Read Learning to Swim for Free Online Page B

need me, just shout.”
    “Okay.” I stood, picking up the bag with my clothes and some extras Baker was lending us. “Paul, say goodbye and thank you.
Dis
‘goodbye and thank you.’ ”
    “Goodbye t’ank you,” he said, to my surprise. He glanced longingly at the plate of sandwiches, and when I nodded he took two more pieces, one for each hand.
    Baker had reminded me that small children aren’t supposed to ride in the front seat, so I buckled Paul into the back, doing my best to explain why. It felt odd to have him back there, as if I were a chauffeur, and I didn’t like not being able to see him beside me. We drove through town, and just after we turned right onto 86, heading toward Placid, a rattly, rusty station wagon passed, going the opposite direction.
What a piece of junk
, I thought idly. I noticed its out-of-state plates, and wondered if someone had driven down from Québec just to take that ferry, just to dump a child. If Paul had been living in Vermont, surely he’d be able to speak English.
    I looked in the rearview mirror at Paul, his head slumped against the side of the car. He had fallen asleep as soon as we were out of town. Suddenly I had a new worry. He’d had a long dunking, swallowed God knows how much lake water, and walked in wet clothes after an exhausting swim. I hadn’t the vaguest idea how that could affect a child who seemed none too robust to begin with. Water in the lungs? A bacterial infection from the lake water?
    I glanced at the clock. My friend Kate is an ER nurse, and soonwould be heading to her shift at the Saranac Lake Hospital. I gave her a call. No answer, but I left a message asking if she could stop by. We had scarcely gotten into the house when I heard her lilting tones in the front hallway. “Anybody home?”
    Why I end up with friends who look like models, I don’t know. Kate is tall and slender, with flowing auburn hair and a wholesome wide-eyed look that tends to drive men nuts. She’s had more than one stalker, which can be awkward in a small town where everyone knows both stalker and stalkee. Last summer a tuba player from Albuquerque who was here to play in the summer symphony had fallen madly in love with her from across the room. It was quite a nuisance and rather annoying to me, who has yet to be fallen in love with from across the room.
    Kate’s also a by-the-book kind of girl who follows regulations, dots every
i
, and crosses every
t
. She would have no doubt that a stray boy should be reported to the authorities, and although I might be able to dissuade her, she wouldn’t be happy about it.
    So I told her Paul was the son of a Canadian friend and had taken an unexpected fall into the lake. I let her think it was a fall from a canoe into Mirror Lake, two blocks away, and that I would rather avoid the expense of dragging him to an emergency room that wouldn’t honor a Canadian health insurance card. Although I never said any of that, just hinted at it.
    She believed it all, so readily that I felt guilty. But while she may be a trifle gullible, Kate is a competent and caring nurse. She put Paul at ease, while peppering me with questions:
How long had he been in the water? What had I done for him? Had he been eating and sleeping?
    She popped an old-fashioned thermometer into his mouth, thumbed his eyelids back to look at his pupils, peered into his ears, and pulled up his shirt to listen to his heartbeat.
    “He seems fine,” she announced. “He’s probably tired. And maybe he hasn’t been eating enough; he’s a little thin.”
    Paul, who had sat quietly during the examination, looked at me. “She says you need to eat more,” I said, deadpan. “
Il faut que tu manges beaucoup de bonbons et de gâteau.
”
    He looked confused for a moment and then let loose a short high trill of laughter. A wave of happiness bubbled up in me, so intense it startled me.
    As I showed Kate out, I remembered what Baker had murmured as I’d left: “Don’t get too