Orphan Island

by Laurel Snyder

  Jinny cleared her throat and looked up at the other kids who ringed the fire, their faces flickering in the flames, with their foreheads hot and their backs cold against the breezy night. They talked quietly to each other, and nobody seemed to be paying especially close attention to her but Ess, so Jinny said, “Hey, I know you’ve all heard this before, but if you want me to read, you need to listen.”

  Across the fire, Oz gave a grumble. Jak grumbled too, but Ben said, “Shhhh,” and everyone fell silent.

  It was hard for Jinny to make out the words in the uneven light, but she could almost recite this story from memory anyway. “‘Once there was a tree . . .’”

  Beside her, Ess listened, mouth hanging slightly open, to the tale of a tree that gave everything it had to a boy—its apples and its branches, until the tree was nothing but a stump. It was a sad story, Jinny thought, but what a thing to do—to give up your whole self for someone else. To love someone that much. To be always and forever there, no matter what. To hold on like that.

  When she was finished, Sam piped up suddenly, from across the fire circle. “I wish our trees would talk to me,” he said wistfully.

  “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it,” said Ben, with a smile for the smaller boy.

  “Not me,” said Joon, shaking her head. “Imagine if you went out to wish in the middle of the night and some tree was like, ‘A little too much tea before bed tonight, huh?’”

  Everyone laughed at that.

  “Well, I think the tree is stupid,” said Eevie.

  Jinny rolled her eyes in the darkness.

  “Hey, Jinny,” called out Nat. “What did Abigail think of this one? I can’t remember what she wrote.”

  “Oh, good question,” said Jinny. She flipped to the front of the book and peered at the handwriting inside the cover. It was hard to make out the faint scribbles in the flickering light of the fire. She squinted. “Hmm. Actually, Abigail seems to agree with Eevie on this one. She wrote, ‘That tree is a pathetic doormat. It got what it deserved.’”

  Across the fire, Eevie looked triumphant. “See,” she said. “Told you so.”

  “Well, since you know so much, Eevie, what’s a doormat?” asked Oz.

  Eevie snorted. “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you,” she said.

  “Awww, you don’t know,” hooted Jak.

  “Anyway, I’m going to bed,” said Eevie, yawning. “It’s late.”

  “Agreed,” said Ben, standing up. “Come on, let’s all head to bed. We might get caught in night rain if we don’t go soon.”

  One by one, the kids rose from the fire circle and called out their good-nights as they filed up to the path and their cabins. But Jinny sat a moment, watching them go, because Ess was leaning heavily against her legs. It was only when Jinny moved to pick her up that she realized Ess was still wide awake, eyes staring at the bright stars overhead, the soft night all around her.

  “Hey, you’re still up,” said Jinny. “What’re you thinking about?”

  The little girl looked at her with tired eyes and said quietly, “For Ess? All for Ess?”

  “What?” Jinny didn’t understand her question at first.

  “Dis,” said Ess, tossing a thin arm wide, to gesture at the sky, the fire, the other children walking back to their cabins in the moonlight. “All dis for Ess?”

  “Oh,” said Jinny. “Yeah.” Then she whispered, “All for Ess.”

  All for Ess, thought Jinny, as she pulled her Care to standing and held her hand across the sand, guided her to the path that led up the hill to bed. All for Ess, this wonderful place, for years and years to come. Jinny sighed. How would she ever leave it all, when her turn came? How had Deen let go so easily?

  Back in their cabin the two girls slipped into their sleeping shifts. Then they crawled into bed and settled down, tip to toe again, one head at each end of the bed. Tonight they did it easily, comfortably, as if they’d been sleeping this way forever.

  As she nodded off to sleep, Ess called out a question in her thin voice. “Dinny?”

  “Yes,” said Jinny sleepily from the other end of the bed.

  “Whooze . . . Abidal?”

  At first Jinny was too drowsy to make sense of the slurry words, but then she understood. “Oh, Abigail! From the story, you mean? Abigail with the pathetic doormat?”

  “Ess,” said Ess.

  “Abigail Ellis,” said Jinny, yawning. “That was her name. She must have lived here a long time ago, or before I came anyway, and before anyone who was here when I arrived. We don’t know much more about her than that, except she wrote her name in all the books and made notes in them. So we like to read what she had to say. It’s almost like . . . almost like we know her. Like she’s part of our family. Like she’s part of the island. She’s the only kid we know about from before we all got here. The only person who left a name behind.”

  “Oh,” said Ess. “Otay.”

  Jinny propped herself up on her elbows and watched the girl sink into her pillow at the other end of the bed, watched her eyes close. She thought about how nice it would be to fall into a pillow exactly that way—to close your eyes and fall off to sleep with an answer. Just like that.

  7

  Almost Magical

  The next morning, after Jinny and Ess had rolled out of bed, Ess ran to open the cabin door, but Jinny had a thought. “Hey now!” she called out. “It’s time you learned to straighten up after yourself. You need to help me make this bed. After all, you slept in it too! Get over here!”

  Ess looked surprised, but she flashed a quick smile. “I do! I hep!” she said eagerly, reaching for the covers, which she promptly dragged straight down onto the floor.

  Jinny laughed and picked up the blankets. She showed Ess how to hold two corners of the sheet and blanket and shake them free of sand and dirt. She taught her to tuck the sheet neatly under the mattress. Watching Ess run her tiny hands around the bed, pulling and tucking at each pucker, made Jinny smile. When that was done, the two of them plumped the pillows and pulled the blanket up over the bed, tucking it neatly under.

  “Why dis?” asked Ess with a grunt, pushing hard to get the corner of the blanket securely under.

  “Just so that we don’t end up with scuttles or bugs in the bed,” said Jinny, wrinkling her nose.

  Ess wrinkled her own nose in imitation and grinned at Jinny. Then she said, “No. Why do dis?” gesturing at the entire bed. She patted a pillow gently and smoothed over the top of the blanket, which Jinny had turned neatly over.

  “Oh, why do we make the bed?” asked Jinny. “I don’t know. Because we do. Because that’s the way of it. Because . . . it makes it nicer to come back into the cabin each night.”

  Ess responded with a soft nod.

  And the next day, and the day after that, Ess scrambled down from the bed each morning and immediately began to tug at the blankets, squealing when they toppled over onto her head. She liked her task. She liked knowing exactly what she was supposed to do. It seemed to please her, to help.

  Ess had been on the island for about ten sleeps, and settled into the pattern of life—meals at the long table with the others, naps in the late afternoon, stories by the fire circle—when one morning, Ben asked Jinny if she’d join Joon on a fetch. “We’re almost out of fresh snaps, and you’re the best picker of all of us. Plus, we should set a bunch of them out to dry. We haven’t done that in a long time. Please?”

  “Fine, but what should I do with Ess?” asked Jinny, swallowing a mouthful of cold fish. “She’s not ready to climb the boulders yet.”

  “Sure she is,” offered Joon. “She’s got to learn, doesn’t she?”

  “She’ll slow us down,” said Jinny. “She could get hurt.”

  “So what if she does?” asked Joon. “Everyone gets hurt sometimes.”

  “I suppose,” said Jinny. “But while I’m her Elder, it’s my job to keep her safe. Isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” asked Ben. “I thought it was your job
to teach her to keep herself safe. Otherwise, what happens when you go? Anyway, Sam did it last year, with Deen,” said Ben. “Remember?”

  “I guess so,” grumbled Jinny. She was the Elder. Why did Ben always have to be so right?

  An hour later, the three girls set off with large cloth sacks to hold the sweet fresh snaps. They hiked up past the cabins, through the wide green meadow to where the low snap trees stood, at the edge of the cliffs. Jinny was surprised to see that Ess was able to keep up with Joon’s pace, scurrying along beside her, stumbling in her ungainly way, where Joon took long, even strides. Once, Ess slipped and fell, but she didn’t cry, and she popped up right away and kept going.

  From behind, Jinny couldn’t help noticing that Joon and Ess resembled each other. She’d never noticed it before, but their coloring was the same—like the rich dark soil of the prairie. Their arms were long and thin. Both of them had the same wild, wonderful curls too. Jinny wondered if maybe, as she grew, Ess would shoot up tall and angular, like Joon. Sharp.

  Of all the kids, Joon was the one who knew the island best. She was strong and long legged and loved to explore, to range and roam. Sometimes she even spent nights away from her cabin, roosting with the chickens in the trees, or camping out on the prairie. Jinny and Joon were only two boats apart in age, but somehow, though Jinny liked Joon, she never felt that she knew her entirely. Joon kept something to herself, always. As though she had a secret and would never tell it.

  It was nice, picking in the cool late morning together. Ess stuffed her face with the sweet snaps, chewing their meaty red flesh and spitting out the pits. But she put as many into the bags as she did into her mouth, so Jinny didn’t scold much. She only said, “You’ll make yourself sick, you know.” The low trees were just right for Ess’s short arms to climb, and now and then she’d chase after one of the wild cats that crept over from the high grass of the prairie to watch them warily. Jinny had to admit Ben had been right. She was glad she’d brought the girl along.

  After a few hours, all the bags were filled, and it was time to climb the cliffs. Joon groaned as she pulled one heavy sack up onto her back and then led the way, while Jinny, carrying the second sack, and Ess, “helping,” followed her up into the rocky foothills and strange arrangements of boulders that covered the base of the cliffs on that part of the island. They moved slowly, hauling their heavy load of fruit, picking their way carefully over the boulders and then along the faint sandy path in the rock. Several times, Jinny had to stop and help Ess up, but the younger girl didn’t complain once, and at last they made their way to where the cliffs flattened out into low stretches of gray rock. The wind rushed all around the cliffs there, creating a roaring, blustery sound that kept most birds and animals away. But from above, the sun beat down, and the rocks stayed hot all day. It was the perfect place for fruit to dry.

  One by one Jinny and Joon set the dark green-skinned fruits out on the dry rocks. If they were lucky, and the birds didn’t steal too many of them, the sunshine would shrink and sweeten the firm globes into rich bits of chewy deliciousness. In about a dozen sleeps, they’d come back and collect them again. These dried snaps were the closest thing the kids had to what Abigail’s books called candy. Ben liked to keep them always on hand, but recently, they’d gotten off schedule and run out. It felt like a hundred sleeps since Jinny had tasted a dried snap.

  As Joon and Jinny worked, Ess danced from rock to rock, hunting for shell shapes and feather patterns buried in the ancient stone. Jinny watched her poke around. “You were right,” she said to Joon. “She can do it.”

  “I know she can,” said Joon tersely. She kept at her work, laying out fruit hand over hand, only taking a moment to shoot Jinny a quick sidelong glance. “She can probably do just about anything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Jinny.

  “Just that Ben is right. It’s not your job to help her every second. It’s your job to teach her to help herself.”

  “I know that,” said Jinny, turning her back on Joon. “I don’t need the two of you telling me. Anyway, just wait until you have a Care. You’ll see it isn’t so easy.”

  Joon didn’t reply. Instead she stood and stretched herself tall, then shouted, “Hey, Ess, watch this!” as she took a running leap off the top of the high cliff and, for an instant, shone bright, silhouetted against the sun. It looked like Joon would fall, and Ess gasped. But a second later a soft push of wind brought her feet back to solid ground.

  Ess looked up at Jinny. “Ess do too?”

  Jinny laughed. “Sure, of course. The wind will always push you back to land. The cliffs won’t let you fall. You’re safe.”

  She watched as Ess proceeded to toss her little body off the cliffs and into the wind, watched the girl sprawl on the rock when the gusts brought her gently back down. But for some reason, Jinny wasn’t in the mood to jump herself. This—cliff jumping—had been something Jinny had done most often with Deen, and it felt wrong, to ride the wind without him.

  She remembered one day, just before he’d gone. It had been a while since they’d come up to the cliffs alone. He was always with Sam. But that day they’d walked up together, just the two of them. At the top, they’d played a game. They’d stood, hand in hand, and jumped at the same time into the wind. Whoever managed to get both feet back on the ground first won. That day, Jinny kept winning. Every time. After twelve turns, she’d let go of his hand and laughed at him. “Ha, you lose!” she’d shouted.

  Deen had shot her a cool look and turned silently to head back down the cliffs.

  “Hey, wait, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?” Jinny had asked him. “What’s wrong?”

  Deen had shaken his head. “Sorry. Nothing. I’m just in a . . . I’m not feeling so great.”

  “Then why did you invite me up here?” asked Jinny.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It just felt like we should do this today. One more time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jinny had asked. “Deen . . . are you okay?”

  But instead of answering, he’d suddenly turned, run, jumped, tossed himself back into the wind. Alone.

  Jinny didn’t try to join him. And a few days later, the boat had arrived.

  Now, looking back, the memory hurt. Jinny wondered if he had known, that day, what was coming. And if so, how? She wondered, too, if the wind blew so strongly where he was now. She wondered if Deen thought of her when he felt it blow. These thoughts filled Jinny’s head as she watched Ess toss her thin body off the cliffs. The girl hurled herself fearlessly into the breeze, her arms and legs outstretched, a huge grin on her face. Ess shouted with joy each time she tumbled back gently onto the baked stone.

  When the sun was high in the sky and the bags of fruit had all been laid out, Jinny stood up and called, “Time to go, guys!”

  “No, no, no. Ess wants more!” cried Ess.

  Joon stood with her hands on her hips and laughed. “Stay much longer up here on these sunny rocks and you’ll pass out from heatstroke. It’s time to go. But I bet you’ll like the next part almost as much.”

  Jinny nodded, brushing the sticky juice from her hands onto her pants. “Joon’s right,” she said. “We need to skedaddle. But don’t worry, Ess. This is good too. Come on!”

  Then all thoughts of fruit drying and Deen and who was right and who wasn’t were forgotten as the three girls sat down on the fruit sacks. With a shout they shoved off and slid all the way down the slopes, down to the foothills and the boulders. Ess shouted with joy as she rode in Jinny’s lap down the smooth stone, the wind rushing past them, her hair tickling Jinny’s nose. Below them, the blur of the meadow and the prairie stretched out like a green-gold sea. Rushing along, Jinny felt better. Clearer. There was something almost magical about moving so fast.

  8

  Minor Adjustments

  After her wonderful day on the cliffs, Ess begged constantly to return. “Now we go?” she asked every few hours. “Pease?”

&nbs
p; But Jinny shook her head each time. “You can’t do your favorite thing every day, or it won’t be special anymore.”

  “Pooh,” said Ess with a pout.

  “We’ll go back to get the dried snaps in ten sleeps,” explained Jinny. “I promise.”

  Then one day at breakfast, Nat and Eevie announced they were heading out for a honey fetch.

  Ess turned to Jinny, eyes wide, and begged. “Ess go too?”

  Jinny laughed and nodded. “Sure, why not,” she said. “It’s not quite as exciting as the cliffs, but you’ll like the bees.”

  An hour later, the four girls hiked up the path into the high grass. In no time at all, they reached the prairie, where the wild cats and the chickens had free range and chased each other back and forth. Even as the four of them stepped into the high green and gold grasses, a small orange kitten was worrying a big old hen into a frenzy near a rotting stump.

  “No!” shouted Ess, running at the kit. “No! Shoo, kitty!”

  The kitten turned and hissed at Ess, who jumped into the air with a screech, and the cat raced off, back in the other direction. Eevie laughed, and Jinny couldn’t help joining her. But Nat crouched down and asked, “You okay, Ess?”

  Ess pouted and said, “I was helping.”

  “We know you were,” said Nat. “But the thing to remember about the animals is that they do fine on their own. They do fine without us.”

  “But,” said Ess, looking worried, “but . . . kitty would hurt ticken.”

  “Yup,” said Eevie. “It’s a hard life in the prairie for a ticken that can’t fight back!”

  “Hey, you two!” Jinny interrupted. “Hey, let’s get a move on. I want honey! Last to the hives is a stinker!”

  They all took off running without argument.

  When they arrived at the first hive, Jinny showed Ess how to raise the lid carefully, so as not to pinch her fingers. Ess was bothered a bit by the bees at first, and ran around waving her arms in the air whenever one landed on her. But then Nat explained, in her calm voice, about how the bees didn’t want to sting. How they would only sting if something went very, very wrong, if they were scared or hurt. So Ess settled down and came to watch as Jinny pulled a frame from the hive, ignoring the bees that crawled and buzzed and settled on her skin, tickling.