Page 59 of No Escape

“I’ll be careful, Mama,” he said. “But I wanted to see if things looked any different from a water-level perspective.”

He walked gingerly down the steps and sat down, so the water came up to his chest. He stared at the water for a long moment.

“Do you see anything?” Vittoria asked.

“Not really,” he said in frustration and stood.

The motion sent ripples of waves down the length of the otherwise motionless pool. The waves continued as Stefan sloshed out of the pool. My eyes tracked the ripples until they crossed the point over the float in the center of the pool.

“Wait. There’s something there,” I said. “There’s something under the water right over the float.”

By the time I said it and the others had turned to look, the ripples were smaller and nothing was visible. “Do that again,” I instructed. “Stefan, make a few gentle waves in the water, please.”

Stefan stepped back into the pool and began making waves, careful not to splash his head. Again, the ripples changed as they passed over the float, but now I knew for certain something was there, invisible, and just under the water.

“I didn’t see anything,” Vittoria said, frowning.

“There’s something there,” I said. “But we need more waves. Tito, Juliette, can you help him?”

“Of course,” Juliette replied.

She and Tito stepped into the pool next to Stefan. Carefully they bounced up and down in the water to make even bigger waves. Suddenly, an obvious square pattern emerged. From my rough calculations, it was about thirty inches per side.

“I see it,” Oscar shouted. “Lexi’s right. There’s something there.” He leaned over the side. “I can’t quite tell what it is, but it looks square.”

“It’s square,” I confirmed. “Everyone, out of the water. Any ideas how we can check it out more closely?”

“We can try poking it with the pool skimmer,” Tito suggested, dripping water onto the pool deck.

“Let’s try,” I said.

Tito took the skimmer and poked at the object. “Yah. It’s square and clear. It slides down the side under the water when I poke it, but the skimmer isn’t long enough to confirm if the sides go down more than a few feet.”

Logically, I considered what that meant. “Since it is just under the surface of the water, if we could lower the pool level a little bit, we might be able to examine it better. So, that means we have two main problems to solve. First, we figure out how to lower the water level. Second, we need to somehow get closer to the middle of the pool.”

“The cans,” Juliette said. “You said we could use them to lower the water level a little.”

Tito, Stefan, and Oscar raced for the cans and started dipping them in the pool and dragging them over to dump into the empty hot tub. The cans were heavy, and the men were straining. After watching them for a minute, I quickly realized that wasn’t going to work as a solution.

“Does the side of the can say twenty liters?” I asked Stefan.

He checked the can and nodded. “That’s what it says. No wonder it’s so heavy.”

Twenty liters equaled about five gallons. That meant that if they were filled to the top with water, they weighed almost forty pounds apiece. To lower the water level several inches, we’d have to remove about 480 gallons. We had neither the time nor the strength to do that.

“That’s not going to work,” I said. “There’s too much water for us to move and not enough time. Let’s find another solution to lower the water level. Oscar and Juliette, can you circle the pool to see if you can figure out another way to get to that box? The rest of us will work on figuring out how to lower the water level.”

I looked around the pool, hoping inspiration would strike. My eyes stopped on the pool hose hanging on the wall. And, just like that, I had an idea.

“Someone, help me with this pool hose.” I ran over and grabbed the three-inch-diameter hose off the wall and hauled it over to the pool, throwing it into the water by the steps. I carefully stepped into the water and pushed the hose under. “I could use a little muscle here.”

Stefan and Tito joined me in the water. “We’re going to create our own makeshift siphon, which means we have to get all the air out of the hose,” I explained. “Also, Vittoria, could you bring one of those cans over here?”

The three of us quickly got the hose submerged. Starting at one end, I pushed it lower so the air would move up the hose. I continued walking on the hose until it was completely submerged and floating just under the surface.

“Vittoria, give me the can now.” She handed it down to me, and I filled the can completely with water, pressing the end of the hose against the can so the water wouldn’t escape and no air could get in.

I carefully brought the can to the surface. “Tito and Stefan, get out of the pool and take the can and this end of the hose and put them in the bottom of the hot tub. Set the can on its side, keeping the hose sealed tight against the can until they’re both lying down. Everyone else, help them by moving the hose as they drag it to the hot tub.”

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