“That is so ugly,” Sarah said.
Zaidee relished the expression on Sarah’s face. “Oh, and we need that big one,” Zaidee cried, seeing a really large striped bass. She whisked it up with her two hands and sailed it right by Sarah’s face.
“Nasty!” Sarah yelled. “Get it away!”
Zaidee placed the fish on the scale as Loch thrust his hand into his pocket to check exactly how much money they’d been able to scrape together from their allowances. “How much so far?” Loch asked the manager.
“What do you say to forty bucks for everything?” the manager asked.
“Great,” Loch agreed.
“I don’t want those disgusting things stinking up the jeep,” Sarah complained.
“No problem,” the manager told her. He double-wrapped the fish, stuck them in a large black plastic bag with a scoop of ice, and stapled a price ticket to the top of the bag.
“Thanks,” Loch said, as he lifted it into the shopping cart and started up the aisle to the checkout counter. Zaidee spotted a box of Fruity Pebbles and added it to the cart.
Sarah waited until they were outside in the parking lot before she let it all out. “What’s with the fish?”
“We need to show you,” Loch said, swinging the bag into the back of the jeep. “Let me drive, okay?”
Sarah tossed him the keys.
“I can handle a stick shift.” Zaidee spoke up.
“Forget it,” Sarah said.
Zaidee climbed in next to the fish. She sulked, then opened the box of Fruity Pebbles as they pulled out of the lot and headed out of town. On the way back over Snake Mountain, Zaidee wanted to go on record. “My
“Show me what?” Sarah pressed.
“We found something we don’t want your father to know about,” Loch said. “You’ve got to promise not to tell him. Not for a while anyway.”
“Just tell me,” Sarah demanded. “I can’t listen this slowly!”
“Promise you won’t tell your father!” Zaidee insisted.
“I promise. What is it?”
“You’ll see,” Loch said.
“Eeeeeeh!” Sarah screamed. “You’re both driving me nuts.”
When they reached the Lake Alban fork, Loch turned right on the south road. A few miles up, Zaidee spotted the sign they were looking for: FISH CONSERVATION PROJECT. The tires spun up a cloud of dust as Loch turned the jeep hard onto the dirt road and began the steep climb to the top.
“The grid’s up here,” he said.
“The shocks on this thing aren’t great, you know,” Sarah warned, holding on to her sunglasses as the jeep hit bump after bump. “What’s with this grid, anyway?”
“My dad says it acts like a dam, but it’s not,” Loch explained, as the road snaked by the main stream, which flowed down from the lake. “It’s like a long series of steps, which lets the water run down them. It kills the logging operations, but lets the salmon come up from Champlain.”
They drove around a final curve and saw the control bunker at the very top of the ridge. There was no sign of the Volvo. Loch had counted on his father having finished his early-morning inspection of the controls.
“This is awesome,” Sarah said as Loch pulled the jeep in close to the hillside and stopped beside the waterfall. He turned off the engine, got out, and lugged the bag of fish to the edge of the pool.
“Get your fins on,” Loch told Sarah.
“Me too,” Zaidee said, grabbing her snorkling equipment.
“No, Zaidee,” Loch said. “It’ll be better if it’s just Sarah and me down there for a while. Then it’ll be your turn.”
Zaidee’s eyes opened wide. “That’s discrimination.”
“Trust me,” Loch said. He didn’t want to take the chance of confusing the creature by having too many of them in the water at the same time.
Zaidee kicked the back of the front seat of the jeep and stuffed another handful of Fruity Pebbles in her mouth. “Five minutes,” she said. “That’s all I’m waiting.”
Sarah took her sunglasses off and stuck them in the glove compartment. Zaidee grunted and tried the CB again. She flipped through the frequencies as Loch and Sarah stripped to their bathing suits.
Loch reached into the bag of fish and started to lift out one of the big fish.
“Better take a little one first,” Zaidee suggested. “Like an appetizer.”
“You’re right,” Loch said, exchanging the big bass for a mackerel. He held the mackerel by the tail, lay down on the slab of granite at the edge of the pool, and dangled the fish below the surface of the water.
“Feeding otters, is that what this is all about?” Sarah asked, struggling to get her fins on. “You found a family of otters, right?”
Loch didn’t answer. He let go of the fish and let it drift down toward the deep, clear bottom of the pool.
“Follow me,” Loch said. He slid into the water, put his mask on, and dove for the bottom. Sarah put her mask on and went after him.
Zaidee immediately took Sarah’s sunglasses out of the glove compartment and tried them on. She checked herself in the rearview mirror.
Not bad, she had to admit.
Zaidee got out of the jeep and lifted the huge striped bass out of the fish bag. She struggled to hold it as she walked around the edge of the pool. “Wee Beastie,” she called. “Look what Zaidee’s got for you.”
It was in the deep end of the pool that Loch first heard the anguished cries. Today among the rocks and clusters of water plants there was no haunting, unearthly music. The sounds now were frantic, stabbing. Sarah pointed to her ears, signaling that she, too, could hear them. Loch swam deeper toward the shadowy forest of water plants, but the sounds seemed to be coming from his right. He and Sarah turned and saw Wee Beastie in the turmoil where the waterfall plunged into the pool. The creature was shrieking, oblivious of them, thrusting itself upward over and over again into the onslaught of falling water.
Sarah’s eyes opened wide in shock. She felt as if she were back in the nightmare of the lake again. What little air was left in her lungs burst from her and she kicked swiftly for the surface. Loch followed her up, and they threw themselves out of the water and onto the slab of rock.
Sarah gasped, ripping off her mask and spitting out water. “That’s what you wanted to show me!” She started screaming at Loch. “That!”
“He got washed down here from the lake,” Loch said.
“You made me go into the water with that monstrosity?” Sarah shouted, feeling her body start to shake. “How could you?”
“He’s not a monster!” Zaidee said, outraged. She set the big bass down. “We swam and played with him all day yesterday. He’s a lot nicer and smarter than some people we know.”
Loch went to put his arm around Sarah, but she shook him off. “You know what that is going to grow up into as well as I do.”
“We didn’t know you were going to freak out,” Zaidee said, taking off Sarah’s sunglasses and tossing them back into the glove compartment.
“Sarah,” Loch said, “he’s a fantastic creature-”
“Look, I don’t know about you, but I can still feel Erdon’s blood on my arms,” Sarah said, heading for the jeep.
Loch grabbed her arm, stopping her. “You can’t tell your father or he’ll kill him.”
“It looks like it’s doing a good job of killing itself,” Sarah said.
“Wait,” Loch said.
Sarah reached the jeep and pounded its right fender three times with her fist. Loch let her blow off steam.
“What’s the matter with Wee Beastie?” Zaidee wanted to know.
“He’s freaking out,” Loch said.
“Wee Beastie?” Sarah cried out in disbelief. “You’ve named it like it’s your pet dog?”
