Clear Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the quarters. The thing needed to be painted/resurfaced or whatever and definitely needed a good mopping (or was it swabbing, since it was a boat, although that always made Patrick think of a big Q-tip and a sphincter… uhm, eww…) and generally, was put to shame by the other houseboats—most of them showplaces and summer homes, lined up at the little quay north of Sacramento. 
    Without acknowledging the clutter of boots, wading gear, big empty tubs of whatever, and dirty cages (?) littering up the deck, the girl (still didn’t have a name) brought Patrick up to the side of the boat that was in the shade. It was permanent shade, because there was an awning there overhead with a drop-down curtain, so the area would never get too much direct sunlight. Against the wall of the boat, were three big translucent containers of water and small swimming things that Patrick first assumed were fish. There was a smaller container of the same type balanced on top of one of the bigger ones, with something large and brown and shifting inside.
    The woman moved the small container off the top of the three larger ones and opened up the one on the bottom. It had water. That was it. Plain river water. Then she opened up the container next to it. 
    It had what looked to be a gazillion tadpoles in it. 
    Patrick couldn’t help but smile. 
    “Heya, little guys? How’s it hopping?” They were early in their development—no hopping yet, not even any legs dangling from their flat-tailed brown/green bodies. But they did seem to swim around in the algae/bug-ridden water with great enthusiasm, no hopping required. 
    “What you need to do,” the woman said, startling him from his happy contemplation of baby frogs, “is count them. Here.” She gave him a regular, non-electronic clipboard and a pen, as well as a little net with a handle. 
    “Take them out of one bucket, put them in the other one, and count them as you go. Look for anomalies and make note of how many tadpoles with anomalies you actually see out of how many total. Stop when you’re done with the first tub, come in and show me what you’ve got.”
    Patrick blinked and looked inside the tub again. “Anomalies?”
    Without ceremony, the woman took the lid off of the small container and thrust it under Patrick’s face.
    “Meet Caleb and Catherine. They’re what you’d call an anomaly.”
    Patrick stood up and backed up so fast that the woman almost dropped the box with Caleb and Catherine in it, and he glared at her as she raised an amused eyebrow back.
    “You got a problem?”
    “What. In the fuck. Is that?”
    “That, my friend, is what happens when factory contaminants or pesticides get into a frog’s backyard.”
    Patrick steeled himself and looked into the tub again. The frog had six legs—two in the back and four in the front, two of the four hanging in the middle and flopping uselessly. The torso was wider to accommodate the extra limbs—and also to make room for the extra head. The creature(s?) looked at each other (itself?) as it (they?) breathed, and Patrick’s teen tiny little brain totally fucking imploded.
    “Does that count as two frogs or one when I’m picking them up in the net?” he asked, completely at a loss.
    The woman’s lip twitched, and she smacked at one of the small marsh flies that had started to perch on her tanned, freckled shoulder. “One,” she said with decision. “Any other questions?”
    “Yeah. Which side is Cal, which side is Catherine?”
    Another lip twitch. “The one on the left is Cal. Why does it matter?”
    “Because that’s the name of the guy who crashed my car and left me for dead. I wanted to know which side of the frog to hate.”
    A smile made a brief, tense appearance. “You got a name, kid?”
    “Patrick.”
    “Patrick, call me Fly Bait. You get this done quick enough, I’ll call Whiskey and have him bring us takeout, what do you say?”
    Patrick closed his eyes in anticipation. “I’d say that