The Fishbone

They met us in a boat. It was dark, and I remember jumping carefully from the pier. It was a little dingy, and there were more than a few of us. When I landed, the dingy creaked side to side.
The next day, I remember waking up in the cabin. It was Bruce Amos' place, a good sized hut set back from the lake. We sat in front of the fire oven outside and ate pancakes.
We had made it to a lakeside cabin in the middle of Ontario, Canada. It was summer, and my family was staying with friends Bonsui, Tetsudo, Tony, and Richard. We had all arrived from Connecticut.
“Who put you in the well?” Tony asked the question. I wasn’t sure what this meant. He looked at me again. “Who put you in the well?”
We went fishing later that day. Mom prepared the food. After dinner, Tony read Sherlock Holmes. We all listened, the light from the cabin poured through the window onto the lake.
The next day, we got to work around the cabin, chopping wood, going out on the dingy, and making food.
One morning, as Tony was pulling on his boot, he let out a yelp. An enormous fishbone had crept through his heel. It wasn’t nice, and for a moment, we were all a bit worried.
His question: who put you in the well? This also began to concern me.
We got back to the Sherlock Holmes stories. They brought us into a world that made sense. But they were still fun.
I imagined creeping up the well. If Tony was right, I had to get out. Climbing up the slippery rocks, the light overhead, there I was at the bottom again.
At the bottom of the well, I began to explore the ledges of rocks. I could hear drips of water. Time to try to take the climb.
I shouted out, but no one heard. Sometimes there were clouds overhead.
One day, I saw a big moon. It nearly blinded me. I couldn’t get away from it. I went to sleep.
“Who put you in the well?”
When we got back to Connecticut, I took off my sneakers, and looked at them. It had been a long day, and I was happy to be home. As I went to bed, I thought of the morning mists gliding across the lake.