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sound loud in the sudden stillness, ran tap water into the glass, and swirled the ice around.
    “You just happened to have a portable raft with you, or what?” Baker asked. Sarcasm does not become her.
    “No, I swam and got him and then swam to shore.”
    More staring. “Troy, you can’t swim worth a damn.”
    “I’m not that bad,” I protested as I sat back down. “I don’t like swimming in groups and I sort of veer to one side. But if I concentrate, I do okay.”
    She picked up her sandwich and took a bite. “Okay, he fell in the lake. You got him out. So why do you still have him?”
    Dead silence. It was difficult to say aloud, and it took a moment to get the words out. “I’m pretty sure someone threw him in.”
    Another friend might have exclaimed, but Baker wasn’t made that way, and she knows how tough I like to pretend to be. We chewed our sandwiches.
    “Did he say so?” Baker asked.
    “No. He won’t talk about it. But no one was at the dock looking for him, and he had … there was …” I cleared my throat. “He had an adult’s sweatshirt tied around him, the sleeves knotted around his arms.”
    Baker thought about this. “Did you call the police?”
    I nodded. “Etown and Burlington. I didn’t give my name. But Paulwasn’t talking, so he wouldn’t have told them anything. And I’d pulled the sweatshirt off him, so it was at the bottom of the lake.” I clinked my ice around in my glass and took a long drink. “I think he’ll calm down soon and tell me who he is and what happened and where he’s from, and then I can decide what to do. He’s just starting to talk.”
    She stared at me a moment longer. North Country people are known for their reticence and staying out of other people’s business, but even Baker couldn’t let this go. When she spoke, her voice was mild.
    “Troy, you can’t just keep a child. He has parents somewhere, parents who are bound to be looking for him.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe they’re the ones who threw him in the lake.” My voice almost cracked. “And I don’t want him being sent back to them.”
    She watched as I drank more tea, and then I spoke again. “When he tells me what happened, then I’ll know what to do.”
    For a moment I thought she was going to pull maternal rank and say,
“Are you out of your mind?”
But I could see her working it out, considering the possibilities and the risks:
parents who don’t get their kid back immediately
versus
child may be sent back to people who tried to kill him
. At last she nodded. Paul’s safety was most important.
    And I think we both knew that a kid who had simply been scooped up and dumped overboard would have been screaming for his mom and dad. And this kid wasn’t.
    “So is he Canadian?” she asked.
    “Probably—but he hasn’t spoken enough for me to tell.” To me Canadian French sounds more slurred, but probably that’s the street version. Québécois say theirs is the purer form of French, because after the Revolution everyone in France switched to a more common form of the language. Which makes sense, considering that all the aristocrats had been beheaded.
    The back door opened and the herd came thundering in. They were thirsty, they announced, and needed Kool-Aid. Paul separated himself from the group and came to my side. I felt his forehead,damp with sweat. Baker calmly handed out Kool-Aid, and Paul drank deeply, leaving a purple stain around his lips. She set out a stack of cut-up sandwiches and carrot sticks and dumped potato chips into a bowl, and the kids fell on the food. Paul looked at me for permission, and stood next to me as he ate, slowly and with great precision. I put some potato chips on a napkin for him, and he ate them delicately.
    “I think I’d better get this guy home. He may need an
n-a-p.
” I was suddenly worried I’d let him overexert himself.
    “Kids are tough,” Baker said, reading my mind. “Listen, be careful, and keep me posted. And if you