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for the eventual integrity of the whole dock structure.
    And for our own. So together with much grunting and groaning we hefted one of the concrete blocks onto the cart. The stroller wheels bulged with its weight but didn’t collapse.
    “Jen Henderson’s a teenager,” Ellie said, eyeing our cart doubtfully. “The tall, blonde, athletic type. I’ve seen her, and so has every male human being in Eastport over the age of two.”
    We centered the block by rocking it back and forth; once we got rolling, any instability could lead to an upset.
    “Jen takes the whole golden-girl thing to extremes, though,” Ellie elaborated as together we gave the block a last centering wiggle.
    “She looks… oof!… like a Barbie doll on steroids. Not that I think she uses them. At her age she doesn’t need them, to look the way she does. Protein shakes, maybe.”
    By that time I was gasping. Ellie wasn’t even breathing hard but we still looked at each other with trepidation, wishing we’d brought along someone who regularly ingested both steroids
and
protein shakes. Loaded, that cart was
heavy
.
    But there was nothing left for it but to tie the block to the platform, start the whole thing rolling and hope for the best. “So the bottom line is, you think this kid took off to avoid being sent to jail for girl trouble,” I said.
    The rickety little contraption, loaded with a concrete cube massive enough to anchor a fair-sized motorboat, stood poised at the top of the slope leading sharply down to the water. And to make the whole project even more of a challenge, the path to the water’s edge was bumpy.
    Very bumpy: rocks, exposed roots, ragged jounces and jogs, any one of which could tip the cart. “But now he’s in a worse fix because the girl’s dad has a habit of blowing guys’ heads off. Or whatever it is,” I amended, “that Henderson does to the targets of his professional assignments.”
    “Yup,” Ellie said. “And none of it would be happening at all if
you
weren’t here.”
    Oh, terrific; now
I
was the cause of the whole mess. Or my habit of attracting Jemmy was to blame, anyway. So in a way I was responsible for the girl being here, too; the entire subject was starting to make my head hurt.
    “Are those wheels strong enough?” Ellie asked dubiously, her brow furrowed as she eyed the setup. “Because once it hits those bumps on its way downhill… ”
    I spread my hands in a “who knows?” gesture. A shove would get the cart going and we’d learn the answer fast. Stopping it again would be another matter, but the lake would do that.
    We hoped. “Grab the rope,” I said.
    The plan was to control the cart’s speed by hauling on the rope handle from behind. And from in front I hoped I could also control its direction, since a concrete block careening wildly off into the forest wasn’t what we had in mind.
    No point imagining the negative possible outcomes, however. For one thing, there were too many to think about all at once. I lifted the wagon handle. “Okay, push it.”
    The vehicle began rolling, slowly at first and then faster. A lot faster; the spokes in the little blue wheels blurred. Ellie planted her feet in the gravel of the path to try slowing it down from the rear but the bright yellow boots she was wearing skidded ineffectually through the stones.
    “Hey,” she protested. I leaned hard against the handle from below, also without much result.
    “This hill,” I muttered as the makeshift cart built up even more speed, “is way steeper than I… ”
    Suddenly the little red wagon handle snapped off with a loud
crack!
and then the rope broke when Ellie’s feet hit a protruding root, stopping her abruptly.
    Holding the rope’s end, she sat down hard on the path while the cart careened away from her. “Jake!” she cried. “Look out!”
    Gripping the broken handle, I lost my footing on the path and hit the ground, too, as the loaded cart trundled straight at me with the massive concrete block