, I wish I weren’t included. Plus, I need to keep searching for the kits.

  “No, you may not. I’m not finished. I hold both of you responsible for taking care of the house while your father and I can’t. We’re all in this together as a family.”

  “Hah!” Marley screams. “You’re one to talk about family. When does Madi ever get to see you? She’s growing up like an orphan. Dad’s gone half the time. And you’re always gone in the morning and come home late at night. All you do is work. Nice commitment to the stuff that matters, Mom.”

  Mom goes still. The color drains from her face as if she’s been slapped. Marley also looks as though she’s in shock. For some annoying reason, when Marley’s rattled, I am too. I feel as if I’ve just been hit by a bus.

  The room goes very quiet.

  The fridge hums to life.

  Slowly, Mom rises from her chair. “You have a point,” she says quietly. “Excuse me, I need a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  Mom walks down the hall with precise steps. Click, click, click.

  Marley and I stay seated across from each other. Her face is pale with twin blotches of pink high on her cheeks. When our eyes meet, something in her expression falls, like when a log is removed from a dam, compromising its strength.

  For a moment I see a little of my old sister. The sister who used to help me do my hair like hers and jump on the tire tubes in the lake and eat popcorn upside down hanging off the couch. Back when even though we sometimes got lost, we always had each other.

  Marley reaches out her hand. “I—”

  A shriek from the bathroom cuts off whatever she wanted to say.

  Marley and I race toward it. Mom leans against the bathroom door, gaping at something inside. When I get close enough, a fat ball of dread lodge
s in my guts even as I spin with relief. There are two beaver kits trying to climb out of our toilet.

  They see me and raise their arms. Uppy, uppy.

  26

  “What . . . how . . . where . . . ?”

  Mom’s got a lot of questions.

  The kits aren’t happy about the situation either. They’re taking turns standing on each other’s heads trying to pull themselves out of the bowl. But since most of their weight is in their butts, their little arms are straining hard.

  Mom draws a breath and starts again with a shriek. “What are those things?”

  I’m too focused on rescuing the distressed kits to answer. The more important question is: Where is Xena?

  And it’s a mystery how Phrag and Cooler even got in the toilet. Did they come in on their own looking for me? Maybe they remembered their bath and yogurt dip in here. Did they fall in after investigating the sound of water? Or did someone from the party put them in here as a joke?

  I hold them close to my chest to calm my pounding heart. Their crying calms too. They leave a wet spot on my shirt. Lid had tried to tell us the kits were in the house. Some animal whisperer I am.

  “They’re only harmless beaver kits, Mom. This one is Phragmites.” I smooth his fur and he clutches my finger with one hand.

  “He’s the sensitive type,” I continue. “He likes it when you breathe in his face. And this here’s Cooler. He’s got grabby hands, but his heart’s in the right place.”

  Maybe if I act casual, Mom won’t be mad about the kits.

  “Madison Lewis.”

  Uh-oh.

  “Why do we have a pair of beavers in the house? I thought I was pretty clear on the topic of strays.”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “Well, you will have a whole four days at home to tell me about it, because you certainly won’t be in Stratton next week.” Her carefully calm voice tells me she’s top-level mad.

  She fixes me with her stony expression. “I guess you weren’t as keen on seeing Jane Goodall as I thought.”

  “NO! Just . . . wait. I need to go!” This isn’t happening. I brace myself against the wall. “Please! I have to meet her!”

  “If you wanted to go so badly, you should’ve thought of that before you brought those beavers home.”

  “But they would’ve died!” I take a shaky breath and then yell, “If you see something, do something!”

  Mom lets out a pained sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “One cares too much, the other doesn’t care enough.” She opens her eyes. “Let’s everyone just take a moment. Can you at least put them outside somewhere for now?”

  I don’t need to be told twice. Hurrying out of the bathroom with the kits, I stop only to grab some food. I place them on the kitchen counter while I rummage in the fridge. They might be trailing a little toilet water with their wet butts.

  “Madison!”

  “Right. Sorry. I’m going.” I sweep them off the counter and out the side door.

  Phrag and Cooler seem ecstatic to be back home after their grand adventure. They race around the clubhouse, inspecting everything.

  I fill the food pan with French toast along with their favorite treats, and toss the last of the lily roots in their pool.

  Mom’s words sink in as I work.

  I’m not going to meet Jane Goodall.

  I’m not going to get to ask her my questions . . . questions I should’ve asked my own nana when I had the chance.

  I sit on the floor before I fall. Phrag and Cooler are still tearing around the clubhouse. I watch them a little more closely. Their cries, which I thought were excitement, are actually different from any noises I’ve heard them make before. It’s more of a keening wail.

  “I’ve got your food in the pool,” I point out.

  They’re so loud that Mom’s going to hear from the house. Not that it matters anymore. What is she going to do now that she knows about these two? If the Township takes them and releases them, they’ll die. I have to try to make her see reason.

  The kits continue their frantic movements. “You guys are freaking me out. Look, you don’t even have to share with—” My stomach drops as I realize: They’re looking for Xena!

  Phrag crawls into my lap. He bumps my shirt with his nose before looking directly at me. He’s asking where his adopted sister is.

  I’m filled with a pulsing hot sorrow. How would I feel if I’d lost Marley? That day on the ATV, at least we were together. I don’t know what I would’ve done if she hadn’t come home.

  I can’t look at Phrag. The kits were all counting on me to keep them safe, and I failed them.

  A broken sound escapes me as I cover my face. My world is imploding. I feel sick with regret knowing that I was responsible for these lives and now Xena is most likely dead.

  Mom was right. I’m too young and I don’t know what I’m doing.

  It’s bad that Mom found the kits. It’s really bad that I’m not allowed to go to Stratton and meet Jane Goodall. But far worse is that I’ve lost Xena when she was relying on me.

  There’s a knock on the clubhouse door and Mom comes in. I sit up. She wrinkles her nose while looking around, taking it all in. The pool, the potting soil, the sticks and the gardening supplies, the sagging cardboard box, and the distressed kits currently covered in mashed yams.

  “I see,” she says.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Mom,” I begin. “Without Nana, Willow Grove doesn’t have a wildlife rehabber. They’ll take them away and won’t know what to do with them.”

  She looks at me with a torn expression. “Madi, you know I have to turn them in. It’s illegal to have the beavers here. You’ve put me in a bad position.”

  She spies the box I’d kept Xena in when I first brought her home. “Are these two the only animals you have?”

  I open my mouth to tell her, but my throat squeezes so hard, I only squeak. What can I say to her to properly explain how amazing and smart and vulnerable these kits are? How can I find the right words to get her to understand?

  I look toward Phrag and Cooler and see something that might help. I grab the logbook from the table and hand it to Mom.

  “It’s all in here.”

  27

  The next morning I’m ready.

  Or at least I thought I was, until the people show up with dog crates and gloves and catch poles. I can’t even watch as Phrag and Cooler are loaded into the van and carted away.

  The worry over where they’ll end up and if they’ll be properly cared for clamps around my rib cage, crushing the breath out of me.

  After the kits are gone, I smash around in the clubhouse, piling all Nana’s old rehabber tools and equipment. I stack her logbooks. I box up all the formula and feed pans. The cotton balls and eyedroppers and bedding.

  It takes most of the day. Once it’s done, I look around at the bare shelves and all the new space in the clubhouse. Now it just feels empty. My heart is as hollow as the bones of a bird.

  My cell phone rings. I pull it out of my backpack.

  “Hi, Mom,” Aaron says. That’s code to let me know he’s borrowed an adult’s phone again so he can “call home.” I wish he had his own so we can text like normal people.

  “Jack and I are at the bridge,” he continues. “You’d better get down here.”

  The bridge. My experiment at Birch Creek.

  A surge of frustration washes over me like a black wave. “I can’t make it. I’m extremely grounded.”

  “You’re missing Jack saying that I’m a brilliant engineer. I think I should get it in writing.”

  “Why?” I practically shout into the phone. “Did it work? Tell me what it looks like!”

  “You’ve got to see it for yourself to appreciate it.”

  “Great,” I say, and hang up. At one point, the experiment felt very important, but now it’s impossible to summon the confidence I once had in it.

  I make my way into the house, wander into the den and perch on the so
fa, turning on the TV. What do people do in the summer when they aren’t caring for three busy kits, and saving a town’s beaver population?

  Marley comes in with her usual rhino stomp. She steals the remote before flopping next to me. “At least you won’t smell like rat anymore.”

  “Really? That’s all you’ve got to say? Xena is gone because of your friends. And the other kits are gone because of me. And they didn’t smell. Not that you’d care to notice.”

  I get up to leave. Marley grabs my arm and flings me backwards onto the sofa. Throwing a cushion on my back, she sits all her weight on it and traps me like she used to do to keep me from eating the chips.

  She balances on the cushion now, expecting me to fight. But I have no more fight left in me.

  “What do you want?” My voice is muffled by the couch pressing into my face.

  Marley sighs. “You’re no fun anymore.”

  The pressure comes off as she removes the cushion and lets me up. “I just wanted to tell you to make sure you had your little nerdlings here tomorrow morning. Before nine. It’s important.”

  “Uh, grounded? ”

  “Well, Mom’s planning on going to the office in the morning, so she won’t be here to ask. Figure it out.”

  * * *

  Shortly before nine the next morning, I pull up to our dock with my mystified friends.

  “But did she give you any clue?” Aaron asks.

  “If you ask one more time, I’m going to dunk your shoes in the lake.” I tie off the bow line on a cleat. “I only know Marley’s starting work today at the feed store and Cal’s picking her up.”

  “Perfect,” Jack says, steadying himself on Lid before jumping out of the boat. “I have to interview Cal.”

  Since I told Jack the green ax was Cal’s, he seems confident about solving the case. What I didn’t tell Jack is that I hope he has it wrong. I don’t want Cal to be the shooter. I don’t want my sister dating a poacher. Then again, if Jack doesn’t solve this case, we don’t stop the shooter. More kits could be orphaned.