August 10

This is not the camp experience I expected.

When I'm not picking food from the dumpster (and I'd thought it was gross at the table!) I spend most of my time exploring the lake. It's bigger than it looks, and really interesting: mud flats, weedy beds, rocks and submerged logs. Some places the woods come right up to it, elsewhere there are gravel or mud beaches. I see fish too, sometimes—big and shiny green-white. The water is murky, hard to see in, but I can stay down as long as it takes to get a good look at something. That's a new experience and I really like it. This body is such a good swimmer, shooting around effortlessly.

But, as weird as this is to say, I'm sort of lonely. When the other campers are swimming, I watch them from far out in the water as they splash around, laughing and chasing each other. It actually looks like fun. No sign of the Squeeb; he's probably been having fun with his stupid crafts, eating halfway-edible food and sleeping in a bed. I sleep on cold mud, on a beach deep in the woods, and have to keep getting up to re-moisten my gills. Sleeping in the lake itself would probably be easier, but I'm too scared that I'll stop breathing and drown if I stay still down there.

I wonder why nobody else has turned into a fish like me. It's almost as if the lake read my mind and said: here's a water-lover! Let's give him what he wants! Phooey on that.

August 12

Two words: SCIENCE STINKS.

I was swimming around the far end of the lake today, when I noticed that the water seemed to be getting thicker. The farther I went, the goopier it got, until I could hardly breathe. And man, it tasted awful! Like all the jars in the school biology classroom had been emptied into it: chemicals and dead things and—oh, I don't know how to explain it. Just believe me: it was gross.

I surfaced, and found that the water smelled almost as bad as it tasted. Definitely seemed like time to turn back. But up ahead I saw a pipe sticking out of the bank, with liquid flowing from it. Curiosity got the better of me, as it always does.

So I made myself swim right up to the pipe. The only appropriate description is: EWWWW. Something really nasty had to be at the other end. So, still being an idiot, I got out and followed it—up to a big concrete building, looking sort of run-down. A sign above the door read:

ANGUS O. SPEAR SCIENCE CAMP

Bring Your Dreams To Life!

Science! All those classes I zoned out in, while the teacher babbled on about molecules and chromosomes and whatever—I never knew that gibberish was about something so powerful! Obviously the kids who did get it had gone here, done something really funky, and dumped the results into the water. That's pollution, that is. And there's another thing: when this guy on my block was putting up signs last year saying "Don't pollute our waters!"—along with "Save the wolves!" "Pick up litter!" and stuff like that—I joined everyone else in calling him a freak. But was he right!

That gunk must have made me mutate into a fish-boy. That's one word I remember from class—mutation, changes in DNA by exposure to hostile things. Also, the stuff tastes sort of like my own slime, which I can't always avoid ingesting. I guess the other kids here just don't stay in long enough for a "good" dose of it.

"Bring your dreams to life" indeed. Who dreams about turning other people into mutant monsters?

August 15

I've been trying to catch fish, as I get more and more tired of dumpster-diving. It sure isn't as easy as it looks! I have to lie still on the lake-bottom, waiting for them to come nosing around me, and when one gets close enough, I reach out fast and grab at it. Today, after many, many tries, I finally shot out an arm and—wham! My claws dug into cold flesh. I took it up to the surface and tore it apart. It didn't taste much like the sushi I love—more bitter and greasy. No surprise there, coming from such nasty water. But I was too hungry to care about the taste, and I'll eat it again when I can.

Food aside, this has been kind of a neat week. All of the swimming is truly awesome. But I'm getting worried about what will happen when my parents arrive to pick me up. I want to call them on the pay phone, but I'm scared of getting caught. And what would I say? "Hi mom, I've mutated into a slimy lake monster, so bring lots of water when you come to get me, OK?" I know I should give some advance warning, or they'll freak out big time. They probably will anyway, though. And what happens when I get home? Unless somebody can be found to un-mutate me (is that even possible?), I'll need to stay near water, and I just can't. Time's running out and I've got to get a plan.