Inklings // October 2024

I’m a little on the late-ish side, but here I am for the October Inklings link-up! The prompt for this month (check out the rules for linking up here) is a scene by a lake in book or film. I’ve chosen a scene from The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright in which all the Melendy children are boating in Central Park. (I was very pleased to find, as I flipped through the book finding this scene, that this is not one of those books you loved as a kid but which you find sadly don’t hold up when you re-read them as an adult.)

Randy leaned far out over the bow and stared down at her own reflected face: dark lips and eyes, wild, curling hair. It looked different and new like the face of a stranger, but it didn’t interest her for long. Deep down through the face she could see things: a trailing weed, something round and white (was it a shell?), glimpsed for a second and then lost; a shimmer of metal that could have been a silver bracelet, or a dagger, or an old tin can. Probably an old tin can.
“I like water,” Randy said.
“I like milk,” said Oliver.
“I don’t mean to drink. I mean to look at or play with or get into. Dark-green water in lakes like this, and salt water with big waves and a fishy smell; and water coming loud over a dam, and water in brooks all full of caddis houses and green moss. And water in swamps with cattails growing out of it. And yellow mud-puddle water that you can wade in, with the mud as soft as butter between your toes.”
“And water in the bathtub with Cuffy scrubbing the skin off you,” added Rush. “And water on the brain like I think you’ve got. Ah, yes, my friends. Water is a wonderful thing.”
“Well, I like milk,” said Oliver.
“Oh, look!” cried Randy excitedly. “A big fish! I swear I saw a big fish.” She stood up, leaning far out.
“Where, where?” demanded Oliver, leaping to his feet. The boat lurched, Isaac barked, and Randy fell overboard with a loud splash.
“Oh, boy!” murmured Rush in an awed voice. “Now what will Cuffy say!”
Randy’s startled face reappeared almost instantly; her curls plastered flat to her head. “Gee whiz!” she gasped breathlessly, swimming to the boat. “Is it ever cold!”
“Still crazy about water?” asked Rush, reaching out an oar for her to catch.
“I guess so,” replied Randy doubtfully, grabbing it. “But it’s not so easy to swim in shoes and two sweaters and all your other clothes besides.”
Rush and Mona pulled her into the boat at the risk of capsizing it. Oliver bounced excitedly up and down on the stern seat, Isaac barked, the picnic basket fell over and disgorged cups, spoons, papers and oranges all over the floor of the boat. It was a scene of the wildest confusion. By the time they had Randy aboard they were all more wet than dry, and she was as drenched as anyone can ever be without being drowned. Rush pulled off his jacket gallantly and wrapped it around her. Mona gave her her top sweater and tried to dry her hair with a paper napkin.
“We’d better beat it,” said Rush, rowing furiously toward the pier.
The odd thing was that the man in charge of the boats seemed more annoyed than sympathetic about the episode, and remarked several times that this here was not no swimmin’ pool like some dumb kids seemed to think.

Have you read any of Elizabeth Enright’s books? Which of the Melendy kids do you like the best?