Page 84 of Serenity Falls

‘Yeah. I slipped out of the house, hid in the park.’

‘And?’

‘I woke up the next morning in bed.’

‘What?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t fall asleep and sleepwalk back or something?’

He shakes his head. ‘I have no idea how I got home, and I couldn’t ask anyone because then I’d have to admit I was out after curfew and that would go on my school record.’

I stared at him. ‘Maybe you had some kind of blackout?’

He shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

We sat and considered for a while.

Then he said: ‘What time d’you go to sleep?’

‘It varies, I suppose.’

Actually, I didn’t sleep well. Never had. I was often awake till the early hours.

‘I’m always asleep by eleven,’ Milo said. ‘Every single night. I tracked it.’

‘Well, is that so weird? We all have a sleep rhythm, right?’

‘Yeah, but even when I don’t feel tired, when I want to work or stay up, I still fall asleep.’

And now I thought about it, my parents were always – always – asleep by eleven.

‘I’m not sure what you’re saying?’

He’d given me one of his odd smiles. ‘I guess I’m saying, maybe I don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of an alligator-infested river.’

Which brought us back to the problem at hand. How were we going to get out to the cabin and back without a boat and (even if we cracked that problem) without being seen? Even in early October it wasn’t dark till around seven thirty and we needed the cover of darkness. That only gave us three hours to get out to Harold’s cabin and back before curfew.

We considered these issues sitting at our usual table in the library one afternoon after school.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Milo said.

‘Okay?’

‘The hotel boathouse.’

I considered. You used to be able to hire kayaks and small boats to take out on the lake, but for ‘safety reasons’, i.e. teenagers messing about and almost falling in, they were stopped a couple of years back. A few boats were still there, moored up.

‘We can’t steal a boat from the hotel. Someone will see us.’

‘Normally, you’d be right.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘But I have a plan.’

He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘Right. Two weeks’ time, it’s the Pumpkin Patch Party, so everyone is going to be at the town square. No one is going to be watching the lake.’

‘Yeah, but you’re forgetting I have to be at the party. My mom will want me there, like she does every fucking year.’

‘But you only have to be there at the start, right?’