Gerry William

the bluish tinge that glinted when her hair caught the light in a cer-

tain way. Lil stood there staring at me.

“Well, what is it?”” she demanded.

“What is what?”

“How come you’re staring at me like that?”

“I wasn’t staring. I was just looking at your hair.”

Lil reached up and smoothed down the top of her hair. She half-
turned her head to look at one of her braids. The next thing I knew
she was staring up the road at the receding whirlwind of dust. Her
right hand shielded her eyes from the sun but even so she squint-
ed.

“Where are those damn kids going?”’

“Probably up to the house. You were saying something
before you fell.”

“I didn’t fall.” Again, Lil glared at me with those dark eyes,
daring me to say anything to the contrary. I knew better, and
remained silent, twisting the rim of my hat in both hands.

“Hmph! If you were listening, you’d have heard what I was
trying to tell you. There’s something down by the lake. Something
big. I think it’s the Ogopogo.

I must have been staring blankly at Lil because she went
and kicked me in the shins.

“Hey! What’d you do that for?”

“Ah, you asked for it. Don’t you believe me?”

I thought better of reminding my dear sister about the time
six months ago when she’d seen a flying saucer near the garbage
dump by the reserve. She still had a hard time living that one down.
Humour her, I thought.

“Okay, so what’s the gag?”

“It ain’t no gag. 1 tell you, I saw something down by the
lake. It darned near scared the shit out of the kids who were swim-
ming.”

I played along. “Okay, sis, how big was it?”

Lil’s eyes became round again. “Big! It was really big.”

She must have seen my eyes glaze over because the next
thing I knew she’d tied into me and I was staring up at her.

“Get up! Get up and I’ll show you. I’ll bet you don’t dare
come down and see.”

97

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