The Secret Pond – Chapter 1
Chapter 1 – Abigail
Abigail Watson grew up in Superior, Wisconsin. Her Dad drove one of the big oar boats on Lake Superior for many years. One day, while loading the boat in Sioux Ste Marie, he had gotten into a fight with a man over a card game. He came home on his ship in bad shape. He died in the hospital a few days later. Ever since then, it has been Abigail and her Mom, Marie.
Marie decided that Abigail wasn’t going to sit around and watch the world go by, so she started looking for things for her to do. She had her work as a waitress at the Superior Diner for a while and help Mrs. Dennison down the street with household chores and tasks. But all this seemed to do was keep her busy and not help her find success, or make moves to get her out of the house and on her own.
Smart in school she was and she finished all of her high school classes when she turned 16. So, Marie decided to find her a tutoring job. That’s when she decided to visit the Baxters that lived outside of town. They were a rich family and Marie knew they had a young daughter who they would be sending off to boarding school soon. They would be in need of someone to get her ready for it, and Abigail could be the person to do just that. She also knew if Abigail could get in with the Baxters, that they may be able to help her daughter become successful too.
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Abigail understood Sally more than she knew. She was also an only child, but didn’t have all of the things that Sally had. She was going to turn seventeen next month and knew how lonely it was to not have any friends, and hoped that Sally was going to have a chance to get on a different road with her life. Abigail was determined to help her escape the loneliness that she had felt for so long.
The stories that Sally was writing about showed she had a lot of imagination. The adventures that she came up with for her and Lila were the same kinds of things that wanted to do with a friend, but couldn’t find one. It was hard for her to make and keep friends because she didn’t have a lot of time with all of the jobs her Mom was having her do. And now living with the Baxters, she still didn’t have a lot of free time and she was so far out in the country, she would probably never find that friend to do things with.
Abigail looked out the window towards the garden and saw Sally wearing her rain slicker, carrying that light green backpack, walking towards the woods at the back of the property. She always wondered where Sally was sneaking off to. Maybe one day, she would have to follow her and find out.