Abandon - Meg Cabot [84]
The landscaper had looked at her and said, “Ma’am, I think the birds will be fine. And these low-watt bulbs will make it so you can see if there are any prowlers in the backyard without having to use high-energy security lights.”
I’d fixated on the word prowlers.
“We’ll take them,” I’d said firmly.
Peering out into the yard, I saw that Mom had left the pool lights on. Now steam came off the turquoise-blue surface in the humidity left after the storm.
There was something small and black floating in the middle of the pool. A body. Not just floating. Struggling. Whatever it was — and it was tiny — it had legs.
And it was pumping them in a frantic effort to get to the stairs and save itself before it drowned.
But it couldn’t save itself. Because even if it reached the stairs, it wouldn’t be able to pull itself up onto the first step. It was too small. Anyone could see that.
I let the curtain fall back.
Why me? That was all I had to say. Just…Why. Me.
Sighing, I left my room, moving through the darkness of the second-floor hallway. I could hear Mom’s gentle breathing through the open door to her room. She could fall asleep faster, and stay sleeping harder, than any human being I’d ever known.
When I reached the French doors to the backyard, I entered the code into the alarm, then opened them.
Stepping outside was like stepping into soup. That’s how humid it was.
Frogs were croaking everywhere. A cicada screamed. Somewhere behind the twelve-foot Spanish wall crawling with bougainvillea, a cat — or possibly a tree rat — made rustling noises. I ignored them all, walking barefoot down the stone path towards the pool, intent on my mission. The brick path was still wet from the storm, and covered in snails. There was enough glow from the lights at the base of the royal palms for me to be able to see the snails and avoid stepping on them.
Mom had not only left the pool lights on, she’d left the waterfall running, too. The water cascaded from a blue and green tile wall at the far end of the pool. I walked over to the little cottage where we kept all the rafts and cleaning equipment and opened the door. I’d already seen that the creature struggling in the water was a bright green gecko. Now he was in danger of being sucked into the filter.
“Hold on,” I said to him, pulling out one of the long-handled poles with a net on the end the pool guy used for scooping out debris. “I’ve got you.”
Seconds later, I’d scooped the gecko up and dropped him from the net onto the leaf of a hibiscus bush. Stunned at first, he just sat there. Then, seeming to realize he wasn’t going to die, he leaped away.
The applause seemed to come out of nowhere. I was so startled, I dropped the long silver pole into the pool. It splashed before sinking to the bottom.
“You didn’t,” John said, stepping from the shadows as he clapped for me, “even hit your head this time.”
And ready are they to pass o’er the river,
Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
So that their fear is turned into desire.
DANTE ALIGHIERI, Inferno, Canto III
Seriously.” I pressed a hand over my heart. It was pounding so hard, I thought I was going into cardiac arrest. “You have to stop doing that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his hands to his sides.
He stood across the bright blue water, as tall and intimidating as ever, and still dressed all in black as usual, which was probably how I hadn’t noticed him in the shadows.
But something about him was different. At first I thought it was his eyes. Maybe they were reflecting the blue light from the pool, because they seemed to be shining as brightly as it was.
But then I realized it was something else.
And when I did, I gasped.
“Wait,” I said, taking a few hesitant steps around the edge of the pool towards him so I could get a better look at his expression. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
He stayed where he was. He looked wary, like the gecko had when it fell onto the hibiscus leaf…like What just happened? Is this some kind of trap?
“What?” he said defensively.
“You did,” I said in