| I
laughed.
“Wrong lake, Marc.” “Something tells me we’re about to hear the biggest damn fish story since Moby-Dick,” said Dad. That may have been the only literary allusion my father ever uttered, at least in my presence. “This huge thing in the water attacked my fish, all right? I don’t care who believes me and who doesn’t. It’s the truth. I thought it was a sturgeon at first . . .  "or maybe a garfish. . .  "Then I saw its legs and its flippery feet and my lunker fish in its mouth and I thought, how the hell did a crocodile get in Lake George? But when I saw that long neck I knew it wasn’t a croc. Then it dove real quick and started thrashing in the water. Next thing I know is this green blur coming at me. That’s all I remember.” Since it was obvious from the gash that something had sliced through half Marc's arm, Dad declared in a voice filled with certainty, “It was a sturgeon, son. Musta gotten you when you were trying to unhook the lunker. Your wild imagination’s just got the better of you.” “Didn’t you see its wings?” Carlie asked our brother. “Wings? Are you nuts? It didn’t have wings.” “I saw big bat-wings.” Marc thought a moment, then his round face lit up. “Champ was upside down when you saw him! Those were his feet, his big flipper-feet, he’s an amphibian, y’know. Must be like how puppies that are gonna be big dogs have to grow into their feet. This pup has to grow into his flippers. It’s a baby Champ!” “Who is this Champ he keeps talking about?” Mom asked Dad as though Marc wasn’t even there. Or all there. “You never heard of Champ?” I asked. “Paul,” said my mother, like I was ten, “you were not being spoken to.” "Champ,” explained Vince Nolano, “is the monster, or maybe family of monsters, that some people claim is living in Lake Champlain.” “We’re staying on Lake George,” Mom reminded us all with some degree of certainty. “I read in the paper there was a sighting near Port Henry last week,” said Phil.  “Remember, Marc?" Phil asked. "I showed you the article. Those kids and their scoutmaster saw a whole family of them.” “Sure I remember.” "They prob’ly all ate the same mushrooms,” I suggested. "Port Henry is on Lake Champlain, Marc,” said Dad. “Right but it’s far enough south that maybe the baby wandered off! Swam south. Maybe he made it into that river what-is-it? that connects the two lakes, maybe he crossed into Lake George.” |
“La Chute River?” Dad laughed. “Oh come on, Marc, that means swimming all the way through Ticonderoga. Somebody would’ve seen it.” 'I'm with Dad," I said, "It was a sturgeon." “Or maybe little Champ crossed over on land," Phil suggested, "around Cold Spring. That’s not far at all. At night, nobody woulda seen it.” “Hey yeah!” said Marc, happy somebody was backing him up. Carla was instantly depressed. "Nobody believes me." She gave Phil a glare like he'd lost any chance with her. Later that night back at the cottage, Marc was tucked in sound asleep from the painkillers they were giving him, and I was supposed to be in bed too, but I was awake standing in the dark hall listening to the four parental units in the living room. “So,” said Dad, ever the skeptic, “our choice is between Puff the Magic Dragon and the lost puppy Champ." “I don’t really care what it was, Joe," said Mom. "All I care about, they’re gonna be all right.” “Physically, yeah, but mentally, I ain’t so sure.” “You know what I think?” said Marie. “They’re hiding something. They each concocted a story that perfectly fit their peculiar personalities.” “Marie,” said Mom, “I’ll thank you not to call my children peculiar.” “I meant particular, sorry. Marc’s always been into dinosaurs, right? and Carlie’s into dragons.” “So Mark saw a dinosaur and Carla saw a dragon. So what?” “So they’re hiding whatever it was they really saw. It’s as simple as that.” “But why would they do that, dear?” Vince demanded. “And what the hell was it?” Dad wanted to know. “It was probably a sturgeon,” I said, coming forth in my pajamas. “Or maybe a psychotic otter.” “Paul, go back to bed.” “No really.” I decided the best plan was to get the parents off the whole matter. “In 1951, somebody took a shot at what he thought was Champ. A day later a dead sturgeon with a bullet hole in it turned up on shore near Westport, I think. Same thing happened more recently with an otter.” “An otter. Thanks for the information, son,” said Dad. “Now hit the rack.” |
The
next day my father showed me the local paper. I
was glad to learn that several other people had seen the fireball,
although apparently no one else had seen the remnant meteorite fall
into the lake.
There was also an article about something strange seen (by
several different people from different spots) in Lake George further
north from where we were staying—near Mossy Point—the day
before Marc
and Carla’s close encounter. The thing was described by a
fisherman
as “undulating” in the water like a
snake, only vertically, creating
dark green humps, then disappearing under water.  A sunbather on a dock swore she saw a black whirlpool in the lake, it seemed to tighten and shrink, then out of the eddy a long dark green neck swayed just under the water—though she admitted it could have been a mossy log. |
Text copyright © 2014 by Joseph Andriano