It wasn’t lost on her that she was enjoying hanging out with a ten-year-old boy more than any of the times she had spent with Megan the last few days. She wondered again if there was something wrong with her. She would be turning thirteen in the fall. Surely, other thirteen-year-old girls preferred doing the kinds of things Megan liked to do. She doubted any of them wanted to run through the woods, attempt trespassing, play silly games with a boy Adam’s age. Maybe this was what her mother saw when she looked at her—an oddball for a daughter, one who enjoyed sports, received poor grades, and dressed like a boy.

It was true. Caroline didn’t fit in at school. Even the girls on her softball team weren’t exactly friends. They were big girls, tough girls, and more times than not, they were surprised when she threw someone out at first base or caught a line drive, although they shouldn’t have been.

She was a good ballplayer.

She wore the dirt stains on the knees of her uniform with pride. She took raspberries on her thigh sliding into home plate. And still the other girls teased her, laughed at her skinny arms and legs, her lanky build, all the while hiding behind chuckles.

After an hour, she and Adam reached the well. Some of the anger she felt toward her mother peeled away as time elapsed. And for a few minutes she had forgotten about the little girl Sara and the underwater recovery team on the lake. But when she remembered, she crossed her fingers hoping Sara would be found soon and not because she wanted the public beach opened, but because the image of Sara’s parents sitting on the hood of a car was the saddest thing she had ever seen. Even at her age, she understood the scene would forever be imprinted on her mind. It was something she would never forget.

“I’ll pump. You hold the jug,” she said to Adam. He held the jug under the spigot. Caroline lifted the handle up and down, up and down until a steady stream of water flowed.

Once the jug was filled, she screwed the cap on tightly. They decided to make the trek back, but this time they’d take the shorter route. Adam was worried his mother would be looking for him. Caroline assumed he didn’t tell his mother initially where he was going since she was always quick to say no. His mother constantly worried about him, keeping close tabs on him, more than the other mothers around the lake. In a way, Caroline envied Adam. At least his mother showed she cared.

They approached Hawkes’ cabin, where Chris lived. She hesitated, anxious about passing by his front door. If he saw her carrying a stupid water jug and hanging out with Adam, she thought it somehow made her look like a baby.

“Let’s walk around back,” she told Adam.

“But it’s quicker this way,” he said in that high-pitched voice of his.

“We don’t want to bump into my brother.” Partly true, and she knew Adam would agree. He took enough teasing from the older boys as it was.

They circled around the back of the cabin. She quickened her pace, but Adam made her stop so he could tie the laces on his sneaker. She leaned against an oak tree to wait. She wished he’d hurry up. Birds fluttered in the branches, crying at the intrusion. She looked up and thought of an old silly rhyme Gram had taught her. “Birdie, birdie in the sky, why’d you do that in my eye? I’m sure glad that cows can’t fly.”

She laughed and pushed off the tree. Not far from where she stood she noticed a ring of rocks around an old campfire site. It wasn’t unusual for campfires to burn deep into the night, but this one hadn’t been used for some time. She wasn’t sure what exactly drew her toward the abandoned site, but she stepped in for a closer a look. Painted in white on a large rock that could have been used as a seat near the fire were the initials J+B surrounded by a heart. The paint was old and faded and nearly rubbed out, but there was no mistaking the letters.

“Ready,” Adam said.

“Yeah, okay,” she said absently, turning J and B over in her mind. Maybe they were Johnny’s and his big-boobed girlfriend’s initials, but that seemed unlikely. Their initials would’ve looked freshly painted, not old and faded.

Her mind jumped to other possibilities, to her mother, Josephine, and the mysterious boy named Billy. It was unsettling, almost frightening to think of her mother with anyone other than her father. But really, what did she know of her mother’s life other than that she had married young and soon after, her brother, Johnny, was born? It was an uneasy feeling, realizing for the first time her mother had been someone else before she had married Caroline’s father, before she had been Johnny and Caroline’s mother.

*   *   *

Caroline didn’t mention the painted rock to Adam. Instead she hurried him away from the abandoned sight and Hawkes’ cabin. She wanted to forget she ever saw it, but at the same time she knew she wouldn’t.

They reached the dock where she had seen Stimpy and his men setting traps. They stopped and looked around. They were alone, although Stimpy’s cabin was only a few feet away.

“Let’s pull up the lines,” she said, and set the water jug on the pier.

Adam’s eyes darted around. “What if we get caught?”

“We’re just looking to see if they caught anything.” She squatted next to the post where the line was attached. She pulled. The trap felt heavy. “They got something.”

“Isn’t it against the law to mess with a fisherman’s line?” Adam asked, but he crouched next to her and peered into the water.

“We’re not messing with anything. Not really.” She braced herself against the post and tugged harder. The trap lifted from the bottom. She kept pulling, leaning back to use more of her weight. “Anyone coming?” she asked.

Adam looked around. “No. Let me help you.” He grabbed farther down on the line and yanked.

Slowly, the trap rose to the surface.

“I see two snappers.” Adam’s voice lifted with excitement.

It was the second time today she was doing something she shouldn’t be. And it was thrilling. “I see them,” she said in a voice just as excited as Adam’s.

The trap could just about hold the two snappers. One looked to be the size of a Frisbee and the other was much larger, almost twice the size of the first. The big one stretched its neck and snapped. She and Adam jumped and dropped the line. They both watched as the trap sank to the bottom. The water was shallow enough for the turtles to come up through the holes in the trap to get air, to keep them alive.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and picked up the jug.

They jogged along the path beside the dock, dodging fresh droppings left by the ducks. The sun burned the tops of their shoulders and backs as the morning wore on. Adam’s face was flushed. Caroline’s T-shirt was wet under her arms. She had caught a whiff of her own body odor when she had pulled on the fishing line. She had started shaving under her arms a few months back, but sometimes she plain forgot to put on deodorant.

Once they were a safe distance from Stimpy’s pier, they slowed to a steady walk.

“What are they going to do with those snappers anyway? Eat them?” Adam scrunched up his face as though he had bitten down on something tart.

“No, I don’t think they want to eat them.” She switched the full jug to her other hand. “I think they want to tie lines to them and see where they lead.” She was giving him a roundabout answer. The dreams from the night before were still fresh in her mind, and the idea of the snappers feasting on little Sara’s body made her shiver.

“Oh.” He kept his head down. After a few moments he said, “You mean, they think they can find that little girl’s body by following the snappers.”

She paused, thinking about how to answer. She hated when adults held back the truth because they thought she was too young to hear it. Like the time she had overheard her father and mother talking about a procedure, a V-something or other. Her mother had been the one pressing for him to get one, and Caroline believed her mother was trying to hurt him. She had been worried and imagined all kinds of horrible outcomes of what this V-thing would do to her father, when she finally broke down and asked. Her mother had said it was none of her business and she wouldn’t understand anyway. So Caroline turned to Johnny. He had laughed at her, of course, but he had explained what a vasectomy was and why their father was getting one. She endured Johnny’s relentless ribbing and teasing for weeks after, and she chastised herself for always thinking the worst when it came to her mother. For once, she had been on her mother’s side, not wanting a baby brother or sister. Johnny was enough.