Most of the ponds here are disgusting—muddy brown with a thick scum of algae over the surface. We call one Dead Man’s Lake, another one Mucous Lake, and a third one Mutant Alligator Lake. (The best fishing is at Mutant Alligator.) But the fourth pond, over by Hole Twelve, is pretty and pale green and free of algae. Go-for-a-Swim Lake. As you wade in, you feel soft moss squishing between your toes, but the water itself is clear in your hands. Lydia and I are doing the backstroke side by side. The sun is baking our faces. I feel a fish brush my leg as I kick. “I’m going to touch the bottom,” Lydia says. She dives, and I watch her turn into nothing but a white-ish blur underwater. When she comes back up, she’s holding a clump of dark green from the bottom of the pond. I liked it better when I didn’t know what the algae actually looked like up close. I float on my back while she treads water, and for a while, the only sounds are splashing.
