Kyle's Island

by Sally Derby

  Just then the screen door slammed and Andrea came in. When she saw what I was holding she took a deep breath that hissed through her clenched teeth. “Darn it! Give it to me!” she demanded. “Who said you could look in there without asking?”

  “What’s the big deal?” Maybe I raised my voice a little at this point, but I certainly didn’t yell, the way she later said I did. “It was under the covers and it poked me, so I pulled it out. Just now. What’s with you, anyway?”

  “What’s with me is that it’s my sketchbook, and if I want to show it to you I will, and I don’t want to, so keep your hands off.”

  I don’t know if I was more shocked or angry at first, but as the seconds ticked by and Andrea stood there with her feet planted wide and a scowl on her face, anger took over. So what if she’d made me a lunch; there was probably poison in it anyway.

  The bad thing about being a boy is that I’m not allowed to hit a girl. If I were I’d have given Andrea a good sock right then. Instead I jumped up and kind of threw the sketchbook to her. She gave a little cry as it fell on the floor and one of the pages tore loose.

  “Now see what you’ve done!” She started to cry as she bent to pick it up. Then she ran out of the cottage, sketchbook in her arms.

  I just stood there, shaking my head. In a minute Vicki came in. “What did you do to Andrea?” she asked.

  That was too much! I hadn’t done anything, and here was Vicki blaming me because Andrea was acting like a brat.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said coldly. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  I hate fighting with people. Andrea came back in a while, her eyes and nose red. She went over to Vicki and said something I couldn’t hear. Vicki nodded, and from then on they ignored me. When Mom got back and saw how things were, she gave me a puzzled look. I pretended I didn’t see. The whole mess wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t see why I should be the one to explain. Instead I told Josh I’d give him a swimming lesson, but he said he wanted to catch crickets. When I offered to catch some too, he said, “No, it’s my job. I can do it.” I guess he didn’t want my company either.

  I hung around the kitchen for a while till Mom shooed me out, saying I’d ruin my appetite for supper. That was the last straw. “A guy can’t do anything around here,” I yelled. “I might as well have stayed away all day.” I ran down to the boat. It was the wrong time of day for any serious fishing—the sun was too high—but at least on the lake nobody would be bugging me.

  I pulled hard at the oars till the old boat skimmed along the water. Almost. You can’t really make a rowboat skim. But I covered a good distance in a hurry. I anchored down by Lancers’ Cove and threw out my line. I sat there and just watched the bobber riding along the wavelets. I had to squint because of the sun. A breeze tickled the back of my neck, and I felt my anger trickle away. It was too beautiful a day to stay mad at someone. The longer I sat there, the mellower I felt. I might even have considered apologizing to Andrea if I could figure out what I had to apologize for.

  I fished for about two hours. I didn’t catch anything, had only a couple of nibbles, and they weren’t worth taking seriously. Finally I felt calm enough to go back. Besides, I was getting hungry.

  Andrea was sitting on the pier, dangling her feet in the water, when I came in. I didn’t know if she’d still be mad or not, so I didn’t say anything. But as I was tying the boat up, she got to her feet and walked toward me, her bare feet leaving wet footprints on the pier behind her. “I’m sorry I got mad,” she said. “But I don’t want you looking in my sketchbook, okay?”

  “Okay.” What else could I say? I tried not to show her I was hurt, but I was. It seemed like all summer—ever since we got here, anyway—she and Vicki had been hanging out together. They were always whispering and doing things without me. I knew Andrea didn’t like to fish, but last summer she’d helped dig for worms, and sometimes she’d gone out on the boat with me so she could sketch the shoreline. I liked having her with me. All she’d ask was for me to row by the water lilies on the way home so she could pick a couple. But she hadn’t been out in the boat with me even once this summer. Well, I wasn’t going to show I cared.

  Now she stood looking at me, rubbing her wet toe along the edge of the pier. “I just wrote a letter to Dad,” she said. “Do you want to add a message?”

  “No.”

  “Have you written to him at all?”

  “No, and I’m not going to.”

  “Okay. Your choice.” She sounded just like Mom when she said that.

  I watched her go down the length of the pier and start up toward the cottage. I thought about calling her back and saying I’d write a line or two if it would make her happy, but I decided against it. It was about time somebody tried to see things from my point of view. Why did I always have to be the reasonable one?

  At dinner we all just sort of sat there. Mom thinks dinner should be a “sociable occasion,” so she tried to get conversation going. “How was the island exploration, Kyle? Find anything interesting?”

  “Not a lot,” I muttered. That was only a half lie, I thought.

  “You haven’t forgotten your promise, have you?”

  “Promise?”

  “Tuesday afternoon, around four.”

  “Oh, that. Josh, you want to go fishing with me tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded vigorously, adding, “I need the practice.”

  “Practice? What are you practicing for?”

  “For when you and Mr. Butler take me some morning.”

  “Where’d you get that idea?” I asked. I hadn’t said anything to him about Tom’s offer, and I didn’t think Mom had either. I looked at him. He was carefully removing bones from his perch. He’s always worried he’ll overlook one and get it stuck in his throat. I think once I told him he would, just joking, and I scared him for life.

  “Mr. Butler told me. We saw him at the grocery this afternoon. He gave me an ice-cream bar.”

  “How many did he eat?” I asked with a laugh.

  Mom gave me a disapproving look and said, “I don’t see why that should concern you, Kyle.”

  And then Vicki had to join in. “You sniggered!” she exclaimed. “Finally I know what a snigger sounds like. Authors are always writing that someone or other ‘gave a snigger,’ but that’s the first one I ever heard.”

  “I didn’t snigger, I just laughed. Didn’t I?” I looked around for support, but I didn’t get any. It wasn’t my night for the dishes, so I wadded up my paper napkin, threw it on the table, pushed away my chair and left. No one called me back.

  As I lay in bed that night, I thought what a lousy ending it was to what had begun as a great day. But at least I’d found the cabin. It was pretty cool to think that I might be the only person who knew it was there. Aside from whoever built it, I mean. I just might start spending all my free time there—it didn’t look as if anyone here would miss me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE NEXT MORNING TOM BUTLER didn’t go fishing. He wasn’t waiting when I got to his cottage, so I had to knock, and he came to the door in pajama bottoms and an undershirt. “Not going today. Feeling poorly,” was his only explanation.

  “Will you be all right?” I asked.

  He grunted what was probably “yes” and turned away.

  Just like that, I had a free morning. Of course that meant less money the next time he paid me. Darn. What now? Fish as usual? Go out to the island? For some reason the thought of a morning by myself didn’t appeal to me today. Walking back to the cottage, I tried to figure out why not. Usually I like being alone. Then the eeriest thing happened. It was like I suddenly heard Dad’s voice whispering to me. “Mend your fences,” he said. I could almost feel his breath on my ear. I knew he wasn’t there, of course—I didn’t turn around to look or anything—but somehow I caught myself starting to cry. I hadn’t heard Dad use that expression for years, not since I was a little kid sulking around the house after a fight with Andrea
or Vicki. “You need to mend your fences,” he’d say. “C’mon, cowboy.” And after I’d made up with whoever, I’d feel better.

  What good was a father who was only a voice? I stood still on the road while the dumb tears rolled, waiting for them to stop—no way was anyone going to see me cry. When I was sure I was through, I started walking again. Then I had an inspiration. I would take Josh out this morning instead of waiting till afternoon. The fishing would be better now, and he might like getting up early for a change.

  Back at the cottage, I wrote a note for Mom. “Took Josh fishing. Back for breakfast.” Then I crept into the main room and, reaching up into the top bunk, gently shook Josh awake.

  Other people—Mom, for instance—sometimes wake up groggy. Not Josh. He’s wide awake in an instant. “Get your clothes on,” I whispered. “We’re going fishing.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “Oh, boy!”

  While he was getting dressed, I made a couple of bologna sandwiches. I didn’t usually eat anything till I came back in for breakfast, but Josh was always hungry, and I didn’t want him bugging me a half hour after we got out. I poured us both a bowl of cereal—cornflakes for me and sugary stuff for him. I had them both ready when he came out, but for some reason today he didn’t want the sugary stuff. “I want the cereal you eat,” he said.

  He started shoving it down so quickly I finally said, “Slow down! The fish aren’t going anywhere.”

  “How come we’re going this morning? Is Mr. Butler going too?” he asked.

  “Not so loud. You’ll wake Mom and the girls. Tom doesn’t feel good this morning, so it’s just you and me.”

  Down at the lake he put on his life jacket and carried the bait to the boat while I got our poles ready. “Is that my pole?” he asked. “Can I have a green and yellow bobber?”

  “Better stick to red and white,” I advised. “They’re easier to see.”

  When we got in the boat, I let him row. “Hear the woodpecker?” I whispered as we cleared Marshalls’ float. “He wakes me up every morning.”

  “Where is he?” Josh whispered back.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Back behind the cottage someplace, I guess.”

  “No, he isn’t!” Josh forgot to whisper. “He’s right over there! Look!”

  He pointed, and I looked, and sure enough, there was the red head high on the trunk of the hickory that grew halfway down the hill. “Good eye!” I congratulated him.

  Pretty soon Josh got tired of rowing, so we carefully switched seats, and I took us the rest of the way. I was headed for the drop-off on the northern side of the island.

  “We’re not going to be feeding babies this morning,” I cautioned him. “You probably won’t get many bites, but when you do, it’ll be a keeper.”

  I anchored us about thirty feet from the island. The anchors went down, down, down, so I knew we were beyond the drop-off. I passed the worms to Josh and unwound his pole. I’d brought him the short one Gram had always used. It looked like it would be just right for him.

  “I’m going to get a real fat worm,” he said, digging down into the dirt. He probably rejected six before he selected a fat, wiggly one and began to bait his hook. “Hold still, won’t you?” he fussed at the worm.

  “What’s the matter, Josh? Won’t he behave?” I joked.

  Josh has been fishing before, and he’s a pretty athletic little kid, so he doesn’t have any trouble casting his line where he wants it. The trouble is, no sooner does the bobber settle down than he decides he’d rather have it someplace else. That was my goal for the morning, to get him to leave his line in till he had a good reason to move it.

  He was hunched over, staring at his bobber, while I readied my pole. “I think I’ve got a bite,” he murmured. “Look, Kyle!”

  I looked. The bobber was riding the water peacefully.

  “That’s just the motion of the waves.”

  “Oh.”

  I threw my line where I could keep an eye on both bobbers at once.

  Five, maybe ten, minutes went by, and suddenly Josh jerked his pole.

  “What was that for?”

  “I thought I had a bite.”

  “When you have a bite out here, you’ll know it. Your bobber will go all the way under. You don’t pull until then.”

  I knew I was testing his patience, but if he was going to go out with Tom Butler, he couldn’t be pulling his line in all the time and chattering away too.

  Pretty soon he said, “Kyle?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do I have a bite?”

  “No. Yes, yes, you do! Pull!”

  He gave his pole a yank. “Careful! Keep him underwater!” I watched as Josh pulled in. “Bring him to the side of the boat. Keep your line taut!”

  As the fish came alongside, I grabbed his line and pulled up. “How about that, Josh! A bluegill. Big one, too.”

  He was so excited he almost started to stand. “Sit down! Do you want to capsize us?” I snapped. He sat, and I took the bluegill off the hook and slipped it into the live-sack. “Didn’t even get your worm.”

  “I’m going to cast out the same place. Maybe there’s another one there,” Josh said. It took him three casts to get the bobber exactly where he wanted it, but I didn’t fuss. I’ve done the same thing myself sometimes.

  It’s a good thing we caught that one, because from then on the morning was dead. After a bit I got out the sandwiches. “I like mustard on mine,” he complained.

  “I forgot. At least you have something to eat.”

  I’ll say this for Josh. He was trying real hard. He hardly pulled his line in at all. I remember when I was little, wondering if some fish had taken my bait when I wasn’t looking, if I had an empty hook floating deep in the green water.

  The boat rocked gently as we sat there, and now and then I looked over at the island and kind of smiled to myself. I knew what was hidden in there among the trees. I wondered why someone would build in the middle, where you’d have no water view. Then I realized. If you couldn’t see the lake, no one on the lake could see you. If you wanted a place to be alone, you wouldn’t want to be in full view of every boat on the water. Was that what the person who built it wanted, a place to hide away? What kind of people wanted that—hermits, criminals, spies …? I was letting my mind wander when Josh spoke so quietly I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him.

  “If you go again, will you take me along, Kyle?”

  I looked at him. He was staring at the island with a funny look on his face, sort of like he was looking at a giant birthday cake and waiting for someone to light the candles.

  “There’s not much there,” I told him.

  “You don’t know. You prob’ly didn’t see the whole island. Maybe there’s something you didn’t find. Maybe there’s a pirate treasure hidden someplace. Or maybe a gorilla or something escaped from a zoo, and it’s living there.”

  “There aren’t any zoos around here.” I couldn’t keep from smiling as I said that. It was the sort of thing I used to think at his age. Maybe Josh and I were more alike than I’d thought.

  “Gorillas can travel a long way.” His jaw was set the way it was when he was driving for a soccer goal. I let him have the last word, and we fished on in silence. A half hour or so later, I decided he’d been patient enough, so I told him to bring his line in. “We’ll pull up anchor and go down by the channel,” I said.

  “Yeah, maybe all the fish are down there.” He sounded more eager than I expected. Maybe catching that one fish had awakened the fisherman in him. He’d never seemed this interested before.

  We went down by the channel and had no luck there, either. But Josh didn’t complain, didn’t fuss to go back in. Maybe he was old enough to go with Tom and me after all.

  When my stomach began to think about breakfast, I told Josh I was ready to head back in. “Can I leave my line in the lake while we row back?” he begged. “Maybe a fish will see my worm and chase it.”


  “Sure,” I said with a little chuckle, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  When we got back, Josh scrambled out of the boat and grabbed the live-sack. “I’m going to take my fish up to show Mom,” he said.

  “First, you’re going to help put things away.” I handed him his pole and the bait can.

  “But I want to fish off the end of the dock. Do we have to put stuff away right now? Can’t I fish? Just till breakfast is ready?”

  I stared at him in amazement. What a change. He really had caught the fishing bug! “Sure,” I said. “If you need help, call me. Keep your life jacket on, remember.”

  Up in the cottage, I was surprised to find that Mom and Vicki and Andrea had already finished breakfast. Vicki was making beds, Andrea was sweeping the floor, and Mom was finishing up the dishes. “You and Josh will have to get something in a hurry,” she said. “Someone’s coming to look at the cottage in about a half hour.”

  I groaned. “Why so early?” I asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” she said with a smile. “But no matter when they planned to come, you wouldn’t want them. Call Josh.”

  “Okay,” I said. I hesitated. “Mom? What if I could find a way to pay the taxes? Then we wouldn’t have to sell, would we?”

  “Where would you get that kind of money?”

  “Well, I might. Would we? Have to sell, then?”

  “I don’t know, Kyle. I really don’t. I told you. If we sell the cottage, I can put the money away in the college funds. It wouldn’t cover all the costs, of course, but it would help. And I’m just afraid that as you kids grow older it will be harder and harder to make use of the cottage. It won’t be just Vicki and Josh—you and Andrea will have activities, too, things that will make you want to spend more of the summer in Cincinnati.”