“I think so,” he says.
We wander this way and that way, and then we circle the muck at the edge of the water. Something is floating in the center. It looks like one of Pop’s old boards.
We glance up at the trees. A board dangles from a skinny branch. Heads back, we zig zag underneath; we step on bent nails and a couple of boards that are sinking into the weeds.
The lookout tower is gone; the whole thing is torn apart. “I can’t believe it.” I kick at one of the boards. “Bears, maybe.”
Zack makes a Jell-O mouth. “It wasn’t a bear. This is the work of the kidnapper. He’s afraid we’re getting too close for comfort.”
I look around uneasily. “What’s that?” I say.
Not far from Pop’s floating board is a bunch of brownish hair. What did Bradley the Bully say?
“Dead bodies,” Zack mutters.
We stare at the hair. Stare hard. Could it be poor Fred? My heart stops beating.
Zack clutches my arm. “We have to go after him, give him a decent burial.”
“We’d need a boat,” I say.
Zack shakes his head. “No good. There’s no time to build one.”
I slap at a mosquito, staring at the pond, trying for inspiration.
“I’ve got it,” Zack says. “Pop’s old boards! We could build a raft.”
I’ve said it a million times. You can’t beat Zack for brains.
“Actually . . .” He squints out at the pond. “We don’t even have to go that far. We can each take a board, straddle it, and paddle out with our hands.”
I make my own Jell-O mouth. “Are you sure the boards will hold us up?”
I don’t want to remind him that Bradley said once that the pond is miles deep. I don’t even want to remind myself that I’m not the greatest swimmer in the world and Zack is worse.
Zack, the thinker, points. “Don’t you see that board of Pop’s in the center?”
“It’s floating, all right,” I say. “At least half of it.”
“So what’s your worry?”
I’m filled with worry. I don’t even know where to begin. Instead, I check out boards under one side of the tree; Zack tackles the other side. Most of the boards have nails poking out like porcupines; a few would snap in half even if Mary tried to ride them. “I guess this isn’t going to work,” I say, almost relieved.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve got two perfect ones right here.”
They don’t look perfect to me. But Fred’s out there, a floater, as Bradley would say, and already I’m planning the perfect funeral.
Chapter 18
We throw our sneakers under the tree, then pick up the boards. Like a pair of ponies, we gallop to the edge of the pond and belly-flop in.
We’re soaked in muddy water in two seconds, but Zack is right. The boards seem to be holding up well underneath us.
Something slithers behind me in the murky water. It’s long and narrow: a snake, of course. William collected them until Mom said they might be poisonous. This one certainly looks poisonous, with its slippery yellow back. Maybe it’s a python.
I’m glad we have only a collection of worms.
I don’t want to get my hands too close to the snake, but I have to paddle. I dip in two fingers and try to push the water away from me. The snake speeds after me as if we’re having a race.
It’s winning.
This may be the worst thing that’s ever happened to us. I glance back at the water’s edge. How did it get so far away?
I look down at the snake. He seems to have grown in a minute; he’s almost as wide as my wrist. “Snake!” I yell, to warn Zack.
Up ahead, Zack is having his own problems. He seems to be much lower in the water than I am. The board has disappeared, and so have his legs. He looks as if he ends at his waist.
I paddle faster to catch up to him.
He’s paddling faster, too. But now I can’t even see his waist. He ends halfway up his orange T-shirt. But it isn’t orange anymore; it’s mud color.
And something else. I seem to be riding lower in the water, too.
“We’re sinking!” I try to turn. I paddle with my hands, my arms; I seesaw my legs back and forth. The water churns underneath me.
I’m disappearing into the water. Never mind the snake. I’ll be drowned before he can take a bite out of me.
And there goes Zack. He’s finished. “Goodbye, brother!” I yell.
He gurgles something back.
And then he’s gone. All that’s left is the top of his head, covered by a smear of muck.
I’m next. I take a last look at the pond. We’re dead center. Pop’s floating board is a foot away; so is Fred’s corpse.
Bradley is going to be thrilled.
I’m dead. Not breathing. Coughing. Sputtering.
Arms over my head.
Legs kicking.
And then I’m up.
Really up.
Standing up.
Pop’s boards pop up, too.
How can that be, in this bottomless pond?
Next to me, Zack is standing, blinking water out of his eyes.
The water is only up to our middles.
“What’s the matter with that Bradley, anyway?” Zack reaches down and splashes up some of the water with his hands to clean his face.
Not much better.
I don’t even bother. We have to scoop Fred up and get out of this pond before a nest of snakes descends on us.
And that’s what we do. We take a few steps, mud squishing between our toes. We reach out and pull. Fred doesn’t come up. He’s really in there solid. A pain right to the end.
I give another yank. And something comes up. But it’s not Fred. It’s a pile of reeds, or weeds, or something. A pair of snails hang on to the roots; so does a stringy snake.
“Not Fred after all,” Zack says. “This whole thing has been for nothing.”
We stagger out of the pond, leaving Pop’s boards to float around by themselves. We throw ourselves down in the mud around the pond and take a few breaths. What next? I count on my fingers. We still have to find Fred, then the kidnapper . . .
Could it be William?
Then read three books that will change our lives.
“Our lives need changing,” Zack says, reading my mind.
It’s too much to think about.
I hear the sound of skateboards on Suicide Hill.
Things could always be worse.
I lie back and close my eyes.
Chapter 19
We slog our way across the street, dripping muck and weeds. I use my hands like windshield wipers, back and forth across my cheeks, my forehead, my eyes.
Behind us, someone is laughing like a maniac. I don’t even bother to turn around. It’s Bradley the Bully, of course. He must have watched the whole not-nearly-drowning event.
Forks and spoons clink on bushes. Pop holds his head. “Some idiot is stringing pots and pans all over the backyard, and . . .”
He waves his arm at the dangling spoons in front of him. “I don’t know how we’ll cook tonight, how we’ll eat.” He breaks off. “What have you two been up to now?”
“Um . . . ,” I begin.
Pop comes down the steps. “I don’t even want to know.”
It’s a good thing. I’m too worn out to make up a story. What I’m going to do is rinse myself off and lie on the grass for an hour before I begin to check out the kidnapper with the Gussie’s Gym bag on his back.
But no. Pop has other ideas. Saving the family is not an option.
“Clean yourselves up,” he says, “and then we’re going to turn this lawn over and reseed the whole thing.”
Inside, Mary is banging the last spoons around, and K.G. is screaming at the top of her lungs. We can see Steadman out the back window. He’s all right, hammering at the falling-apart playhouse, trying to shore it up.
“How about William for the lawn instead of us?” Zack asks.
“William!?
?? Pop slaps his forehead. “William! He’s in the kitchen clearing the green glop off the table.”
It’s really not great when Pop takes a day off from work. If only he’d relax, enjoy the end of the summer.
He forces a smile. It’s because Becca has just arrived. “Hi, Mr. Moran.” She looks a little uneasy. “I hear Fred has disappeared.”
“What next?” Pop says, kicking at the monstrosity monument.
“It’s much more peaceful without him,” Becca says. “I’m Fred’s target. He barks, he growls, he chews my leg. Not a very nice dog, right?”
But Steadman has appeared in front, his eyes red. “We have a gravestone for one animal,” he says. “We’ll have to get another one for my poor Fred.”
Zack and I give Becca a look of disgust. But now she’s telling Steadman that he can always get another dog, not one that froths at the mouth and turns backflips over people’s feet.
I turn to Steadman. “We’re going to find Fred, don’t you worry.”
“I’m really worried,” Steadman says.
I’m really worried, too. But as soon as we reseed the lawn, we’ll be hot on the trail of the Gussie’s Gym bag. How many people could have those bags? Five? Six?
Along with William?
We’re sure to track Fred down.
I pat Steadman’s shoulder as Zack and I head for the hose around the side of the house. It’s all in a mess of plastic loops, spurting water from a dozen leaky places. We hold the end over our heads, but almost nothing drips out of the nozzle.
But now another problem. Sister Appolonia is coming down the street, like a battleship pulling out of the harbor, all engines blasting.
There’s not even time to disappear.
She stops. “Congratulations on the new baby,” she tells Pop. She looks at the lawn. “A problem.” She glances at us. “Good thing you have plenty of help.”
“It’s the help that ruins everything,” Pop says.
From the corner of my eye, I see movement across the street. It’s the used-to-be kidnapper’s accomplice. He’s hanging over the junk-o car engine, its innards spread over the driveway, peering out at us.
But what is Sister Appolonia saying? Something about books, of course.
Pop is nodding.
“I guess you haven’t seen a book in their hands all summer,” she says.
“Their books are all over the place,” Pop tells her. “Eight or nine, at least. I fell over a pile this morning.”
Sister looks surprised, more than surprised. She looks shocked.
Zack and I give each other invisible high fives.
Still looking at the kid across the street, Sister says, “Then I have very good news for you. Gussie’s Gym is giving bags out all over town so kids can carry their books to school.” She nods. “A generous woman. She’s giving them to the parents, too.”
Forget the high fives.
We now have about a hundred suspects!
And if that isn’t enough, Sister Appolonia puts her hands on our shoulders. “Please plan to spend the day with me tomorrow. I need last-minute help. We can talk about all you’ve read while we get things going in the classroom.”
I can’t believe it. There’s no peace in the whole world. Even Doomsday is moving up. We might as well throw ourselves back into the mud pond that doesn’t even cover our heads.
Chapter 20
We’re on our way to Gussie’s Gym, mushing ourselves along, every muscle pulsing from working on Pop’s lawn—actually, Pop’s dirt; there’s no lawn left.
The job isn’t finished. We’ve just left Pop banging things all over his toolshed, searching for the bag of grass seed. We could tell him it’s gone. We thought it would be perfect for worm farm food, but no, Yulefski told us worms aren’t crazy about grass seed. And then a stiff breeze came along. Seeds flew all over the neighborhood, probably stopping to grow at every house but ours.
But why upset Pop with that news? We’ll buy him tons of grass seed as soon as we get money for our birthday next year.
We pass the bottom of Suicide Hill. My head is almost worn out, too tired to crane it back to see the top. I don’t have to look, anyway. It’s implanted in my brain, a mile high, at least, all cement; it shoots almost straight down to the other side of the railroad station.
You’d have to be crazy to try it.
High up, someone is skateboarding down now, zigzagging back and forth, speeding along at a hundred miles an hour, ready to kill himself. I can’t help watching.
A helmet covers his head; his arms are curved up and out for balance, his dark hair streaming out in back. He’s screeching something at us.
Not a guy after all.
It’s Sarah Yulefski!
I close my eyes.
“She’ll be dead any minute,” Zack says. “Sister Appolonia will be devastated.”
Yulefski cups her hands around her mouth and almost rams the side wall. “Follllloowwww meeee, guys!” she yells.
She zooms around the curve and heads toward extinction in front of us.
We sink down in the weeds, probably poison ivy, maybe poison oak, and watch for the crash. “Sit here for a few minutes,” I say. “I don’t want to see her corpse.”
There’s no crash.
She’s survived.
“Let’s get out of here before she catches us,” I say.
We scramble up and walk toward Gussie’s Gym. Across the way, the six o’clock train is steaming in. The noise is unbearable. So is Sarah’s screech. “Hurrrrrrry uuuupppp!”
We hear another voice, almost as loud. “Wait up, guys!”
It’s Steadman.
Sheesh.
“You’re not supposed to cross the street,” Zack tells him.
Steadman holds up three fingers. “Three streets.” He screws up his face. “No, maybe it was four.”
We can’t even tell him to go back home. It would be our fault if something happened to him. I shudder to think about it.
Steadman shakes my arm. “Why are you hanging out here? There’s no time to lose with the kidnapping on our hands.” He hesitates, mouth quivering. “It’s snack time. Fred likes to eat up in my bedroom. A couple of pretzels with those dots of salt all over them. He loves stale potato chips, too.” He begins to wail.
My ears are ringing. “Fred will be back in no time.”
Yulefski’s waiting for us, helmet hanging from one arm. She doesn’t even have a scratch. She’s in better shape than Becca, the Olympic gymnast. “It’s about time you got yourselves here,” she tells us. “There’s something we have to do right away.”
Zack tries to say something.
She cuts him off with a slash of her hand in the air. “Listen.” She jerks her head toward the long yellow building in front of us. “We have to investigate Gussie’s Gym. But we have to do it quietly. Gussie’s a mean one when it comes to intruders.”
I notice that Gussie doesn’t take great care of the building. Great big strips of yellow paint are peeling off the cement blocks. The windows are streaked with a century of dust.
Sarah’s right about Gussie’s nasty disposition. William said one time that it’s almost as bad as Fred’s.
If it weren’t for Steadman . . .
Where is Steadman, anyway?
I twirl around. Zack twirls around. Steadman’s nowhere.
But he’s somewhere, all right. I catch a glimpse of the bottom of those sneakers with matching holes. He’s climbing into the filthy basement window of Gussie’s Gym.
The window slams shut behind him.
I push at it; no good. I can see through a small hole in the glass that the lock has snapped shut.
He’s locked in. We’re locked out.
“Wonder how far he had to drop?” Yulefski says.
My heart is stopping again.
Yulefski swishes air through her braces. “We can go right through the front door. Ask if there are any . . .”
“. . . bags left,” Zack finishes for her.
Gymnasts are coming through the open doors now, ready to collapse from their workouts. There’s Mrs. Wu, wearing workout clothes in a horrible shade of orange. William would love it. Dr. Diglio staggers out behind her, knees knocking, looking as if he’ll faint any minute.
We push past them, like salmon going upstream the wrong way.
More gymnasts push past us.
Gussie is sitting at the desk, her hair piled high in a nest that could house a couple of good-sized sparrows. She doesn’t look thrilled to see us. “Closing time,” she mutters.
In back of her, taped to the wall, are a thousand messages. KEEP FIT is one, with a photo of someone with muscles like Bradley the Bully. There’s an advertisement for perfume that looks vaguely familiar, and cutouts of dogs, cats, and something that looks like a walrus. JOIN THE CONTEST, GYMNASTIC PETS. HUGE PRIZES.
“Register tomorrow,” Gussie says, snapping a piece of gum. “Six bucks.”
“I have only a buck twenty-six so far,” Yulefski says. “And the one-seventy-four worm money.”
Zack nudges me that it’s our worm money. We’ll never see any of it again.
“We were wondering about bags,” I say, hoping Gussie won’t notice that Yulefski is inchworming herself across the floor to peer into the gym.
Yulefski takes a final hop to check out possible kidnappers on the balance beam or the basketball court, or doing sky-high jumps on the trampoline.
How obvious is that? She’s like that evil spy from outer space on Deadly Worlds, Thursday morning, seven o’clock.
Gussie taps her pen on the desk. “Time to leave. Six bucks tomorrow,” she repeats as if we haven’t heard.
I eye the basement door. Still no Steadman. And no Fred, of course.
“How many bags did you give out?” Zack asks Gussie.
“Excuse me?” she says, as if it’s none of our business.
I think fast. “We might do an article for the school newspaper about your generosity.”
Gussie pulls a couple of bags out from under the desk and hands them to us. “Don’t forget to spell my name right. G-U-S. . .”
“Rhymes with fuss,” Yulefski says, back at the desk.
Zack cuts in. “We need a list of all the people you gave bags to . . .”