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He gave her a rather tired smile. “I feel better,” said Mr. Adler. Ollie was sitting back on her heels, watching.
“Mr. Adler?” Coco said. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” he said, sitting up. “But it’s all kind of a blur. Fill me in, guys.”
“Well,” said Ollie. “We’re stuck on an island in the middle of Lake Champlain with a giant snake and a man with an axe, and we have to figure out how to get off.”
14
TAKING TURNS, PHIL, Coco, and Brian filled Mr. Adler in. About the axe man, about the snake, about the cabin and the ship’s log. Brian and Coco didn’t try to explain about ghosts, but they told everything else. Ollie’s dad listened quietly, with Ollie tucked against his side like a little kid. When they weren’t talking, Brian and Coco and Phil took turns putting wood onto the fire. Their woodpile, Brian thought nervously, would probably last until dawn, but it was going to be close.
And after that, he had no idea what to do.
Brian kept covertly staring at Mr. Adler, all the while they were talking. He couldn’t figure it out. Half an hour ago, Ollie’s dad had looked like he was about to die. Not that Brian wasn’t overjoyed. He was. The thought of Ollie losing her dad—of all of them losing Mr. Adler—had been almost unbearable.
But the weirdest thing was that Ollie didn’t seem surprised. Or even that happy. No—of course she was happy. She didn’t let go of her dad for a second. But not delighted, not—something. She wasn’t reacting the way he would have expected her to.
Something, Brian thought, was wrong.
And he wasn’t the only one to think that. He could tell by Coco’s narrow-eyed expression that she was puzzled too. But they couldn’t exactly bring it up in front of everyone. How would he even ask? Ollie, why aren’t you happier? So he didn’t say anything.
They finished their story, and Mr. Adler was silent for a moment. In the silence, Brian heard a log crumbling into itself on the fire, and he reached to put on more wood. Then Mr. Adler said, “I remember getting bit.” He looked down at his hand. “But everything else is a blur. I’m sorry about Dane.”
Phil said, “Uncle Dane found his lake monster. He wanted that more than anything.”
They were all quiet then.
“And a man on the island?” said Mr. Adler. “He threatened you with an axe? How dare he?” He held Ollie tighter. “Well, at least we’re not alone, although a disturbed, armed man is not really what you’d hope for. I think we’d better sit tight until morning in any case. You all can go to sleep, I can keep watch for a bit. Feel fit as a fiddle. Must have metabolized the snake venom.”
“What I don’t understand,” Ms. Zintner broke in, “is that I’ve been signaling all afternoon. We fired off an emergency smoke signal! And now we’ve got this campfire—but no one, not a soul on the lake, has shown up. And the radio doesn’t work.” She glared at it.
But right as she said that, th
e radio crackled to life.
It frizzed with static. Then there was the unmistakable sound of someone breathing. Ms. Zintner jumped for the handpiece. “Mayday, Mayday, do you read? We are the survivors of the wreck of the Cassandra requesting immediate assistance . . .”
She waited. They all waited. But the voice on the radio didn’t say anything. It was just breathing. Over the sound of heaving, staticky breaths, Brian heard the ripple of the water, the grind of rocks being turned over and over in the endless churn of the lake.
The radio began crackling. “Captain,” said the radio. “Give me the captain.” This time, Ms. Zintner just stared at it.
“Give me the captain,” said the radio, and it sighed, soft and sad. “He’s waited so long. Give me the captain. Or die. Die like us.
“Die die die diediedieieie.”
The radio cut out again, with a shower of static.
Coco bit down hard on her lower lip.
Mr. Adler said, after a pause, “There is obviously someone mentally ill playing with the radio frequency. Maybe the man with the axe. Does it sound like him?”
“No,” said Coco. “No, it doesn’t.” No one else said anything.
Mentally ill maybe, thought Brian. But no one is playing.
* * *
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