Free Monster Lake by Edward Lee

realized what was strange.
    The line wasn’t written in her mother’s
handwriting, and it wasn’t written in Uncle Chuck’s either.
    All at once, Terri felt dizzy and
confused.
    That’s…my father’s
handwriting! she realized.
     
    ««—»»
     
    And just when she
realized that, Terri heard the familiar sound coming from outside, at the
front of the house:
    thunk-thunk!
    Two car doors being closed, which meant that
her mother and Uncle Chuck had just pulled up in the driveway, and
had already gotten out of the car!
    Terri moved so fast her hands looked like
blurs. She put the notepad and then the textbooks back in the
briefcase, closed the briefcase lid, and slid it back under the
bed. When she dashed for Uncle Chuck’s bedroom door—
    On, no! I’m going to get caught again!
    — she heard the front door
opening.
    Terri, frantic now, froze in the hallway. If
she closed her uncle’s door too fast, they’d hear it, but if she
didn’t close it fast enough, and get back to her own room, she’d
get caught red-handed.
    Hurry! she screamed at herself.
    Gritting her teeth, she pulled the door
shut, then dashed for her own bedroom but not before she could see
outside light in the foyer, which meant that her mother and Uncle
Chuck were already in the house!
    creak-creak! she heard next.
    The old wood tiles in the foyer.
    Her mother and Uncle Chuck were about to
enter the hallway!
    Terri managed to edge into her own room just
as she saw the two shadows step into the hall.
    Then, very softly, she clicked her door
shut.
    She could hear footsteps coming down the
hallway. But her mother and Uncle Chuck weren’t saying anything,
and that bothered her. Had they seen Terri duck into her room at
the last second?
    She leaned against the wall in her bedroom,
holding her breath, keeping her fingers crossed.
    The footsteps got closer.
    And closer.
    Then they faded away as Terri’s mother and
uncle passed her door and went into the kitchen.
    Thank goodness! Terri thought.
    They hadn’t seen her after all. She’d made
it back to her room at the very last second.
    Terri let out the long, deep breath she’d
been holding in her chest. For a moment there, she thought she
might explode! When she calmed down from her scare, she sat back
down on her bed, thinking.
    The last thing she’d
discovered in Uncle Chuck’s room mystified her. Her father’s handwriting in
the notepad. What could it mean? It was true, both her father and
mother were zoologists—before the divorce they’d both even worked
in the same laboratory, where her mother still worked now—and that
meant that they were working on the same research projects, which
Terri understood. But what bothered her was just the idea that not
only her mother and Uncle Chuck but also her father too had been
involved in the strange things going on around here; and Terri
didn’t want to think that her father had something to do with the
giant toads and salamanders.
    But mainly it just made her sad. Seeing the
handwriting only reminded her more of her father, and the divorce,
and the idea that she hadn’t seen him in months and probably never
would again, because he’d moved away.
    Don’t think about
it, Terri ordered herself. Thinking about
it only made it hurt worse.
    And, besides, she had plenty of other things
to think about now, didn’t she?
    She slipped out the piece of paper from her
shorts, opened it up, and looked at it.
    Now I’ll never forget
those words from the boathouse, she
thought, because I’ve got them right here
in my hand…
    Yes, she did. She’d written them all
down.
    And now that I have
them, she realized, I can look them up in the dictionary and finally find out
what they mean.
    And next she went to do just that, sliding
open her top desk drawer and rooting around. She knew she had a
dictionary around here somewhere. Or then…
    Maybe it was out in the den, where she kept
her books during the school year.
    Here it is, she thought, relieved. It wasn’t