Sink or Swim (11 page)

MISSING IN ACTION

AS SOON AS
the end-of-the-day bell rings, I race downstairs to see if Stanley is anywhere in the vicinity. I'm hoping he picked up my scent and followed it to school. I check out the tangle of bushes next to the science lab and look carefully behind all the Dumpsters near the cafeteria. I sniff the air in every direction. But Stanley is nowhere to be smelled. I'll have to go looking for him when my parents aren't around. Only my mom won't let me out of her sight for a second. This is going to be difficult.

I'd better come up with a plan, and fast. But for now, I go join my friends on the front steps.

“Any sign of your cousin?” Lucille asks as soon as she sees me.

“Not a trace.” I sigh. “I sure hope he's okay.”

“Want me and Sam to go look for him after your mom drops us off? We could try to attract him with my tuna fish sandwich. I saved it from lunch.”

“That's very kind of you to offer, Lucille,” I answer. “But Stanley won't come out if there are humans around.”

“How come?” Lucille asks.

“Because he's afraid we might tell Aunt Harriet he's here and she could drop dead of a heart attack, remember?” Sam has a great memory for details.

“Yeah, but we took the Mainframe pledge,” Lucille replies. “We would never tell anyone.”

“But Stanley doesn't
know
that, Lucille. I'm the only one who can find him,” I insist. “He trusts me. I'm one of his kind.”

I hear my mom's old truck backfiring in the distance.

“What are you going to do?” Lucille asks.

“I don't know. Wait for everybody to go to sleep tonight and then go look for him, I guess,” I reply.

“That's pretty adventurous of you, pal,” Sam remarks.

“Don't remind me, Sam. I don't really have much of a choice. I'll bring him dinner and do everything I can to help him find the antidote. If he'll let me. If I can find him.”

“That's a lot of ifs,” Sam comments.

“Yeah,” I say simply. “I know.” I stare at the driveway and chew nervously on the tips of my claws until my mom's truck finally rattles and wheezes up to the front of the school. “Let's go, guys. The parent police are here.”

Before you can say “getting picked up after school by your mother is the fastest way known to man to lower your score on the popularity chart,” we have dropped off Sam and Lucille at their houses, and I have finished my homework, eaten dinner, and watched half of
Revenge of the Nerds
, one of my very favorite nonscary movies, on TV.

Now it's after ten and I lie motionless in my bed like a butterfly pinned to a sheet of foam core. I am waiting for everyone else in my family to fall asleep while the worries of the day swirl madly around in my head.

I wonder if I'll find Stanley in time to help him locate the antidote, or if Principal Muchnick will find him first. I wonder if I will survive my next swimming practice, which is only eighteen hours and ten minutes away (but who's counting?). I wonder what new ways Craig Dieterly will find to torture me, and how rejected Amy Armstrong and her One-Upsters will make me feel tomorrow at school. “Fear of rejection.” That's a big one in my book. It's right up there with “fear of stepping on a rusty nail and getting lockjaw.” Don't laugh. It happens.

To make the time pass more quickly, I mentally list animals that seem basically harmless but could suddenly attack you when you least expect it. I am up to “overly aggressive pigeons” when Dave finally tiptoes into our room and gets into his pj's.

“Are you asleep, little bro?” He gets into bed and turns out the night light.

“Not exactly.”

“Worried about swimming practice, huh?”

“Yes,” I reply.
Among other things,
I add to myself.

“You'll do fine, little bro.”

“Easy for you to say. You're the sports champion of the galaxy.”

Dave laughs. “Remember, sport: ‘When we push the immovable object up the hill slowly, we encounter our true inner self quickly.'”

“That's a very thought-provoking . . . um . . . thought,” I reply. “And I'm sure it will come in extremely handy one day. If I can ever figure out what it means. Can you give me a hint, Dave? Practice is tomorrow and I'd love a little nugget of wisdom to hold on to that might possibly prevent me from drowning. How about it? Earth to Dave . . . Earth to Dave . . . come in, Dave. . . .”

My brother doesn't reply. His steady breathing turns into loud rhythmic snoring. Balthazar curls up at the foot of my bed and rests his big, black, shaggy head on my flippers. Even Dave's tropical fish seem to be settling down for the night in their softly gurgling tank on his bookshelf.

I, on the other hand, am totally awake and ready to spring into action. I slip out of bed, careful not to wake up either my furry roommate or the other one, and quietly shuffle out of my room and into the hallway. I press my earflap up to my parents' door. I hear my dad's snoring and my mom's quiet, even breathing. The TV is off. The white noise machine is on. All systems go.

I make my way downstairs, careful not to make a sound. I even breathe quietly. Then I step on one of Balthazar's old squeak toys. Oh no.

I freeze for several heart-stopping moments until I am absolutely convinced no one has heard me. And then I move silently through the back hallway and into the kitchen. I feel like a cat burglar.

I stick some leftovers into a Tupperware container, grab a couple of paper napkins, and then, certain that no one is up and about, I open the back door. Suddenly the Tupperware slips out of my claws. I try to grab it, but it falls to the ground with a resounding clatter.

If my parents wake up and find me sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, they will ground me for the rest of my life. I should have left them a note. I could have said I got a cramp in my thigh and was going outside to walk it off.

I shouldn't be doing this. Good kids don't sneak out of the house at eleven o'clock on a school night.

No, I
should
be doing this. It's good to come to the aid of your fellow . . . um . . . creature in need.

Fear number twelve thousand and three: not doing the right thing.

I slowly back into the yard and look up at my parents' window, expecting to see their lights snap on at any second. But fortunately all remains dark on the second floor. At least for now.

Suddenly I catch a distinct whiff of mutant dinosaur. I wheel around to see Stanley leaning against the side of the garage, waiting for me. His scales sparkle in the glow of the faint yellow path lights that line the driveway. It is oddly reassuring to find myself in the presence of my own kind.

“Nice to see you, Charlie,” Stanley whispers hoarsely, waving a claw at me. He doesn't seem mad at me for not getting him his food on time this morning. That's a relief.

“Nice to see you too, Stanley. How are you doing?” If you had ever told me I'd be making small talk with my mutant dinosaur cousin in my very own backyard at eleven o'clock at night, I would have said you were crazy.

“Tired. Very tired.” He yawns a huge yawn, and looks like he might keel over any minute. “And extremely hungry.”

“I'm so sorry. I couldn't shake my parents this morning. And then when I finally did, you weren't there, and I couldn't find you anywhere, and . . .”

Fear number twelve thousand and four: fear of being blamed.

“Relax. It's okay. I figured something came up. Don't look so worried, friend. I didn't steal any food. I made do with earthworms and wild berries. I didn't want you getting into any more trouble on my account.”

“Thanks.” There is a real bond forming between us. I can feel it as clearly as I feel the fog rolling in and blanketing the yard and the street behind it. “Here.” I hand him the Tupperware container. “It's leftovers. I hope you like Chinese food.”

He nods eagerly and dumps the entire contents into his gaping jaws. His meal slithers down his throat in one enormous gulp. Some stray bits of moo goo gai pan ooze out from between his fangs. His long, pointy tongue whips around like an eggbeater, slurping it all up. “I forgot what a good cook your mom is.”

“Where have you been today, Stanley? I was worried.”

“I'm really not supposed to talk about it. I'm lucky to be alive.” He sighs. “You wouldn't believe what I've been through. But it looks like the mission is going to be a success.”

“That's great!” I hand him a napkin. He wipes the grease from his snout.

“Thanks.”

“How'd you find my house ?” I ask.

“I used to come here all the time. I babysat for you when you were two. I'm your cousin, remember?” Stanley seems to have perked up considerably since finishing the leftovers. He burps loudly and turns to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm taking you to Crater Lake for your swimming lesson like I said I would. What do you say?”

I stand there, flippers firmly glued to the ground, terrified at the prospect.

“What's the matter?” he asks.

“I didn't . . . um . . . realize you were going to . . . actually . . . you know . . .”

“Follow through?”

I nod.

“I generally do what I say I'm going to do, Charlie. It's an old habit of mine.”

“Yeah . . . but . . . but don't you have more important things to do? Like saving the lives of thousands of infected creatures?”

“Not right now. I'm in pretty much of a holding pattern for the next few hours. What do you say, Charlie? Feel like conquering some of your swimming demons?”

Why can't I be more like Stanley? He was in life-threatening danger today, and he's not even thinking about it. Stanley's not afraid of anything. I bet he
loves
tapioca pudding. He probably sprinkles palmetto bugs on top.

But I'm afraid of everything. I have been ever since I can remember. I'm afraid a polar bear will escape from the zoo and eat me. (It happens. Polar bears are ingenious.) I'm afraid of being alone in my room at night. I'm afraid of loud noises. I'm afraid of Craig Dieterly. I'm afraid people will laugh at me. I'm afraid people
won't
laugh at me.

Maybe it's time to stop being so afraid.

“Sure. Let's go.”

I look around to see who said that. It was me.

SPLISH-SPLASH

STANLEY AND I
stay off the sidewalk and hide behind the trees by the side of the road as we make our way to Crater Lake. Stanley doesn't want to be seen any more than I do. We take the shortcut through the ravine. Nobody ever goes there.

“What's it like under Crater Lake?” I ask.

“It's not all that different from Decatur, actually,” Stanley answers. “Only everybody looks like us, of course. And there aren't any sidewalks.”

“Do we have a lot of relatives down there?”

“Oh yeah. You can hardly swim down the street without bumping into one of us. Nana Wallabird had ten brothers and sisters, and they all had kids. And their kids had kids. Nearly fifty of them showed up at my last birthday party.”

“Sounds nice.” I really love my Decatur family. And a creature couldn't ask for better friends than Sam and Lucille. But I can't even imagine what it must feel like to look like everybody else. And not get stared at all the time. And wear regular clothes that your mom doesn't have to make you.

We walk until my neck aches and my flippers are sore. Finally we reach the outskirts of Decatur. And still we keep walking. There are no streetlights out here. Not many houses, either. Instead row after and row of towering pine trees, and pin oaks as far as the eye can see. The sidewalk has turned into a small, winding dirt path. Luckily there's a crescent moon peeking through the clouds, so it's not hard to find our way. I sense the dampness in the air. We must be getting close.

“Look.” Stanley points. “There it is!”

Crater Lake looms in the distance. The engraved copper plaque on the bank explains: “Crater Lake was formed over sixty million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, when a meteor landed and wiped out most of the living things on earth.”

Most people's ancestors came to America from places like Europe. Or Asia. Or Africa. Mine came from the bottom of Crater Lake.

Once when I was ten my dad took me and my brother boating here and we saw a rare blue heron taking off from its nest near the shoreline. Dave and I got so excited we stood up and tipped over the canoe and my dad had to rescue me. By the time he dragged me to shore, I had swallowed so much water he had to perform artificial respiration on me. I was fine afterward. But I never forgot what it felt like. And I never went anywhere near Crater Lake again.

Until tonight.

“What are you thinking about, Charlie?” Stanley asks.

“Drowning . . . and carnivorous insects . . . and poisonous fish . . . and having the vital fluids sucked out of my body by dozens of bloodthirsty vampire leeches. You know . . . the usual stuff.”

“I'm sorry I asked.” Then Stanley makes a mad dash for the water. “Lake, here I come!”

When he gets to the shoreline, he dives right in and disappears under the surface for what seems like an eternity. I run breathlessly to the edge and peer out into the inky black deep, looking for him. Suddenly he catapults into the cold night air. His enormous scaly body hangs above the surface of the lake, shimmering in the moonlight for one magical instant, then plunges back down, disappearing again into the inky black water

I hover nervously by the shore and wait for Stanley to resurface. His scaly green head pops up about twenty yards away from me. He waves cheerfully and heads back

to me. When it gets too shallow to swim, he stands up and walks on over. “Ready for your first lesson, Charlie?”

No,
if you really want to know the truth. But I can't disappoint Stanley. He seems so excited. And I really do trust him. Plus, I've already come this far. I step out of my pj's and carefully wade out to join him until the water is lapping at my knees. Stanley reaches for me. I grab on to him for dear life.

“Easy, Charlie, you're cutting off the circulation in my right claw.” I hold on a little less tightly, still afraid to let go altogether. “Don't worry,” my cousin tells me gently. “I'm practically a professional. I've taught so many creatures how to swim by now it isn't funny. Ouch! Can you be a little more careful with your claw there?”

“Sorry.” I loosen my grip some more. “What do we do now?”

“We go deeper,” my cousin says simply.

I stare out at the vast expense of murky water ahead and wish I'd never even heard of Stanley O'Connor.

“How am I going to teach you how to swim if you won't get in the water, Charlie? Just a little farther. Come on. It won't kill you.”

“That's what
you
think.” I hold my breath and take a few tentative steps into the lake. The water feels so . . . wet. The sand squishes under my flippers and sticks to the spaces between my webbed toes.

I hold on to Stanley's claw and we continue walking until the water is up to my neck. I experience a desperate urge to flee. Which I would happily do at this exact moment, only I don't want to act like a whiny baby in front of my ultrabrave cousin, so instead I keep walking until I am standing on the very tips of my flippers and struggling to keep my head above the water. That's when I begin to hyperventilate. “Great swimming lesson, Stanley. Thanks so much. This is where I get off.”

“Are you kidding? We're just getting started. You can't quit now, Charlie. You're doing great.”

I am getting extremely dizzy from the accumulation of CO
₂
in my bloodstream.

“It's too deep. I can't stand. I'm not happy. I want to go home.” I feel the way I felt when my brother tried to teach me how to ride my two-wheeler. Only falling off a bike and scraping my knee on the pavement was nowhere near as terrifying as the prospect of sudden death by drowning.

“The water isn't your enemy, Charlie. It's your friend.”

“Try telling that to the water.” I turn around and start racing back to shore on the tips of my flippers like a giant, crazed, green ballet dancer.

“Okay. If that's what you want, we'll leave now. I just sort of thought you might enjoy learning how to swim. That's all.” He looks so disappointed.

Against my better judgment and a thousand warning signs blinking in my head that say,
DANGER AHEAD TURN BACK NOW SAVE YOURSELF WHILE YOU CAN
, I walk slowly back to my cousin and take hold of his claw again. “Can we get this over with quickly? I don't know how much more of this swimming business I can handle.”

“Hold on to me with both claws, close your eyes, and relax,” Stanley announces. At this point I don't have sufficient energy left to protest, so I let my cousin walk me farther out into the water while I concentrate on staying alive. “Turn over, Charlie.” I wriggle onto my back. “Good work, cuz.”

What choice do I have? With floating you're either above the water and doing fine, or you're sinking and you're not. There isn't a lot of in between.

“Remember to breathe slowly and evenly,” Stanley says. “In . . . out . . . in . . . out.” The lack of oxygen, the gentle rippling effect of the water as it rushes past my scaly body, and Stanley's soothing voice have a decidedly calming effect on me. I float gracefully along the surface, bobbing gently up and down like an enormous scaly green cork.

“In . . . out . . . in . . . out . . .” Stanley continues.

“Can we go home now?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, cuz,” Stanley says proudly, “but you're on your own, and you're doing just fine.”

What's he talking about? I turn my pointy head around and notice that my cousin has let go of my claws entirely. That's funny. No one is holding me up, and nothing bad seems to be happening.

For one brief moment, I consider the amazing possibility that I may actually have just learned how to swim . . . and then I look down into the water and it dawns on me that this is the deepest lake in all of southern Illinois. And that if I were to somehow forget what I was doing, I could actually drown. Alarm bells go off deep in the recesses of my brain. Every muscle in my body tenses up.

I tell myself to relax, but it's way too late for anything as sensible as that. I open my enormous jaws to tell Stanley to please hold me up, I am having difficulty staying afloat, but a piercing scream emerges instead. I splutter. I flail. I gasp. I take in water and start to choke.

Stanley tries to hold on to me, but I am thrashing around so violently he cannot possibly get a good grip. I promptly begin sinking like a stone.

Down and down, faster and faster I go, like Alice in Wonderland tumbling helplessly down the rabbit hole. I am weak from holding my breath. And numb with fear.

I always thought my entire life would flash before my eyes before I died. But as I hurtle downward through the icy water, I see exactly one thing: Craig Dieterly. His stupid fat face and giant horse teeth loom in front of me, larger than life. He is laughing so hard he can barely catch his breath. He gasps for air. Coughing and spluttering.

I realize the sound I hear is me desperately trying to breathe.

I am growing weaker by the second. I feel the life draining out of my body. With every last fiber of my exhausted being I struggle to remain conscious. I can't hold on much longer.

My lungs are about to burst when Stanley finally gets hold of me. In my desperation, I strike at him with my claws and powerful legs and try to escape. But he won't give up. He just holds on tighter and wrestles me back to the surface.

We break through the surface and the cold night air hits me in the face, shocking me back into consciousness. Stanley drags my limp body out of the water and back onto shore. He turns me onto my stomach and pushes on my back with all his might, and water comes pouring out of my lungs like a fountain. He keeps pushing until there isn't any more, and I sprawl on the ground, waiting for my strength to return.

At last I open my eyes and look around, dazed. “Are you okay?” Stanley asks. I open my jaws to speak, but nothing comes out. “Talk to me, Charlie.”

“I . . . don't . . . know.” I attempt to stand, but my legs give way. I collapse to the ground in a heap.

Stanley grasps my spindly arms. “One, two, three, go!” he grunts, and together we struggle until at last I am standing upright. “I'm sorry, Charlie.” Stanley says quietly. “I'm so sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault. I can't swim and I never will.” I slip back into my pj's and we start the long trek back. Stanley doesn't let go of my arm until we reach the corner of Lonesome Lane and Cedar Street.

“Think you can make it the rest of the way on your own?” he asks.

“I'll be fine,” I answer. “What about you, Stanley?”

“Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“I'll leave your breakfast on the tree stump behind the garage in the morning. And your dinner tomorrow night, too. I won't forget, Stanley. I promise.”

“I know.” My cousin turns and disappears into the fog, a brave lonely figure in the dark.

My legs won't stop shaking. Every muscle in my body aches. In less time than it takes to say “I am never going into the water again as long as I live,” I am tiptoeing into my bedroom, slipping into my warm cozy bed, and dreading the swimming practice that awaits me in only fifteen short hours.