Find Wonder in All Things - By Karen M. Cox Page 0,1

to sound nonchalant. “I want to get going before it gets too hot.”

The four made their way down to the slip where the Pendletons kept Stuart’s runabout. He dug the life jackets from under the seats and passed them out. He inspected one, checking it over and sniffing it for mildew before handing it to Virginia with a magnanimous smile. James fished out one for himself and tossed the last one to Laurel.

“This one stinks” — Laurel wrinkled her nose — “and it’s got moldy spots on it.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Stu answered. “That’s the only child-sized life jacket I got.”

She sighed and put her arms through the armholes, struggling to fasten it around her plump middle.

“Here.” James reached over to loosen the belt. “You’re bigger around than that,” he muttered, so busy fiddling with the strap that he missed the stricken look on Laurel’s face.

Virginia noticed, however, and she stepped over and took the vest out of his hands. “I’ll do it. It’s got nothing to do with the middle. You have to put the bottom strap between her legs ’cause it’s a child jacket.” She tossed a scathing look at James over her shoulder. “That’s all.”

He held up his hands in surrender and backed up a step. “Sorry — didn’t mean to offend.”

“Never mind all that.” Stu was impatient to get started. “Let’s go.”

James grunted. Girls were so weird about things. No guy would care if he were bigger than some other guy; in fact, he’d be proud of it.

The girls settled in the bottom of the runabout, almost in the center. Virginia’s arms and legs surrounded Laurel in a loose but protective cage. James untied the ropes while Stu submerged the prop and started the engine. “Hop in,” he told James.

James stepped over the girls and sat in the bow. Stu pushed off, hopped in the aft end, and they drifted away from the dock, idling toward the boundary of the no-wake zone. Once in the middle of the lake, Stuart engaged the motor in running gear, and they were off toward their summer morning’s adventure.

James turned and faced into the wind, closing his eyes and letting the warm sunshine wash over him as the cool spray sprinkled his face and hair. A bump in the ride lifted him off the seat and reminded him he had a duty to perform. He opened his eyes, shielding them from the sun with his hand, while he maintained a lookout for logs or other debris just beneath the surface of the lake.

Stuart steered the runabout this way and that, slicing through the blue-green water. It had been a dry summer, and the water level was low, encircling the lake with bare, muddy walls. Tangled trees and brush-covered rocks jutted out above those walls like tall buildings looming over city streets. The children rode about a half mile out and then around a bend, so Elliot’s Marina was now out of sight. The lake was relatively deserted on that weekday morning, and they met only a few die-hard fishermen along the way. James held up a hand to them in greeting as they passed each other, and the men waved back. Most everyone on the lake knew the Elliot girls on sight because of their father’s three-season marina — and their Eastern Kentucky red hair.

Stuart slowed the motor as they approached their destination: an old railroad tunnel carved through the hill many years ago. The boys leapt out right before they hit land, the soft silt of the lake bottom squishing around their boat shoes. After they had the boat situated, the girls climbed out, and the four of them stood looking at the tunnel.

The weathered stone made a perfectly round opening in the hill even after long years of exposure to wind and water. The lake — now the life’s blood of the community — had been man-made in the 1950’s as a source of energy, drowning both the railway tunnel floor and the little town that was once nestled in the valley between the two hills.

“I’ll go first,” Virginia volunteered. “Laurel, you stay right behind me.”

“I’ll bring up the rear,” Stuart answered. He straightened his shoulders and put a little swagger in his voice. “Just to make sure everyone makes it okay.”

Virginia smiled at him, and James rolled his eyes. Stu had developed this icky tendency to want to play hero of late. Did he have to point out that he was the tallest and strongest of the four of