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Closer and closer the pink mouth came.
Suddenly, they heard a crack from somewhere below. Then another. There was a hiss. And then four more cracks came at once and the branches under the snake broke. It tumbled to the ground, hissing. Brian, shaking, his hands dripping sweat, feeling sick from the adrenaline, hoped it had been hurt.
It hadn’t, though. It tried to nose its way back up the tree, must have realized its support branches were gone.
It’ll leave now, Brian thought. It’ll realize it can’t get up here, and it will go looking for something easier.
Then his whole body went cold, for, of course, who could be easier than Ollie and her dad and Coco’s mom, just sitting by the lake, totally unaware of the danger?
“Hey!” he yelled absurdly at the snake. “Hey, look up here! Look at us, you jerk! Hey!”
Now, when the snake wasn’t five feet away, he was able to unpeel a hand from his branch, break off a pine cone, and hurl it down. He wished he hadn’t dropped the axe. The pine cone bounced off the snake’s nose.
“Brian,” said Phil, sounding appalled. His voice was still shaking. “What are you doing?”
Coco had understood. “Mom,” she whispered, still panting. “And Ollie. They don’t know . . .”
But the snake—fortunately, or horribly—was showing no signs of leaving. It had coiled itself up around the tree. Brian could see one of its bulging filmy eyes turned up and watching them even though the light had begun to fail. Brian supposed that was what he wanted. But . . .
They were stuck in a tree. With a snake waiting for them to fall asleep. To fall.
To eat them.
And night was coming on. The air blew frigid off the water.
“This can’t be good,” said Phil. Coco and Brian didn’t say anything at all.
12
THEY JUST CLUNG to their branches, catching their breaths, for a couple of minutes. Then Brian, trying to think, said, “Coco—can you see over the treetop? Can you see the beach?”
Coco stood up, balancing dangerously. “Yeah. I can see their fire. I hope that—Champ—is scared of fire.” She bent an anxious face down toward them. “You don’t think that Ollie and Mom heard me whistle, before?” she asked. “You don’t think my mom would go into the woods after me?”
Brian thought she would if Coco was in danger. His mom certainly would. Aloud he said, trying to be reassuring, “I don’t think she’d leave Ollie and her dad.” That was maybe true. He hoped it was. It was getting darker under the trees. The snake had coiled up, watching them with flat old eyes, its tongue flicking in and out, a silver shadow among the gray ones at the base of the tree.
“Now what?” Phil said.
“Good question,” said Coco.
Brian tried to think. Being stuck in a tree, breathless, wasn’t really good for thinking. He was tired, he was cold, he was scared. He wished the snake would go away. But if it went away, Ollie and Mr. Adler and Coco’s mom . . .
“Do either of you think the guy with the axe would help us?” asked Phil uncertainly.
“He offered to help us by axing us,” said Coco. “Besides, Brian threw a skull at him.” She shuddered. “And it sounded like the skull was his buddy. I’m pretty sure he won’t help us.”
“Sorry,” said Brian. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“No, you saved us,” said Coco. “It was just—awful. Do you think he was a ghost?”
“The axe man?” asked Phil, his voice going a little squeaky.
“Probably,” said Brian. “He was wearing old-timey clothes, from what I could tell. And he had that—that grayish look. And he was really serious about one thing, about his friend Tommy. I feel like ghosts usually are really stuck on one thing . . .”
“Yeah,” said Coco. “I wonder if Tommy’s a ghost too. And if not, why not?”
“Ghosts?” said Phil.
“Um, yeah,” said Brian. “Really long story. But you can trust us on this one.”
