Chapter 3

Cold Water

A/N: I got a few comments about Jem Lawrents…she's not ten or eleven; she's about twenty or so. She justlooks rather young for her age (like a few people I know). That said, on with the story! (This is, btw, the last chapter...)


"I hate the dark," Nancy Drew muttered. A binding had come loose back at the bridge and she had stopped to fix it. She could have sworn she told the others, but they apparently hadn't heard her. And she'd lost the walkie talkie. "I hate the dark," she said again. "I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Oh, thank you so much!"—her headlamp had just spluttered out in a spectacular show of flashes. "No light, no idea where the others are, no idea how many people are ahead of me."

She glanced toward an area slightly off the main trail where she though she'd heard a branch snap, and moved faster. There were more snapping branches; she stopped. Whatever was following her stopped, too, but only after moving ahead several paces.

"Nancy, it's us," George's voice called, just as Nancy was about to tear off her snowshoes and run the rest of the way to Moorland.


"Sorry about that," Nancy said for what had to be the twentieth time. "My binding came loose at the bridge. I tried to tell you guys, but you didn't hear."

They were at the lodge, packing their racing equipment back into their vehicles. "Nancy, we just didn't know, all right? I mean, Jem Lawrents started ahead of us, but she passed us after the bridge. Plus, like George said, Jem was a likely person to tamper with the bindings on Frank's skis," Joe replied. "We all jumped to conclusions when you weren't behind us."

"Forget it, okay, Nan?" Frank said, wincing—bruises from that afternoon were finally making themselves known—as he stowed Joe's skis in the back of their van; they'd already returned his borrowed skis to Lorna Johnson. "Oh, hey, Lorna said that we needed to meet back in the lodge once we got back. I'm willing to bet that everyone else is back by now. We were the last ones to get to Miller's Point, and we got really behind because of Nancy's incident."


"Okay, guys, can I have your attention, please?" Lorna Johnson called through her megaphone over the chatter of the crowd of racers in the lodge. "Congratulations on getting back before midnight." A cheer came up from the competitors. "Tomorrow we will meet at the headwaters of Wilson Creek for the canoeing portion at six-thirty in the morning. That's right next to Hill River on Hill River Road. You'll want to turn into the driveway next to Hill River."

"That's where Jem lives, remember?" George reminded them.


As it turned out, they had to navigate Wilson Creek two to a canoe. Frank and Joe in one canoe, with Nancy and George in another. They started out together, but this proved to be a mistake about a mile downstream.

They were going single file down the middle of the creek when Frank noticed the maple branch that was looming before them, and that they were coming to it fast. There was no way they could push it up; it was too large and bulky. And they couldn't duck to avoid it; it was much too low to even consider doing so, as already it was scraping along the bow of the canoe. So the four of them- himself, Joe, and Nancy and George all simultaneously did the most dangerous thing you can do in a canoe that's in early spring floodwaters: They leaned to the left to avoid the branch.

He didn't remember anything after that until his head broke the surface of the frigid water. The barn boots he had worn for this part of the Triathlon slipped right off his feet and quickly sank toward the bottom, at least 10 feet below them, maybe less, maybe more. He didn't know.

He could feel the coldness of the water seeping in through his heavy, waterproof (ha!) jacket that had the phrase "Little Snake Ranch: American Paint Horses" embroidered on its back; Chet and Iola had given him and Joe the jackets before Iola had been killed. It was even seeping in through his Bayport High School hoody he'd worn underneath, and the woollen hat Callie Shaw had knitted him for Christmas was long gone. His good leather mittens, the ones lined with fleece that his Aunt Gertrude had given him, were slipping off as well. The right one made it all the way off, and he jammed it back on, knowing full well how quickly hypothermia could set in. It came right off again anyway, and the other one followed shortly thereafter. He ignored them this time, and concentrated on not being pulled under. Everything from his stomach downward relaxed. Later, he would realise that he couldn't remember what had happened between going overboard and his boots falling off.

Joe threw him a floating cushion that had been in the canoe; they'd been complete and utter fools, not wearing life jackets. Or rather, thinking they wouldn't need them. The cushion splashed into the water in front of him, and the swift current carried it away. Come to think of it, Frank realized that life jackets probably wouldn't have been a match for their heavy winter clothing anyway.

"Get the canoes righted!" George called.

He nodded, and struggled to hold on to his and Joe's canoe's belly with numb fingers. Both of the canoes turned over, like breaching whales, once, twice, three times before he, Joe, and the girls finally gave up.

"Nancy, here!" Joe shouted, his teeth chattering. He pulled down a branch of the cursed maple that had caused their predicament, but the branch broke. He reached again, lurching as high as the water and his waterlogged clothing would let him, and succeeded. Nancy lurched for it in much the same manner as Joe had done, letting the current do most of the work. And Frank saw it between her fingers, slippery wood and all. George managed to make it to a trunk itself.

Somehow, she and George both managed to climb into the safety the many trunks of the maple provided, and he could tell they felt very much like treed raccoons; the water was the dogs and hunters.

Frank had managed to grasp a nearby tree about two or three inches in diameter from what he could feel, and he was at least staying in one place, solid ground tantalizing him from not even three feet away.

But it was Joe he was worried about.

His brother was further downstream now, and had just gone under. For weeks afterwards, Frank would be haunted with the vision of Joe's head going underwater, and a feeling of total helplessness surged through him. "Joe!" he shouted; distantly, he heard Nancy do the same thing.

He wanted desperately to dive in after his brother and pull him back to the surface, but he did not dare let go of the tree, having struggled so to reach it. The water was actually becoming quite comfortable.

Joe's head broke surface. And immediately went back down. He surfaced again, and managed to grasp hold of a tree that was skinnier that the one Frank had hold of. At least he wasn't moving downstream anymore.

Frank could see the bank in front of him; he could even see the yellow-green of wild onions against the mud. Pushing his leg against the current, he could even feel its edge, an almost vertical incline into the water. "Heck with it," he said, feeling the warmness (warmness! uh-oh…) of the water through his many layers. "It's close, I can risk it." There was a large, rotting log in the way that was much wider than the tree he grasped, but he knew he could manage. Suddenly he wondered exactly how long the cow carcass had been jammed, upstream, in those branches.

That was the second time that day he blacked out; later, he couldn't remember how he got past the branch. But he did remember scrambling up the bank in his socks and feeling the weight of the water in his jacket, dragging his arms down, and the water was streaming out of his sleeves. Through his socks the muddy bank was cold, and Lorna Johnson later said that Frank had made a good-sized path there that might be mistaken for a game trail.

Joe's head was sinking below the water again, and neither Frank nor the girls could do anything about it. After Frank had scrambled ashore, he started trying to find a stick or something that Joe could grasp. But the ones he found that might work were either rotten, or were loose but had thick, woody growths around barbed wire, or were still attached and his cold fingers couldn't even begin to break them off, or they were too short. Only after they got back home did he think of using his Little Snake jacket.

"Tell Mom and Dad I love them," Joe started saying as it dawned on them that they probably wouldn't make it out alive. He started doing pull-ups on the tree to keep warm.

"Joe, we're going to make it!" George called from her tree. "We're gonna make it."

"Tell them I love them," he said again as he tried to lift his legs out of the water. Frank could tell that he was quickly losing the strength to do so. "Tell them I love them."

"We're gonna make it," Frank repeated. "We're gonna make it."

Nancy and George both started shrieking. If it weren't for the fact that he could barely feel his fingers, let alone move them, Frank would have plugged his ears. But he hollered, too, because right now it looked as though that was the only chance they had.

He could see the road not a hundred yards from them. A maroon truck came by, screeched to a stop, then went on.

"Help's on the way!" Nancy said.

Keep yelling, Frank said to himself. Aloud, he said (with considerable more enthusiasm than earlier), "We're gonna make it!"

Frank saw the Moorland Ski Resort truck slowing down before the others. "Over here!" he shouted, waving his arms. For the last fifteen or twenty minutes he'd been pacing back and forth, shouting and trying to keep his feet warm. He couldn't even feel his toes anymore, even though he'd been walking on them to make sure they didn't freeze.

Lorna Johnson came running to the edge of the water in the field; Frank was shocked to discover that the other side of the creek was ten yards past the point where it normally was. "Are you all right?" she called.

"We're fine; just get us out of here!" George screeched.

"Get Joe first," Nancy ordered when some of the assistants finally came with the rowboat. "He's been in the water the longest."

They manoeuvred over to Joe's tree. "Give me your hand," one of the assistants directed. "That's it." He handed Joe several thick blankets when the teen was finally in the rowboat, and assisted him in bundling up. Frank was next; he awkwardly swung a leg over the edge of the boat; nearly fell in again but caught himself. Then Nancy and George were in, and they were heading toward the bank.

The ground was cold under Frank's socks, but like all the other times he'd faced distractions that morning, he ignored it and allowed Lorna and the other assistants to help him to the truck. George and Nancy were behind him, and the assistant, whose jacket nametag read "John," was letting Joe lean on him. Actually, he was practically carrying Joe across the field.

Four fire stations had been alerted to the incident, and a fifth had even been on standby while some of the assistants had righted the canoe. Can't wait for Monday, Frank thought sarcastically in the ambulance. Wow, it's warm in here. He was so tired…he could barely keep his eyes open…

But he didn't dare fall asleep now. He'd been willing himself to stay awake ever since the canoe flipped, and so far he'd won. Stay awake. Stay awake…


They were halfway to the hospital, as far as Frank could tell from the scene the door windows portrayed. The driver turned the siren off, only to turn it on for practically every red light and intersection.

Frank had always hated hospitals, but since he'd nearly always been unconscious during the drive in, he'd never been able to appreciate the smell and the insides of the ambulances as much as he'd wanted to. Which was never, if he could help it. Looking back later that evening, and even months later, he cringed just thinking about the episode at the hospital. In fact, he was dead sure that his facial expressions warranted the video camera every time he thought about that afternoon.


He and Nancy and George were fine; they left shortly after being admitted to the hospital. Joe had had to stay the afternoon, much to his displeasure. But in the end, they all arrived home safely, and Frank vowed never to venture into creeks again, even when they weren't flooded. Once had been enough.
"I wonder why we got the brunt of the bad luck," Nancy mused a few days later in the Hardys' living room. They, of course, hadn't won the competition, and Lorna had apologised profusely to them for the bad luck they'd had, awarding them with free weekend passes to the resort for the next season. "Jem Lawrents seemed to be in the thick of things, didn't she?"

"She did," Joe agreed, "but somehow I think that was just bad timing on her part. We looked at Frank's skis when we got home, and it looks like they were just at the point of falling apart."

"They were old anyway," Frank pointed out. "Not that I minded the potential of a mystery, because we'd been on vacation from them for quite a while."

"Same here," Nancy said.

"Hey, it says in here," George said suddenly as she was reading the Bayport Gazette, "that they're looking for people who are willing to participate in a real adventure. They're advertising a white-water rafting race down the Colorado River."

"George?" Frank said.

"Yeah?"

"Forget it! You're never making me get into anything resembling a boat again!"


Finite.