Snapper (8 page)

“What team are you going out for in the fall?” JJ asked.

“Soccer,” said Ian. “What about you?”

“I’ll still be just in eighth grade,” said JJ. “But next year, when I’m a freshman, I’m going out for football.”

“Yeah, well,” said Ian. “I’m a soccer guy. I played it at my old high school.”

When September came, Ian signed up for the soccer team. He stood out immediately. The balls Ian kicked were like missiles: they were targeted and they went further – much further – than anyone else’s. One afternoon during the first week of school, Coach Lupo stood watching as Ian kicked a ball around the soccer field.

“Hey, Jenks,” he said to his assistant. “Take over for a couple of minutes, okay? I’ve got something to check out.”

“No problem, Bill,” said Coach Jenkins. “Take your time.”

Cradling a football in his hands, Coach Lupo strode straight toward Ian.

“Hey, son,” he said, addressing the tall lanky kid he’d never seen before. “What’s your name?”

“Ian Copeland.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” said Lupo. “You’re not a freshman, are you?”

“No,” answered Ian. “My family just moved here this summer. I’m a sophomore.”

Coach Lupo gave the football in his hands a spin.

“Do you think you could kick this ball the way you’ve been kicking that one?” he asked, nodding toward the soccer ball at Ian’s feet.

“I don’t know,” said Ian. “I’ve never tried.”

“Well, I’d like you to give it a try,” said Coach Lupo. “Come with me.”

Coach Lupo took Ian by the arm and led him out onto the football field. They walked out to the 30-yard line. Coach Lupo got down on his knees, placed the ball on end, and held it upright at a slight angle with his forefinger.

“Think you can put it through those uprights?” he asked, indicating the white goal posts in the distance.

Ian shrugged. He took two quick strides toward the ball. His right leg swung forward and swept under the ball like a scythe. Spinning end over end, the ball sailed across the blue September sky and split the uprights, dead center.

The kick would’ve been good, with room to spare, from fifty yards.

Coach Lupo got up from his knees and placed his right hand on Ian Copeland’s shoulder.

“You know, son,” said Coach Lupo, “soccer is really more of a European sport.”

The coach gave Ian a moment to digest this important fact. Then he continued. “Round here, the game we like to play is football. It’s a good, old-fashioned American game. You’d be a real asset to the team.”

“What about Coach Massari?” asked Ian.

“Don’t worry about Bernie,” smiled Lupo. “I’ll explain everything to him.”

*

Placekickers are a different breed. Nobody expects them to really fit in with the rest of the team.

The only thing anyone really cares about is how they kick. And that Fall, nobody in New Jersey kicked better than Ian Copeland. Ian’s kickoffs eliminated runbacks. How could you return a kick that sailed out of the end zone? Ian’s extra points were automatic. And every time the Snappers got within their opponents’ 35-yard line, they were assured of putting at least three points up on the board.

Ian was cool and clutch. He also was remarkably clean. That whole first season, he got only one grass stain on his pants – when he was mobbed by his teammates and fell to the ground after providing the margin of victory as time expired in the conference championship game. It was the Snappers’ sixteenth conference championship.

Still Ian remained a bit of an outsider. Transferring in as a sophomore, he had missed the freshman rite of passage at Ted Tanner’s Pet and Turtle Shop. Ian never impaled a snapper with a six-inch nail, he never scooped out a snapper’s guts with a serrated spoon, and he never ate homemade turtle soup.

And the cup snapped in the pouch of Ian’s jockstrap was made of good, old-fashioned, store-bought American plastic.

Chapter 10

TURTLEBACK LAKE SEPTEMBER 2006

But that was last year.

Ian was now a junior and JJ was a freshman. They were Snappers together.

Since practice had begun back in August, they had developed a routine. As soon as practice was done and they were back in street clothes, they’d hop on their bikes and race home. It was like a two-man Tour de France. The two boys sped neck and neck up into the hills that encircled Turtleback Lake. By the time they reached home, their chests were heaving and their skin was filmed with slick coats of sweat.

Then they’d dismount and run down to the lake for a swim.

Today though, practice had run late. It was practically seven when they got home. The sun was dropping below the mountains in the west. The sky had turned a pinkish orange. But the color wouldn’t last long. At this time of the year, late September, darkness came on quickly. Still, the two boys were hot and sweaty from their bike ride.

“What do you think?” asked JJ. “We got time for a dip?”

“I don’t know,” said Ian. “It’s late – and I’ve got a ton of homework.”

Ian looked across the lake. The sky above the mountains was beautiful – like a Beardsley print – but little of that light reached the lake. The surface of Turtleback Lake was dark, almost black. Only the strange white rock out in the middle seemed to catch any of the day’s waning light. Ian didn’t like to admit it, especially to someone who was two years younger, but swimming in the lake after sunset made him nervous. He knew it was irrational – it was the exact same lake after all – but still, there it was, the lake at night gave him the creeps.

“Oh, come on,” said JJ. “We’ll make it quick.”

“All right,” said Ian. “But just a quick one.”

The boys raced down the wooden staircase that zigzagged down to the dock far below. The dock jutted out into the lake like a pier. At the end of it, Ian and JJ stripped down to their briefs and then plunged into the darkening water.

They didn’t swim out too far. Each boy was seeking the same thing: one of the warm thermal updrafts that rose up here and there from the bottom of the lake. Turtleback Lake was famous for them.

“Find one?” JJ called out.

“Yup!” said Ian. “It feels great.”

“Mine too,” said JJ.

The two boys treaded with their arms and legs, keeping themselves in the columns of warm water. Only their heads and necks broke the surface.

“So,” said Ian. “What’s going on between you and Mary Robinson?”

“What are you talking about?” said JJ.

“Oh, come on, JJ! I’m not blind.”

“Really, Ian, nothing’s going on,” insisted JJ. “Maybe she likes me a little
–
as a
friend.”

“And I suppose you just like her
–
as a
friend?
”

“I’d like to like her as more,” said JJ. “But I don’t think there’s much of a chance of that.”

“I don’t know,” said Ian. “That ‘
Hey ho, 24,
’ stuff sounds like she might like you more than you think.”

“Yeah, well,” said JJ. “I guess I can dream.”

As the boys talked, the sky in the west bruised from orangey pink to purplish black. In the east, a round white moon began rising like a balloon. And in the cold depths of Turtleback Lake, a dark domed form stroked and glided, moving ever closer to the two boys treading in their warm columns.

Grundel had suddenly felt drawn forth. The rising moon seemed to be summoning him. And as he rose from the depths towards the shallower waters along the eastern shore, his yellow eyes perceived two glowing shapes wiggling like white worms in the warm water. As he drew nearer, he took inventory: two lithe bodies, four legs and feet, four arms and hands, and ten, twenty, thirty, forty little fingers and toes! Grundel was delighted. His belly was empty. But it would not be for long.

Grundel eyed his two targets. He chose the one with the longest, lankiest limbs. They were Ian’s – Ian’s legs – including the one that sent footballs sailing through uprights. Like a jumbo jet banking in a liquid sky, Grundel tilted his body, adjusted the arc of his approach, and went in with his jaw wide open.

* * * *

Oscar Hall had been the janitor at Turtleback High School longer than anyone could remember.

For almost four decades, he had walked up and down its tiled hallways, his left foot leading and his right foot dragging behind. For almost forty years, students had mocked and mimicked Oscar’s limp – and not always behind his back.

Yet despite his infirmity, no one could match Oscar’s ability to quickly fill a gymnasium with folding metal chairs.

For the emergency town meeting being held in the high school gym, Oscar had set up every chair available. Still there were not enough chairs for everyone. Those who didn’t come early had to stand on the side or in the back. Others sat in the center aisle on the gym floor, a violation of fire code that Police Chief Rudolph chose to ignore.

Now it was 8:10. People were still squeezing in through the back door, but the meeting had been scheduled to start at eight and Chief Rudolph felt he’d waited long enough. He walked over to the podium and reached for the microphone.

“If I can please have your attention,” he began.

The buzz of conversations continued unabated. It was as if no one had heard him. Chief Rudolph tapped – then cursed – the mike.

“Damn it!” he said. “This darn thing’s not working. Where the hell is Oscar?”

Chief Rudolph looked to the left for some help from his deputy, Donald Rhodes, but Donny seemed wholly absorbed by a hangnail on the thumb of his left hand.

“Hey, for chrissakes, Donny, get me Oscar, double-quick!”

A minute later, Oscar emerged from the wings, dragging his right leg behind him as he limped toward the podium.

“This damn thing doesn’t work, Oscar,” said Chief Rudolph, thrusting the microphone toward him. “Can you find me another?”

Oscar took the microphone from Chief Rudolph’s outstretched hand. He flicked a switch at the base of the handle. A sudden ear-splitting screech filled the room. Hundreds of people simultaneously reached up to cover their ears. They looked at Oscar and the Chief with pained and reproachful faces.

Oscar gave the orb at the top of the mike a quick twist and silenced the piercing noise. He handed the mike back to Chief Rudolph.

“It should work fine now, Rudy.”

“Thanks, Oscar.”

Chief Rudolph turned back to the crowd. The screeching mike had done the trick. He now had their undivided attention.

“Thank you all for coming tonight,” he began. “There’s been a lot of talk going around so I want to give you the facts as I know them. First, I want to let you know that the boy who was attacked in the lake last night, Ian Copeland, is in stable condition. He’s at a hospital in the city where he’s getting the best medical care available.

“I also want to acknowledge the actions of Ian’s friend, JJ Clayton. Without JJ’s quick response, things could’ve turned out much worse.”

Chief Rudolph paused to clear his throat.

“Now, as to the cause of Mr. Copeland’s grievous injury, I can only tell you that the only witness we have – JJ Clayton – says that immediately after the attack, something scraped against him underwater. Whatever it was, he said, felt rough, hard, and shell-like. Furthermore, JJ received a number of lacerations that suggest the claws of a large aquatic predator.”

A man in the middle of the crowd suddenly called out.

“What do you mean by ‘a large aquatic predator?”

“Just hold on,” said Chief Rudolph. “All I can say is that based on the nature of the injuries – Ian Copeland’s severed leg, the lacerations on JJ’s torso, and JJ’s description of whatever it was that scraped against him – when all these factors are taken into account, it seems reasonable to me that we can assume with some degree of certainty that what we are dealing with here is a
Chelydra Serpentina Extremis
.”

The crowd suddenly appeared confused and perplexed – like a class of students who no longer can follow what their teacher is saying.

Again, someone in the crowd called out.

“You want to translate that into English, Chief?”

“A
Chelydra Serpentina Extremis
,” repeated Chief Rudolph, not entirely confident with his pronunciation of a term he had just learned himself that day, “is the Latin, or scientific name, for a giant snapping turtle.”

* * * *

High school administrators keep the names and numbers of grief counselors handy for three simple reasons: Automobiles, alcohol, and adolescence. Each year, these three A’s combine to rob high schools of hundreds of young lives.

Deena Goode – or Dr. Goode as it said on the nameplate on her desk – was in her office, flipping through past editions of
The Spectrum
, the Turtleback High School yearbook. On the final page of several, she saw pictures of students who had not lived to graduate. In their photos, their young eyes burned bright with futures yet to come. Yet all were now dead, gone and buried. At seventeen.