Matt and Elena - Tenth Date: On Wickery Pond, L.J. Smith [best ereader under 100 .TXT] 📗

whispered the maturebeyond-
cooties boy, who had obviously fallen hard for Elena. I just hope
he doesnʼt wind up a pervert before heʼs into his teens, Matt thought. To
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one of the girls, identical except for a ponytail versus short hair, he said,
“Okay, which is the first lucky girl?”
Short-hair held up her hand. “Iʼm Tesha! Iʼll go,” just a beat before
Ponytail said, “I have to go! Iʼm older.”
“Well, youʼre a nice girl; you keep me company,” Matt said,
automatically holding out a hand to Ponytail. “Tesha, letʼs see if you can
go where that last guy went, but without showing off,” he suggested and
Short Hair nodded vigorously.
“All boys are show-offs,” Short Hair said firmly and then went in the
direction of the last boy, but swiftly and without any figure-eights or other
fancy footwork. And presently Elena called to say that Tesha was with her.
“Red Rover, Red Rover, now send Lindie over!” Elena called from
the bank, still sounding in the highest of spirits. My God, what an end to
our anniversary date, Matt thought.
“And I bet youʼre Lindie,” he said to Ponytail, who nodded,
impressed by his powers of clairvoyance. “Okay, off you go—try between
the middle and where Tesha went this time,” he said.
Lindie squeezed his hand tightly—at least her little mittened fingers
seemed to exert pressure on Mattʼs numb bare hand, and then set off a
bit clumsily—it could be that the ice was getting choppy there, Matt
thought anxiously—or it could just be that Lindie was cold, or wasnʼt such
a good skater. Matt waited for Elenaʼs last call—
—and heard what he had been subconsciously expecting all the
time. A great crack that sounded like a giantʼs hammer on the ice and a
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scream, almost immediately cut off, and then other screams echoing it,
mixed with the sound of splashing.
She fell through! My God, sheʼs in the water!
“Matt!” the words came in Elenaʼs voice just as the screams were
suddenly hushed. Matt was wrestling with the no-cootie kid, keeping him
from heading to Lindie. “Matt! Donʼt move! Stay where you are!”—just as
Matt was saying urgently to the last boy, “Stay right here! No—log-roll that
way toward the bank.” All the kids in Fellʼs Church knew about log-rolling
over and over on their sides on thin ice. It spread out the pressure on the
ice to the minimum and it could save your life—as long as you didnʼt hit
mush and go under.
The little boy, terrified, tumbled away like a log caught in a landslide.
There were no more screams.
Then Matt deliberately disobeyed Elenaʼs edict and shouted “Lindie!
Iʼm coming! Donʼt thrash! Float!”—just in case Lindie could hear him—
please, God, let her hear him!
Then Matt himself log-rolled in the direction that the little girl had
gone. When he heard the thrashing get close enough he stopped and
belly-crawled. He could reassure Lindie; tell her how long it would take
her to actually drown or die of hypothermia, comfort her . . . as long as her
head was up, he thought. Please God make her head be up!
And knew, as he thought it that it was all a lie. Matt had sent this
little girl to her death; he was going to get her out. He was—even if he
went in himself.
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The splashing was deafening. Matt found himself staring into a
nightmare hole in the ice, with black, agitated water all mixed with sharp
ice chunks going up and down like blocks tumbling a in freezing washing
machine. There was no sign of Lindie.
“Sheʼs under,” a strange voice said and he realized it was Elena.
She was looking at him from the opposite side of the hideous maw in the
pond. She must have log-rolled here herself, over sharp ice, because her
arms were bleeding from many deep scratches.
Sheʼd come prepared, too—she had a long, sturdy stick with her for
Lindie to grab onto . . . but there was no Lindie.
Furious, terrified, determined, Matt squirmed his way forward. He
could feel solid ice under him—he thought— and he was now hovering
right over the ice-toothed jaws of the hole. Shutting his ears to Elenaʼs
horrified reaction, he plunged an arm into black water.
“Matt, no! No! Iʼve sent the other kids for help—donʼt make
things worse.”
But somewhere inside Matt there was a mule-stubborn spot. I sent
the kid in. Lindie. I sent Lindie in. I have to get her out.
He ignored the shock of icy agony that shot up his arm, a feeling
that—like a burning flame—was a natural reaction of his body, of his limb,
telling him “Get me out of here!” But you canʼt play football and not know
about ignoring pain. Matt gritted his teeth, making his arm swing back and
forth in the icy water, hand clenching and unclenching, trying to keep
some feeling in it, so he would know if he caught anything.
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And then suddenly there was a tumult in the ice just beyond his
reach, and two huge eyes stared out between hair that straggled like
seaweed and a mouth opened into a scream of terror sucked in a breath.
And went down again, although Elena almost slid into the hole
reaching for her.
But Matt was closer and Matt was determined and nothing on this
earth was going to keep him from getting the kid. He plunged his arm
down, feeling ice crack under his own chest, but reaching, reaching—
—until his fingers clenched on seaweed-hair.
Oh, God, he thought. Thank You for giving her a ponytail.
And Matt pulled. With all his strength, gripping the ice he was lying
on with his other hand, Matt pulled up with his right arm. And then he
reached down with his left arm too, ignoring the ice-shock, ignoring
everything except that he had a grip on a two handfuls of hair. He pulled
and heʼd been pulling forever, and he was scared to see what came up,
but he pulled and out of the paste of gray icewater came a girlʼs face and
she sucked in another breath and she was alive. Lindie was alive.
After that, nothing could have stopped Matt from pulling the girl out.
Nothing in the world. He got hold of Lindieʼs shoulders and he gave a
tremendous heave and Lindie came back into the world, born for a second
time, crying for her mother. Matt dropped spread-eagled on the ice and
just let himself breathe, grateful that his arms were out of that water, and
understanding why Lindie was sobbing.
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Elena rolled to the place where the little girl was lying and held her
and coaxed her and told her it was all over.
“Matt saved your life. Itʼs over now. Youʼre going to be fine. Your
mom is going to come here—do you want to talk to her on the phone? I
called her on my mobile because I found out your phone number from
Josh. Iʼm pressing the redial button—okay, do you want me to hold it to
your ear?”
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy Iʼm sorry!” Deep, heart-wrenching
sobs.
Matt gave the last ounce of his weight to the ice. He knew what
was being said on the other side of the phone conversation, even though
he couldnʼt hear it. A frantic mother, probably called out of bed to hear
that her daughter, instead of being cozily asleep, was out on the black ice
of Wickery Pond. And now—to hear that she had fallen into the deadly
dark water—that she might have been swept away by a current, with her
face inches from the world of light and air, but kept from it forever—and
now to hear Lindieʼs voice, hear Lindie was unhurt—and sorry . . .
Matt grinned, although somehow even that hurt. And he was so
cold and so wet. But it was time to get up, or roll up. He took a chance
and lifted his head and shoulders, pushing with aching biceps.
And he felt it even as he saw it in Elenaʼs eyes and heard her
scream.
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“Matt! Itʼs crumbl—”
And then Matt did a forward somersault and was engulfed in
darkness.
* * * * *
The cold shock. You always got it when you tumbled suddenly into
icy water. It was the worst part, but what most people didnʼt know was
that it went away. After about two or three minutes it went away.
But you had to be able to live through those minutes. You couldnʼt
die of panic or heart attack. You couldnʼt let the current drag you away if
youʼd fallen through one little hole, because then you lost all hope.
All light.
Elena meant light. Heʼd looked her name up after his first date with
her. He even knew what her birthstone was: pearl. And she was wearing
a seed-pearl bracelet that looked as if it had come from an ancient Grace
Kelly film. Princess. Princess Grace.
Matt had no idea why he should think about it now. But he would
lose the light and the pearl-sheathed light-bringer both if he didnʼt keep his
head.
And he was too tired to think.
“Never think in an emergency, kid, got it?”
That was what Uncle Joe had said, frail as a bird on his hospital
bed, hands shaking, but with a gleam in his eye.
“Think before the emergency, get it? Know the boy scout motto.
Yʼknow the boy scout motto, kid?”
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“Be prepared.”
“Thatʼs it. Yʼ got it.” Scratching at the stubble on his chin, Uncle
Joe nodded. “I ainʼt always been a model boy scout, okay, kid? But I was
prepared. That time I went ice-fishing in Alaska, yʼknow. Well, first, I read
this Book.”
Uncle Joe didnʼt read a lot, and you could hear the capitals when
he said Book. Well, you could hear them in everything except the one
most people would have capitalized. The Holy Book. The Bible. But
Uncle Joe had been a lot of foreign places and had a religion of his own
that he never really explained to anyone. Still, if it had a first holy precept
it would have been: “Be ye Prepared for Anything.”
And then Uncle Joe had explained that when he had fallen into the
freezing water, he had lost all sense of direction and had started
swimming straight down. And he had remembered a passage in the Book,
and how it had said “look for the light.”
“Look for the light, get it, kiddo? And I looked and”—-as a nurse
passed by—“durned if I wasnʼt backasswards.”
Look for the light, Matt thought, realizing that even his thoughts
were slow and dim. But how could moonlight ever reach him under water
like this? Even the brightest moonlight . . .
Elena is the light.
Look for Elena, his increasingly slow thoughts told him. Look for
her light.
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At first it seemed that every way he looked, turning painfully while
trying to stay in place, there was nothing but darkness. No light winked.
But then when he looked back over his shoulder he seemed to see a faint
glow.
It was very faint, in the blackest night that he had ever known. But
he needed to breathe now. Whether it was the light of an earthly moon or
the light that those people with near-death experiences described, it was
what he was heading for.
Mat swam. With every muscle aching, and that girl who had died in
Wickery Pond holding on to both of his feet, trying to pull him down with
her, Matt made himself swim. He swam for his life.
And the dim glow blossomed like a flower, getting brighter and
more silvery and there was still no air and he was going to gasp now, to
take water into his lungs, and when he did, he was going