by K. C. Dyer
Angry with her mother and perplexed from the conversation with Professor Tooth, Darrell wandered down toward the ocean. The school stood on a sort of promontory close to the centre of a small bay that was scooped out of the larger fjord. Darrell could see a jagged row of rocks that formed the northern boundary of the bay. In the other direction, she could see a small lighthouse perched on a rocky outcrop. The path wound back and forth down the cliff side, bypassing large boulders as it made its way to the beach. When she reached the shore, Darrell decided to make for a small point that nestled inside the protection of the lighthouse to the south.
The waves lashed the shore, clouds scudded across the sky, and small whitecaps began to rise up further out in the ocean. The breeze lifted Darrell’s brown hair and swirled around her legs as she turned to walk along the beach. Above the tide line, the ground was a mix of rock and sand, packed hard and made for walking. This part of the shore was curved and jagged, with small beaches butting up against the cliffs. Walking paths criss-crossed the cliffs above, brown scars through the salal and kinnikinnick that covered the ground and grew up the mountainsides.
Darrell wandered along the tide line around the small, curved beach and out to the point of land that formed to the south end. She walked carefully with a measured tread and skirted any of the rocks close to the edge that looked slippery.
It had been hard saying goodbye to her mother, even if she was completely infuriating. Darrell’s face furrowed in concentration as she tried to think of any possible way to avoid staying at Eagle Glen. The tin-horn honking of Canada geese flying by pierced her consciousness. As she lifted her head to look at the birds she felt the warm sunlight on her face, and she straightened her shoulders.
“It may not be Europe,” she muttered to herself, “but there is something interesting about this place.” She scraped a stick along the sand and tried to think of the positives. A month would give her time to figure out why she had such a strange feeling about this school. And, in spite of the swirling wind and the sound of the waves now slapping the shore, it was so quiet here after the city. That had to be a good thing. The school and staff were oddly interesting, and the buildings and setting were beautiful. There was much she could draw here.
Looking out over the bay, Darrell’s fingers itched for her sketchbook and charcoal, but she didn’t want to go back where there were people just yet. Hard as it was saying goodbye to her mother, it was harder still being in the company of people whom she had never met. She hated the look that formed in their eyes: puzzlement, then dawning understanding and, inevitably, pity. It made her furious. She didn’t need anyone’s pity. She kicked a small pebble violently, sending it over the edge of the embankment and down into the water.
“Hey!” a voice yelled from below. Darrell was so startled that she jumped backwards. Her feet slipped out from under her and she fell to the ground with a thud. A barnacle painfully scraped her left leg below the hem of her capri pants.
A head popped over the edge of the embankment. The boy was snarling, and he held a large stone threateningly in his hand. “What you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “You nearly hit me with that rock!”
With a rope in the other hand, he clambered with some difficulty up the side of the embankment. Darrell felt her stomach contract as she stood up. This boy was bigger and more athletic than she was, and he was clearly very angry. She glanced behind her to measure the distance back to the school. She was surprised by how far she had come. She definitely couldn’t beat this guy in a foot race. She decided to tough it out.
“What are you doing with that?” she asked, warily eyeing the rock in his hand.
“Throwing it at you,” he replied nastily, and did.
In spite of his point-blank range, either his aim was poor or he deliberately threw it badly, as the rock just grazed Darrell’s shoulder and bounced down the embankment behind her. Her shoulder stinging, Darrell stared in disbelief as the boy picked up another rock. She started to back away, trying to keep her footing on the pebbly surface of the point.
The boy paused, leering. “Hold still,” he commanded. Panic swept through her at the thought that this boy was deliberately going to hurt her.
“Wait a minute —” he drawled, looking her over lazily. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Quick as a whip he lashed the rock, this time with deadly accuracy. It hit her right leg with a crack and again bounced off the edge of the embankment. She flinched, but didn’t move.
The boy, openly grinning, walked slowly toward Darrell. Anger began to wrap itself around the edges of the fear she felt, and she lifted her chin and stared stonily at him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she spat. “I didn’t mean to hit you with that rock. I didn’t even know you were down there.”
“Just giving you a taste of your own medicine,” he said, still grinning. He bent down and secured the rope in his hand around a jagged piece of rock. Darrell continued to back away, afraid to take her eyes off him.
“You walk pretty well, for a cripple,” he taunted. “Nice little plastic foot you’ve got there.” Darrell’s mouth dropped. “Let me give you a little advice, Gimpy. This spit is mine. I fish here, I crab here. Stay away from it, or I’ll have to see how fast you can run when I throw a rock at your good leg.”
“I have as much right to be here as you do, you moronic slug,” Darrell snarled. “This is my school and my home for the summer.” She remembered walking along the docks near her street in the city and a sudden thought struck her. “Let’s see your license for that crab trap!”
She paused, noting with some satisfaction the scowl that had replaced the leer on his face.
“I bet you don’t even have a license. So really,” she added, “I have more right to be here than you have. Maybe you should be the one to get lost.” She whirled around and hobbled off the little point and back to the more trustworthy footing on the beach. Behind her she heard glass breaking.
She turned, from the safety of the beach, and looked back. Two other boys had climbed from behind the embankment and stood next to her tormentor. He was gesturing with a piece of broken bottle, and his friends laughed.
“Hey, Gimpy!” he called. “Next time I see you, maybe we could use this to cut off your other leg!” His friends howled with laughter. They turned their backs on Darrell and climbed down the far side of the embankment. A moment later an engine roared to life, and Darrell could see the three speeding off in an old wooden dory loaded with crab traps. One of the boys waved, and the boat veered crazily before they straightened out and plunged into the rising whitecaps in the direction of a small island further down the coast.
Darrell turned and slowly made her way down the beach back toward the school, holding her head high and trying not to limp at all.
CHAPTER TWO
Darrell trudged back to the school, any pleasure from her walk on the beach stolen by the boy with the crab trap. She headed back toward the main building, thinking she should report the incident to someone in authority, but found the office closed and locked.
Darrell wandered through the school and found herself in the small back garden that faced the water. She spotted a gnarled arbutus tree clinging tenaciously above the bluffs that led down to the beach. Scrambling up the tree she discovered that her perch gave a panoramic view of the shoreline below.
I’ll have to remember to climb this tree before I head down to the beach again. She took her time examining the whole stretch of beach below and decided that it was truly deserted, with no sign of the crab trappers anywhere. Darrell climbed down from her perch and wandered slowly down the winding path.
She kicked off her sandals and walked barefoot along the shore near the water line. The water was just losing its spring chill and the long, shallow reach of sand that led to the shore warmed it further. The water felt lovely on her bare toes and swirled around the waterproof exterior of her prosthetic foot.
Might as well enjoy the rest of thi
s day, she thought, with a frown. It’s the last one before the stupid summer classes start.
She looked further along the beach. It was still deserted, except for a golden-coloured dog, digging on the distant end of the shore near the rocky cliffs. About halfway down the beach was a large stump, perched upright on its jagged root system. Darrell decided to walk to the driftwood stump and back as a way to stake her own claim to the beach and prove to herself that the morning’s incident hadn’t completely frightened her.
She approached the ancient stump and gazed at it thoughtfully. The stump stood straight up on its gnarled roots, its trunk pointing a thick, jagged finger toward the sky. As she got closer, it loomed large over her, quite the most massive tree stump she had ever seen.
Darrell walked around the remains of the giant tree and decided to stop and rest on one of the long roots that protruded from under the old tree.
She sat down on the root, all its rough edges rubbed smooth by the work of water and sand. The dog picked its way among the long logs littering the beach and came over to her. His golden coat looked unkempt, but his smile was friendly.
Without a sound, he stepped closer to her, tail wagging gently. He bent his head and snuffled her hand. She caught a glimpse of his collar, ragged and without a tag. The worn blue material was woven through with the word Delaney.
When he finished his thorough sniffing of her hand, he turned in a tight circle and sat beside her.
“Hey, Delaney,” Darrell said aloud. “Thanks for keeping me company.” The dog stared out to sea and, without glancing at her, gently leaned his head on her knee in silent companionship.
There has to be one good thing about this place, she thought desperately. Maybe this Delaney dog could be it. Aloud she said, “Who do you belong to, boy?” and felt his collar again for tags. Nothing. She checked his ears for tattoos, but there were no identifying marks. As she stood to walk back up the beach, he got up and followed her, tail still wagging gently.
In the distance she could see a couple of cars pulling up at the school. She felt a strange sort of relief, a sense that she was no longer the centre of everyone’s attention now that other students were beginning to arrive.
“You’d better go home now, Delaney,” she said quietly to the dog. “I have to go up and find my room.” Delaney snuffled her fingers and then turned and trotted off along the beach. “I wonder where you belong,” Darrell breathed to herself. “I hope you haven’t got anything to do with those crab trappers.” She pictured the snarling face that had burned its way into her brain earlier that day. A face that filled with venom could never own a dog as lovely as Delaney. She lost sight of the dog after he circled behind the massive stump on the beach, and with a sigh she turned and trudged up the winding path to the school.
Back at the school office, Mrs. Follett gave Darrell directions to her room on the third floor. “It’s a lovely location, Darrell. Just perfect for a girl with an artistic eye.” Darrell rolled her artistic eyes, but Mrs. Follett went on without noticing. “It’s the last room on the north end of the building, so it doesn’t get too hot in the summer. It is actually a part of the tower at that end, so the room is quite round on one wall. It faces the bay and you will have a view of the most magnificent sunsets, behind the mountains across the water.”
“Do you know who my roommates will be?” Darrell asked, feigning unconcern.
“Oh yes, dear. Your mother requested that you room with Kate Clancy. And you have another girl in with you — Lily Kyushu. She’s a swimmer, I believe. Lily will be arriving late tonight.” Mrs. Follett put her head close to Darrell’s and whispered conspiratorially. “These swimmers; I just can’t understand them. They like to do the endurance practice here, you know. Swimming to the various islands and even over to Vancouver Island, some of them!” She clucked uncomprehendingly as she ruffled through a pile of papers.
Darrell thanked Mrs. Follett for the directions and wound her way through corridors and up stairways until she found her room. She stepped through the doorway and found Kate Clancy and her mother had already arrived. The two girls looked at each other awkwardly, and Kate blushed until her face was almost the same shade as her rusty hair.
“Hello, Kate. Hello, Mrs. Clancy,” Darrell said in a tight voice. They stood for what seemed an eternity, staring uncomfortably at the floor. Finally, Mrs. Clancy broke the silence.
“I’ll leave you two to get used to your room — I’ll be down in the office filling out some final registration papers. But I’ll be back to say goodbye in a short while, Kate.” Kate looked at her mother, as if pleading with her to stay, but Mrs. Clancy turned and headed out the door.
Darrell strode over to the bed by the window, piled with her bags and backpack. She turned her back on Kate and began to organize her things methodically.
“Just because we know each other from school doesn’t mean you’ve got to have anything to do with me here,” Darrell said coldly, without looking at her roommate. “I’m perfectly all right on my own.”
Kate’s face was once again beet red, but this time she looked more angry than embarrassed. “I’ve tried to be friends with you, y’know, Darrell. You are just so unbelievably stubborn. Even when anybody offered to help carry your books at school you acted like it was an insult.”
“It was an insult!” Darrell snapped, whirling around. “Just because I lost my foot doesn’t mean I can’t look after myself. I don’t need anybody. So just leave me alone, okay?” She slammed down a pile of sketchbooks on the desk beside her bed.
“Fine with me.” Kate piled an inordinate number of stuffed animals onto her bed and then turned back to Darrell. “Look, it’s going to be a long summer. Let’s just try to get along, okay?”
Darrell looked back at her, feeling cold and resolute. “I’ll stay out of your way if you’ll stay out of mine.”
Kate sighed. “That’s not what I meant!” she said with exasperation and punched her pillow into place. “But I guess it will have to do.” They both turned back to their unpacking and a few moments later Kate slipped out of the room, leaving Darrell alone with her thoughts.
Dinner that night was quiet. Mrs. Follett directed Darrell to the dining hall — one of the strangely shaped annexes protruding behind the main building. All the teachers except Professor Tooth were present, seated at a single long table at one end of the hall. There were twelve early arrivals besides Darrell, sitting quietly in groups of two or three, casting hidden glances around the room. Since the formal welcome and opening of the school was not to take place until the following day, most students would not be arriving until later that night or early the next morning.
Information sheets for early arrivals were stacked on each table. With a glance at Kate, Darrell took a sheet and sat by herself at a table in the corner. From her spot, she looked through a small garden behind the building and out to a horizon where the sea met the sky over the raised hillocks of islands, pushing their turtle backs out of the water to watch the sunset.
Professor Myrtle Tooth did not appear at dinner, but Arthur Gill stood up to briefly welcome the students and to invite them to spend the next morning at a school orientation program to help prepare them for the classes that would start the following afternoon. There were a few good-natured groans from the students, but almost everyone went directly to their rooms after dinner. Darrell dragged herself upstairs, disappointed and discouraged with her day.
Kate must have been feeling similarly discouraged, as she got ready for bed almost immediately. She turned off the lamp at her bedside table but sat propped up in bed with her notebook computer on her lap, tapping away, her faced bathed in the blue light of the screen. As Darrell undressed for bed, the door opened and someone bounded in and flipped on the light.
“Hi! I’m Lily!” the new girl squeaked. She threw a pile of swim gear on her bed and noisily began to organize flippers and pull-buoys, goggles and earplugs, talking all the while.
“I’m so excited to be here!
I’m in the swimming program. Training begins in the morning and I just can’t wait! This summer school is supposed to be the greatest for training endurance swimmers, and I know I’ll be one of the best! I am so psyched. This is going to be my year, I can just feel it!”
Kate looked at Darrell and rolled her eyes. Lily continued to babble on, heedless of the glances passing between the other two girls. Finally, she paused for breath, and Darrell jumped in.
“Did you say the pool? I thought you practiced endurance swimming in the ocean.”
Lily looked disdainfully at Darrell. “Of course we’ll swim in the ocean! We just have to do it gradually, getting used to the temperature change. You don’t expect me to swim to Vancouver Island tomorrow, do you? Of course not,” she said, answering her own question before Darrell had time to speak. Nightgown in hand, she leapt out of the room toward the bathroom in the hall.
Kate whistled. “Whew! She’s unbelievable!”
Darrell didn’t have time to reply. Lily leapt back into the room, screwed earplugs firmly into her ears, and hopped into bed. “Goodnight!” she called out cheerfully and closed her eyes. In less than a minute, quiet snores were emanating from her shadowed bed.
Kate looked at the tiny lump that was Lily and shook her head. “I’ve read about people like her,” she said darkly.
