Dreamland Lake (16 page)

“Turn loose of my arm,” Flip said.

“But . . .”

“Butt out, Elvan,” Flip said. He wasn’t talking loud, but there was hate in his voice—real hate. “Just how damn stupid you take us for? How long you think you can play us for a couple of suckers?”

It wasn’t just what he said. He’d told Elvan off before. But it was the sound in his voice. It scared me as bad as it did Elvan. “Now I’m going to give you a count of three. And when I hit three, you’d better be out of sight. Because we’ve had about all your crazy-assed talk we can put up with. So let’s just see how fast you can do a vanishing act because if you hang around here, you’re going to be one sorry slob. One.”

Elvan pulled back and stared at Flip. He must have forgotten how much he’d enjoyed talk like that before. He could tell this was different.

“Two.”

Elvan lit out running. He didn’t jump the creek. He waddled right down in it and up the other side, wet to his knees. His big legs were pumping away. He slipped once and came down hard on one knee, but he was up again, moving faster than he’d ever moved. He bobbed around a little, looking for the path out of the woods, the way we’d come in.

“Three,” Flip yelled, loud enough for him to hear. “Come on, let’s go after him.”

“Let’s go the other way.”

“No, we’ll just tail him till he hears us behind him. It’ll keep him moving. Come on.”

We jumped the creek together and kicked along the path, half running, making extra noise. But I think Elvan was too far ahead to hear. We loped along, bent over under the low branches, and came out into the open by the end of the lake.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the big swans cutting across over the water, working their wings, heading up toward the woodsy end. I couldn’t see Elvan ahead of us, though. Not at first.

But I was looking straight up along the path, past the barricades at the approach to the bridge. Flip stopped dead. He threw out one arm and opened his mouth. Then I saw Elvan. He’d gone over the Park Department sawhorses that warn you off the bridge. And he was pounding over it. Almost at the top of the arch over the middle of the lake.

Flip cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, “Elvan, stop!”

And Elvan did. He was just a shape on the bridge. Like he was miles away instead of yards. Like that day out at Warnicke’s Creek.

“Elvan, watch what you’re doing. The floor’s rotted out!”

Flip was screaming it. So loud I couldn’t even understand him. But I didn’t need to. I knew how rotted out that floor was. Without even going past the barricades, you could see daylight through the cracks in it.

“Grab hold of the handrail,” Flip yelled. “Hang on to that!”

Elvan had turned back toward us. Like he was listening—or trying to hear. But he didn’t grab hold of the handrail. It was cast-iron, and he could work
his way back to either end of the bridge if he’d just hang on and go hand over hand. But he just stayed there in the middle with his arms hanging down.

Flip started to run. So did I. If we got closer, Elvan could hear. But when he saw us move, he turned away and started running himself, to the other end of the bridge. Flip froze in his tracks and reached out an arm to stop me. Hoping, I guess, Elvan would stop again and see we weren’t chasing him.

But there was a sound like a shotgun blast, and I saw rotten floorboards drop into the lake under where Elvan was. For a second, he looked like he was running in place. Then there was another bang, and Elvan dropped through the floor.

We were still on the path. So we could see him fall. He dropped like a sack of grain, but he suddenly stopped. The whole bridge creaked.

At first, I thought he was hanging on there, holding on with his hands. I thought he’d do better to let go and drop down into the water. Even if he couldn’t swim, we could. We could save him.

But then, I saw his arms were dangling down by his sides. He was hanging from the floor of the bridge by his neck.

We made a run for the bridge. Without planning it, Flip went to one handrail, and I went to the other one. There were iron strips that ran along under the metal sides. We kept to them and never stepped on the old floorboards. I had to look down to plant my foot at places where the fancy ironwork on the sides didn’t get in the way. But I tried not to look back down at the water through the cracks in the floor.

We worked our way along, keeping pretty even with each other. I kept trying to balance my weight, so that if I started to fall, I’d pitch over the railing,
straight down into the lake and not back through the floorboards.

By the time we got to the middle point and could see the rest of the bridge sloping off down to the other shore, we saw Elvan’s head. It was at a crazy angle, right down level with what was left of the floor.

Still, I didn’t understand. Why hadn’t he fallen straight through and down? The big part of him had crashed right through.

There were splinters of wood all caved in around him. We were up to him, hanging onto the railings and looking right down into Elvan’s face when we saw. Under the flooring right there were two iron beams, crisscrossed to support the floor. He must have lunged to one side as he was falling because his neck wedged into the angle of the iron beams.

Later, that’s how they said it must have happened.

Elvan’s eyes were open. Like he was looking up in our direction. Only beyond us. He was dead.

“Goddamn us,” I said, looking across at Flip. “Oh, goddamn us.”

LOCAL YOUTH EXPIRES IN FREAK PARK ACCIDENT

Early last evening, Elvan Helligrew, 13, was killed on the condemned footbridge spanning the Marquette Park duck pond. The youth and two of his playmates, all students at the Coolidge Middle School, were in the vicinity of the bridge, which is barricaded by sawhorses owing to the deteriorated condition of the plank floorboards.
The Helligrew youth entered upon the bridge and fell through it 28 feet from the southern approach, having run across the longer portion of the span before the fatal fall.

According to Black Hawk County Coroner, V. H. Horvath, death was caused by a broken neck. In his fall, young Helligrew’s head wedged in the juncture of two metal supports, directly below the collapsed floor surface. Death was apparently instantaneous. Coroner Horvath has termed the fatality “death by misadventure” and has called further investigation unnecessary.

Dunthorpe Park District officials have not made themselves available for immediate comment.

A lifelong Dunthorpe area resident and a member of the Mount Gilead Methodist Church, Elvan Helligrew was the only son of Mr. and Mrs. Austin L. Helligrew, 62 Old Plymouth Drive, Beechurst Heights. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

Sirs:

I feel certain that I speak as the voice of the entire Dunthorpe community when I point the finger of outrage at the Park District’s
criminal
negligence in allowing the deathtrap that spans the Marquette Park duck pond to lure a child at play with his fellows to an untimely grave.

I demand the immediate prosecution of Park District officials who have allowed the tax-supported
public parks to degenerate into notorious
wastelands
, the resort of derelicts, and the site of any number of unsound structures that stand as a clear and present danger to us all.

If there are any real men left in this community, I charge them to
rise up in a body
and to raze this deadly bridge and burn the woods around the dreadful duck pond. I speak in the name of the
innocent children
of our once-fine community.

Print this letter in its entirety.

Richard Peck
is the author of more than twenty highly acclaimed novels for young readers, including
A Long Way from Chicago
, a 1999 Newbery Honor Book;
Ghosts I Have Been
, a
New York Times
Outstanding Book of the Year; and
Father Figure
, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. In 1990, he received the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors “an author whose book or books, over a period of time, have been accepted by young adults as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives.”

Mr. Peck was born in Decatur, Illinois, and attended Exeter University in England, DePauw University, and Southern Illinois University. He lives in New York City.

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