:The Lake:

I was three hours late home from the lake. I really shouldn’t have been late home at all, but he was there, and I was there, and so was the lake. It should really be called a reservoir, because it was originally made by some man who wanted to build a hydroelectric plant there to spread the miracle of cheap electricity. But he died rather suddenly just after the reservoir was finished, and his son decided not to continue the project. People round here have forgotten about that now, even though it was only ten years ago, and simply to refer to the deep pit of icy water as ‘the lake’. So that’s what I’ll call it.

Anyway, there was the lake, and me, and him. He’d asked me to come along earlier that day, by the coffee machine. He’d said: ‘Chloe,’ - that’s me - ‘Chloe, could you come down to the lake with me at four? I want to ask you something.’ And my heart skipped a beat because I thought he was going to ask me what I wanted to hear, which was: ‘Would you come to the Spring Dance with me?’. That’s what I wanted him to say, and I wanted it so damn much that I almost believed that was what he was going to say when he opened his mouth. But that wasn’t what he said, and that’s why I was late home from the lake.

My mother always told me that at the end of the day men disappointed you, and that I should just steer clear of them. But I didn’t listen to my mother. She was mad and everyone knew it, even me, and I was only seven. Dad had disappointed her by running of with the post woman (betcha never heard that one before) and my brother had disappointed her by running off with the post woman’s son. I was the girl, she knew I was never going to disappoint her, and I didn’t want to, lest she go madder than she already was. So I did everything her way, the Right Way, until that day when the house accidentally burnt down and she was locked in her bedroom, so she couldn’t get out. I told the firemen that she’d left the gas oven on, and they believed me.

But back to Atticus. I went down to the lake and there he was, skipping stones across the mirror-like water, and he looked so nice in that black suede coat. Shame it got spoiled. And when he saw me coming he stood up properly, and smiled, and said those words I hadn’t wanted to hear. ‘Hi Chloe. Listen, I want your advice on something. Do you think Michelle would go to the Spring Dance with me?’

At first I thought he was joking, and it must have showed because I snorted. He looked hurt. ‘You don’t think she would?’ He asked.

That hadn’t been the reason I had snorted. The reason I had was because he was standing on the little wooden board someone had attached to the side of the reservoir to fish on, and because the board was slippery. And if someone was to...say, accidentally throw a rock at his head, someone with aim as accurate as mine, he would fall into the water. And because it’s Spring, the sheer coldness of the water combined with the blow of the rock would most likely cause him to drown.

I snorted again, because two and one half minutes later that had happened to poor Atticus, and what had he done to deserve that? Still, in the depths of the lake no-one would find him, just like no-one really found my mother in one piece, tsk-tsk, shame, shame.

I’m outside Michelle’s house now. No-one on the street knows it, but in fifteen minutes it’s going to inexplicably catch fire. Michelle won’t be able to get out, but they’ll never discover why because no-one will really find that much of her, will they?

It’s what any normal person would do, right?

25-02-2005