Monster Lake

Yes, that’s what it was: a trapdoor. She would love to know what was under it, but there was a big lock on it, and it wasn’t any kind of lock she’d ever be able to open with her library card. It was a large, heavy-duty padlock, the kind of lock you needed a key to open.

What is under there? she had no choice but to wonder.

But she was definitely determined to find out, and she wanted to find a lot of things out. How could her mother and Uncle Chuck explain this? Giant toads and salamanders, with teeth? Weird bottles of yucky-looking yellow gunk? Locked trapdoors on the floor?

What was going on here?

But she didn’t let her burning curiosity stall her any longer. She remembered the time…

She had to get out of here, and fast!

She quickly pulled the door closed, heard the bolt click shut. She turned, moved quickly toward the outer boathouse door, and—

Froze in her tracks.

A figure was standing in the doorway, its arms crossed, and its foot impatiently tapping the floor.

Uncle Chuck.

««—»»

Uncle Chuck didn’t say anything, not one word for the whole time they were walking back up the trail to the house. Terri felt an inch tall; if there was one thing she knew about grownups, it was this: you could always tell how mad they were by how silent they were. The less they said, the more mad they were.

And Uncle Chuck wasn’t saying anything.

Terri knew she was in big, big trouble now.

They went in the house through the back sliding door. Then Uncle Chuck slammed the door shut.

“Sit down, young lady,” he said in the coldest voice she’d ever heard.

Terri sat at the kitchen table, her hands in her lap.

“I thought we had an understanding, Terri,” Uncle Chuck said, still standing up with his arms crossed, still tapping his foot.

“I’m sorry,” was all Terri could think to say.

“You’re sorry?” he said in a sarcastic tone. “What good is being sorry going to do if you fall into the lake and drown?”

“I can swim,” Terri feebly answered. “I won the 7th Grade swim meet last year, remember? I got a First Place ribbon.”

“Don’t get smart, young lady—”

Oh, yes, Terri knew she was in big trouble, all right. Because that was one other thing she knew all too well about grownups. When they called you “young lady” instead of your name—that meant BIG trouble.

“—that’s beside the point, and you know it,” Uncle Chuck continued in his cold, cold voice. “I don’t care how well you can swim. I can’t believe you disobeyed us. That’s just not like you. Now—” Uncle Chuck’s foot kept tapping away on the floor—tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap—“I want to know how long you were down there.”

“Just a little while,” Terri said.

“Just a little while,” Uncle Chuck repeated.

tap-tap-tap, went his foot.

“And haven’t we told you many times to never go down to the lake unless you were with an adult? Haven’t we told you many times to never go into the boathouse? Hmmm?”

“Yes,” Terri peeped.

“Then, why, young lady? Why did you do it?”

Terri couldn’t look up at her Uncle Chuck. “I…,” she began, but then she paused. What could she say? It occurred to her that she could lie to Uncle Chuck, she could maybe make up a story, she could say that she heard someone down there or something like that, and that she found the boathouse door already open. Maybe he would think there were burglars or something. But Terri didn’t like to lie, she knew it was something only crummy people did, and she also knew that when you lied, eventually the lie would catch up with you, and then you’d be in even more trouble.

So instead, she did what she felt was the right thing.

She told the truth.

“I was curious,” she told Uncle Chuck. “You and Mom spend so much time down there, I was curious. And —”

Again, she hesitated. If she told him about the toad she’d seen last night, or the giant salamander, he might not believe her. He’d think she was telling lies, and that would just get her in more trouble than she was already in.

“I was just curious,” she repeated.

Uncle Chuck looked down at her. His face looked made of stone, and his foot never stopped—

tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap

“I have a mind to call your mother at work right now and tell her what you’ve done, and the only reason I won’t is because it would upset her,” he said. “She’s very busy at work, and she works very, very hard, and since your father left, she has to work even harder to pay the bills and to keep food in the refrigerator and a roof over your head. It’s not easy for her, you know, and you just make it that much harder for her when you do things like this. That’s pretty selfish of you, isn’t it? That’s pretty darn inconsiderate of you.”

tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap

“And,” he continued, “do you have any idea how disappointed she’d be?”

Suddenly there were tears in Terri’s eyes. She felt smaller than a lima bean right now. She knew her mother worked hard to keep the house and everything, and the last thing in the world Terri would ever want to do was disappoint her mother. All at once, she never felt more ashamed of herself.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap

Uncle Chuck seemed to be cooling down a little now, though. “I want you to understand something, Terri. When your mother or I tell you to do something, or in this case, when we tell you not to do something, there’s always a good reason. And the reason is this: we told you not to go to the boathouse because it’s very dangerous for a girl your age down there. That pier is old. One of the planks could break, and you could break your ankle, or worse, you could fall in the water and drown. And there’s a lot of computers and electrical equipment in the boathouse; you could get an electrical shock and have to go to the hospital, or you could even die. Plus, there’s a lot of chemicals and things in the boathouse that are dangerous.”

Chemicals.

That reminded Terri of something. Those bottles, she thought. Those stinky bottles full of green and yellow gunk…

Was that what Uncle Chuck meant? Those tall, glass bottles she’d seen on the metal shelves?

“Anyway,” Uncle Chuck went on. “You’re going to your room now, and you’re going to spend the rest of the day there.”

Terri sniffled. “Am I grounded?”

“I don’t know, that’s up to your mother, not me. Go on now. Go to your room, and I don’t want to hear a single peep out of you, do you understand?”

Terri nodded. Then she got up from the table, her eyes still cast down to the floor, and she went to her room.

««—»»