“Do you really mean that?”
Flor clutches the phone. Nods. Sylvie hears the nod.
“So you’re really not mad.”
“Everybody wants something,” Flor says. “I mean, you can’t map the ways of the heart, but maybe you can. Everybody wants something big and beautiful.”
“You’re really not mad!” cries Sylvie.
Out of nowhere, Flossie Magruder steals up beside Flor. She flicks her ragged ear, makes a rusty sound that could be a purr or a growl. Back in the day, whenever they got to make a wish, Flor and Sylvie would wish to understand the language of animals. That was once the biggest, best wish they could think of. Flor bends and pets the old cat.
“I’m mad,” she says. “But not at you.”
“That night I fell down the stairs, something snapped inside me. I could actually feel it. I thought I heard it! Not a real bone, but some part of me I didn’t know was in there. And then I felt something else grow in its place, something stronger and tougher. Do you think that’s possible, to grow a bone or a muscle you didn’t have before?”
“I’ll ask Dr. Fife.”
Flossie weaves between her legs. Out on the choppy bay, a bobbing, beady-eyed cormorant disappears, zoop! Now you see him, now you don’t. The day Sylvie announced she was going away to school, they watched one of those big greedy birds, maybe the very same one, watched and waited, counting the seconds till he came back up. That was so long ago! Uncountable seconds ago. Remembering, Flor feels like she’s looking back at someone else, two someone elses, not the Flor and Sylvie talking to each other now. She thought she knew everything there was to know about herself and Sylvie, but now she thinks maybe the real trick of seeing, the kind of seeing humans could really use, is the kind that lets you see through someone else’s eyes.
“I’m glad you’re sticking up for yourself,” she tells Sylvie. “You learned that from me, you know.”
“You are my best friend.” Sylvie’s voice trembles. “I will never, ever, even if I live to be a hundred, have a friend half as good as you.”
“Me either.”
“Not even one sixteenth.”
“Not one billionth.”
“Trillionth.”
“Gazillionth.”
Flossie purrs. It is, for sure, a purr. Out on the water, the cormorant—the flightful cormorant—surfaces. His skinny head gleams. Water drips from his long, pointy beak. Rays of sun zap each drop, spark spark sparkle.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mama is coming on the next ferry. This is for sure.
What’s not is: will she stay?
They all drive to meet her. Along the back shore road and down Moonpenny. The clock tower says 1:09. Flor resets the car’s clock by it.
Flor has her fossils in the pocket of her jacket. Since the night they accompanied her to the bottom of the bottomless quarry, she’s carried them with her everywhere.
The Patricia Irene is a dot on the bay, still more the idea of a ferry than the real thing.
The day is so bright, it’s hard to believe there’s such a thing as the dark. Sunshine hits the asphalt, ricochets. Light tap-dances across the water, radiates from the yellow wood of the new pilings. Jasper and Dr. Fife are already there.
“It’s the perfect day to travel!” Dr. Fife’s blue eyes twinkle. He and Jasper are leaving on the exact ferry bringing Mama back. The ferry goes round and round, never getting anywhere, but what would they do without it? It’s another kind of humble hero.
Boxes of specimens, marked FRAGILE THIS SIDE UP, are heaped on the dock. Jasper wears her work boots and an enormous jacket. No hat today. Her carbonated hair fizzes in the sunlight.
Flor knew Jasper would leave. Of course she knew. But the knowing has bobbed on her horizon, a tiny boat never getting bigger. Till now.
“We never got to do so many things. I never even showed you half the island.” That this is her own fault makes Flor sad. That Jasper doesn’t point it out makes her even sadder.
The sun pours down. Jasper unzips her jacket. And what is this?
“Hey,” says Flor. “That’s a pretty shirt.”
Jasper looks down, pretending to be surprised. Pretending? Jasper?
“Thank you. I . . . I ordered it online.”
“Let’s see.”
Jasper slips off her jacket. The shirt is the color of new ferns and makes her eyes look like they invented green.
What’s most amazing? The shirt fits. Its three-quarter sleeves end right where they’re supposed to. Thomas slingshots over to get a look.
“Whoa. It’s like when I put your doll’s arm in the fire that time, remember, Flor?”
“No fire,” says Jasper. “This is how I was born. This is me.”
“You could get a wooden arm, like a pirate leg except—”
“That’s enough out of you, mister,” says Flor.
But Jasper just shrugs. A Joe-like shrug that makes Flor break into her first smile of the day. Jasper smiles back.
“I brought you a going-away present,” she says.
And now Flor feels even worse, because Jasper is the one going away, not her, and she didn’t think to bring a gift. Maybe Jasper is better at the rules of friendship than Flor thought. Or maybe she just makes up her own rules. She’s holding out a familiar book.
“The Galápagos Islands,” says Flor. “But you love that book. Are you sure . . .”
“I’m sure.”
“Thank you.”
Last night Sylvie called. She’d just had a long talk with Perry and sounded so happy. Something’s changed in him. He and her father have been talking, actually talking, not arguing. Perry told Sylvie their father listened when he said he didn’t want his life all laid out for him—he wanted to discover it himself. He wanted to make something of himself, he did, but he had to do it on his own. Mr. Pinch may help Perry get a job with a friend of his who owns a trucking business. In Columbus. Where there’s a river instead of a lake. Where there are highways that connect to millions of other highways.
“He said you’re one crazy-brave little dude,” Sylvie said, “and I said, like you discovered that, Perry Pinch?”
Something else. Sylvie’s mother is going to a treatment center. It’s nearby, so she and her aunt and uncle will get to visit while she’s there.
“I’m so glad,” Sylvie said. “I miss her so much.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.”
Dr. Fife produces a bag of chocolate kisses and hands them around. Dad says no thanks, moves toward the edge of the dock. Flor’s glad. Looking at his face is too hard right now.
“Last night I read about recently discovered species.” Jasper unwraps her kiss with her teeth. “One is the world’s smallest frog. Five or six can sit on a dime. Another is an earthworm the size of a sausage. Did you know that Darwin devoted the last years of his life to earthworms? Most people considered worms beneath their notice. But Darwin did worm experiments and wrote an entire book on how worms, which are silent, humble, invisible, and everywhere, slowly change the very ground we stand on.”
The ferry’s getting closer. Flor can make out the words on its side. Jasper follows Flor’s gaze, shuffles her big work boots.
“Sorry,” she says quietly. “You’re not interested in earthworms at this particular moment, are you?”
“It’s okay,” says Flor. One hand holds the book and the other’s in her pocket, nervously fingering the fossils. A bird-shaped shadow whisks across the ground, and she’s back in her dream, teetering. Will she fall or fly? Why does she have to choose? Because time doesn’t stop, for better or for worse.
Cecilia’s sitting by herself on a bench. Mama will hardly recognize her. Yesterday she went over to Lauren Long’s—for real—and came home with a new, shaggy hairstyle. Who knew that gossipy, snarky Lauren could cut hair like a pro? The hidden talents people walk around with! Last night, Flor found the computer open to a site about summer opportunities for high-school stud
ents. Internships. Travel abroad. Study at universities. Scholarships available for excellent students.
Now Dr. Fife flings his arms wide. Chocolate kisses fly.
“Moonpenny Island! A microcosm of Earth’s complex and infinite variety! An old scientist could spend his life studying this place and only scratch the surface.” Dr. Fife’s goofy, adorable laugh rings out. “Literally and metaphorically!”
Thomas picks up spilled kisses and starts unwrapping them with his teeth too.
You can almost make out the few people standing on the deck. Flor tells herself not to look for Mama, who gets seasick and won’t be outside, won’t won’t.
“What my father’s trying to say,” Jasper says, “is we might come back.”
“What?” Flor whirls around.
“If my father can get another grant, we’ll return in the spring.”
“Jasper! That’s so great! That’s such good news! Why in the world didn’t you tell me before?”
“It’s still only thesis, not yet fact. We can’t count on it.”
“But still! You might!”
Jasper smiles, and before Flor knows what she’s doing, she’s holding out the fossil Sylvie found.
“Here’s your going-away present,” she says. “It’s a wishing fossil.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“I’ll show you. Touch the edge. Okay, now close your eyes. Good. At the count of three, we both wish. Ready? One Mississippi . . .”
When Flor opens her eyes, Cecilia’s gotten up from the bench. Thomas, mouth kissed with chocolate, is a jack in the box. At the end of the dock, Dad’s broad shoulders lift. Because there she is. On the top deck, in a red coat Flor has never seen before. Thinner—she looks thinner. Against the dancing light, Flor can’t make out her mother’s face. Is she leaning forward, trying to make the patient old Patricia Irene go faster? Trying to close that dark gap of water between them, to get back home to them for good and all and forever? Or is that just what Flor wants to see?
Jasper slips the fossil into her own pocket. All those gazillions of years it lay buried, and soon it will be crossing the water, riding in a car, boarding an airplane, and winging through the clouds. Part of Flor’s going with it, even as she stays here, with the patient rocks, the restless lake, the sister who slips an arm around her, pulling her so close Flor feels their two hearts beat in time. Their mysterious hearts. Their secret, hopeful, unmapped, ever-strong hearts. Alive, alive, their hearts say. You, me, this so-new and so-ancient world.
The gulls on the pilings lift their wings at the very same moment. How do they do that? They skim over the sparkling water, rise and press the sky. Now the sun’s in Flor’s eyes, but still she keeps them open. Squints to see.
Acknowledgments
No writer is an island, especially not me. I owe deep thanks to my editor, Donna Bray, for her patience and faith, and to my agent, Sarah Davies, whose support truly is bottomless. I’m so grateful and lucky that Susan Grimm, Mary Norris, and Delia Springstubb read my pages and shared their gentle but spot-on advice. Thanks are also due to the Vermont Studio Center and the Ohio Arts Council.
Of the books and articles I read about my humble heroes, Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution, by Richard Fortey, is the gold standard. I also loved learning about Charles Darwin as a private person as well as a scientist. Two books that were helpful and delightful are Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman, and Darwin: A Life in Poems by his great-great-granddaughter, Ruth Padel.
About the Author
Photo by J. Palsa Photography
TRICIA SPRINGSTUBB is the author of the acclaimed middle grade novels What Happened on Fox Street and Mo Wren, Lost and Found as well as the picture book Phoebe & Digger. The mother of three grown daughters, she lives with her husband and cats in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. You can visit her online at www.triciaspringstubb.com.
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Credits
Cover art © 2015 by Gilbert Ford
Cover design by Dana Fritts
Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
MOONPENNY ISLAND. Text copyright © 2015 by Tricia Springstubb. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Gilbert Ford. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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EPub Edition © December 2014 ISBN 9780062112958
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