But there was no dock.
“Emily!”
She went into the water, but Jeff couldn’t believe what his eyes were seeing. There was a splash as she left the boat, but instead of her entire body plunging in, she was standing next to the boat, the water only up to her knees. She grabbed the boat with two hands to make sure it didn’t drift away.
“So how’s it going?” she asked.
Jeff’s jaw dropped so far a seagull could have flown into his mouth and made a nest there.
“And you thought only Jesus could walk on water,” Emily said.
Jeff peered over the edge of the boat. About a foot down, he could see rocks.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “We’re out in the middle of the lake.”
“I know!” she said. “It’s the coolest thing. So, years and years and years ago, this didn’t used to be a lake. It was farmland. And then they put a dam in up around Canfield, and let this flood over and it became Pickerel Lake.”
“Whoa,” he said. “So what are you standing on?”
“It’s a wall,” she said. “One of the farmers was separating his property from someone else’s, so he made a wall with a huge pile of rocks, to act as a kind of fence.” She pointed — first at the red buoy, and then towards land. “It starts over there, and then goes about halfway back to shore. It’s about six feet wide. Come on, try it out. Your shoes are already wet. Just drop the anchor so we don’t lose the boat.”
Jeff found the anchor — a sand-filled bleach bottle, just like Aunt Flo put in her boats — up front, tied off to the bow. He dropped it over the side onto the top of the wall, then put one leg over the side, and then the second.
Jeff was standing in the middle of the lake.
“This is totally cool,” he said.
Emily was kicking her legs up, like a dancer. “La da la de da!”
Jeff did the same. He started singing a song called ‘One’, from his mother’s favourite musical, A Chorus Line. He’d never seen it, and had never wanted to see it. The idea of going to a musical was not his idea of a good time. But he loved to hear his mom belt it out in the kitchen. If his dad was there, he’d join in, link arms with her, and they’d kick up their legs in sync, like those whaddya-call-’em dancers, the Rockettes.
“Come here,” Jeff said, extending an arm. He slipped it over Emily’s shoulder, and she hooked hers over his. When he kicked up his left leg, she kicked up her left. When he kicked up his right, she kicked up her right.
Anybody passing by wouldn’t have believed it. Two people, practically standing on the water, kicking up their heels like a couple of Broadway stars.
It was pretty neat, except they hadn’t noticed that with each kick, they’d gotten a little closer to the edge.
Jeff was the one who slipped first, and because he had his arm looped around Emily, she went in right after him. They both went in over their heads. They bobbed to the surface, spat out water, then clambered back onto the wall.
“Yuck,” Emily said. “The rocks are all slimy.”
Once they were safely back on the wall, they climbed back into the boat.
“Well, that was fun until it wasn’t,” she said. She looked at what a mess Jeff was and said, “Man, your parents are going to kill me.”
“They’re not going to kill you,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, you’re spending the summer with your aunt, right? Your parents back in the city?”
Like a drenched dog, he gave himself a shake and wiped water out of his eyes. “I don’t have any parents,” he said.
Emily looked baffled. “What? You mean, like, you were made in a test tube?”
“No, you idiot. They’re dead.”
Her face fell and he immediately regretted calling her a name. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said somberly. “Your mom and your dad?”
“Yup.”
“Like, did they get sick? I mean, did one get sick, and then the other get sick?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever met a kid whose parents were both dead,” Emily said. “In case you’re wondering why I have so many questions.”
“It’s okay.”
“My mom died a few years ago,” she said. “She had cancer. So it’s just me and my dad now. If something happened to him I don’t know what I would do.”
“My mom and dad died in a plane crash.”
Emily’s eyes went wide. “Are you kidding?”
“No. Why would a person kid about something like that? There’d have to be something wrong in your head to make a joke like that.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she agreed. “So like, they were on a big jet and it crashed?”
He shook his head and held up a hand. “Just stop talking and let me tell the story.”
She nodded, made a motion like she was zipping her lips shut.
“So, a year ago, my mom and dad were flying from New Jersey to Boston and—”
“Was this a vacation?”
“No, it was not a vacation. It was work.”
“Your mom and dad worked together?”
He glared at Emily.
“Sorry,” she said. “Go on.”
“Okay, they worked for this drug company doing research into how to help people with allergies, and they were going from one meeting to another meeting and soon after the plane took off in New Jersey something went wrong with the plane.”
“Wowzer,” Emily said.
“So anyway, they were out over water. Long Island Sound. Something went wrong with the plane, and it blew up and went into the water, and my mom and my dad and the pilot and thirty-seven other people were all killed.”
“Whoa. That’s awful. It blew up?”
“They think it was a wiring problem. Like, a short circuit or something, and that caused a spark, and then a fire started. So, now I live with my Aunt Flo. She had to take me in, although I don’t think she really wanted to. But she’s put me to work at her camp. She made me get rid of my dog.”
“What?”
“I had a dog, but she wouldn’t let me live with her if I kept it because she hates dogs, so I had to get rid of it.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. Kinda a lot.”
“So you live here all the time now with your aunt?”
“Well, for a while I still lived in the city with some people who were friends of my parents, while things got wrapped up. Like my house getting sold and stuff like that. But these people didn’t want to adopt me or anything, so my aunt said I could live with her if I helped her out, so here I am. And when I go to school in September, it’ll be in Canfield.”
“Do you, like, know anyone there?”
Jeff shook his head. “All my friends are back in the city. I don’t have any friends up here.”
“That totally sucks,” Emily said.
Jeff suddenly felt very sad. “I think you should take me back.”
Emily smiled. “I’ll drive around some more and so you’ll be mostly dry when I drop you off. I promise not to jump anymore big waves. Grab the anchor.”
Jeff pulled the anchor back into the boat while Emily used an oar to shove them away from the rock wall. She pushed the outboard motor back down so that the prop was again submerged.
But before she pulled the cord to bring it back to life, she looked at Jeff with sympathetic eyes and said, “You want to see something else that’s cool?”
“Like what?”
“Something I’ve never shown anybody before,” she said.
“What?”
“My hideaway,” she said. “A train station in the forest.”
“A train station in the forest? That doesn’t make any sense.”
She smiled. “That’s what makes it so cool.”