Chapter 24

The room got really quiet when Mom began, especially after the laughing and squealing over the clown.

“I want to read a scary part of a new story I’m working on for kids,” Mom said. “The main characters are twins, and they live right here in Red Rock.”

Kids looked at each other, and the one Ashley was watching pointed at me and nodded.

“This chapter is called ‘Underwater.’”

As soon as she started, I realized this was really our story about being chased by robbers near Gold Town. She made the reservoir into a river and changed lots of stuff, but I knew where the idea came from. When the car went into the water, you could’ve heard whipped cream dripping from the gym teacher’s face. A couple of kids put their hands over their eyes.

Mom and Sam had told us we couldn’t tell anyone about that weekend, how our SUV had plunged into the water and we almost drowned. Now Mom was telling it in a story! That didn’t seem fair, but something about it also felt great.

There was a lot more screaming in the real crash, and the dad in Mom’s story had time to give the kids instructions and tell them when to hold their breath, but the whole thing made me scared again. You don’t survive an event like that and not have it affect you big-time.

The water was just about up to their chins when Mom put the pages down and said, “That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

The kids wailed that it wasn’t fair to leave them hanging, so Mom smiled and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. “Well, this is one of the drafts I threw away, but if you’d like.”