Monster Lake

“Did it hurt?”

“Well, not really. The doctor sprayed this cold stuff on the cut and it made my skin numb, so I didn’t feel anything. It hurt when I fell down, though.”

“What happened?” Terri asked, relieved that her friend was okay.

Patricia’s voice lowered. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Remember this morning when I left your house, and you were going to go back to the boathouse to get your library card?”

“Yeah,” Terri said. How could she ever forget that! It was the whole reason she’d gotten caught by Uncle Chuck.

“Well,” Patricia went on, “I was going home, like you said, and I was cutting across our neighbor’s yard right by a bunch of trees and—”

“What!” Terri whined.

“Something jumped out at me from the trees. I fell down on the curb and cut my leg, and I was bleeding pretty bad.”

“But what was it?” Terri couldn’t help but ask. “What jumped out at you?”

“You’ll never believe this,” Patricia said. “But it was a toad, bigger than any toad I’ve ever seen in my life! And…it had fangs!”

Terri was astonished. “I never told you, Patricia, but last night I woke up and looked out my window and I saw the same exact thing! I saw these giant toads hopping around in the yard, and they had fangs! And then, after you left this morning, I went back down to the boathouse, and I used my library card to get into that other back room.”

“Terri!”

“And in the room were lots of these glass tanks, and the tanks were full of toads with fangs! And there were big salamanders too—”

“With teeth?” Patricia asked.

“Yeah, they all had sharp teeth, just like the salamander we saw on the dock this morning. What did your parents say when you told them about it?”

Patricia paused on the line. “Well, I didn’t tell them, I couldn’t. They’d never believe me. They’d think I was making it up.”

Terri had no problem understanding this. “I got out all my Golden Nature books today, and looked through them, and I was right. There aren’t any toads or salamanders that have teeth. None in the whole world.”

“But there must be,” Patricia continued. “We saw them, so we know they’re real. And I’ve got to find some way to prove it to my parents.”

“How?”

“Well, I don’t really know. But maybe we can think of something.”

Terri wasn’t sure if she thought this was a good idea. “Patricia,” she said, “the only way to prove it would be to go back to the boathouse and try to catch one of the toads or salamanders.”

“Okay. Why don’t we do that?”

“Because it’s dangerous!” Terri exclaimed. “And, anyway, I can’t go there anymore because…I got caught.”

“Ter-ri! Who caught you?”

“My Uncle Chuck,” Terri glumly reported. “When he got back from driving my mother to work, he came down to the lake and caught me.”

“Did you get grounded?” Patricia asked.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll find out when my mother gets home from work, and I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen. But my Uncle Chuck made me stay in my room all day.”

“Bummer,” Patricia said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“But what are we going to do?” Patricia logically asked next. “There are a lot of weird things going on, you have to admit. And—jeeze—you said you saw more toads and salamanders with teeth in the backroom of the boathouse. That can only mean one thing.”

“What?” Terri asked.

“Your mother and your Uncle Chuck—they’re the ones who are behind it.”

««—»»

Terri knew exactly what Patricia meant; she’d already thought of that herself. All those toads and salamanders in the glass tanks proved that her mother and Uncle Chuck must know what was going on. And Terri had to admit something else: whatever was going on, it was definitely weird…

Terri wanted to talk more, but just then Uncle Chuck stepped into the kitchen and sternly said, “You’ve talked long enough, young lady. It’s time for you to hang up and go back to your room.”

Terri explained to Patricia that she had to go, and then she hung up the phone. Her eyes averted to the floor, she walked back to her bedroom.

“And make sure you stay there, young lady,” Uncle Chuck called behind her. “I’m going to pick your mother up from work now, and you better not even think about coming out of your room. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Terri peeped. She shuffled back to her bedroom, closed the door. A few minutes later, she heard the car door thunk closed from outside, the engine started, then the car pulled out of the driveway and drove off down the road.

Instantly, Terri felt frustrated and bored. At least Patricia’s all right, she thought. But—

There was just too much to think about, and worry about.

And be scared about…

She had to find the answers, and she knew the answers had to be in the backroom of the boathouse. I could go again now, she realized. Uncle Chuck was gone, picking her mother up. But with her luck he’d come right back just to see if she was still in her room. I can’t risk it, Terri wisely decided. She could get into too much trouble. The only other thing she could do, she knew, was look up some of those complicated words she’d seen on the computer screen, the tanks, and the bottle labels, but—as hard as she tried—she still couldn’t remember any of them. So she was still faced with the problem of getting to the backroom of the boathouse, so she could look at the words again, write them down, and then look them up in the dictionary. That was the only way.

Or…

Was it?

There was still one other thing she could try, wasn’t there?

Something that hadn’t occurred to her.

Yes! she thought.

Maybe the boathouse wasn’t the only place where she could read those words again.

Uncle Chuck, she knew, had been working down there all afternoon. And when he’d come back up to the house, what had he been carrying with him?

The briefcase! Terri realized.

Maybe those words were in the briefcase too.

And—

There’s only one way to find out, she told herself.

Right now, Uncle Chuck wasn’t in the house; he was picking Terri’s mother up at work.

She could sneak out of her room right now, couldn’t she?

And look in the briefcase herself…

««—»»