Rip yelled and pitched headfirst into the small stream. Tommy grunted, lurched sideways, and then he, too, slipped over the bank. Lynn, a few steps behind them, stopped in her tracks, her arms windmilling to recover her balance. The grass along the stream was high enough that she couldn’t see what was holding the two boys’ legs at such an odd angle while they flopped in the shallow water. Whatever it was, it was hurting them a lot. Rip was on his back in the water, groaning and sobbing as he tried to sit up. Tommy was white-faced and tight-lipped, his right leg pointing diagonally up as he struggled against the weight of his backpack. “My God!” Lynn exclaimed. “What happened?” “Something’s got my leg,” Tommy said between clenched teeth. “I think it’s a trap of some kind. Help me.” Lynn shrugged out of her backpack, knelt down, and pushed aside the grass. What she found made her swallow hard. “Stop moving,” she said. “Let me see how bad this is.” Rip had stopped crying.
