Read Online Applewhites at Wit's End by Stephanie S. Tolan - Free Book Online

I’m gonna drown!”
    â€œI can’t come out there. It’ll get me too. We’ll both drown!”
    Jake sighed. The girls had begun to cry now, growing more hysterical by the minute. He pulled off his sneakers and socks, ran to the pond, and splashed into the water, sinking deeper into the mud with every step he took. It was all he could do to keep his balance as he pulled one foot after another out of the mire.
    Good thing she’s so small, he thought. She was still gasping through her sobs that she was drowning when he reached her, pulled her free, and threw her, dripping slime, over his shoulder. Slight as she was, the extra weight forced him even farther into the mud. Still, he managed to slog his way back to shore without falling in himself. No way this girl had been in any danger of being pulled under.
    â€œYou saved me, you saved me,” she was saying as he set her down on the grass.
    Jake wrinkled his nose. The feel of the muck didn’t particularly bother him underfoot, but the smell was disgusting: all mold and rot and dead things. Dead fishy things. He was almost as black with it now as the girl.
    The other twin had started screaming again. She was sitting among the cattails at the edge of the pond, trying to fend Winston off as he slathered her face with his tongue. Jake didn’t need to have seen it to know what had happened. Winston couldn’t stand to see anyone cry, stranger or not. He always did his best to offer comfort, which consisted of licking them reassuringly. And thoroughly. He must have jumped on her and knocked her backward.
    Jake went over, grabbed Winston’s collar, and pulled him away.
    â€œThat’s it!” the girl said, struggling to her feet and trying to wipe Winston’s saliva off her face with one hand and the mud off her bottom with the other. “Get me to a phone,” she demanded. “Right now! My sister and I are going home.”
    Jake picked up a towel that was crumpled on the grass. He supposed the girls had been intending to swim out to the diving platform that floated invitingly in the center of the pond. Kids who were used to swimming pools clearly didn’t understand about ponds. He took the towel over to the other girl, who was trying unsuccessfully to clean her face with her muddy hands.
    â€œHow’d you fall down?” he asked as she began toweling her face and hair.
    She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I didn’t fall. It was the pond! It’s like something out of Stephen King. I just started walking out into it, and it pulled me in, knocked me over, and started to suck me down. I was lucky to get up again.” She dropped the towel and threw her arms around him. “Thank you, thank you. You saved my life!”
    It was then that Cordelia arrived. “I see you’ve met Jake.” Jake disentangled himself from the mud-covered twin. “What are you two doing here? You’re supposed to be on a scavenger hunt over by the barn!”
    â€œIt’s too hot for a scavenger hunt,” the muddy twin said.
    â€œBesides,” the other one added, “I never compete with Ginger. There’s no point. She always wins. We saw the pond on the map you gave us and decided to swim instead.”
    This, Jake thought, was why they’d all been warned never to let the campers out of their sight.
    â€œOur father is going to sue you for everything you’ve got!” the green twin said. “How come you didn’t warn us about this death pond?”
    Cordelia smiled a bright and entirely unconvincing smile. “How come you didn’t notice the sign in your bunk that says, No Swimming Without a Lifeguard Present?”
    â€œGet me to a phone,” said the blue twin. “Now! We’re going home!”
    â€œIf you say so,” Cordelia said, “but you have to come to the office to use the phone, and you’re not setting foot in the office till you’ve