The Giant Nina Holtz “Do you think that if you take the shells off snails they become slugs?” Zoe asked as she balanced on the slick stones at the edge of the creek. It was a hot day in mid-July and crickets whirred in the trees like a pulsing heartbeat. “Snails and slugs are totally different things,” Benji said. He had picked up a twisted branch from the ground and was using it as a walking stick, poking at leaves and moving rocks out of the way. “Besides, snails are attached to their shells, like turtles.” “I thought they were like hermit crabs. Hermit crabs have to move into bigger shells when they get older.” She hopped from one stone to the next as they moved down the creek, arms outstretched to balance. She’d gone through a growth spurt over the summer, and now stood half a head taller than Benji. Sometimes, the pain in her legs was so bad at night that she could only hug her knees to herself and cry until she fell asleep. The result was all elbows and angles, with clothes that were somehow both too small and too big at the same time. “How long do you think until we get there?” she asked Benji. That afternoon, they had embarked on a mission to find what was at the end of the creek, but after 45 minutes of walking they were beginning to lose hope. “Almost there,” Benji said, although he didn’t know the answer. In contrast to Zoe he was short and stocky, with dark eyes and messy black hair. He’d spent the past few weeks trying not to think about how Zoe was now taller than him. They fell into silence, enjoying the sound of birds overhead. After another ten minutes, the trees fell away, revealing a large clearing in the woods. “A lake!” Zoe exclaimed, running forward. The thin stream of the creek widened into a pool of water covered in a layer of green algae. It stretched across the clearing, the few parts free of algae sparkling in the sunlight.
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