Penny pointed, and then, as her chum still could not distinguish anything, parted the lily pads with her stick.
“Yes, I do see something now,” Louise declared. “What can it be?”
“Doesn’t it look like a metal ring?” Penny asked. She had lost all interest in the cameo pin.
“Yes, it does. Someone probably threw it into the pool.”
“But it looks to me as if it’s attached to the bottom of the tank, embedded in the cement,” Penny said. She bent closer to the water, trying to see.
“Be careful,” Louise warned nervously. “That alligator might come up and snap off your nose.”
Penny paid no heed.
“It is attached!” she announced in an excited voice. “Louise, do you know what I think?”
“What?”
“It’s the ring of a trapdoor!”