The next week, a trailer appeared on a piece of land mid-way up the lane. Again, Vic had thought the land in question was part of the lots on either side, not a separate lot.

The appearance of the trailer meant that within two years (the Township did have one bylaw), a cottage would be built. She hoped they’d hire the local construction crew. It would be done in three weeks, Monday to Friday, nine to five. If they did it themselves, there’d be no telling how many years it would take.

It also meant that, in the meantime, they’d have to pay just $200 a year in property taxes instead of something closer to $2,000. Even though they’d use the roads, the dump, the library—scratch that, what was she thinking—even though they’d use the roads and the dump just as much. More, probably.

And since they probably wouldn’t pay to hook up to hydro until they started building, it meant that everyone on Paradise Lake would hear their generator whenever they wanted to watch tv. They’d probably also hear their tv, given how loud it would have to be to be audible over the generator.

When she paddled past, on her way up the river, she saw that the teenaged son was up with all of his friends. Three tents were set up around the trailer.

She thought for a minute. Had she seen an outhouse? Or would there be shitting in the bush. Ten feet from the lake.

She heard a belch. A long, extended belch.

A lot of shitting in the bush.

She considered giving a heads-up to the woman down-current with the red bathing suit who swam every day. Scratch that. Used to swim every day.

She thought nothing more of them until well after she’d returned. Until two o’clock in the morning, in fact. At which time the bongo drums started.

They probably have a fire too, she thought, as she set aside her work and headed out.

It was that whole primeval thing again. Sitting by a fire, sending messages by drum, chowing down on a mammoth— What’s next, she wondered as she got to their driveway, hurling spears?

Something whizzed by, just missing her face.

“What the fuck?” she screamed as she dove into the bush.

“Sorry!” How he’d heard her, given the bongos, she had no idea.

She picked herself up and walked in.

They had one of those straw targets set up on the driveway. Its back to the road. See what she meant by the drop in IQ?

It was, she noticed, as yet unpunctured.

“Give me that thing,” she said to the nearest twenty-something, the one with the bow and arrow in his hand. He handed it over. She loaded the arrow and fired it into his leg.

“Fuck!” he started hopping.
“And enough with the bongos!” she screamed.

They stared at her.

“There’s a fire ban,” she said then, searching for the one in charge. The one with half a brain.

“What’s a fire ban?” someone asked.

What? What?!

“We haven’t had rain for over two weeks,” she explained. “No outdoor fires are allowed.”

She waited for it. Altogether now, ‘We can do whatever we want on our own property!’

Surprisingly enough, they were silent. Probably still trying to figure out the relevance of rain to fires.

“Suppose that thing,” she pointed to the six-foot high blaze, “throws a spark.” She bent down, picked up a rock, and tossed it into the fire. Some of those present—not all, note—moved back from the shower of sparks.

Unfortunately, one of the sparks landed on one of the tents. Nylon, it blazed immediately.

Shit. She looked around, but they didn’t have buckets of water at the ready. Of course not.

“Call 911!” she screamed. Her cabin was just five lots away.

“And enough with the bongos!”

But as quickly as it had blazed, the tent, now an ex-tent, had congealed into a sad, melted marshmallow.

“Never mind.”

Or maybe it’s the trailer and campfire that misleads them, she thought as she walked back to her place. It makes them think they’re in some public campground instead of someone’s neighbourhood. Because would they sit in their back yard at home and play the bongo drums at two o’clock in the morning? She thought not.

But even in a campground, there are rules about this sort of thing. There are even wardens who walk around enforcing those rules.

Which means it would be quieter there than here, she realized.

And thought about getting a second kayak and a roof rack.