Spotting Dottie, page 5
part #1 of Orca Currents Series
He runs his hand over his mouth as he thinks about that. “Yeah, okay. I’ll keep it to myself. I’m so done with the whole Dottie Scotty thing anyway. But you’ve got to take me out on the boat. I want to see the baby lake monster for myself. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Scott looks up the hall at Nash. “It’s tempting, though, isn’t it?” he asks. “To show Nash this video. Just to shut him up.”
“I’m not sure I care anymore,” I say. “We’ve seen Dottie. We know she’s real.” So maybe it doesn’t matter what other people—or at least strangers—think.
And yet it does matter to me what Mom thinks. Of Grandma. Of me.
Chapter Thirteen
The following Saturday, Scott, Grandma, Mom and I are in the boat on the water. The lake is calm, and there are far fewer boats out this weekend.
Mom still refuses to watch the new video of Dottie and her baby, and it’s killing me. But Grandma and I have come up with a plan. We’re taking Mom to Dungeon Island, hoping she’ll see the animals for herself. If they don’t make an appearance, I’ll trick Mom into viewing the clip. I’ll say the drone got a great shot of us having a picnic.
And that’s all Mom thinks this is—a picnic, at Grandma’s invitation. So we can all spend time together. Scott knows what we’re up to, but I’ve asked him not to say anything. He’s just hoping to catch a glimpse of Dottie and the baby.
As we reach the island, Grandma cuts the engine and we coast to shore. But not too close to the underwater cave entrance. As she said, we don’t want the animals getting used to humans. And we certainly don’t want to accidentally hurt them with our boat’s propeller.
Once onshore, we all climb out of the boat. I grab my backpack, and Scott carries our picnic basket.
After a short climb we sit on the rocks above the cave entrance. As Grandma pours coffee for her and Mom, I pull out my drone. I set it on a rock and then lift it into the sky, to hover over the cave entrance. The lake is calm, so I can see several feet down into the water.
“See anything?” Grandma asks. Both she and Scott are hanging over my shoulders, looking down at the screen of my phone.
“What do you expect to see?” Mom asks.
“They may already be out on the water,” Grandma says. “Now that there aren’t so many boats.”
“Who?” Mom asks. Then she makes a sour face. “You came out here to look for Dottie again, didn’t you? After everything we talked about last weekend, you still want to hunt for that monster instead of spending time with me.”
“No, Anna, it’s not like that,” Grandma says. “We just wanted you to share the experience. To see—”
“Look!” Scott cries.
I turn back to the lake and see two shadows under the water. Then there’s a splash.
“Mom!” I say, pointing. “Mom, look!” There in the water below us is Dottie, her head surfacing. And then the baby pops up. They both turn to us.
“Oh my god,” Mom says. “Is that—?”
“Dottie,” Grandma says, nodding, “has a young one.”
“This can’t be happening,” Mom says. It was what Scott said when he first saw the creature. And I know what they mean. Seeing these animals is magical, as strange as seeing a dinosaur walking down the street. I can’t quite believe my eyes. Yet there they are.
“Do you believe us now?” I ask Mom.
She is too stunned to answer. She just stares at the two animals with her hand over her mouth. Then she turns to me. “Are you recording this?”
“Of course.”
“You have got to post this video,” Mom says. “You have to!”
Scott, Grandma and I all laugh.
Mom grins. “Okay, okay,” she says. “I admit it. I was wrong about Dottie. But you have got to show this to the world!”
I shake my head. “No way, Mom. We can’t post this video.”
“And we can’t tell anyone else,” Grandma adds.
“Why not?” Mom asks.
“If we did, boaters would be all over this cave,” I say. “And their propellers—”
“Would endanger the young one.” Mom nods slowly as she watches the creatures. “I understand.” Then she turns to my grandmother. “But this is incredible.” She takes Grandma’s hand. “I get it now. Why you spend so much time looking for them. They’re amazing. Maybe I’ll come out with you more often, to see them again.”
Grandma wipes a tear away, and Mom hugs her. Then Mom wraps an arm around me. Together we turn back to the water and watch as the mother and baby swim out into the lake, their bodies speeding through the water.
“Look at them go!” I cry.
Author’s Note
The lake monster and location in this story are made up. But, of course, there have been real-world sightings of many lake monsters in Canada, the United States and around the world. There’s Bessie in Lake Erie, Ogopogo in Okanagan Lake, Shuswaggi in Shuswap Lake, Manipogo in Lake Manitoba, Champ in Lake Champlain and Tahoe Tessie in Lake Tahoe, just to name a few. And then, of course, there’s the most famous of all, Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster in the Scottish Highlands.
Some claim these creatures are living fossils—prehistoric water dinosaurs or whales that somehow survived extinction. That may sound unlikely, but animals we’ve thought to be extinct are sometimes found alive. One example is the coelacanth, a fish that was supposed to have died out with the dinosaurs but was found alive in 1938.
Others think that when people report seeing a lake monster, they are actually seeing other large aquatic animals or fish, like sturgeon. Or maybe something entirely different. A row of ducks. A rogue wave. A bumpy log in the water.
And yet many people around the world have claimed they’ve seen a lake monster. Are they all wrong? Or is there some unknown creature lurking in the deep? Scientists continue to find new aquatic animals on our planet, though usually in the deep ocean. So who knows—maybe there’s a monster diving under your feet as you swim in a lake near you.
Will anyone ever come up with real proof that lake monsters exist? I hope so. In the meantime, I’ll keep my phone handy when I’m enjoying a day on the water, in case one pays me a visit.
Acknowledgments
I offer my thanks to my son Graham Anderson-Dargatz for his help in sculpting this story, and to my editor, Doeun Rivendell, for refining and polishing it.
Gail Anderson-Dargatz is the award-winning author of over twenty books, including The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees, which were finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has also written a number of short novels for striving readers, including the Orca Anchor title My Life Off-Key and the Orca Currents titles Bigfoot Crossing and Iggy’s World, both JLG Gold Standard Selections, and The Ride Home, which was shortlisted for a BC and Yukon Book Prize. Gail lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.
Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Spotting Dottie
