The sound of car doors closing.
“Here they come now,” Patricia said, glancing out the window which she could see from the dining room.
Terri glanced out too, and sure enough, there was the car in the driveway, with her Mom and Uncle Chuck getting out.
“What are all those things they’re carrying?” Patricia asked.
But this was a familiar sight to Terri. Both her mother and Uncle Chuck carried two big black briefcases each as they trundled up the driveway toward the front door.
“Mom has to bring a lot of work home from the zoology lab,” Terri eventually answered. “She only used to work part-time, but since the divorce she works every weekday.”
“Well,” Patricia considered, “at least she’s home on the weekends, so you can do stuff with her then.”
“Not really. She has so much work from the lab, she has to work on it at home on Saturdays and Sundays now.”
“Oh, that’s a bummer.”
“Hi, Mom, hi, Uncle Chuck,” Terri greeted when they both walked in.
“Hi, kids,” Terri’s mother replied, smiling in her dark pumpkin-orange business dress.
“Who’s this?” Uncle Chuck asked when he saw Patricia.
“This is my friend, Patricia,” Terri introduced. “This is my Uncle Chuck.”
“Hi,” Patricia said.
“Pleased to meet you, Patricia,” Uncle Chuck returned the greeting. Uncle Chuck was tall and thin, with short dark hair and a nice smile.
“Patricia will be in seventh grade when school starts,” Terri said. “I was just telling her that she’ll have you as her biology teacher.”
“That’s great,” Uncle Chuck said. “So you must be new in town?”
Patricia nodded. “I only just moved to Devonsville a few weeks ago. It’s a really nice town.”
“So what have you girls been up to?” Terri’s mother asked.
“We were playing badminton while Uncle Chuck was picking you up at work,” Terri said.
“And we saw this absolutely
“We do seem to have a lot of toads around here,” Terri’s mother added. “They’re all over the place.”
“Because you’re so close to the lake, right?” Patricia asked.
Terri’s Mom and Uncle Chuck traded strange glances at Patricia’s remark. And this just reminded Terri how strange overall her mother and Uncle Chuck had been acting lately.
“Well, yes,” Terri’s mother eventually answered Patricia.
But Uncle Chuck looked a little disturbed. “Uh, girls? You weren’t at the lake today, were you?”
“No, Uncle Chuck,” Terri answered. “You said kids shouldn’t go there unless an adult’s around.”
“That’s right, hon. Because lakes can be dangerous. You could fall in, plus, you know, it could be polluted.”
Terri’s brow rose. She’d seen the lake lots of times, and it didn’t look polluted to her. The water was crystal clear, and she’d never seen any garbage or anything floating in it. This seemed like a strange thing for Uncle Chuck to say.
“But I told Patricia that you or Mom would take us down there and show it to us sometime,” Terri said, remembering her promise.
And again—
—Terri’s mother and Uncle Chuck traded weird glances.
“Well, sure, honey,” her Mom said. “We can do that sometime.”
“But not soon,” Uncle Chuck said. “It’s too hot to go down there during the summer. There’re lots of bugs and mosquitoes and things. And snakes.”
“Snakes!” Patricia exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a real snake.”
But Terri raised her brow again.
It almost sounded like Uncle Chuck was making it up, so Terri and Patricia wouldn’t be tempted to go down there on their own…
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” her mother apologized. “I hope you’re not too disappointed, but I’ve got so much work to do tonight, I don’t have time, and neither does Uncle Chuck.”
“We’ll get pizza soon, though,” Uncle Chuck said.
“Maybe Pamela would like to stay for dinner,” Terri’s mother suggested.
“It’s not Pamela, Mom. It’s Patricia,” Terri corrected.
“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry, Patricia. Anyway, why don’t you cook some TV dinners for yourselves in the microwave?”
“But aren’t you and Uncle Chuck going to eat?” Terri asked.
“Later,” Uncle Chuck said, and held up the briefcases. “Right now your mother and I have to get to work.”
“Okay,” Terri glumly replied.
“Nice meeting you, Patricia,” Uncle Chuck said as he and Terri’s Mom headed for the back door.
“Bye,” Patricia said.
Then the back sliding glass door slid closed, and they were gone.
Patricia squinted after them.
“You want to stay for dinner?” Terri asked, but it was more for distraction than anything else. She could guess what Patricia was thinking. “We’ve got all kinds of good TV dinners.” She opened the freezer and showed her. “Fish fillets, enchiladas, sliced turkey and gravy. They’re pretty good.”
“Well, okay. But I’ve got to call my parents first.”
“The phone’s right over there,” Terri said, pointing to the end of the kitchen counter.
Patricia dialed her number, then asked if she could stay. Then she hung up, looking weird.
“Did they say you can stay for dinner?” Terri asked.
“Uh, yeah, I can stay.”
“Then why do you look so weird all of a sudden?”
“Well…” She glanced out the back sliding-glass door.
“What is it?”
Patricia turned back to her.
“Your Uncle Chuck said that he and your mother have lots of work to do?”
“Yeah,” Terri said. “They have lots of work almost every night, like I said.”
“You mean like office work, right? From the zoology lab where your Mom works?”
“Yeah.”
Patricia glanced back out the door again. “If they’ve got office work to do, how come they’re walking across the back yard with their briefcases? Toward the lake?”
««—»»
The microwave beeped, and Terri, wearing pot-holder mittens shaped like owls, took the food out. “Well,” she said, to answer Patricia’s question, “remember that trail I showed you, that leads to the lake?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s also a little boathouse down there, right on the water—”
“Wow!” Patricia said excitedly. “You have a boat too?”
“It’s just a little motorboat, we’ve never even used it because it needs to be fixed. But my Dad turned the boathouse into an office.”
