Read Summer at Forsaken Lake for Free Online

room,” Nicholas said. “The one called
2:53 A.M
.”
    “I’d forgotten about that,” Uncle Nick said, smiling at the memory it evoked. “Lillie was going to give that one to your dad, but I think she ended up liking it too much to give it away. It was one of her favorites.”
    “Did she believe in the Seaweed Strangler?” Hetty asked.
    “She believed that she saw a boat one night, and that’s about it. Nobody with half a brain believes in some creature running around the lake strangling folks with seaweed. The boat sank. Those two dingbats drowned. End of story.”
    * * *
    At seven-thirty the next morning, the four of them—plus Nick’s usual sailing partner, a life-jacket-wearing Pistol—sat in the cramped cockpit of
Goblin
, eating ham and eggs cooked by Nick on the tiny stove in the cabin below. He served it to them on translucent red plates (“Just like theones in the book!” Hetty exclaimed) and started the day’s sailing lesson by pointing out, and then quizzing them on, the different sailing terms and parts of the boat: port and starboard, mast, boom, tiller, rudder, mainsail, mainsheet, winches, cleats, halyards, and so on, until Hayley declared that her memory was full.
    “Sorry, Uncle Nick, but I just can’t remember another single thing. Can we please just go sailing?”
    And off they went.
    It was a perfect day to learn to sail. With the twins tucked safely out of the way in the cockpit, Nick showed Nicholas how to raise the mainsail with the boat pointing straight into the gentle wind, coiling the halyards neatly when he finished. Then, on the “go” signal, Nicholas unhooked the mooring line from the bow, Nick hauled in the slack in the mainsheet and pushed the tiller to starboard, and they were sailing.
    No one said a word for several minutes as
Goblin
silently sliced through the ripples known to sailors as “cat’s paws.” Hayley was the first to break the spell, whispering to Hetty, “It’s so
quiet
.”
    “It’s not always this quiet,” Nick said. “When you get a stiff north wind and some whitecaps, she’ll make some noise. Okay, Het, one more question for you: Are we on port or starboard tack?”
    Hetty screwed up her face, looking left and then right. “Starboard?”
    “That’s right! The wind is coming over the starboardside of the boat. And I think we’re ready for the jib. Nicholas! You think you can handle that? I’ll head into the wind a little bit to make it easier for you. Just get it up there and snug it up good and tight.”
    Nicholas was a fast learner; he stood at the mast and pulled the halyard, raising the jib. When it was all the way up, he wrapped the line around the cleat just the way Nick had shown him.
    “Good boy! Okay, Hayley, now, you see that line right there? That’s the jib sheet, and I want you to pull it in until that sail stops luffing, er, flapping. Good, good … perfect!”
    With both sails drawing,
Goblin
picked up speed, her blue topsides digging in a bit deeper.
    “How fast are we going?” Hetty asked, leaning over the rail to watch the water slip by.
    “Twenty-five miles per hour,” Hayley guessed.
    Nick had a good laugh at that. “Maybe four knots. Sailors use nautical miles, and one knot—or one nautical mile per hour—is a little more than a regular mile per hour.”
    “No way, Uncle Nick,” said an incredulous Hayley. “We’re going faster than four miles per hour!”
    “I’m afraid not,” he said. “
Goblin
is many things, but fast is not one of them. How are you girls coming with
We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea
?”
    “They just lost the anchor, and now they’re out at sea,” said Hayley. “It’s kind of scary.”
    “Ah, but they’re in a sturdy little boat—just like this one.”
    “Is this
Goblin
exactly like the one in the book?” Nicholas asked.
    “Not
exactly
, but she’s pretty darn close—the closest thing I could find when I was looking for a design to build. They’re the same size, same basic