The Lake That Was Too Far

 The afternoon sun slanted through the treehouse window in lazy golden stripes, and Felix was doing absolutely nothing useful, which was, in his opinion, the whole point of a Saturday. Maya sat beside him, Sketch purring on her lap like a small furry engine, while she sorted through a stack of school papers with the enthusiasm of someone defusing a bomb.

Then she made a noise. A deeply unhappy noise.

“Two hours,” she said, holding up a yellow flyer as if it were evidence of a crime. “Two hours on a bus, Felix. To get to a lake.”

Felix leaned over to look.

Lake Clearwater School Trip!

it announced cheerfully. Maya did not look cheerful.

“I’ll be completely miserable before we even arrive,” she said. “I’ll step off that bus, look at the water, and feel nothing. Just pure exhaustion and the memory of somebody’s sandwich smell.”

Felix snorted. “Okay, but what if the lake were closer?”

“I wish it were right outside,” Maya said, gazing dramatically out the window at the very un-lake-like street below. Then her eyes went a little dreamy. “Actually, what if our whole town were by a lake? Like, right on it?”

Felix sat up straighter. Now that was interesting.

“Canals instead of roads,” he said.

“Boats instead of cars,” Maya added.

“Fish under the streets—”

“Birds absolutely everywhere—”

“The school is just a boat—”

They were both giggling now, building their ridiculous floating town higher and higher, when Sketch suddenly lifted his head.

And the puzzle box began to glow.

The giggling stopped. The golden light pulsed slowly and warmly, as if it had been quietly waiting for them to finish. Felix and Maya looked at each other.

They didn’t say a word. They never needed to.