The Beginning Read Online Free Page B

and figure out what we’re going to use to build it,” Scede said, screwing his face up in thought.
    “Let’s start with the basics. What should we use for the frame?” Jahrra asked.
    It had been almost a month since the plan had been hatched, and it was the first time, in several weeks, since the three friends arrived at Lake Ossar and hadn’t found the twins there. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede wasted no time in paddling out to their little island, and were now stretched out flat on their picnic blanket staring at a blank piece of parchment. Jahrra held a piece of charcoal in her hand, and Gieaun and Scede were trying very hard to come up with ideas for their monster.
    “We could use reeds to bind the frame together,” Gieaun suggested.
    “No, they would fall apart under the water,” Scede said. “Wait, I know, we could use drift wood! For the frame! It would hold up, and it would make it more solid.”
    “That would be perfect! And we can cover it with seaweed, reeds and maybe some horse hair to make it look more gruesome,” Jahrra said, smiling brightly. “But we’ll have to find some rope or something to bind it together.”
    Gieaun sat up and crossed her arms. “So we know what we are using to make it, but how big are we going to make this thing? If we want it to be realistic, it’ll have to be huge. Where are we going to hide it?”
    Gieaun had a look of skepticism on her face. Jahrra slouched, feeling like they hadn’t made any progress at all.
    “How about we just make the neck and the head? We don’t need to make the whole monster, do we?” Scede queried, looking first at his sister and then at Jahrra.
    The two girls glanced at each other and then looked back at Scede.
    “You know,” Jahrra said, “I think that might just work.”
    Gieaun clapped her hands in delight, and Jahrra smiled more broadly than ever. Scede just sat back in smug satisfaction, a sly grin gracing his face.
    “Now, all we need to do is sketch it out, and that’s your job Jahrra,” Gieaun said happily.
    And so for the rest of that afternoon Jahrra sketched as Gieaun and Scede directed her to make the neck longer or the head bigger, to add more spikes or more teeth. If anyone had been walking down the boardwalk on that relatively quiet day, they may have been taken by surprise by the sound of joyful laughter spilling from an island of reeds in the middle of the lake.
    In the end, it took longer than expected for the three friends to come up with a good design for a terrifying water beast, but by the beginning of winter break, they had the perfect picture of their ideal lake monster. Jahrra had drawn a hideous water dragon with a long neck, a large grotesque head and several extended, saber-like teeth.
    “I don’t know what we’ll use to make the teeth,” Jahrra said as she scrutinized her artwork. “Maybe we can just use broken branches or driftwood.”
    “It’s going to take us forever to collect enough driftwood and seaweed to make this thing!” Scede complained.
    “Maybe, but just think of how wonderful it will be when Lake Ossar is ours again!” Gieaun added, trying to cheer her friend and brother up.
    “Gieaun’s right, Scede. It’ll definitely be worth the effort.”
    Jahrra smiled at her two friends, and they set their sights on the day that their creation would be finished.
    As the weeks passed, the three friends spent whatever time they had collecting materials for their project, storing whatever they found on their island. Luckily, it was the dead of winter and the only other people on the lake were the occasional fisherman heading to the beach to fish or dig for clams. They even celebrated Jahrra’s thirteenth birthday out in the middle of the lake surrounded by foul-smelling seaweed as their noses were nipped by cold gusts of wind pouring off the sea. As the winter came to a slow close, the children had collected enough material to make good progress on their creature’s massive neck.
    Spring