Kelli groaned. “Stop it, Shawn. Don’t tell me this dumb prank is scaring you.”
Shawn didn’t reply.
* * *
A short while later, they were in a rowboat on the narrow, winding river that curled around the swamp. Sunlight made the water sparkle. Birds chattered in the smooth-trunked trees that leaned over the shore.
“Welcome to Deep Hole Swamp,” their dad said. He sat in the prow with Shawn in the middle and Kelli behind Shawn. Kelli and Shawn practiced rowing while their father acted as tour guide. The fishing rods hung over the sides of the narrow boat.
“Is the water deep?” Shawn asked, peering over the side into the brown-green water.
“This part of the river is very shallow,” Dad replied. He tugged his Mets baseball cap lower to shield his eyes from the sun. “You could climb out and walk, Shawn.”
“Okay. I will,” he said quickly. “I don’t like boats.”
Their dad shook his head. “I know sometime soon I’m going to find something you do like. Right now, the list of don’t likes is very long.”
“I don’t like lists, either,” Shawn said, finally smiling.
All three of them laughed.
“See that flowering plant over there?” their dad said, pointing. “That’s very rare. It’s called a scrub buckwheat. It’s endangered. I’m excited to see it here.”
“And what’s that little plant with the white flowers over there?” Kelli asked. Living in an apartment in New York, she’d always wanted to plant some kind of garden but, of course, she didn’t have a backyard where she could do it.
“That’s called snakeroot,” he said. “It’s very rare, too. Some people think it’s good for snakebite.”
Shawn’s eyes jumped at the sound of the word snakebite. He opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind.
“You two aren’t rowing together. You have to get in a rhythm,” their father said.
Shadows from the trees on shore danced over the water. A light breeze didn’t keep the air from becoming sticky and hot. A cyclone of tiny black insects buzzed to their left, thousands of them, rising high over the swamp. Kelli tilted her head up, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face.
The river grew wider, and the current suddenly felt strong. “This is where the water starts to get deep,” their father told them. “And over there is the outlet to the ocean.”
“The river flows right into the Atlantic?” Kelli asked.
“Actually, the ocean flows into the river,” he answered. “The river fills with salt water at that point. Ocean creatures find themselves swimming here.”
“So … it gets really deep?” Shawn asked, peering over the side again. Rippling shadows from the water reflected on his face.
Their dad nodded. “No one knows how deep it is, because no one has ever reached the bottom. Some say it may be the deepest hole on earth.”
“And that’s why they call it Deep Hole Swamp,” Kelli said.
“Duh,” Shawn said.
“We have a whole year,” Dad said. “I hope to explore every part of the swamp and then write a book about it.”
Shawn stopped rowing. “And maybe you’ll write about swamp monsters?” he asked.
“At least you’re not obsessed,” Kelli said to her brother, rolling her eyes.
“You’re going to hear a lot of crazy stories about this swamp,” their dad said, squinting into the distance. The rowboat slid through wide whirlpools, white against the green water.
“Some say the hole leads down to a chamber deep in the earth where monsters and strange sea creatures live,” he continued. “Since no one has been able to dive to the bottom or send a camera that deep, no one can say for sure if anything at all can live down there.”
Shawn stared down into the rippling water. “So maybe monsters …” he started.
His dad quickly cut him off. “Stories. All stories. All made-up,” he said. “I’ll say it again and again. You’re not going to see any monsters down here. If Kelli hadn’t shown you that stupid movie, you wouldn’t even be thinking about monsters.”
Kelli rolled her eyes again. “I thought we were going fishing. I didn’t know we were just going to get a lecture.”
It took a while to get the fishing rods prepared. They fumbled in the tackle box, trying to figure out which hooks to use, then which bait to put on the hooks.
“Owww,” Kelli said as her dad jammed a worm onto her hook. “Doesn’t that hurt the worm?”
“Probably doesn’t feel too good,” her dad replied.
They practiced casting the line into the water. The small boat drifted with the current. The sun lowered, sending jagged sparkles of red over the flat waters.
It’s really pretty here, Kelli thought. You can’t see colors like this in New York.
And then she uttered a shout as something tugged the line. She raised the fishing rod, grabbed the reel. Something was pulling the line — fast.
“What do I do? What do I do?” Kelli cried.
“Reel it in,” her dad said. “Hold the line tight. Pull back. Pull back. Reel it in.”
Kelli tried to follow his instructions. But whatever had grabbed her line was big and strong. The rowboat rocked from side to side as she struggled with the line.
Shawn made a whimpering sound. He put down his fishing rod and grabbed the sides of the boat, holding on tightly as it rocked and bobbed.
The boat rocked harder as Kelli worked the line. The rod flew up and down, started to arch, and appeared about to bend in half as the creature fought to stay free.
“You’re doing it!” her father yelled. “Keep working! You’re bringing it in. It’s something big. It —”
Kelli gave a hard yank. She screamed as an enormous creature came flying up from the water. Black and shiny, it quivered and flapped as it swung on the end of her line.
She cried out as the creature swung toward her — and hit her face with a loud slaaaap. The big, glistening thing spread itself over Kelli’s face. Her hands flew up. The rod fell from her hands, into the river.
She stood in the rocking boat, grabbing at it. The boat heaved hard — and Kelli sailed over the side. She sent up a high wave as she splashed facedown into the green-brown water.
Sinking below the surface … the soupy, thick water rising over her … the water so thick and warm … the creature wrapping itself around her head.
I can’t breathe, she realized. It … it’s SMOTHERING me.
As Kelli struggled in the water, the creature pressed itself to her face. She could feel something pulsing inside it. Its heartbeat? Her chest felt about to explode.
Strong arms gripped her under the shoulders and pulled her up. As she rose to the surface, the creature slid off her face and disappeared, a large black spot swimming smoothly, wings outspread.
Her dad was standing in the water. He helped her lift herself into the rowboat. She sucked in breath after breath after he hoisted himself up after her.
Shawn hadn’t moved. He gripped the sides of the boat so hard, his hands were white. He stared up at Kelli, his face frozen in fright.
“Wh-what was that?” Kelli finally managed to say. Her whole body shuddered. The sun wasn’t warming her fast enough.
“I’m not sure,” her dad answered. He turned to Shawn. “It wasn’t a swamp monster. So don’t say it.”
Shawn shrugged. He didn’t let go of the sides.
“It may have been an eagle ray,” their dad continued. “They are very big manta rays. But they are ocean creatures. It must have gotten lost.”
“It — it tried to smother me,” Kelli stammered.
“I don’t think so,” her dad said. “I think it was as scared as you were. So it just held on to you.”
He hugged her. “Wish I’d brought some towels.”
“Well, we didn’t plan to go swimming,” Kelli said, shaking water from her hair. “Whoa. I can still feel that thing on my face. Thanks for jumping in, Dad.”
“I tried to get to you as fast as I could.” He hugged her again. “You were really frightened. But, remember, you don’t have to be afraid of all the animals here. The influx of salt water brings interesting creatures into this swamp.”
“Yeah. Interesting,” Kelli repeated. She shivered. She gazed at Shawn. His hands still gripped the boat sides. He was trembling.
I’m as frightened as he is, now, Kelli thought. I have a very bad feeling about this swamp. We have to get out of here.
* * *
Art class, Kelli discovered, was held in a trailer outside the school grounds. There were eight sixth graders in her new school, and they all took art at the same time. Since the school had only three teachers, Miss Rawls was also the art teacher.
Kelli found everyone sitting around a long picnic table that stretched the length of the room. “There’s a spot for you, Kelli,” Miss Rawls said, pointing to an empty space on the bench across from Zeke and Decker. “Today is free drawing day. Draw whatever comes into your head.”
“I’ve never had class in a trailer before,” Kelli said, squeezing to the end of the bench.
“It’s not a trailer. It’s a mobile home,” Miss Rawls said. “Cozy, right?”
Kelli dropped her backpack on the floor, then leaned over the table to see what Zeke and his twin were drawing. Monsters, naturally.
Miss Rawls had her eyes on their sketches, too. She shook her head. “You two are obsessed. What is your problem?”
“Our problem is, Decker and I saw the Shaggedy,” Zeke answered, not looking up from his paper. “We saw it close up. No lie.”
“Zeke, please —” Miss Rawls started.
But Zeke was determined to tell his story. “It climbed out of the swamp one night,” he said.
Kelli laughed. She quickly realized she was the only one. The other kids had stopped drawing and were gazing solemnly at Zeke. Even Miss Rawls had stopped grinning at him.
“It climbed out of the swamp, dripping wet,” Zeke continued, speaking in a low voice just above a whisper. “Decker and I watched it stagger around for a bit. Then it stomped down the main path and came up to our neighbors’ house across the road.”
“It left huge wet footprints on the ground,” Decker added.
“It pounded on our neighbor’s front door,” Zeke said. “It pounded so hard, the whole house shook, and the door cracked.”
“But no one was home,” Decker said, twirling his black marker between his fingers. “The monster let out a roar. Like it was angry. It was like a tiger’s roar. It picked up a garbage can and heaved it into the trees. Then I guess it gave up.”
Zeke nodded. “Decker and I followed it back to the swamp. We stayed way back. We didn’t want the huge creature to see us. We were way scared. But we followed it to the river, and we watched it swim away.”
“We watched it till it disappeared under the water,” Decker said.
Silence for a long moment. Then Miss Rawls said, “Good story, guys. You should save it for Creative Writing class.”
Zeke raised his right hand. “I didn’t make it up. I swear it’s true.”
Miss Rawls turned to Kelli. “Don’t listen to these two storytellers. I told you, they’re monster crazy. And they love scaring new students.”
“It should be a movie,” Kelli said.
Zeke and Decker both grinned. They seemed to like that answer.
Kelli took a charcoal pencil and began to sketch. She wanted to draw a rowboat on the river. She drew tall vines along the river’s edge. And she put a dark spot in the water beside the boat. The mysterious sea creature she had pulled from the water.
She loved to draw. When she was younger, she liked to draw sketches of her neighborhood in New York, and she liked to draw dogs. She made up a lot of crazy breeds. One year, she took a summer art course and her instructor said she had talent.
Now, she couldn’t get the river to look right. It was so hard to draw water.
The class ended before she could finish. She handed her sketch to Miss Rawls and followed the others out of the trailer.
It was a steamy, hot afternoon, the sun high in the sky. The air was heavy and wet. Kelli always felt as if she was walking underwater here.
She crossed the grass to the main school building and ducked inside. The bright sunlight lingered in her eyes. When they finally adjusted to the dimmer light, she saw her brother at the end of the hall. He was standing stiffly at his locker. The locker door was open.
Something about the way he was standing, not moving at all, made Kelli realize something was wrong. “Hey, Shawn!” she called to him as she trotted toward him.
She stopped a few feet away. “Shawn? What happened? Who did this?”
She stared at the dark pond of water spread on the floor in front of the locker. Then she saw that the inside of the locker was wet, too, with bits of weeds clinging to the locker walls.
Shawn stared at her wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open.
“Shawn? Are you okay?” she cried.
“When I opened my locker …” he said finally, in a trembling voice. “When I opened my locker, everything was wet. My books … Kelli, look at my books. They’re all soaked.”
“Oh, wow,” Kelli muttered, shaking her head. “Wow.”
“And look,” Shawn said. “Look at this.” He shoved a folded-up sheet of paper into her hand. “This was stuffed in my locker.”
“What is it?” Kelli asked. She unfolded the sheet of paper and saw that it was a note. She blinked as she read the words, scribbled in red ink:
THE SHAGGEDY WANTS YOU NEXT, SHAWN.
“We have to make those idiot twins stop this,” Kelli said. She and Shawn walked out the back entrance and crossed the wide patch of grass behind the school. “They’re obsessed with monsters. They ruined all your books for their stupid joke.”
“But what if it’s not a joke?” Shawn asked, hurrying to keep up with Kelli’s long strides. What if it’s real?”
Kelli didn’t answer his question. “Wait till Dad hears about this,” she said, swinging her fists as she walked.
Some kids were tossing a red Frisbee back and forth across the grass. At the hoop hung on the side of the school, six or seven girls had started a basketball game.
Wish I had time for fun, Kelli thought. Wish there was someone here who I could be friends with.
She hadn’t heard from Marci in New York for a whole day. Was Marci forgetting about her?
They reached the line of trees. Several dirt paths led through the woods here. “I … don’t remember which path to take to get home,” Shawn said.
“Follow me,” Kelli told him. “It’s easy. Remember? Dad said to turn left at the sixth cypress tree, and we’ll be on the right path.”
“Didn’t he say to turn right?”
“No. Left,” Kelli said. “If we turn right, we’ll end up back at school.”
Shawn nodded, but he still looked doubtful.
“Here we are,” Kelli said. She took him by the shoulders and led him onto the path. “This will take us home.”
“It doesn’t look like the one we walked this morning,” Shawn said, gazing from tree to tree.
“That’s because we were heading in the other direction,” Kelli replied.
They walked for a while. Insects hummed over their head. Kelli and Shawn stopped when they saw a thin, pale green snake wriggle across the path. The trees along both sides of the path formed a thick, tangled fence. They fluttered in a light breeze, but the breeze didn’t cool anything off.
“So hot here,” Shawn muttered.
The path curved sharply to the left. They had to step over prickly vine tendrils. Above them, the sky darkened as low clouds suddenly covered the sun.
“Who turned off the lights?” Shawn joked.
Kelli glanced up. The sky was charcoal gray now. The clouds slid rapidly, bumping together, growing even darker.
Kelli stopped. Shawn stumbled into her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
; The wind picked up. The tree limbs over their heads began to quiver and shake.
Kelli felt a drop of rain on her forehead. “I think this is the wrong path,” she said. “I don’t recognize anything, and we seem to be heading to the river.”
Shawn made a gulping sound. “Wrong path? How can it be the wrong path?” he whined.
Kelli scrunched up her face, thinking hard. “Dad said turn left after the sixth cypress tree. But I think maybe I counted wrong.”
“You what?”
“Shawn, you know I’m math-challenged.”
“You couldn’t count to six?” he cried. “You’re not math-challenged. You’re math-stupid!”
Kelli forced herself to stay calm. “It won’t help to pick a fight. I admit I have a problem. I guess it’s a phobia about math. When I count my fingers, I get eleven.”
“That’s because you’re a mutant,” Shawn muttered. “What are we going to do now? There’s no one around to help us, and it’s starting to rain.”
“Stay calm,” Kelli told him. “Don’t panic.”
“But what are we going to do?”
“Maybe we should backtrack,” Kelli said. “Go back the way we came and then find the path we’re supposed to take.”
Rain began to patter the ground. The rain slapping the fat vine leaves at their feet sounded like drumbeats all around them.
Shawn shook his head. He did his shoulder thing. “This is my worst nightmare,” he said, talking to himself. “Lost in the middle of the swamp. All alone here, and it’s starting to storm.” His whole body shuddered.
“You’re not all alone. I’m here,” Kelli said.
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I meant.”
“I know,” she said. “Let’s call Dad. He can direct us.”
“Or come get us,” Shawn said softly.
They both pulled out their phones. Kelli’s heart was beating hard. She should have thought of calling him sooner. She raised the phone to her face. “Oh, wow,” she moaned. “No bars.”
“Me too,” he said, shaking his head.
“There isn’t any cell service in this swamp, Shawn.” She slid the phone back into her pocket.
The sky was black as night now. Rain puddles began to form in the dirt path. The wind shook the trees all around them.