Half a Chance

by Cynthia Lord

  “I know! I’ve filled out all the beginning stuff, like I always do.” Nate looked a little annoyed as he handed Grandma Lilah the clipboard. “We’ll tell you everything we saw when we get back.” He picked up a long double-ended kayak paddle off the dock. “Okay, Lucy. Hop in. Then I’ll give you the paddle and push you off.”

  Hop in? I ran my thumb over the corner of my camera. It’d be safer if I left it on the dock, but being level with the water might make for some awesome photos. It’d give a sense of being right there.

  From across the lake came a throaty howl. “That’s the loon’s wail,” Grandma Lilah said. “The first one calls, ‘I’m here. Where are you?’ And the second answers, ‘I’m here!’”

  “I heard that sound this morning,” I said.

  “Have you heard them tremolo?” Grandma Lilah asked. “They tremolo when they’re threatened. Like this.”

  Nate looked horrified as his grandmother made a sound like a long wobbly laugh, but I grinned.

  “Lucy, it’s easiest if you straddle the kayak first,” Emily said. “Watch me.”

  I’d given up on looking cool when I put on the fat orange life vest and slathered sunscreen all over my face, arms, and legs. But I didn’t want to make a total fool of myself.

  “Don’t think about it,” Emily said, throwing her leg over her own kayak in the water. “You just have to do it. Grandma Lilah can hold your camera while you get in.”

  I handed my camera to Grandma Lilah. “I wish I could show you how,” she said. “But if I sat down there, I could never get up! These knees don’t work like they used to.”

  Lifting one leg slowly across the kayak to the water on the other side, I felt like I was climbing on a pink, wiggly horse.

  “Now just sit,” Emily said.

  I landed inside with a thump, my knees sticking up and the kayak swaying scarily side to side. When it finally stopped jiggling, I lifted my legs, one at a time, out of the water and into the kayak.

  Grandma Lilah handed me my camera, but I wasn’t sure where to put it. So I tucked it down the front of my life vest.

  “Getting in is the hard part.” Nate held a paddle out to me. Then he gave me a big push. I clamped my teeth together, afraid it would be tippy.

  As the kayak glided ahead, I let myself relax — a little. The lake was flat, with only the tiniest breeze creasing the surface. I watched Emily dipping her paddle, first on one side, and then the other.

  Dip and pull. Other side. Dip and pull. The paddle and the water made a soothing music together: splish-splash, splish-splash. I felt a shiver of excitement to feel the kayak cutting through the water, the whole lake open to me. The morning sun slanted gold, making the pink of my kayak stand out warm and vibrant against the dark blue water and green trees on the far side of the lake.

  I imagined Dad beside me: “It’s pretty,” he’d say. “But pretty isn’t enough for a great photograph. Show me why I care. What’s the story?”

  It was hard to balance the paddle across the front of the kayak and then hold still enough to keep everything in focus with the camera. As soon as I stopped, the kayak began turning gently to a different view, like it had its own plan. But I managed to get some shots with the nose of my kayak in the foreground and Nate’s cottage in the background. The person viewing the photo would feel like they were paddling for home. That was the story. Heading home.

  But Dad always says that what you choose to cut out of the frame is as important as what you leave in. So I tried a different story. I took a few strokes to be facing the woods and zoomed in tighter so there were only trees and no cottages, making the scene look wilder than it really was — like the viewer was completely alone, the only person in the whole world.

  Nate and Emily were way ahead of me now, so I dropped my camera back inside my life vest and pulled hard on my paddle to catch up.

  “Were you taking a photo for ‘at the shore’?” Nate asked as I glided up beside him. “Lucy’s doing a photo contest,” he told Emily. “It’s like a scavenger hunt, only instead of finding things, you take photos.”

  “No, but I got one of your cottage that might work for ‘heading home,’” I said.

  “So what would you buy with the prize money if you won?” Nate asked.

  Should I tell him that Dad was the judge? That I couldn’t really enter? Nate seemed to think it was fun taking photos with me. And if we weren’t doing the contest, maybe we wouldn’t have anything to do together. New friendships break pretty easily if something goes wrong at the beginning. “Maybe two new bikes,” I said, pulling ahead. “So me and my dad could go riding together this fall.”

  “If I had five hundred dollars, I’d buy a swimming pool for my yard back home,” Nate said, catching up to me. “And if there was any money left over, I’d buy all the pizza I could and invite my friends over.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  “You don’t need a swimming pool,” Nate said. “Because you’ll have the lake all year round.”

  He sounded envious. “You know more about the lake than I do,” I said. “We’ve lived lots of places, but this is my first time on a lake.”

  “You should have a photo of your first time kayaking,” Emily said.

  “Yeah, I’ll take your picture,” Nate said. “Hold your paddle out to me.”

  “No. That’s okay,” I said.

  But he kept his hand out so I held my paddle toward him. He pulled us together close enough so I could pass him my camera.

  For all the photos I take, I hated having mine taken. Still, it wasn’t too hard to smile.

  A woman waved to us as she paddled by in a light-blue kayak with a white bichon frise wearing a pink life jacket in the kayak with her. The dog looked so happy. It made me wish Ansel were tucked into my kayak with me. Except he’d probably tip us both over trying to get back to shore.

  “Hi, Mrs. Rigby!” Emily called. “Hi, Zoe!”

  “You should bring Ansel kayaking with us sometime.” Nate matched his strokes to mine. “Wait! I have a great idea! If you won the contest, you could get Ansel a super-swanky doghouse.”

  I laughed. “Ansel would rather live with me. So it’d have to be a kid-and-dog house. But he’d like the super-swanky part.”

  “I wish we could have a dog,” Nate said. “But my dad’s allergic. Plus, my parents are both teachers, so no one’s home all day to take care of it.”

  “What do your parents teach?” I dipped my paddle and pulled hard, trying to stay next to Nate and Emily.

  “Mom teaches second grade, but my dad teaches science at the same middle school where I go.” Nate rolled his eyes. “He’ll be my teacher next year.”

  “It’ll be awful, Nate!” Emily assured him. “You’ll have to remember to call him Mr. Bailey in school. And when I had Dad for science, he was harder on me than anybody else! When you’re out running errands with him, and he sees something related to what he’s taught you, you’ll have to hear about it, too!” She sat up extra straight and made her voice sound like a teacher’s: “Look, Nate! Here is a great example of electromagnetism in action!”

  Nate groaned.

  Maybe having my dad at school every day would be too much of a good thing. But I couldn’t help thinking Nate was lucky.

  “What do your parents do, Lucy?” Emily asked.

  “My mom’s a computer programmer, but she has several clients and works mostly from home,” I said. “And my dad, um, takes photos. Actually, he’s on his way to Arizona today. There’s some rare insect that needs protecting there and he’s going to take photos of it for a conservation magazine.”

  “That’s cool. Most people want to get rid of bugs, not save them,” Nate said.

  I smiled, glad he thought that was cool. “Dad always says if you can get people to care about the little things, they’ll care about the big things, too.”

  As we glided along, people waved to us from their yards. I tried to wave back, but every time I stopped paddling, my kayak turned and I�
��d have to take an extra stroke to get going the right way again. A few cottages on, I saw Megan outside. I slowed down to wave, but she didn’t. So I concentrated on making my strokes look good, like I knew what I was doing.

  “Nate, what did you say to Megan? She looks mad,” Emily said.

  Nate waved to Megan. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Maybe it was me that Megan was mad at. Because I was kayaking with her friends and she wasn’t. I moved my thumb from one side of the paddle to the other. I could feel blisters coming. The front of my shoulders and my biceps felt sore, too, but I didn’t want Megan to know I needed to stop and rest. Dip and pull. Dip and pull.

  Far from shore, the water was dark blue and deep. I’d never been way out in the middle of a lake before, and I hadn’t known we would go this far. It felt tingly to be way out in the middle — like I was somewhere people didn’t really belong.

  I was getting the hang of kayaking. Moving along felt effortless, like floating. Emily lifted her legs out and over the sides so her feet could dangle in the water. I managed to kick off my flip-flops and get one foot out. The water felt silky cold on the bottom of my foot. I slipped my other foot out and over the edge, too. As I paddled, the water slid along under my feet, like they were surfing over it.

  Ahead in the cove on the other side of the lake, dragonflies zipped over the water, crisscrossing and weaving like tiny helicopters on a search-and-rescue mission. As we got closer to a group of little islands, something frilly brushed my toes and I pulled my feet back into the kayak. It was probably just a weed, but it still felt creepy to be touched by something I couldn’t see.

  “The loons always nest somewhere on these islands,” Emily said. “It’s great when we get a loon chick on the lake and he makes it. And it’s even better when there are two.”

  “Last year, the loons only laid one egg, and it didn’t hatch,” Nate told me. “The Loon Preservation Committee sent someone to take the egg away to find out why it didn’t develop. The person said they didn’t always learn why, though. It just happens sometimes.”

  “It was horrible,” Emily said. “When the guy took the egg, the loons called and called. Afterward, the female went back to the empty nest and lay there flat with her wings spread out.”

  “Grandma Lilah took it really hard,” Nate said. “Mom will make us all go home if that happens again. If they don’t hatch this year, maybe we should pretend they did.”

  “We can’t lie to Grandma Lilah all summer,” Emily said. “She’ll figure it out when she looks through the binoculars and there are never any babies.”

  Dipping my paddle, I moved smoothly behind them, watching the little whirlpools formed by their strokes go past. On my next stroke, my paddle hit something soft. A sudden splash, and a loon surfaced right next to my kayak. He turned his head to look at me with his brick-red eye. He let out a piercing cry, filled with wildness.

  He startled me so much I screamed and dropped my paddle. Would he rush at me?

  Up close, he was bigger than I expected, magnificent and strange: a velvety black head, a sharp tapered bill, a band of white stripes around his neck, and a windowpane pattern on his wings — like he was dressed up for a fancy concert, wearing a striped necktie and checkered vest. The loon swam quickly away from me, his head turning side to side. I yanked my camera out of my life vest and started shooting without even taking a second to check my settings. My hands were trembling, but I clicked and clicked.

  The loon rolled forward, diving under the water with barely a splash.

  I couldn’t move, not even to breathe. I should’ve tried putting the camera near the water! I just couldn’t think fast enough.

  “Wow,” Nate said, handing me back my paddle. “He must not have looked before he headed for the surface. They don’t usually come that close. You okay?”

  I let my breath go. “I’m fine,” I said, but it was bigger and more complicated than that. The loon had stared straight at me, and I had looked back. It was scary, but I wished with all my heart that he’d do it again.

  “That was the male,” Nate said. “Only the males yodel.”

  “Figures, huh, Lucy?” Emily said. “The boys are the loudmouths.”

  I scanned the water, watching for the loon to come up again. When he finally did, he was far, far away.

  “Their nest is on that first tiny island,” Emily said. “I can see the female on it. That must be why he was so upset.”

  Paddling closer, I could see a few scraps of land poking out of the water. A little breeze moved the grasses, and a nest of vegetation and bottom muck was piled near the small island’s edge. On the heap, the white ball of the loon’s chest showed up first, and then her black head above those spotted wings. “Wow, if I hadn’t known where to look, I wouldn’t have even seen her,” I said.

  “Loons can’t really walk,” Nate said. “Their legs are set too far back on their bodies — which is perfect for swimming but awful for walking. So they have to build their nests right at the edge.”

  I leaned over the front of my kayak to get nearer the water. I zoomed in as tight as my camera could go.

  “I wish we could get closer,” Nate said. “But we’re not supposed to annoy her.”

  “Do you see any eggs?” Emily asked.

  “What do they look like?” I asked.

  “They’re pretty big,” Emily said. “Kind of a medium brown with dark speckles.”

  Through the lens, I watched the loon drop her head low over the edge of the nest, her bill almost touching the water. Her wing shuddered and she lifted it a little. Then a little more. On my fifth shot, I caught a glimpse of something between her and the nest. “I think so,” I said, clicking another shot. “She looks mad, though.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Nate said.

  On the way home, I let Nate and Emily get ahead of me. From this distance, our house looked tiny, but I could see the driveway was empty. Mom and Dad were on their way to the airport. I hadn’t wanted to go with them, but now I wished I had.

  I’d send Dad a text when I got home, wishing him a good trip and telling him about the loons. Maybe he’d get it before he got on the plane and could even text me back.

  As I paddled, I heard the haunting wail behind me. I’m here. Where are you?

  And a few seconds later, from another direction:

  I’m here.

  “You wouldn’t believe what happened!” Emily said as I followed her and Nate into the big front room of their cottage. “A loon almost tipped over Lucy’s kayak!”

  “Lucy of the Loons!” Grandma Lilah said from the couch.

  I blushed, embarrassed that she said that in front of Nate’s whole family. Please don’t let that nickname stick.

  “Lucy lives in the Alexanders’ old house. She just moved in,” Nate said to everyone.

  “Hi.” I nodded, the smile frozen on my face, as Nate introduced me. His mom smiled kindly at me. His dad nodded over his magazine: “Hello, Lucy.” Aunt Pat, who looked younger than Nate’s parents, waved to me as she talked on her cell phone. And his four-year-old twin cousins, Morgan and Mason, didn’t even look up from the toy cars they were rolling along the rows of the big braided rug in front of the fireplace.

  The room was covered in shiny, honey-colored pine boards: running across the ceiling, up and down the walls, and over the floor. It smelled slightly musty, a combination of old wood and wool blankets and bacon from breakfast. “What a nice cottage,” I said, looking at the painted sign over the fireplace: WELCOME TO THE LAKE.

  “Thank you, dear,” Grandma Lilah said.

  “How do you like New Hampshire, Lucy?” Mr. Bailey asked.

  “It’s good so far. We’ve only been here a day.”

  “Lucy, we must have you and your family over for a cookout some evening soon,” Mrs. Bailey said.

  They were being very nice to me, but I don’t like being in the spotlight. It’s horrible and itchy to stand in someone else’s living room when you don’t know
everyone, but they all know each other. Emily had insisted that Grandma Lilah would want to see my photos of the loons, though.

  “The female loon was on the nest,” Emily said.

  “We must record it on the survey,” Grandma Lilah said. “Where’s my pen?”

  “Don’t get up. I’ll do it,” Nate said. “Lucy, show her your photos.”

  Relieved to have something to do, I turned on my camera. “I don’t know if you’ll see much on my camera’s little screen —”

  “I’ll get my laptop,” Mr. Bailey said. “So we can make it bigger.”

  While we waited for him to come back, I fingered my camera. The only open space to sit down was on the couch next to Grandma Lilah, but that had been Mr. Bailey’s spot.

  Aunt Pat pulled her phone away from her ear. “Nate, Megan stopped by while you were out. Her family is going to the movies tonight in Conway and she invited you to join them. I said you’d call her.”

  “See? I told you Megan wasn’t mad at me,” Nate said to Emily.

  “Well, she sure looked mad,” Emily said.

  Next to the couch was a bookshelf full of books and framed photos: a black-and-white wedding photo and another of the cottage being built. There was a group I didn’t recognize posed on the cottage’s front porch, and some newer pictures of birthday parties and graduations. At our house, when we hang photos on the walls, they’re mostly of places Dad has been.

  One of Grandma Lilah’s photos had been taken on the summit of a mountain. I recognized a younger Grandma Lilah with a little boy. I stepped closer to look. “Is this you, Nate?”

  “That was the first time Nate climbed Cherry Mountain,” Grandma Lilah said. “I have lots of photos of Nate. He’s been coming to the lake ever since he was born.”

  “Show her the photo of Nate swimming in his diaper,” Emily said. “That’s a good one.”

  Nate made a face at her.

  “We climb Cherry Mountain every year,” Grandma Lilah said.

  “We haven’t done it for a few years,” Mrs. Bailey said. “It’s not an easy climb.”