My mother tapped my hand. "Gus! Don't touch that."
"Sorry." I didn't feel too sorry, actually. It had sounded wonderful, and I bet kids could probably hear it all the way down at the beach.
We raced upstairs to the bedroom we'd been assigned. There were only two rooms available, one for adults and one for kids. The remaining two rooms had sawhorses across their entrances and signs that said they were being renovated. Mrs. Brown had mentioned that to my mother, warning her that it might smell a bit like paint, but also that she'd have the next-door neighbor open all the windows for us before we arrived.
Four twin beds with pale yellow bedspreads stood in each corner of our room. Rock maple furniture rounded out the sunny space–one dresser, four chairs around a card table, and a nightstand beside each bed. One whole wall was filled with bookshelves, loaded with old bindings, and to my dismay I realized there were many days worth of searching ahead of us. I hadn't noticed any books downstairs, so at least I could search the stacks by night and not draw any attention from my folks.
Sheer white curtains billowed in the breeze, filling the room with the same aroma of sea, salt, and adventures to come.
I unplugged the earpiece from my transistor radio, found a Boston station, and thumbed the volume wheel to max. "My Girl," by The Temptations, blasted through the air. Elsbeth claimed one bed, throwing her suitcase on top and immediately setting her things in the top drawer of the dresser. I leapt onto my bed and sprawled on my back. Shadow followed, and put his heavy front feet on my stomach. "This is so cool!"
Siegfried stood at the window and stared at the sea. He'd been somber since the punishment, and I worried that somehow he was forever changed. I hoped after a few days cavorting on the beach he'd be back to his old self.
I eased Shadow off my stomach and joined him at the window. Sun glinted strongly off the bay, making me squint. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" I flung an arm around his shoulder and hoped he'd crack.
His eyes dropped to the ground. "Ja. It's nice."
I tightened my grip on his shoulders. "Are you gonna be okay?"
The hesitation was slight, but I was rewarded with a hint of a smile. "Of course. I just need a few days."
"Good. You want this bed? It's closer to the window."
A grateful expression washed over his face. "Danke. But you should take it."
"No way. I'm already settled over here." I trotted back to my bed and flopped on it again. "See? I've already got the pillow dented just right for my head."
That brought a laugh from both twins. I watched them with affection while they carefully unpacked, and then dumped my knapsack on the bed and unceremoniously stuffed everything into the bottom drawer of the bureau.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Overnight, moisture seeped in the windows and coated the room with a salty perspiration that thrilled me with anticipation. I woke at five and wrapped myself in my hooded sweatshirt to keep away the chill. After taking Shadow for a quick walk in the dark yard, I hurried back upstairs. The house was still, the twins slumbered under their blankets, and even the birds hadn't started twittering outside the window.
In the dim light of pre-dawn, I grabbed my flashlight and quietly selected a pile of books from the shelf, while Shadow did the sensible thing and went back to bed. I picked the ones that looked the oldest first, and laid them on the table so I wouldn't wake Siegfried and Elsbeth. I started flipping through the journals and diaries, and although I was unsuccessful in finding Mrs. Tully's father's papers this time around, I did find a few comments in Mrs. Tully's diary that confused me. One entry must have been made just before Tully's trip to Europe with my grandfather and Mr. Roberts. After writing a bit about Europe and how afraid she was for her son's safety in that "heathen" land, she went on and on about being "worried" about her son's future, his well being, and his state of mind. She wondered if there was a "cure," and seemed pretty broken up about it.
Had Tully contracted some awful disease as a youth? Is that why he'd gone to Europe? To seek a cure, or to find peace among the meadows and mountains?
He sure hadn't looked sick in the pictures. He'd looked vital and full of vigor. Of course, there was always the chance the photographs were taken after he got better.
Maybe he took a cure at one of the European spas or baths? I'd heard about people going away for such cures and wondered if he'd tried it.
If he'd actually had some dreaded disease, he must have beaten it. He'd lived a very long time. I wasn't sure how old he was, but he had to be over fifty.
I remembered the way he seemed so winded when we walked to his old homestead. He'd looked a bit pale and had broken out in a sweat. Was he still sick? Did it have anything to do with the Genesee Valley fever? Could he have contracted it by hanging around his old home all these years?
Was the fever still active?
I blanched and sat up straight. Could I have caught the fever from the Tully homestead?
I felt my forehead and stifled a cough.
My forehead was cool.
No, I felt fine.
I relaxed and dug back into the old books, but still hadn't unearthed anything to do with the Ambuscade when the twins finally woke at eight.
***
Sand pillowed my body and soaring seagulls screeched overhead. My skin blushed pink from the sun, and I tasted the now-familiar sensation of salt on my lips. I wiggled my toes in the soft sand and sighed, thinking about Tully, Penni, and the Ambuscade. Dogs weren't allowed on the beach, so poor Shadow had been stuck in the house most of the week.
Siegfried must have read my mind about Penni, for he rolled over on his towel and propped his head on his hand. "Do you think we'll ever find out what happened to Penni?"
It had been six days now. With the twins help, we'd gone through every paper in the house and had turned up nothing, except vague references to Tully's illness in his mother's journals. I was losing hope, and wished that Penni would just show up and talk to me. Why couldn't she write it in a mirror, or whisper it inside my head? It drove me nuts.
I rolled toward Sig and squinted. The sun blinded me temporarily. "I don't know. What if we don't and she's stuck on this earth forever?"
He drew a few figures in the sand. I wondered if it was a math problem, but felt too lazy to inspect it. "Maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. She is Tully's best friend."
"True." I turned the idea around in my head. It made sense. I'd been feeling responsible for her delivery, and thought the unearthing of the truth would be the only solution to free her from her earthly bonds. Maybe I was wrong.
Elsbeth squealed and plopped down beside me. "Oh, the water's great." Her skin shone with health, clear of red marks. A fine sheen of water sparkled from her bronzing skin. She tugged off her bathing cap; her dark curls tumbled around her face in chaos. "It's so warm in the shallows."
We'd been swimming all morning, watching the tide change and collecting shells along the beach. A pang of hunger stabbed me. I smiled at her and sat up. "Dry off so we can go to Kenny's. My mom gave me enough money for lunch for all of us."
Siegfried sat up, his eyes wide with expectation. "Auf gehts! Hurry, Elsbeth. I'm so hungry."
We'd been waiting for this day all week, smelling the grilling hamburgers and onion rings and salivating every time someone walked by with an oily sack of goodies while we munched on bologna sandwiches. I'd been hankering for the saltwater taffy, too.
Elsbeth dried off with a few towel rubs and slid her tiny feet into her pink flip-flops. "I'm ready. Come on."
I grabbed my tooled leather wallet with the dog on the front and trotted after the twins. They'd already beaten a path toward the building at the end of the beach near the pier crowded with fishermen. Kenny's had been around forever, so folks said, and it was packed with customers, as usual. I walked barefoot over the scorching sand and regretted not putting on my flip-flops. After a few minutes of bearing the pain, I had to stop. "Yikes. The sand's too hot."
> Elsbeth pointed toward the shore. "Come on, we can walk by the water in the wet sand." She took my hand and drew me after her, her soft fingers twined around mine. I felt that same strange tug of emotion and physical arousal that had perplexed and delighted me all week, and followed her like a puppy. I forgot all about my burning feet.
At the water's edge, I walked in four inches of water, avoiding children's colorful metal pails and shovels, sun-bleached curly heads with lobster red shoulders, and an array of mothers and fathers who chased after babies or swung them in the water. When we reached the wharf, we hurried up the sand onto the asphalt and once again I hopped around like a clown with a hotfoot.
Siegfried pushed me toward a shady section where drifts of sand covered the tar. "Stand here. We'll order, and you wait in the shade."
I nodded and handed over my wallet. "I want two hamburgers with the works, onion rings, a root beer float, and a pound of saltwater taffy, assorted flavors." I'd memorized the order all week, dying for the promised day when my mother said we could buy lunch out.
I handed him the wallet, then leaned against the side of the building and watched them stand in line, all tan and sandy and tousled. Siegfried's blond hair looked more like Paul McCartney's mop top every day, except in color, of course. Lanky, yet surprisingly poised, he towered over his sister. She stood petite and pretty, as if she were about to leap on stage in a tutu, flying into the air with unbridled energy. A surge of affection rushed through me for both of them. Siegfried had seen his sister reach for my hand several times, but instead of flipping out, he'd averted his eyes and smiled. I loved him for that.
When the food finally came, we snagged a picnic table with an umbrella and gorged on our savory fare. I ate every speck, and even had room for a few pieces of taffy. Elsbeth ate her hotdog, but couldn't finish her fries. Siegfried ate twice as much as I did, and I envied him his ability. His hollow leg had grown longer than mine in the past few months.
"We have to wait twenty minutes before we can go in again," Elsbeth wrapped her remaining fries in paper and stood. "Let's see what they're catching on the pier."
Although the crowd at the pier had diminished since early morning, when we'd been the first kids to set foot on the beach, there were still a half-dozen men and boys at the end of the wharf. Some leaned on pilings with their rods; others dozed in folding chairs. Their water-filled galvanized buckets were full of flounder and other assorted fish.
I liked the fishy aroma, especially combined with the odor of frying food nearby. It spelled holiday, freedom, and summer, all in one big cloud of succulent scents. I followed Elsbeth to a free piling and watched the way she walked in her pink and yellow bathing suit. Dainty. Precise. As if each step were carefully thought out in advance, yet completed with little effort. Her curls bounced with each step, springy and almost alive. My heart leapt again and I felt that puppy dog expression coming back to my eyes, all soft and mushy and vulnerable.
She set her fries on the piling and pointed to the island across the way. "Look! Wouldn't it be fun to live over there?"
I followed the direction of her gesture and was about to question whether we could walk there at low tide when Elsbeth let out an ungodly screech. A seagull swooped toward her, veered for the piling with the French fries, snagged them with his claws, and flew off with the entire bag dangling beneath his body.
Elsbeth screamed at him. "You beggar! How dare you!" With fists curled, stomping, and face reddened, she danced in a tight circle, getting chuckles from the nearby fisherman. "I wanted those fries."
Siegfried and I exchanged glances, and I tried with all my might not to laugh. I really tried. But it came out anyway, first as a snort, and then as a hiccupping yelp. Siegfried soon followed, wailing with laughter.
Elsbeth looked at us with fury, and then slowly her face cracked into a grin and she joined us with her own giggles. She fell against me, so overcome with hilarity she couldn't stand up straight. "Oh, Gus. Did you see that?" Another whoop escaped her and she laid her head against my heaving chest. We shared another five minutes of coughs and sputters and finally stopped when Siegfried pointed to the seagull perched on Kenny's roof with her bag.
She pointed and danced in place. "There he is, the scoundrel!" The bird had torn into the bag and stared at us with a fry in his mouth.
I still held her, although there was no need. With a wry smile, I tilted her chin up. "I'll buy you more fries, okay?"
She backed up, suddenly flushed. "N-no. That's okay. But thanks anyway, Gus."
As mysteriously as it had all happened, the sweet mood was broken and we were back to just friends again. She looked at me with mischief in her eyes and took off like a gazelle before I could spin and follow. "Race ya back to the beach!"
Chapter Thirty-nine
On the last night of our vacation, we packed our stuff and enjoyed a supper of corn on the cob and freshly dug clams that my father called "little neck steamers.” Shadow whined when we headed back to the beach with pails and shovels, but we had taken him for a long walk around the village already and left him at the house. It was our last opportunity to hang out on the beach, and I intended to milk it for all it was worth. I tucked my transistor radio into a pocket in my cutoffs and blasted music while we explored. "Eight Days a Week," by The Beatles, had become my newest favorite, and although it was rumored a new album was coming out in August, I couldn't wait to add this single to my collection. I'd have to save several weeks' allowance to have enough money to buy it.
"Look! A conch!" Elsbeth raced along the beach toward her treasure. Because it was low tide, we'd walked what seemed like miles before we could wet our ankles in the sea, and plenty of shells and wildlife lay waiting for us. She picked up the conch shell and held it to her ear. "I hear the ocean."
Siegfried waited a few seconds, eagerly holding out his hand. "Give it here." He turned toward the sea, listening for a long time with eyes defocused. For one strange moment, he reminded me of an old man, as if he'd heard all the earth had to offer and recognized the sounds with sad familiarity. After an eternity, he handed it to me. "Your turn."
I held the cool shell to my ear, running my fingers over the smooth pink surface while I closed my eyes and listened to the seagulls squawk overhead. The swishy murmurs whispered tales of sea captains and pirates, stories of men lost at sea and a giant octopus rearing from the foamy whitecaps. I let my mind wander for several more seconds before lowering it to Elsbeth's hand. She dropped it in her pail and skipped ahead.
The orange rays of the sun reached low over the horizon, stretching long fingers in a golden halo that tinted the sand, rocks, ripples of water, and our faces. Hosts of seagulls floated overhead, their white bellies reflecting the setting sun with a soft ginger-gold hue. I pointed overhead and the twins stopped at my side, heads tilted up and faces bathed in the late afternoon glow. I dropped to the ground and lay on my back, watching them soar and shine overhead. Even their wings reflected yellow as they pumped and glided, pumped and glided in wide arcs over the shore. My heart cramped and I wondered if I would die from the sheer beauty of it all.
"Wooly Bully," by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs broke the mood. I swung my knees side to side with the rhythm, but sat straight up when Elsbeth screeched.
"Oh my gosh! What is that?" She ran toward the edge of the water but Siegfried grabbed her arm before she could touch the horseshoe crab that marched across the wet sand.
He stopped her five feet from the creature. "Don't touch it! It might sting you!"
I jumped up and ran after them. "Don't worry. He won't hurt you."
Elsbeth giggled. "It looks like an army helmet."
Siegfried pointed to its olive-green and black shell. "Look at all those pointy things on it. They look like they'd hurt. And that big stinger."
I knelt down beside it. "It's not a stinger, that's just its tail. It helps it flip over in the ocean. I read about these in the Britannica."
Siegfried squinted his eyes. "Are you
sure?"
I touched the shell and it crawled a few inches from me. "Positive. There's a fragile creature living beneath the shell. And they shed them, just like snakes shed their skins."
Elsbeth offered a hand to help me up.
I took her petite fingers in mine and hoisted myself back to my feet. "Thanks."
She flashed the familiar smile that once again sent warm energy coursing through my body, and I gestured in the distance. "Race you to Shell Point!"
She was off in a flash, with sand spurting from her feet and her pail swinging wildly at her side. Siegfried and I gave her a few seconds to get a head start, and loped after her, exchanging grins. I knew he could beat his sister and me in any race, and he knew that I knew.
He held back to let me catch up with Elsbeth, jogging beside us as we churned through the sand. After a few seconds of appeasing me, he unleashed his inner panther and sprinted easily toward Shell Point, his body glinting in the setting sun. Elsbeth and I dug in and ran faster, laughing so hard we could barely keep up the pretense that we might actually catch her long-legged brother.
When we reached his side, he was already poking at something in the water's edge with a long branch of driftwood. "Gus! What's this thing?"
The jellyfish floated in the water, moving closer to his bare legs.
"Watch out!" I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "You might get stung"
Siegfried paled and dropped the stick. "Is that a jellyfish?"
Elsbeth moved closer, unafraid. "It's so pretty!"
"Careful. I think that's a moon jellyfish. You can get real sick if they sting you."
The diaphanous creature floated in the clear water, its sheer gelatinous body rimmed in maroon, with four distinct dark-edged circles grouped together in its center. It swam like a flat bowl of clear Jell-O jiggling the surf.
We watched until Siegfried sighed and looked back toward the street.
"It's almost over."
Elsbeth pouted. "Don't say that. I don't want to think about it." She walked away from us, head down, searching the ground with an intensity that seemed more like a desire to escape the memories of home than a passion to find more shells for her overflowing pail. The air filled with the sounds of The Temptations singing "My Girl."
Don't Let the Wind Catch You (LeGarde Mysteries Book 6) Page 14
