Zero’s face looked like a jack-o’-lantern that had been left out too many days past Halloween—half rotten, with sunken eyes and a drooping smile. “Is that water?” he asked. His voice was weak and raspy. His lips were so pale they were almost white, and his tongue seemed to flop around uselessly in his mouth as he spoke, as if it kept getting in the way.
“It’s empty,” said Stanley. He stared at Zero, not quite believing that he was real. “I tried to bring you the whole water truck, but,” he smiled sheepishly, “I drove it into a hole. I can’t believe you’re…”
“Me neither,” said Zero.
“C’mon, we got to get back to camp.”
Zero shook his head. “I’m not going back.” “You have to. We both have to.”
“You want some sploosh?” Zero asked. “What?”
Zero shaded his eyes with his forearm. “It’s cooler under the boat,” he said.
Stanley watched Zero crawl back through his hole. It was a miracle he was still alive, but Stanley knew he would have to get him back to camp soon, even if he had to carry him.
He crawled after him, and was just able to squeeze his body through the hole. He never would have fit when he first came to Camp Green Lake. He’d lost a lot of weight.
As he pulled himself through, his leg struck something sharp and hard. It was a shovel. For a second Stanley wondered how it got
there, but then remembered that Zero had taken it with him after striking Mr. Pendanski.
It was cooler under the boat, which was half buried in the dirt. There were enough cracks and holes in the bottom of the boat, now the roof, to provide light and ventilation. He could see empty jars scattered about.
Zero held a jar in his hand and grunted as he tried to unscrew the lid.
“What is it?”
“Sploosh!” His voice was strained as he worked on the jar. “That’s what I call it. They were buried under the boat.”
He still couldn’t get the lid off. “I found sixteen jars. Here, hand me the shovel.”
Stanley didn’t have a lot of room to move. He reached behind him, grabbed the wooden end of the shovel, and held it out to Zero, blade first.
“Sometimes you just have to…” Zero said, then he hit the jar against the blade of the shovel, breaking the top of the jar clean off. He quickly brought the jar to his mouth and licked the sploosh off the jagged edges before it spilled.
“Careful,” Stanley warned.
Zero picked up the cracked lid and licked the sploosh off that as well. Then he handed the broken jar to Stanley. “Drink some.”
Stanley held it in his hand and stared at it a moment. He was afraid of the broken glass. He was also afraid of the sploosh. It looked like mud. Whatever it was, he realized, it must have been in the boat when the boat sank. That meant it was probably over a hundred years old. Who knew what kind of bacteria might be living in it?
“It’s good,” said Zero, encouraging him.
He wondered if Zero had heard of bacteria. He raised the jar to his mouth and carefully took a sip.
It was a warm, bubbly, mushy nectar, sweet and tangy. It felt like heaven as it flowed over his dry mouth and down his parched throat. He thought it might have been some kind of fruit at some time, perhaps peaches.
Zero smiled at him. “I told you it was good.”
Stanley didn’t want to drink too much, but it was too good to resist. They passed the jar back and forth until it was empty. “How many are left?” he asked.
“None,” said Zero.
Stanley’s mouth dropped. “Now I have to take you back,” he said. “I’m not digging any more holes,” said Zero.
“They won’t make you dig,” Stanley promised. “They’ll probably send you to a hospital, like Barf Bag.”
“Barf Bag stepped on a rattlesnake,” said Zero.
Stanley remembered how he’d almost done the same. “I guess he didn’t hear the rattle.”
“He did it on purpose,” said Zero. “You think?”
“He took off his shoe and sock first.”
Stanley shivered as he tried to imagine it. “What’s Mar-ya Luh-oh- oo?” asked Zero. “What?”
Zero concentrated hard. “Mar ya, Luh oh oo.” “I have no idea.”
“I’ll show you,” said Zero. He crawled back out from under the boat.
Stanley followed. Back outside, he had to shield his eyes from the brightness.
Zero walked around to the back of the boat and pointed to the upside-down letters. “Mm-ar-yuh. Luh-oh-oo.”
Stanley smiled. “Mary Lou. It’s the name of the boat.”
“Mary Lou,” Zero repeated, studying the letters. “I thought ‘y’ made the ‘yuh’ sound.”
“It does,” said Stanley. “But not when it’s at the end of a word.
Sometimes ‘y’ is a vowel and sometimes it’s a consonant.”
Zero suddenly groaned. He grabbed his stomach and bent over. “Are you all right?”
Zero dropped to the ground. He lay on his side, with his knees pulled up to his chest. He continued to groan.
Stanley watched helplessly. He wondered if it was the sploosh. He looked back toward Camp Green Lake. At least he thought it was the
direction of Camp Green Lake. He wasn’t entirely sure. Zero stopped moaning, and his body slowly unbent. “I’m taking you back,” said Stanley.
Zero managed to sit up. He took several deep breaths.
“Look, I got a plan so you won’t get in trouble,” Stanley assured him. “Remember when I found the gold tube. Remember, I gave it to X-Ray, and the Warden went crazy making us dig where she thought X-Ray found it. I think if I tell the Warden where I really found it, I think she’ll let us off.”
“I’m not going back,” said Zero.
“You’ve got nowhere else to go,” said Stanley. Zero said nothing.
“You’ll die out here,” said Stanley. “Then I’ll die out here.”
Stanley didn’t know what to do. He had come to rescue Zero and instead drank the last of his sploosh. He looked off into the distance. “I want you to look at something.”
“I’m not—”
“I just want you to look at that mountain up there. See the one that has something sticking up out of it?”
“Yeah, I think.”
“What does it look like to you? Does it look like anything?” Zero said nothing.
But as he studied the mountain, his right hand slowly formed into a fist. He raised his thumb. His eyes went from the mountain, to his hand, then back to the mountain.
