Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“It was the only one with slots left,” Greta editorialized.
“And there was this Halloween party going on at our friend Mika’s place. Tons of great costumes, weird spooky games, the works. I tell Greta she’s gotta skip lab that week because we need plenty of time to get our costumes ready.”
“What were you?”
“Dude,” Ramona said, “she was Harriet the Spy, and she was so freaking cute. She had her hair in a braid—it was long then—and the red sweatshirt jacket and her little black-and-white notebook. Adorable. I was Joan Jett.”
Ramona struck a pose that was presumably supposed to conjure Joan Jettiness. Carys raised an eyebrow and winked.
“Anyway, it’s six p.m., and no Greta. It’s seven p.m., and no Greta. And I realize: this bitch has actually gone to her psychology lab in the monkey building on the Friday night of Halloween.”
Greta scanned the water for alligators, a smile on her lips. It was nice to spend time with Ramona again. Just being around her made Greta happy.
“I got ready all by my lonesome,” Ramona said with a tragic frown.
“You got ready with Jill and Santos, thank you,” Greta corrected.
“Fine. Anyway. When it’s nine thirty and Greta’s still not back, I go to call her, and do you know what happened?”
“No, no,” Greta interrupted. “You went to call me and realized I’d been calling you for an hour and a half but you’d left your phone on silent.”
“Yeah, fine. So I pick up my phone, and can you guess what happened?”
Ramona actually paused to allow Carys time to guess.
“I don’t dare,” Carys said gamely.
“This absolute ninny had gotten herself locked in a monkey cage!”
Greta felt her face heat.
Carys looked to her, clearly waiting for her revision of that sentence.
“I did,” Greta confirmed. “Not with a monkey. But there was this extra cage, and I was moving some of the supplies into it, and the door shut behind me.”
“Oh my lord,” said Carys.
“Yeah, the rest of her lab group didn’t show up—obviously, since it was the Friday of Hallo-freaking-ween—so she was just stuck in there, like.” Ramona made like she was clawing at a cage and Greta snorted. “I went down and let her out. God knows what might’ve happened if I hadn’t!”
“You also magnanimously brought my costume so I could change in the monkey cage because you said there wasn’t time to go home.” Greta turned to Carys. “We lived four blocks from the psych lab.”
Carys grinned.
“We were already very late to the party,” Ramona explained. “Missed the costume contest!”
“Which you wouldn’t have won anyway.”
“I might have.” Ramona sniffed.
“Rebekah was dressed as a full-on owl with wings that flapped and her face covered in real feathers. You would not have won.”
“Well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we?”
“Lucky you have Mardi Gras now for any costume cravings,” Carys said.
“Hallelujah. Thank god I ended up someplace primed to appreciate me.”
Something moved in the water to Greta’s left.
Slow and ineluctable, an alligator rose.
“Holy fucking hell,” Greta breathed.
In the flesh, it was terrifying. A dinosaur. A predator. It looked fake, like the plastic and resin models she’d seen all her life. And that just made it scarier. But the way it moved was hypnotic, arms dragging its muscular bulk from the water.
“Gah.” Ramona shivered. “They’re so toothy.”
“A friend once took me canoeing underneath I-10,” Carys said softly. “There hadn’t been that much rainfall lately, and the water was low enough you could see the roots of all the cypress trees. So we’re just getting high in the middle of the water, letting the boat drift because there was a lot of surface crud and rowing was hard. And something moved out of the corner of my eye. A gator was in the tree. Like, sunning itself on a branch eight, ten feet above the water. The thing could’ve just dropped into our canoe like a spider.”
“They do that?” Greta shuddered. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Carys said with a shrug. “It seemed pretty happy where it was. But it was freaky.”
Greta made a mental note to never go canoeing in the bayou. The alligator had closed its eyes, and Greta crept closer. There was a small lookout area that bumped out into the water, and she turned into it and crouched low, peering at the alligator through the wooden slats. The animal opened an eye lazily, and its jaw followed. The teeth didn’t look as sharp as Greta would’ve thought. Then its jaw clamped shut with the force of a bear trap and she shuddered.
A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped.
“Sorry,” Carys said. “Just me.” She held out a hand to help Greta up.
“Thanks.”
Carys didn’t let go of her hand when they started down the boardwalk again, and Greta squeezed it. Carys squeezed back.
“So what are you gonna do, Gretzky?” Ramona asked, using the silly nickname Greta hadn’t heard in years. For the first six months of their acquaintance, Ramona had used a different nickname for her practically every day.