“No such thing as too much dessert,” said Nicholas.
Nick looked at him like a proud father. “Amen,” he said with a pat on the back.
* * *
The day of the party finally arrived.
Charlie and Nicholas had declared the movie complete the night before and burned the final copy onto a DVD, toasting their achievement with ginger ale.
“We did it,” said Nicholas. “Hard to believe it was only a few weeks ago that I found that old can of film in Dad’s hiding place.”
“I know—it seems like I’ve been striking you out forever,” Charlie said, giving him a good-natured punch on the upper arm.
“The summer’s not over yet.”
“That’s what I like best about you, Nicholas—you’re an optimist, even when you have no reason to be.”
“I don’t know; I think today might be the day.”
“Are you serious? Let’s go. Right now. I’ll get my glove. Hey, Nick!” she shouted down the stairs. “Meet us out at the barn in five minutes. Nicholas wants me to strike him out. Again.”
Nicholas couldn’t help laughing at her confidence as he grabbed his bat and followed her out into the yard. “One of these days, Brennan.”
But not this day. She caught him off guard with a first-pitch curve for a called strike, and then, after fouling off the next two pitches, he struck out on a knee-high fastball.
“Hang in there, Nicholas,” said Nick. “You’re getting good looks at the ball. You’re going to make good contact. Just a matter of time.”
* * *
At noon, the local florist delivered a huge bouquet of daisies with a card addressed to Hayley and Hetty.
To my favorite movie stars, Hayley and Hetty, and their talented director, Nicholas: So sorry I can’t be there with you tonight. Break a leg!
Love, Mom
PS There’s one more BIG surprise on the way.
“They’re lovely,” said Hetty, reverting to her British accent.
“Quite,” Hayley agreed. “Another surprise? Maybe that will be the cake. I hope it’s not chocolate.”
The first guests—Zack, Joey, and Kirk, also known as the Three Stooges—arrived a few minutes after five, followed by Ryan Crenshaw, another of Charlie’s teammates. Nicholas smiled to himself as he remembered the first time he saw Ryan flail wildly at one of Charlie’s curveballs and end up in a heap on the ground. He, at least, had never looked that bad against Charlie. Meanwhile, Pistol barked his own greetings, and Hayley and Hetty stuck name tags on the boys and pointed them all toward the enormous bowls of Franny’s secret-recipe guacamole and chips waiting on the folding tables that lined the shore in front of Nick’s house.
Next to arrive were Mrs. Bishop and her son, Mikey.
“Is Will here?” he asked, over and over. “Will is my friend.”
“Sorry, Mikey,” said Nicholas. “He couldn’t be here today. But I’m sure he’ll come soon to thank you for what you did.”
As the party got under way, Charlie and Nicholas took on bartending duties, while Nick, wearing a pristine white apron, built two fires—one in a stone-lined pit on the narrow beach, to be used for marshmallow roasting and s’more making after the movie, and the other in a large grill that he’d constructed out of an old fifty-five-gallon steel drum. When the coals were ready, he set to work, cooking rows and rows of hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken to accompany the potato salad, sweet corn, and fresh-picked green beans that Franny had prepared.
As the sun dropped lower and lower in the sky and the screening time drew close, the twins, fueled by too much soda, could barely contain their excitement and actually started cleaning up—without being asked! Nicholas and Charlie, growing more anxious by the minute, set up the big-screen TV and DVD player (on loan from the owner of Deming Appliance, yet another friend of Nick’s) in the living room, checking and double-checking that everything was just perfect.
At seven-forty-five, Hetty made her way through the crowd, ringing a little bell as Pistol helped herd the crowd toward the house. Once they were inside, they sat wherever they could—squeezing onto the couch, the matching wing chairs, and the dining-room chairs that had been moved for the occasion—with the younger audience members sitting Indian-style on the floor. The twins stood before everyone, and at the stroke of eight, Hetty rang her bell once again.
Hayley stepped forward and read from a yellow index card. “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the world premiere of The Seaweed Strangler!” She waited for the cheering and applause to die down before continuing. “Before I introduce the directors, let’s all thank my uncle Nick and Charlie’s mom, Franny Brennan, for cooking all that food.”
More applause and cheering, followed by Hetty, reading from her index card. “And we want to thank our dad, who started this movie a long time ago.” She added, proudly, “He’s not here today because he’s a doctor, and right now he’s in Africa, helping people.”
Nicholas cleared his throat. “C’mon, Hetty. Hurry up.”
“Oh, fine,” she said, sighing dramatically. “And now it is our pleasure to introduce the people who finished the movie, Miss Charlie Brennan and Mr. Nicholas Mettleson!”
Charlie spoke first, blushing at the attention. From her baseball career, she was used to people cheering her, but not from inches away. “Hey, everybody—thanks again for coming. Especially you, Mom—you’re the best. I just hope you all like the movie. It was a lot of fun working with Nicholas. We both … learned a lot this summer, I think. Um, that’s all. Your turn, Nicholas.”
Nicholas forced himself to look up from his shoelaces. Desperate to avoid making eye contact with anyone, he focused on the wall behind the audience. “Um, hi, everybody. I really don’t have anything to—” He stopped midsentence, his mouth hanging open in utter disbelief. “Dad?”
Thirty heads spun around to see Will Mettleson leaning against the door frame, a wry smile on his face.
“Daddy!” screamed the twins as they raced to him and launched themselves into his arms. He lifted them, squeezing tightly as they buried their faces in his chest.
Nicholas, momentarily forgetting his personal rule against public displays of affection, rushed to this thinner, tanner, and bearded version of his father and threw his arms around him.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were going to be in Africa for two more weeks.”
“Got a reprieve. Things weren’t as bad as we’d feared, and on top of that, my replacement showed up a couple of weeks early. Besides, I heard that Hayley and Hetty were throwing a party.” He winked at Nicholas.
“How did you know about the party?” Nicholas asked.
“Oh. Mom.”
Will nodded. “I was able to get ahold of her from Amsterdam the day before yesterday. But look, I’m interrupting—you were right in the middle of a speech.”
“Under the circumstances, I think they’ll understand if we’re a few minutes late getting started,” said Nick, reaching out to shake his nephew’s hand. “Good to see you, Will. Been a while.”
Will glanced around the room, taking it all in. “Too long. The house still looks exactly the way I remembered it. Just perfect.”
“There’s someone else here who’s probably a little surprised to see you,” said Nick as he gently nudged Nicholas aside.
Will’s eyes met Franny’s in a moment right out of a 1940s movie. She smiled up at him from her spot on the couch, her eyes sparkling.
His lips formed her name, but no sound came out.
“Hi, Will,” she said.
With every eye in the room on them, Will and Franny glided silently across the room toward one another, coming to a stop just a few feet apart.
“Franny,” Will repeated, his voice still barely a whisper.
She moved in close, her arms held wide, and hugged him; it was the hug of two old friends—heartfelt, but colored by a thin glaze of regret.
“I always knew you’d come back,” she whispered.
W
hen they pulled apart, Charlie was at her mother’s side. Franny put her arm around Charlie’s shoulders and pulled her close. “This is Charlie. She’s my baby. She has a sister, Natalie, who’s in her second year at Hiram. Charlie and your Nicholas here are quite a team.”
Will stood openmouthed, first looking at Charlie, then turning to Nicholas. “Wait. This is the Charlie you’ve been writing about all summer? You know, you never mentioned that Charlie is a girl, Nicholas. I’m sorry to stare, Charlie. I just assumed you were …”
“Nope—sorry,” said Charlie. “I’m a girl.”
“No, no, don’t apologize. I didn’t mean … It just never occurred to me that Nicholas was spending so much time with … Look, I’m pleased to meet you, Charlie. Thanks for showing Nicholas around this summer. Sounds like he was in very good hands. And I can’t wait to see this movie,” he added, pointing to the banner that the twins had hung over the fireplace.
“I can’t believe you never told him about me,” said Charlie, poking Nicholas in the side. “Actually, Nicholas did most of the work on the movie. Almost all the ideas—the good ones, anyway—were his.”
“It was a team effort,” said Nicholas, struggling not to blush. “Charlie—and the twins—everybody helped.”
Suddenly, Mikey appeared at Will’s side, tugging on his shirt. “Hi, Will.”
Will recognized him immediately, and his eyes lit up. “Mikey Bishop. My gosh. You haven’t changed a bit.” He held out his hand, which Mikey shook and shook, stopping only when Mrs. Bishop put her hand on her son’s shoulder.
“Let him go, Mikey,” she said. “You can talk to him later. Right now I think he wants to talk to his own children.”
Will smiled, grateful for her intervention, and then held up a hand. “Look here—everybody—we can all catch up later. I’ve disrupted things long enough. The show must go on, as they say. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who wants to see this movie.” The audience cheered in agreement, so he playfully shoved Nicholas to the front of the room and then joined Franny on the couch.
Nicholas took a few seconds to collect himself before starting over. “Ummm … so, before we get started, I was just going to say that my dad started this movie when he was fourteen, but never got to finish it because he had some, um, ‘equipment problems.’ When I found it, I didn’t know any of that, but over the past few weeks, well, Charlie and I learned a lot of stuff about what happened back then, and that made us even more determined to finish it. Dad, I know it’s not exactly the movie you were making, but I hope you like it anyway.”
Charlie turned off the lights and hit PLAY on the DVD player. The crowd clapped and cheered as Will’s original footage, announcing the title of the movie in enormous seaweed letters, flickered on the screen:
The Seaweed Strangler
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first scene, in which the man in the rowboat shoots and injures the poor creature, appeared exactly as Will had remembered it, but from that point forward, The Seaweed Strangler was Nicholas’s film. Will was astonished by what he saw. His son had incorporated the grainy 8 mm film into an entirely new story, artfully intercutting the original scenes with crisp, clear video starring the twins, Charlie, Nick, and himself.
Instead of watching the movie for the umpteenth time, Nicholas watched his father’s reactions. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Will smile at the scene in which the (improbably young) twin archaeologists discover a long-lost reel of film in the tower room at Nick’s house—in Will’s old hiding place behind the paneling. And, as the “missing scene” (from the camera that Mikey had cared for all those years) began to unfold, Will cringed when he saw himself aboard Teddy’s boat, helpless as it plowed onto the rocks. It was the first time he, or anyone else in the room besides Nicholas and Charlie, had seen those images, and the look on his face was one of utter confusion. He turned to see Nicholas grinning slyly at him.
“How on earth did you …?” Will asked, palms facing the ceiling.
Nicholas gave him a little shrug and a smile.
The audience oohed and aahed when the action moved aboard Goblin for the voyage into “the perilous, uncharted waters of the north,” as Charlie’s character described it. Nicholas, who did the filming, revealed an artistic side that even he didn’t know he had. He captured the beauty of the little ship silhouetted against an evening sky of purple and orange, sails slicing through the growing darkness until all was black and only the sound of water rushing by the hull remained.
Hetty was unable to contain her excitement any longer. “Omigosh—we’re coming to the best part. This is so cool.”
“Shhh!” said Hayley. “Don’t ruin the surprise.”
As morning breaks over Goblin and nearby Onion Island, the young archaeologists row ashore, with filmmaker Charlie tagging along, determined to be the first to actually film the Seaweed Strangler—and survive. After searching the island for several days, they finally find signs of their old friend, the professor who was obsessed with the creature—and who had disappeared on his most recent expedition. First, they find a pocketknife bearing the professor’s initials, and a little later, they notice something hanging from a tree branch. It is his backpack—the one that he always carried with him. With sad faces, they pull out his journal and a small camera.
Hayley reads the journal entry in which the professor described the creature eating the raw fish and wrote about going deeper into the woods, and then hands the journal to Hetty.
“I’m afraid this may be all that’s left of the professor,” Hetty adds, looking directly into Charlie’s camera. “What do we do now?”
“We owe it to him to continue his work,” says Hayley.
Hetty, meanwhile, flips through the professor’s journal. “Wait! Listen. This is his final entry: As a scientist, I am compelled to carry on with my research—to learn all I can about these strange and wonderful human beings (and they are human, let there be no mistake about that) and to tell the world about them. But after spending two weeks observing them, I have arrived at a very different conclusion: they deserve to be left alone. They are peaceful and resourceful and have lived on this remote island for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Yes, they have acted violently on occasion, but ONLY when provoked by other humans. Therefore, I have made the decision to return to the university and announce that my expedition was a failure—that the creatures do NOT exist—with the sincere hope that my announcement will bring an end to any further investigation of the mystery.”
Hetty looks into the camera. “Blimey. Well, that settles it. We’re going home.”
Cue the ominous music.
“Not so fast,” says Charlie, holding a pistol on the two young adventurers. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll take that journal and the backpack.”
Hetty takes a step toward her. “Have you lost your bloody mind? Put that gun down.”
“I don’t think so,” Charlie says, pointing it at Hetty’s chest. “I killed the professor, and I’m willing to kill you.”
Hayley explodes. “You killed the professor? But … why? When?”
“Because he went soft on me. We could have made millions, taking the Seaweed Strangler—alive—back to civilization. I was with your precious professor on his last expedition, and everything was going great. Then one morning he tells me we’re going back, and we’re going to tell the world— Well, you read the stupid journal.”
“But why did you have to kill him?” Hayley asks. “He was a good man. A great man.”
“He knew things about me that no one else knew. Things that would ruin me. And he threatened to reveal them if I didn’t go along with his story. My career would have been ruined. But when I was chasing him, he tossed his backpack into the woods and I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t just the camera that I wanted. His journal contained all his notes, including how to find this place. I’m no sailor; I knew I could never find it again on my own, even though I somehow managed to find my wa
y back to civilization without him the last time.”
“I think I get it now,” says Hetty. “You knew we would find it. Hayley and Hetty Mettleson always find what they’re looking for, right?”
“Precisely,” says Charlie with an evil grin. “When I heard you were on the trail of the professor, I pretended to work for that cable channel so I could tag along. And now here we are. These are enough to make me rich.” She holds up the camera and journal.
“What about … us?” Hayley asks.
“Two more missing adventurers. The world will hardly notice.”
As Charlie aims her gun at Hayley, her finger on the trigger, a twig snaps in the thick brush behind her. She spins around and finds herself face to face with the Seaweed Strangler, played by a glaring, snarling, sort of terrifying-looking Nicholas. Before she can pull the trigger, however, he snatches the gun from her hand and throws it deep into the woods. Hayley and Hetty watch in horror as the creature wraps a coil of seaweed around her neck. Charlie’s body slowly goes limp and drops to the ground in a heap.
“Uh-oh,” says Hayley as the Seaweed Strangler slowly turns to face her.
“Should we run for it?” Hetty asks.
“No! No sudden moves. Keep your hands up where he can see them.”
The Strangler stands perfectly still, only his eyes moving—from Hayley to Hetty and then back again to Hayley. After twenty seconds of staring down the two girls, he reaches out and ever so gently touches Hayley’s cheek. She resists the urge to scream and looks him directly in the eyes. He takes one small step back, touches his chest with his open palm, and then disappears into the woods.
In the movie’s final scene, the twins are back home, where they place the professor’s journal, his camera, and Charlie’s camera in a large iron safe. (Nick just happened to have an old one in his barn.)
“Are you sure about this?” Hetty asks.
“We’re doing the right thing,” says Hayley. “When I looked deep into the eyes of the Seaweed Strangler, I saw kindness and gentleness—not the monster that everyone assumes his kind to be. He deserves to be left alone. The professor was right. We owe it to him to honor his final wish.”
Summer at Forsaken Lake Page 20