Water Steps by A. LaFaye Read Free Book Online

the wall as my lungs started going at full shutter speed, leaving me no air to breathe.
    Mem scooped me up and ran for the front door. She knew a panic attack when she saw one coming—the kind that seized up my muscles and my mind, leaving me quaking and gasping for breath.
    Outside the front door, she pointed up at the bushy pine trees. “Look at those trees. Hear the birdies singing. Think that breeze is blowing those clouds?”
    I let the wind blow through my hair, took in the piney fresh air. Pines can’t grow in water. I’m on dry land. Staring up into branches in the nice, dry sky. I
pulled in a good deep breath and imagined I could fly up into the branches with the birds. No more water. No more churning. No more sinking.
    Pep came close, whispering into my hair, “That old lake ain’t nothing. Just some of that blue Jell-O you Yanks love so much. Nothing more than jiggly blue Jell-O, so it moves with the wind.”
    A lake of blue Jell-O. That made me laugh, but I cried too. Cried because Mem had a family. A sister who stayed away because of me. Would they be closer if I wasn’t such a mess? Wasn’t afraid of silly blue Jell-O water?
    If only it were that silly. That stupid. That easy to swallow. Then I could make that fear just disappear down my throat.
    I imagined myself drinking that lake down a gulp at a time, but my tummy filled up, my neck tightened, and still it looked as though I hadn’t even taken a sip out of the thing. I couldn’t even beat that darn water in my mind. How could I ever hope to do it in real life?
    If I did, would Mem and Pep stop worrying about me? Would Mem patch things up with her sister Rosien? Could they go back to Ireland and see the rest of their family?
    It hurt me in a fist-around-the-heart kind of way to
know that taking care of me took so much away from Mem and Pep. I wished I could take my biggest water step ever and just walk right into that stupid lake. But wishes are worth no more than a stone and stones make you sink, so there I stood, holding onto Mem’s hand, staring at the trees, and wishing they’d never even heard of Lake Champlain.

LEAVES
    F inding out Rosien was a package who hurt Mem stomped out my ideas of tracking her down. She’d probably only tell me lies anyway.
    And with my little freak-out, I just wanted to get away for a bit. Let the cold layer of fear in the pit of my stomach just melt away. Felt like disappearing into the woods to “recharge my batteries,” as Pep always says.
    And Pep sure loved recharging in the lake. He’d pound away at an article for a couple of hours after breakfast, then come charging out of his new office shouting something in Irish. Mem laughed as he flew past and sped down to the dock. I closed my eyes, so I didn’t have to see him jump in, but then I watched
real close to see him come back to the surface. Then I could let out the breath I’d been holding inside.
    Mem preferred a quiet night swim herself. For breaks from the illustrations she had due come August for some save-the-world magazine, she knit. Kippers loved it. He sat at her feet and played with the yarn. But knitting is not my favorite hobby, really. Meant nice knitted afghans to nestle in by the fire, but it also led to jumpers for Christmas, scarves for birthdays, and more doll blankets than I’ve got dolls.
    â€œMaybe you could knit Rosien a jumper,” I suggested as I left for the woods. Anything so that I wouldn’t have to wear another one of those bulky, itchy things to school the first day after Christmas vacation. Last year, Bobby Clarkson said I looked like a mutant snowball.
    To get my mind off itchy jumpers and mean kids like Bobby Clarkson, I headed for my tree fort, a great camera roost. I sat up there, belly down on the floor, elbows as a tripod and started taking shots—the sunlight streaming down onto the rocks, the woodpecker drilling for bugs, and the squirrels