The Creature of Black Water Lake by Gary Paulsen

Author:Gary Paulsen [Paulsen, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80405-1
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

“That was a big waste of time.” Ryan stuffed the tape recorder into the motorcycle’s saddlebag. “Mr. Potter forgot what he was talking about in the middle of his story and the nurse had to wheel him off to bed because he fell asleep.”

“True,” Larry admitted. “But the telephone interview with the wife of that diver who went down last week was interesting. She said he made two dives that day. On the first one he thought he’d discovered where something extremely large had made its bed in one of the caves on the bottom. After he went back the second time, no one ever saw him again.”

“It still seems like we’re not really getting anywhere. I’m telling you, Rita and I have seen it. We can describe it for you. You don’t need all these other sightings.”

“Okay. Tell you what. We’ll take a break from our list and go visit the Browns.”

“Now you’re talking.” Ryan waited for Larry to get on and then hopped on the back of the cycle. Larry popped the clutch and they flew down the road toward the other side of the lake.

Rita and her mom were in the front yard pulling weeds. When the motorcycle roared into the driveway Rita trotted over.

“This is Larry Carlson,” Ryan said. “He’s the guy I told you was gonna help us find the monster. He wants to ask you some questions about what you saw.”

“Hi, Larry,” Rita said. Then she ran into the house, calling over her shoulder, “Hang on a minute.”

Mrs. Brown came over to them. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Carlson. Now, what’s this I hear about you helping these kids look for a lake monster?”

Larry sat on the edge of the porch and took out his tape recorder. “Have you ever seen the lake monster, Mrs. Brown?”

“Heavens no. My father claimed he saw it, though. He used to fish for catfish in the lake until the day he thought he saw the monster. After that he never took his boat out on the water again. Never let us go out there either. But I think he was seeing things. You know—hallucinations.”

Rita came back carrying a tattered book held together with a rubber band. “Here’s my granddad’s diary. The places where he talks about the monster are marked.”

Larry snapped off the rubber band and opened the yellowed pages of the diary to a bookmark. He read aloud:

“I had heard the stories but always thought that was exactly what they were, stories. Now I know different. As usual I was out on the lake at daybreak fishing. It was a slow morning but finally I hooked something. The big catfish are fighters and I had me a real whopper. I almost had him to the boat when something very large and fast sped through the water alongside me. It left a wake as wide as any boat.

“I kept reeling, hoping to get my fish and get out of there, when all of a sudden a gigantic creature cleared the water, grabbed my cat and took off.

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