Apron Strings by Mary Morony

hope so.”
    “It’s a while still, Gordy. Do you need some help?” Daddy reached for Gordy’s hand and began to tug him up the hill.
    “Me, too!” I shouted and stuck out my hand.
    When we finally made it to the falls Daddy was dripping with sweat. Water cascaded down shelves of rock and pounded the stones in the pool below. Even the air around the falls was cooler.
    “That water is going to feel pretty good,” Daddy said, letting go of our hands. “Race you in!” Daddy splashed into the pool, still wearing his clothes and sneakers. Gordy and I followed right behind him even though we had bathing suits on under our clothing. The icy water took my breath. Undaunted, we jumped in and out of the pool until we had scrapes on our knees from crawling over the rocks. In minutes, my teeth were chatteringand my fingers were blue. To escape the cold water, Gordy and I began to scout around in the ferns near the falls looking for snakes.
    “You two might give up looking for snakes, especially there,” Daddy said. “They’ll be up in the rocks, sunning.” Gordy immediately scampered toward a pile of boulders outside the shade of the trees. “Don’t you go up on those rocks, Gordy,” Daddy warned. “There might be rattlesnakes up there!”
    Of course Gordy kept on going. “Cool! Rattlesnakes!” he shouted.
    Daddy leapt from the rock where he and I were sitting and latched onto Gordy like a hawk on a mouse. He snatched him so quickly I hardly knew what had happened.
    “Son, I said don’t go up there!” Daddy looked scared, but not nearly as scared as Gordy who’d had the wind knocked out of him. “If a big rattler bit you, no more than you weigh, you’d be dead before I could even get you to the car,” Daddy said. He hugged Gordy close.
    “Daddy, there weren’t any snakes,” Gordy whimpered when he finally got his breath back. “I just thought it would be cool to see one.”
    “Way to go, Gordy,” I said. “Way to be stupid.”
    “Now both of you listen,” Daddy said. “Snakes up here are nothing to be playing with. They’re big and they’re dangerous. So watch out.”
    “Can we go home, Daddy?” I asked. “I’m cold and hungry.”
    “Hungry? Weren’t you just saying you were never going to eat again?” Daddy asked with a laugh.
    Certain a deadly rattlesnake lurked at each and every step, I watched the trail down from the falls as carefully as a mother watches her newborn. My soggy clothes clung to my skin, clammy and cold. “I wish I’d just worn my bathing suit. My clothes are all icky,” I complained.
    “Well, take them off,” Daddy said.
    “And walk down the mountain naked?”
    “No, silly, you have a bathing suit on, don’t you?”
    “Oh yeah.” I whipped off my shirt and shorts and my skin started to feel much better.
    “Duh,” Gordy said, swinging his damp T-shirt over his head like a lasso. “Don’t say I’m the one that’s
stupid
.”
    Gordy and I slept as Daddy drove us home.
    My mother was reading in the sitting room as we clamored in. Helen was nowhere to be seen. “Shh, you’ll wake Helen, if not the dead,” she hushed us. “Looks like you had fun. You’re certainly dirty enough.”
    “Yes, we had quite a trek,” Daddy said. He carried the picnic basket into the kitchen.
    My mother kissed us like we had a disease, hardly touching our cheeks. “Now go on upstairs and clean up, then you can tell me all about it.”
    As we climbed the stairs, Gordy poked me. “See, I told you.”
    “What? Told me what?”
    “That Helen would be taking a nap most of the day.”
    I shrugged. “Guess you did. Too bad she couldn’t come with us.” I pulled a handful of pebbles I’d collected along the trail from my pocket. “Look at this. I think this is glass; rocks don’t come in this color blue.” Gordy pulled a handful from his pocket, and we sat down at the top of the stairs admiring our treasure.
    “What ya doin’?” Helen asked.
    “Where’d you come from?”