thicker, spade-shaped. Between the head and the tail, its body bulked up, thick around as a hippo. It wasn’t the mist that stank of rotting fish. It was the animal. Now that she was staring right at the thing, she didn’t know how she had ever stood on top of it, imagining it was a rock.
Her chest tingled and crawled, like she had ants under her dress. The ant feeling was in her hair, too. She could see where the animal was torn open, in the place where its throat widened into its torso. Its insides were red and white, like the insides of any fish. There wasn’t a lot of blood for such a big hole.
Joel gripped her hand. They stood up to their thighs in the water, staring at the dinosaur, which was as dead now as all the other dinosaurs that had ever walked the earth.
“It’s the monster,” Joel said, not that it needed to be said.
They had all heard about the monster that lived in the lake. There was always a float in the Fourth of July parade made up to look like a plesiosaur, a papier-mâché creature rising out of papier-mâché waters. In June there’d been an article about the lake creature in the newspaper, and Heather had started to read it aloud at the table, but their father made her stop.
“There isn’t anything in the lake. That’s for tourists,” he’d said then.
“It says a dozen people saw it. It says they hit it with the ferry.”
“A dozen people saw a log and got themselves all worked up. There’s nothing in this lake but the same fish that are in every other American lake.”
“There could be a dinosaur,” Heather had insisted.
“No. There couldn’t. Do you know how many of them there would have to be for a breeding population? People would be seeing them all the time. Now, hush up. You’ll scare your sisters. I didn’t buy this cottage so the four of you can sit inside and fight all day. If you girls won’t go in the lake because you’re scared of some dumb-ass American Nessie, I’ll throw you in.”
Now Joel said, “Don’t scream.”
It had never crossed Gail’s mind to scream, but she nodded to show she was listening.
“I don’t want to frighten Ben,” Joel told her in a low voice. Joel was shaking so his knees almost knocked. But then the water was very cold.
“What do you think happened to it?” she asked.
“There was that article in the paper about it getting hit by the ferry. Do you remember that article? A while back?”
“Yes. But don’t you think it would’ve washed up weeks ago?”
“I don’t think the ferry killed it. But maybe another ship hit it. Maybe it got chewed up in someone’s propeller. It obviously doesn’t know enough to stay out of the way of boats. It’s like when turtles try and cross the highway to lay eggs.”
Holding hands, they waded closer to it.
“It smells,” Gail said, and lifted the collar of her dress to cover her mouth and nose.
He turned and looked at her, his eyes bright and feverish. “Gail London, we are going to be famous. They will put us in the newspaper. I bet on the front page, with a picture of us sitting on it.”
A shiver of excitement coursed through her, and she squeezed his hand. “Do you think they will let us name it?”
“It already has a name. Everyone will call it Champ.”
“But maybe they will name the species after us. The Gailosaurus.”
“That would be naming it after you.”
“They could call it a DinoGail Joelasaurus. Do you think they’ll ask us questions about our discovery?”
“Everyone will interview us. Come on. Let’s get out of the water.”
They sloshed to the right, toward the tail, bobbing on the surface of the water. Gail had to wade up to her waist again to go around it, then started ashore. When she looked back, she saw Joel standing on the other side of the tail, looking down at it.
“What?” she said.
He reached out gently and put his hand on the tail. He jerked his hand away almost immediately.
“What’s it feel like?” she asked.
Even though she’d climbed the net snarled around it and had stood on top of it, she felt in some way she had not touched it yet.
“It’s cold,” was all he said.
She put her hand on its side. It was as rough as sandpaper and felt like it had just come out of the icebox.