Snapper Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgement

  Other Titles

  About The Authors

  Turtleback Lake Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Published by Redbird House

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, companies, institutions, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photograph copyright © 2011 by Peter Maloney

  Copyright © 2012 by Peter Maloney & Felicia Zekauskas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  For Christian and Ian

  Thanks to Fran Bouchoux, Cheryl Best, Carolyn Kegel, Manette Begin-Loudon, Jane Matich, Derek Reist and extra special thanks to our friend and neighbor, David Lender, for his help and patience in shepherding this work into the real world.

  Also by

  Peter Maloney and Felicia Zekauskas

  *

  One Foot, Two Feet

  The Magic Hockey Stick

  Redbird at Rockefeller Center

  Bronto Eats Meat

  His Mother’s Nose

  Belly Button Boy

  PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN YOUNG READERS GROUP

  *

  The Red Sweater

  The Halloween Class

  Thanks for Nothing

  Bump on the Head

  Late for the Library

  Where’s That Bird

  Lose That Tooth

  Here Comes Summer

  The Big Apple Mystery

  Saved by The Ball

  PUBLISHED BY SCHOLASTIC

  *

  Snapper is their first novel for adults

  Peter Maloney and Felicia Zekauskas live with their two sons in a century-old red brick house in the suburbs of The Garden State. They have written and illustrated more than a dozen children’s picture books, including One Foot, Two Feet, The Magic Hockey Stick, and the popular Just Schoolin’ Around Series published by Scholastic. Snapper is their first ebook for adults. It was inspired by an incident that took place on the shores of Erskine Lake in the mountains of North Jersey.

  Map of Turtleback Lake

  Chapter 1

  TURTLEBACK LAKE 1967

  BILL SAT ON THE DECK and gazed out at the lake, eyeing the docks that bobbed forty to fifty yards offshore. Every summer for as long as he could remember, Bill and his best friend, Oscar, had been swimming out to them.

  But another summer diving off the same old docks just wasn’t going to do it. This summer, Bill needed something new, something to test his mettle.

  And there it was – right where it had always been – smack dab in the middle of the lake: the long low white rock that gave both the lake and the town their names.

  Turtleback Rock.

  For years, Turtleback Rock had seemed as remote and unattainable as the moon. But using a pair of binoculars he’d gotten for his birthday, Bill had been bringing the rock closer and closer – so close that he could practically look into the eyes of the snapping turtles that lazed in the hot sun on the rock’s bleached white surface.

  There had always been something vaguely sinister about the rock. Rumors said that the rock was surrounded by a ring of whirlpools that would suck down anyone who dared to come close to it.

  “What a load of crap!” Bill said to Oscar. “There’s nothing around that rock but water.”

  Bill had just told Oscar his big plan. It had been on his mind for days.

  “Forget it,” said Oscar. “I can’t swim that far. That rock’s gotta be a mile from shore. And what if what they say about the whirlpools is true?”

  Bill expected this. Oscar was his closest friend, but he was definitely on the cautious side when it came to water. Out on the football field it was another story. There, Oscar was a totally different person: lightning fast and fearless. He was the star of the Snappers – the Turtleback Lake High School football team.

  But summer vacation had just begun. Football practice was an eternity away. And Bill needed someone – namely Oscar – to share in his heroics.

  “We’re not gonna swim to it,” said Bill. “We’re going to take a canoe.”

  “And what if it tips over?” said Oscar. “We’ll be a mile from shore.”

  “So wear a lifejacket,” said Bill.

  Oscar was desperate for any excuse not to go.

  “My parents will kill me,” he said. “And there’s no way my mother wouldn’t see us. She’s at the kitchen window all day long.”

  Oscar hated disappointing Bill. Best friends weren’t that easy to come by. But the truth was, Bill’s idea of fun wasn’t always his. It was just hard to come right out and say it.

  “Don’t worry about your mamma,” said Bill. “She won’t see us.”

  “Yeah? Why not?”

  “Because we’re going at night.”

  Night! Night was a thousand times worse than day. The lake at night gave Oscar the creeps. People said Turtleback Lake was as deep as the mountains around it. At night, things came up from the bottom. The last thing Oscar wanted to do was to go out on the lake in the dark. But he couldn’t tell Bill. He knew exactly what Bill would do. He’d flap his elbows against his side and strut about squawking, “Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk! Chicken!”

  *

  It was past nine when Bill met Oscar down at the edge of the lake. Both boys had climbed out their bedroom windows and lowered themselves to the ground.

  Now Oscar was sitting on the canoe’s forward thwart and Bill was standing knee-deep in the water a few feet from shore. Bill gave the canoe a strong shove, hopped in the back, and took a seat in the stern.

  Oscar turned around to face him.

  “Hey – it’s pitch black out here,” he said. “How are we even gonna find the rock?”

  “Just wait,” said Bill.

  And then, as if on cue, the moon began rising over the mountains that rimmed the lake’s eastern shore. Within minutes, the moon was high and bright, and full enough to make the rock in the middle of the lake glow a ghostly white.

  Dragging his paddle in the water, Bill steered the canoe from the stern, while up near the bow Oscar plunged and pulled like a slave on a Roman galley. But when Oscar looked d
own at his feet, there were no chains around his ankles, nor was there any whip lashing his back. No one was forcing him to be here. If anything, he was here because of his own damned weakness. He could hear his mother’s voice chastising him: “So, if Bill Lupo jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, you’re going to jump, too?”

  But what did it matter now? The only way out was to dive into the cold black water and swim back to shore. It was too late for that. Oscar was now along for the ride. There was no getting out and no turning back.

  Chapter 2

  PATERSON 1927

  “You what?” said Wilhelmina Andersen, glaring at her husband across the kitchen table.

  “I bought the property,” said Owen.

  Wilhelmina could’ve killed him on the spot. They had discussed the matter over and over, and every time, Wilhelmina had said the same thing: “No!”

  The money they had saved was for the future.

  Still, for weeks Owen had carried around a half-inch advertisement that he had cut out of the newspaper. “Piece of Paradise,” said the ad, “wooded lakefront acre perfect for cabin, cottage, summer home.” Every day during his breaks at the bottling plant, Owen sneaked a peak at the little softened piece of newsprint he kept in his pocket. Then one day, despite his wife’s repeated objections, the pull got too strong.

  “So now what?” fumed Wilhelmina. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to build on it,” said Owen.

  “With what?” asked Wilhelmina. “We haven’t got a penny left.”

  “I don’t need money to build,” said Owen. “I’ve got tools. I’ve got two good hands. And I’ve got Isaac.”

  Isaac was their son, their only child.

  “So now you think about Isaac?” she scoffed. “You should have thought about him before you bought this, this, this piece of paradise!”

  Wilhelmina spat out the words – piece of paradise – as if they were bits of grit that had gotten into her mouth.

  “That money could’ve gone toward college!”

  “And Isaac needs college for what?” asked Owen. “Did I go to college? Did you? Working with me, Isaac will learn something he can actually use. Like how to build something!”

  For the next year, Isaac’s weekends were lost to him. Every Friday afternoon, as his classmates burst out of school, Isaac would trudge toward a black Model A Ford parked at the curb. His father sat in the driver’s seat waiting for him.

  “Ready, Isaac?” he’d ask as Isaac plopped into the front seat.

  “Dad, do we really have to?” Isaac pleaded.

  “Yes, Isaac, we do,” answered his father. “And someday you’ll be glad we did. Someday you’ll have something no one can ever take away from you.”

  *

  “This is how America was made,” said Owen.

  He and Isaac were sitting in the flickering light of a campfire, eating baked beans straight from the can.

  “We’re like the early settlers who went west into lands unknown and used whatever they found to build shelter for themselves,” waxed Owen. “We’re following in the footsteps of our forefathers.”

  “But Nana and Papa settled in Brooklyn,” said Isaac. “They never moved west of the East River.”

  Owen sighed.

  Why was it that his son always got bogged down in literal details when it was the big picture he was trying to give him?

  “That’s not the point, Isaac,” explained Owen. “The point is they had the courage to start new lives in a new land. It’s the imperative to move forward that brought them here to these shores.”

  Owen made a sweeping gesture – as if the “shores” they had come to were the shores of Turtleback Lake itself.

  “What does ‘imperative’ mean?” asked Isaac.

  Owen peered through the trunks of the dark trees. The lake beyond was plated in silvery moonlight. Out in the middle, Owen could see the small white rock island whose domed surface always made him think of a human skull. It was glowing now in the moonlight.

  “An imperative is something you must do,” explained Owen. “It’s something that has more control over you than you have over it.”

  “I think I have an imperative, Dad.”

  Isaac rose from the tree stump he’d been sitting on.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said.

  Isaac made his way through the trees down to the lake. Recently, he had made up a game to amuse himself. He was trying to write his name in pee. His goal was to pee his whole name – Isaac Christian Andersen. But now, even in the light of the moon, it was too dark for that. So Isaac made up a new game. He’d see how many rocks he could pee on before his urine ran out. He started with the furthest rock he could reach and worked his way inward.

  Isaac had just splashed his twelfth stone and was squirting the thirteenth when it happened. The rock moved.

  At first, Isaac just blinked. It had to be an illusion, a trick of the moonlight and the gentle breeze that was rippling the water. But blinking changed nothing. The rock was definitely moving. It was coming closer and getting bigger. Now it was just a few feet from shore and it had grown to the size of an overturned wheelbarrow.

  Isaac’s eyes widened in amazement, and then in horror: a large reptilian head suddenly reared up. Two sunburst yellow eyes fixed on Isaac.

  The creature opened its hooked, beaked mouth and let out a long, low hiss. Isaac stood frozen. Then the creature lunged. Isaac spun around and started crashing back through the woods to the clearing where his father was bent over a basin of sudsy dishwater, washing spoons.

  Chapter 3

  TURTLEBACK LAKE SEPTEMBER 2006

  Judd Clayton stood before the school board.

  “Look,” he said. “Let’s not mince words. My concern here tonight is property values. Any and all negative perceptions of our town must be addressed and eliminated. And I believe the name of our football team has become a problem.”

  Judd’s position was hardly devoid of self-interest. As the owner of Clayton Realty, “Turtleback Lake’s Leading Home Seller For Over A Quarter Century,” Judd wanted every home to sell for top dollar.

  Still, the members of the board looked stunned by the audacity of Judd’s suggestion.

  Silence lingered until Dr. Deena Goode, the town’s high school principal, spoke.

  “Really, Mr. Clayton,” she began, affecting her most reasonable tone. “You’re not seriously suggesting that the name of the high school football team is adversely effecting property values?”

  Judd Clayton stared into Deena’s brown eyes.

  Dr. Goode had been principal for less than a month. She wouldn’t even be the principal if it weren’t for Judd. Yet, now, here the two of them were – at odds.

  “Without a doubt there’s an effect,” said Judd.

  “Perhaps then,” said Deena, “perhaps you could provide us with some unbiased statistical data to support your thesis?”

  Judd was livid. This was just the kind of supercilious, pseudo-academic mumbo jumbo that Dr. Goode – Deena – used to make her every utterance seem indisputably correct.

  “Well, Doctor,” began Judd, barely able to conceal his anger. “I forgot to bring along my graphs and bar charts, but I can tell you this: That recent article in The Turtleback Gazette has been mentioned by three of the last four people I’ve shown homes to.”

  The article in the local paper was about the increased number of bathers who had been bitten – ‘attacked’ was the reporter’s unfortunate choice of words – by snapping turtles that summer. None had been serious, nothing more than little nips really, but still – it was statistically irrefutable – there definitely had been an increase over previous summers. Then again, snapping turtles were in every lake in the mountains of North Jersey. It was a lot better than having water moccasins.

  “So let me clarify your position,” said Dr. Goode. “You’re saying that the name “Snappers” might cause prospective homebuyers to think twice about buying in Turtleback Lake
?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Judd.

  Dr. Goode shook her head. She was not the only one ready to dismiss Judd’s proposal without further discussion.

  Head coach Bill Lupo was silently seething in his seat. Bill had been the center – the snapper – for the high school football team back in the sixties. In Bill’s opinion, the Snapper name was an institution. It was something carved in stone, an inseparable part of the town’s identity.

  Though she wasn’t ready to admit it here and now, Dr. Goode wasn’t particularly fond of the team’s moniker. “The Snappers” struck her as hostile and aggressive. But an odd dynamic had sprung up between Judd and her. She felt an almost irresistible compulsion to disagree with him.

  “And let me remind everyone of one more thing,” said Judd. “The more homes sell for, the higher they’ll be appraised. And the higher they’re appraised, the higher they’ll be taxed.”

  Judd paused and looked around at the members of the board.

  “And where do you think the money for our teachers’ salaries comes from?” he said. “And what do you think pays for our athletic programs?”

  Judd paused again to let the logic of his argument sink in.

  “Property taxes,” he said, “are the life blood of this town.”

  Dr. Goode gave Judd a look she had perfected during her years as a vice-principal. The look had withered even the biggest, most unruly troublemakers. But Judd didn’t wither – he simply glared back.

  “Mr. Clayton,” she said finally, tiring of the showdown. “I can assure you that all of us here appreciate your concern for the security of our positions. So it will no doubt please you to know that the rejection of your proposal is in no way influenced by a desire for professional gain or financial advancement. The name of our football team will remain what it has always been – The Snappers.”