The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island

by Dana Alison Levy

  “Good Lord, Jackson, unless something’s on fire—like one of your brothers—don’t shriek like that,” Papa said, one hand on his chest. “You don’t scream bloody murder unless it’s an emergency.”

  “This IS an emergency!” Jax said hotly. Didn’t his fathers see this thing in front of them? “What the heck is going on? Why can’t we go to the lighthouse?”

  “Huh. That’s weird,” Papa said, staring up. “That’s definitely weird.”

  “There’s a Keep Out sign,” Sam said. He had walked the path as far as it would go, and stood up against the fence. Even though he was nearly Dad’s height, he looked small and insignificant against the tall metal grid.

  “Jason, you haven’t heard anything about the lighthouse being closed, have you?” Dad asked.

  Papa shook his head, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. But Jax could tell by the way his mouth was shut tight that Papa didn’t like the fence any more than he did.

  “Well, clearly we need to get some information. But let’s not panic, guys,” Dad said, walking up to join Sam. “Could just be that the town was doing some repairs, or even painting it. Right? There’s probably a really simple explanation.”

  He said the last words to Papa, as though Papa were the one he was really telling not to panic.

  They all gazed up at the lighthouse. It looked just the same as always: white and round and enormous, with a thick red stripe around the middle. The paint was faded, Jax supposed, and he could see it chipping in a few places. But who cared? What if it didn’t reopen for weeks? They only had a month on the island.

  Slowly, the family walked around the fence. When they got to the front of it, a giant chain held the gate shut. Jax stared, then closed his eyes; surely he was seeing it wrong. On the fence, next to another Keep Out sign, was a sign that said FOR SALE: CONTACT TOWN CLERK. And below it hung a smaller sign that simply said Sale Pending.

  Jax turned and kicked a rock as hard as he could. He kicked another, even though it hurt his toes. His eyes were hot and itchy and he almost felt like he could cry.

  “What does pending mean?” Frog asked.

  “It means that someone’s going to buy it. Buy the lighthouse,” said Sam, sounding numb. “But how can they do that? How can it be for sale?”

  Papa, who had been staring at the sign, finally turned away, shaking himself slightly. He smiled at the boys, but it looked forced. “Sometimes lighthouses are bought by public groups that promise to take good care of them,” he said, and his voice was the too-bright cheerful voice he used when on difficult work calls. “Maybe it’s just something like that.” He started to walk back toward the Nugget. Fast.

  The boys stared at the lighthouse for a second longer before following.

  “I’ll call Captain Jim later and get the scoop, okay, Jax?” Papa said over his shoulder. Captain Jim was one of the few people who lived on Rock Island all year long, and he knew everything. “As Dad said, let’s not panic. There might be a simple explanation. So why don’t we finish unpacking, and maybe we’ll have time for a quick swim. Sound good?”

  Jax glanced at his brothers. They looked how he felt, unsure about what to do without the lighthouse offering its usual welcome. Eli finally stepped forward.

  “Come on, Jax, let’s do Rock, Paper, Scissors for the window bed,” he said. The two of them always fought over the bed by the window, which had the lowest headroom but the most interesting view.

  Jax nodded and walked with Eli back toward the house, following Papa’s retreating form. Dad, Frog, and Sam followed.

  “Will they do construction on the lighthouse?” Frog asked. “That looks like the fence they put around construction sites. That would be neat if there were diggers and backhoes here.”

  Jax couldn’t help scowling at Frog. “We don’t want backhoes and diggers. We want to get in the lighthouse!”

  Frog’s smile dimmed and he slid his hand into Dad’s. Jax felt even worse. This wasn’t exactly the return to Rock Island he had been dreaming of.

  —

  Later, once the car was unloaded, once his paper had beaten Eli’s rock, once they’d set up the soccer nets and started playing, Jax felt better. At least, as long as he didn’t look at the chain-link fence. When they played soccer he made sure he was shooting toward the far goal so he could keep his back to the monstrosity that was ruining his island.

  Finally, sweaty and thirsty, the boys flung themselves onto the deck chairs and panted like Sir Puggleton after a long romp.

  “Do we have lemonade?” Sam asked.

  “No, nobody’s gone to Mr. Hooper’s yet,” Eli said. Hooper’s Grocery was the only real store on the island. It was all the way on the other side, six miles away on the slow, winding road that snaked down the island’s center.

  “What about Popsicles?” Jax asked. He was hanging his head off the edge of the chair, enjoying the sensation of dizziness that being upside down brought.

  “No. Nobody’s been to the store,” Eli said again.

  “Do we have ice cream?” Frog said eagerly, popping up. “Oooh! I want ice cream!”

  “Nobody’s been to the store!” Eli said, annoyed. “Do you think we could pack it in our bags? There’s no ice cream, no Popsicles, and no—”

  He paused. Jax lifted his head. In the distance came a sound, a sound they knew perfectly well but had never heard on Rock Island in all the years of Fletcher life.

  “Is that…,” Jax began.

  Sir Puggleton began to bark, his loud, I-Am-Making-an-Announcement bark.

  “ICE CREAM TRUCK! ICE CREAM TRUUUUUCK!” Frog made a noise that was between a scream and a gurgle as he ran around in maniacal circles. “It’s here! There’s an ice cream truck here! ICE CREAM TRUUUUU­UUUUU­CK!” With a final piercing scream pitched so high it could have been heard by bats, he disappeared around the side of the house.

  The rest of the Fletchers followed on his heels. An ice cream truck on Rock Island? Who could have imagined such a thing? They had them back home in Shipton, of course. In fact, the truck would come to their street and patiently wait while Frog sounded the alarm so loudly that any kid within two blocks knew about it. Frog was, Jax thought as he ran toward the truck, a kind of ice cream truck groupie. Soon he’d be asking for the driver’s autograph.

  By the time the boys corralled their fathers and made it to the street, the truck was a few houses away, but moving slowly. As they ran behind it, it stopped, right in front of the old Wheelright house. Unlike the rest of the cottages, this was a sea captain’s house, enormous and proud. But it had sat empty for ages, longer than any of the Fletcher boys could remember. Apparently some rich people who lived overseas owned it and never bothered to visit. Now, it seemed, they had come back.

  Quickly the Fletchers circled the window of the ice cream truck and shouted out their requests, tacking on a “please” and “thank you” when Dad caught their eyes.

  “Oooh, are you the Fletchers? Val’s parents said that boys were arriving today, and here you are!”

  The voice, and the person it was attached to, distracted all the boys but Frog from the ice cream. (Frog, of course, had secured his chocolate-Oreo-crunch bar and was wolfing it down with gusto.) They saw a girl, teenage-ish, leaning confidently against the imposing fence of the Wheelright house. Jax, in his head at least, groaned loudly and fake-barfed. Some girls were totally fine. Olivia, who played soccer and lived nearby, was fine. So was Dylan from his class, who played ice hockey, and Kate, whose mother was a marine biologist and who had swum with manta rays and dolphins. Even Sam’s friend Emily Shawble, who had convinced Sam to do the school play last year, was pretty funny and cool. But this girl, Jax thought, seemed like the worst kind of girl. She had on a puffy short skirt and sparkly sandals and big stupid sunglasses that practically hid her whole face.

  “They didn’t say cute boys, though, did they, Val?” she continued.

  Jax looked around. There was a second girl, wearing some crazy wraparound-dress thing and
mirrored sunglasses. She also had a big floppy hat on that hid most of her face, and even weirder, she was holding her phone up as though filming them. Jax felt his face getting hot. But the first girl wasn’t looking at him. She was looking right at Sam. The girl in the crazy wraparound thing pressed something on her phone and put it down, then spoke.

  “Hey there! I’m Valerie Galindo—Val for short—and this is my friend Janie. She’s here for the week.”

  The other girl, Janie, pushed forward from the fence and held out her hand, as though expecting them to shake it. “Awesome to meet you,” she said, peering over her sunglasses.

  But Sam had already started in on his two-handed Bomb Pop–and–strawberry shortcake combo, and Jax was dealing with a melting Klondike bar. While the girl had been talking Frog had simply walked away, and Eli, probably sensing escape, followed, slurping the edges of his rainbow snow cone. It was just Jax and Sam. Jax stared at his brother.

  “Hey,” Sam said finally, with a jerk of his chin. “I’m Sam. That’s my brother Jax. See you around.” He wheeled and started to walk back to the Nugget.

  Jax hurried to catch up. As he ran, he saw another kid, younger than the fluffy girls, crouching on the edge of the road, where the pavement turned to dirt. Whoever it was had a Chicago ball cap pulled down low, filthy cutoff shorts, and a bug box that was shaking with the movement of whatever was inside. Jax paused for a moment to watch.

  “Snake,” the kid said quietly, not looking up at Jax. “Just a garter.”

  Jax nodded. “Cool,” he said, then kept moving to catch up with his brother.

  “What was that?” he asked Sam, who had finished both his ice creams and was looking a bit wistful. “Those girls were so weird. And that one…Val…why was she taking a video of us? What the heck?” Jax didn’t say what he really felt, which was that the weirdest part was them calling Sam “cute.” He was afraid Sam might punch him if he brought it up. But Sam only shrugged.

  “Whatever. Weird girls are weird. I’ll tell you something more interesting, though. The fact that an ice cream truck comes down this road is epic. That’s what my English teacher would call a pivotal turning point in the summer. Ice cream every day—maybe twice a day! Epic.” Sam stared off into space, presumably imagining a life where the ice cream truck remained parked outside the house and he never ran out of allowance.

  Jax agreed, and then, since they had caught up to the others, the boys all had to listen to Frog sing his special ice cream truck song again and again until Jax threatened to gag him with his dirty sweat sock. And so they tumbled back to the Nugget, loud and laughing. The sun was low and warm in the sky, and the breeze had picked up, rustling and shivering the tall grass so that it looked like rippling water. The smell of the sea was stronger now, and Jax couldn’t wait to head to the beach. He was almost perfectly happy, at least until he looked out past the back deck. Tomorrow they would learn what was going on with their lighthouse. Maybe Dad was right. Maybe it was just some boring grown-up tax thing or something. For today, he might as well enjoy everything that was still perfect about Rock Island.

  “Sam! Are you coming? We’re leaving, with or without you!” Dad called from the driveway.

  The family had more or less settled in, though for the boys unpacking meant dumping their duffel bags into the corner of the sleeping loft and digging through them as needed. They had made the ceremonial first trip to Hooper’s Market, and they’d seen Mimi and Boppa’s friends the Gootkinds and the Levees, who always exclaimed over how big they were. But they hadn’t gotten any answers about the lighthouse. It sat painfully out of reach, the ugly metal fence as daunting as ever. Still, the first full day, and the campfire last night, had been wonderful. They’d lain out on the blanket as the fire died, staring up at the crazy-bright stars and talking about everything they would do on the island.

  Now the family was in the driveway, preparing to head to the rocky cove beach right near the house. The bigger beach, with its wide sandy dunes and rolling surf, was farther away and required a car ride (or a long bike ride), but the cove was around the corner, close enough for the boys to walk without a grown-up and look for crabs and the occasional sea star, if Sam swore on his life that he wouldn’t let anyone swim. But today Dad was coming with them so they could all swim and hang out while Papa finished his work calls. Then, when Papa was done, they could go to the real beach, as Sam called it. He was hoping he could bring his surfboard and get some rides if the waves weren’t too crazy.

  “SAM!” Dad’s voice floated up into the loft again, louder this time.

  Sam pressed the Off button on his phone and threw it on his bed. He wasn’t really surprised that Em hadn’t texted back. She was probably in rehearsal for the summer show. The Shipton Community Theatre was doing a bunch of wacky fairy tales, and Em had the lead in practically half of them. She’d begged Sam to try out too, but since he was away for the month of August it wasn’t really an option. Not that he was sure he wanted to, anyway, but still. Maybe it would have been cool.

  With one last look at his silent phone, Sam headed down the ladder and outside to meet his family.

  “I’m coming. Chill out,” he said, grabbing the crabbing net and starting to walk while dribbling a soccer ball along the road. “Jax, you up for a pass? Get ready!” The sun and salt smell worked its magic, and Sam grinned, ready to forget his phone and everything else on the mainland.

  Frog raced to catch up. “I’ve got my net too! And we’re going to look for Gar Baby, right? I’ll recognize him, I think. He had an unusual shell. I hope he knows me! Do you think he will?” His brown paw slipped into Sam’s and Sam squeezed it.

  “Who knows, Froggie? You’re pretty hard to forget.”

  Frog beamed. “That’s what I think too,” he said, and jumped a little as they walked.

  Behind them, Jax and Eli were talking while passing the ball back and forth.

  “It’s not that big a deal! I don’t know why you won’t just try it. Papa said if you were up to it this would be our year!”

  Sam could tell from Eli’s silence that his brother was probably scowling down at the dirt road. Finally Eli spoke.

  “I have tried it. I—”

  “That was two years ago! You were a baby then. You—”

  “I’m not a baby!” Frog interrupted. “And I’m six-almost-seven.”

  Both Jax and Eli ignored this.

  “You’re almost eleven. Come ON. You’re ruining it for the rest of us,” Jax kept going, his voice rising in annoyance.

  Sam knew, of course, what this was about. There were several tiny uninhabited islands off the coast of Rock Island, and it was possible to kayak out to them, if one was a fairly steady and intrepid kayaker. Eli was neither. But that didn’t stop Jax from nagging him to try. Papa had talked about an all-family excursion to Tuckernocket, the farthest island, and the one most likely to be visited by seals. Papa had said that Eli didn’t have to do it if he didn’t want, but the thought of his brother staying home was too much for Jax.

  Before Eli could answer they rounded the bend in the dirt road that led to the cove. There was one mangy Jeep in the parking area that they all recognized as belonging to one of their neighbors. Other than that, it was empty.

  “Let’s find Gar Baby!” Frog cried, letting go of Sam’s hand and flying down the rocks toward the shore.

  The rest of them followed, and soon they were all wading in the chilly cove water, heads down, eyes peeled for fish, green crabs, and yes, hermit crabs.

  “I think this is him! Oh, wait, never mind, this one’s smaller,” Frog said, picking up, then discarding a tiny hermit crab.

  Sam moved back toward the shoreline, where a small strip of sand made for a nice break from the rocks.

  “Want me to dig you a swimming pool?” he asked Frog. “We can make a big one!”

  The others rushed over, eager to help, and before long Sam was in the center of a massive hole, wet sand stuck to his legs, arms windmilling as he flu
ng handfuls of it to the side.

  “Build up that wall,” he called to Jax. “It’s going to need protection as the tide comes in.”

  Frog got in the hole with Sam, while Eli ran back and forth for rocks to make a fence. They were deep into the construction when a babble of voices startled them. Sam looked up from the pool, where Frog was letting the wet sand trickle through his fingers into towers and spires along Sam’s shoulders and knees, covering him with dribble castles.

  Walking down the path were the girls from yesterday. They were armed with chairs, a waterproof music player blasting some pop song, and a small cooler. Behind them was the kid who’d had the snake, wearing the same green and orange board shorts as Jax.

  “Oh, hey! The Fletcher boys are here! ¡Hola, chicos! ¿Cómo está el agua hoy?” the one in front said. She—Sam thought her name was Val, but he wasn’t sure—was wearing a long, fancy-looking white skirt and a kind of graffitied tank top in a neon orange so bright it almost vibrated in the sun.

  Sam gave her a blank stare. He had no idea what she was saying, and her shirt hurt his eyes.

  “Do you guys speak Spanish?” the girl asked. “Just asking how the water is.” She adjusted her bug-eye sunglasses and smiled. “Now, smile and wave,” she instructed, lifting her phone again. “Got to get a good panoramic shot of the beach!”