Clara's shoulder-length blond hair fell out of her ponytail and into her wide blue eyes, and she brushed it away with a thin hand. She climbed into the battered rowboat, settling her tall body next to her older sister, Annie's, shorter one. Clara had volunteered to row the boat, not to be generous, but because she thought her skin would freeze off of her body if she just sat still in the chilling air. She grabbed hold of the oars, noticing the blue nail polish she had applied two days earlier was starting to chip off, despite the label saying "HIGH-QUALITY POLISH WILL STAY ON FOR WEEKS WITHOUT CHIPPING!!!!!!" "Darn," Clara thought. "I really fell for that. It must have been the fact that it was all written in capital letters, and I'm sure the exclamation point tugged at my attention too."
"Are you going to row?" Annie's voice gently questioned. Immersed in her thoughts of her chipping nail polish, Clara had forgotten to row.
She started to move the boat, and as she did her little brother's voice squeaked from the back of the boat. "Are there coyotes out here?"
Annie quickly assured Peter there were no coyotes, but it just got dreamy Clara thinking about what would happen if there WERE coyotes near this pond. "It would be exciting," she supposed in her head. "But frightening too."
AS Clara rowed, she of course watched where she was going, but also observed her sister, who was directly in her line of vision. Annie had small hazel eyes, much different from Clara's, and her hair was amazingly long and dark. Despite Annie being three years older than Clara, Clara was taller. The sisters often laughed about how most people thought they were the same age, and most didn't guess that they were siblings. Peter looked like both of them, with big hazel eyes, dirty blond hair and it was obvious he was going to lack height, like Annie.
The group of three rowed around for close to an hour, then decided to row back to the dock. When they got there, they parked the boat, Peter's bright green T-shirt becoming so soaked that it became a forest green.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Annie announced. "I'll be right back." She walked toward the bathrooms, which looked as if no one had given them a good cleaning in years, which was probably true. Peter and Clara walked with her, and waited outside the door while Annie went inside. Suddenly they both heard their sister's scream, and Annie burst outside, slamming the door behind her. "What happened?" Peter and Clara both exclaimed in unison.
"There, there was," Annie panted. "There was a coyote in the toilet!"
Clara was shocked, but Peter just looked frightened. But suddenly Clara had a thought.
"If there is a coyote in there," she reasoned. "Wouldn't it be jumping around in there, or banging on the door, or, or something?"
"Do we have to stick around to find out?" Peter's voice quivered with fright.
Annie started to walk away. "Yeah, let's go now."
Clara was curious, but her siblings were right. If there was a coyote in there, why would they want to encounter it? So she followed suit and the three of them walked to the car.
And a wet, stuffed coyote lay peacefully on its side in the bathroom.