Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

When I returned home from school that afternoon, I found Lake sitting cross-legged on the front steps with a bunch of rusty wire boxes scattered around him and his dirty flip flops kicked off to one side. He bent over a box in his lap, making adjustments to it with a pair of pliers.

“Hey,” he said, looking up at me through his straggly hair. “Have a good day at school?” He asked this casually, as if he was used to dad things like this. As if it didn’t seem weird to him at all that this was the first time he’d ever asked about my day.

“It was fine.” I watched him fiddling with the boxes for a moment. The tip of his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth as he worked, making him look like a little boy. “What are you doing?”

“Repairing some of my crab pots,” Lake said. “Want to help?”

I made a face. “No, thanks. I’m not really into smelling like fish.”

He blinked at me. “Crabs aren’t fish.”

“They live in the ocean. They’re fish.”

“Crustaceans. Crabs are crustaceans. Fish are fish. And dolphins and whales are mammals.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend your sea life expertise.”

“I don’t smell anything fishy.” Lake picked up the trap and held it close to his nose, sniffing.

“That’s because you reek of fish,” I told him. “I think it’s permanently attached to your entire body. You’re probably immune to the smell.”

“Maybe,” he said.

I nudged one of the wire pots with my toe. “So that’s what you do then? Catch crabs and play with seashells?”

“Along with a little of this and a little of that.” Lake shrugged. “I do whatever can make me a little bit of money to survive. A few crab pots, oyster harvesting, boat tours, roof repairs, and of course, the shells.” He tapped the shell necklace he wore around his neck today, which had become twisted with the chain of the long silver necklace.

He smiled up at me with a goofy expression.

“What?” I snapped.

“I think this is the longest conversation we’ve had so far,” Lake said.

My entire body stiffened and I clenched my fist around the strap of my bag. I swallowed back the lump in my throat that started to choke me. It was the longest conversation we’d ever had. “Call me when dinner is ready. No, on second thought, spare me your dinners. I’ll find something to eat when I’m hungry.”

“Supper is already taken care of,” Lake called after me as I headed into the house. “Miss Gale brought us some food.”

I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter as I passed through the kitchen, then climbed up the ladder to my loft. Dropping my bag on the floor, I sat down on the mattress with my legs stretched out in front of me.

A day in high school had exhausted me. Today was the first time I’d been back to school since my mom died. Even though Swans Landing School was small, it still felt crowded and stifling. The incident in gym class replayed over and over in my head, but I couldn’t figure out what I had done to Elizabeth to make her act that way toward me.

All day I had wanted to be alone in my room and sit in silence, but now it felt too quiet. I needed to hear another voice, preferably not Lake’s.