R. Stine: The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

I laughed. "What's your problem, Em? It was just some kind of lizard."

She squeezed my arm hard, trying to make me flinch. "You're a creep, Grady," she muttered. She scratched her arms some more. "It's too itchy in this swamp," she complained. "Let's head back."

"Just a little bit farther," I pleaded.

"No. Come on. I really want to get back." She tried to pull me, but I backed out of her grasp. "Grady"

I turned and started walking away from her, deeper into the swamp. I heard the tap-tap-tap again, directly overhead. The low palm leaves scraped against each other, shifting in a soft, wet breeze. The shrill chittering of the insects grew louder.

"I'm going home and leaving you here," Emily threatened.

I ignored her and kept walking. I knew she was bluffing.

My sandals crackled over dried, brown palm leaves. Without turning around, I could hear Emily a few steps behind me.

Another little lizard scampered across the path, just in front of my sandals. It looked like a dark arrow, shooting into the underbrush.

The ground suddenly sloped upward. We found ourselves climbing a low hill into bright sunlight. A clearing of some sort.

Beads of sweat ran down my cheeks. The air was so wet, I felt as if I were swimming.

At the top of the hill, we stopped to look around. "Hey — another pond!" I cried, running over fat, yellow swamp grass, hurrying up to the water's edge.

But this pond looked different.

The dark green water wasn't flat and smooth. Leaning over it, I could see that it was murky and thick, like split-pea soup. It made disgusting gurgling and plopping sounds as it churned.

I leaned down closer to get a better look.

"It's quicksand!" I heard Emily cry in horror.

And then two hands shoved me hard from behind.

As I started to fall into the bubbling green stew, the same hands grabbed my waist and pulled me back.

Emily giggled. "Gotcha!" she cried, holding on to me, keeping me from turning around and slugging her.

"Hey — let go!" I cried angrily. "You almost pushed me into quicksand! That's not funny!"

She laughed some more, then let me go. "It isn't quicksand, dork," she muttered. "It's a bog."

"Huh?" I turned to stare into the gloppy green water.

"It's a bog. A peat bog," she repeated impatiently. "Don't you know anything?"

"What's a peat bog?" I asked, ignoring her insults. Emily the Know-It-All. She's always bragging about how she knows everything and I'm a stupid clod. But she gets B's in school, and I get A's. So who's the smart one?

"We learned about this last year when we studied the wetlands and rain forests," she replied smugly. "The pond is thick because it has peat moss growing in it. The moss grows and grows. It absorbs twenty-five times its own weight in water."

"It's gross-looking," I said.

"Why don't you drink some and see how it tastes," she urged.

She tried to push me again, but I ducked and skirted away. "I'm not thirsty," I muttered. I realize it wasn't too clever, but it was the best reply I could think of.

"Let's get going," she said, wiping sweat off her forehead with her hand. "I'm really hot."

"Yeah. Okay," I reluctantly agreed. "This was a pretty neat walk."

We turned away from the peat bog and started back down the hill. "Hey, look!" I cried, pointing to two black shadows floating high above us under a white cloud.

"Falcons," Emily said, shielding her eyes with one hand as she gazed up. "I think they're falcons. It's hard to see. They sure are big."

We watched them soar out of sight. Then we continued down the hill, making our way carefully on the damp, sandy ground.

At the bottom of the hill, back under the deep shade of the trees, we stopped to catch our breath.

I was really sweating now. The back of my neck felt hot and itchy. I rubbed it with one hand, but it didn't seem to help.

The breeze had stopped. The air felt heavy. Nothing moved.

Loud cawing sounds made me glance up. Two enormous blackbirds peered down at us from a low branch of a cypress tree. They cawed again, as if telling us to go away.

"This way," Emily said with a sigh.

I followed her, feeling prickly and itchy all over. "I wish we had a swimming pool at our new house," I said. "I'd jump right in with my clothes on!"

We walked for several minutes. The trees grew thicker. The light grew dimmer. The path ended. We had to push our way through tall, leafy ferns.

"I–I don't think we've been here before," I stammered. "I don't think this is the right way."

We stared at each other, watching each other's face fill with fright.

We both realized we were lost. Completely lost.

"I don't believe this!" Emily shrieked.

Her loud shout made the two blackbirds flutter off their tree limb. They soared away, cawing angrily.

"What am I doing here?" she cried. Emily is not good in emergencies. When she got a flat tire during one of her first driving lessons back home in Burlington, she jumped out of the car and ran away!

So I didn't exactly expect her to be calm and cool now. Since we were totally lost in the middle of a dark, hot swamp, I expected her to panic. And she did.

I'm the calm one in the family. I take after Dad. Cool and scientific. "Let's just figure out the direction of the sun," I said, ignoring the fluttering in my chest.

"What sun?" Emily cried, throwing her hands up.

It was really dark. The palm trees with their wide leaves formed a pretty solid roof above us.

"Well, we could check out some moss," I suggested. The fluttering in my chest was growing stronger. "Isn't moss supposed to grow on the north side of trees?"

"East side, I think," Emily muttered. "Or is it the west?"

"I'm pretty sure it's the north," I insisted, gazing around.

"Pretty sure? What good is pretty sure?" Emily cried shrilly.

"Forget the moss," I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm not even sure what moss looks like."

We stared at each other for a long time.

"Didn't you used to carry a compass with you wherever you went?" Emily asked, sounding a little shaky.

"Yeah. When I was four," I replied.

"I can't believe we were so stupid," Emily wailed. "We should have worn one of the radio transmitters. You know. For the deer. Then Dad could track us down."

"I should have worn jeans," I muttered, noticing some tiny red bumps along my calf. Poison ivy? Some kind of rash?

"What should we do?" Emily asked impatiently, wiping sweat off her forehead with her hand.

"Go back up the hill, I guess," I told her. "There were no trees there. It was sunny. Once we see where the sun is, we can figure out the direction to get back."

"But which way is the hill?" Emily demanded.

I spun around. Was it behind us? To our right? A cold chill ran down my back as I realized I wasn't sure.

I shrugged. "We're really lost," I murmured with a sigh.

"Let's go this way," Emily said, starting to walk away. "I just have a feeling this is the way. If we come to that bog, we'll know we're going right."

"And if we don't?" I demanded.

"We'll come to something else, maybe," she replied.

Brilliant.

But I didn't see any good in arguing with her. So I followed.

We walked in silence, the shrill ringing of the insects on all sides, the calls of birds startling us from above. After a short while, we pushed our way through a clump of tall, stiff reeds.

"Have we been here before?" Emily asked.

I couldn't remember. I pushed a reed away to step through and realized it had left something sticky on my hand. "Yuck!"

"Hey, look!" Emily's excited cry made me glance up from the sticky green gunk that clung to my hand.

The bog! It was right in front of us. The same bog we had stopped at before.