by Sarah Ellis
“Yup,” said Dad, “I imagine that old Natalie has the universe pretty much recorded and under control.”
“Jim . . .” Mum was using her warning but kidding voice.
The telephone rang and Dad held up his hand. “Listen! The phone’s in the same key as the music. Okay, okay, I’m getting it. Oh, hi, Marie. Yes, she’s right here.” Dad put the receiver against Mum’s ear and started to rub her back again.
Megan opened the dog-biscuit cupboard and Bumper rose from the dead, turned his head to one side, and whimpered. “Okay, boy.” Megan tossed a biscuit bone into the air, and Bumper watched it fall safely to the floor before retrieving it. He didn’t like his food on the wing. Megan scratched him behind the ears while he crunched.
“Wait a minute. I’ll ask her.” Mum balanced the phone on her shoulder. “Megan, when Marie got home there was a message from Mr. Thompson on the island. One of the windows of the cottage has been broken. He thinks it was a bird. So Marie and John are going to go over tomorrow to sort it out and then stay overnight. They’d like to take you and Betsy. Want to go?”
“Um, I don’t know. I’ve got Art Experience.”
“John’s going to skip this week. But it’s up to you.”
Megan thought about escaping Operation Matrimony. “Sure.”
“Hang on,” said Dad. “Why don’t you both go?”
“Impossible,” said Mum. “Marie already suggested that, but I have far too much to do.”
“Like what?” asked Dad.
“Like a turkey to cook,” said Mum impatiently. “For turkey divan for the wedding.”
“I’ll do it,” said Dad.
“You’ll what? Yes, I’m still here, Marie. Jim’s babbling.”
“I don’t have much on tomorrow. I’ll barbecue it. Give me the phone for a minute. Hey, Marie, have you got Howie there? Can I speak to him please?”
Dad held the phone away from his ear. “You need a break, Judy. Look, your shoulders are heading up toward your ears just talking about the wedding. Howie? Feel like coming over tomorrow to watch the game and barbecue a turkey? Sure. Great. See you around ten.” Dad handed the phone back to Mum. “There, all set.”
Mum looked a bit dazed. “Well, I guess I’m coming, too, Marie. Early ferry? Okay. Thanks.”
Mum hung up the phone. “Do you really know how to barbecue a turkey?”
“I’ve done chickens. Must be the same poultry principle. Don’t worry. It’ll be great. Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a scout.”
“Picky, picky.”
Bumper padded up the stairs with Megan and did a brief snuffle around the bedroom. But his heart wasn’t in being awake and he settled back into dog dreams before Megan had even taken off her shoes.
The streetlight shone through the window onto the sleeping Betsy. She was scrunched up with her knees bent under her and her face smashed into the pillow. She looked like a turtle.
Megan went to the window to close the curtains. Only one star was visible beyond the bright streetlight. Only one sun. She leaned out the window into the cool breeze and sent her mind toward the star. She said the words “as fast as light,” trying for that dizzy, dissolving feeling again. But it didn’t work. She stayed right inside herself, like peanut butter in a jar. And the star stayed right in the top branches of the chestnut tree across the street.
She pulled the curtain across the streetlight and the invisible sea of stars. She undressed in the dark and slid under the covers. She looked over to the turtle. Betsy was smaller when she was asleep.
Some time later Megan woke up to the sound of a dresser drawer opening. She peered into the darkness of the room. Betsy was scrabbling in the dresser, making a little hiccuping, crying sound. Megan glanced at the clock: 1:27.
“Betsy, what are you doing?”
“Mum didn’t put my clothes out.” Betsy sobbed and scooped out a handful of socks.
“But tomorrow’s not a school day. You can choose your own clothes in the morning.”
“I can’t.” There was a small scrabbling noise. Betsy sorted through the socks.
Megan’s body was as heavy as wood, a tree rooted to the mattress. So warm, so sleepy . . .
The closet door squeaked open and Megan heard the sounds of hangers scraping across the rod. Betsy couldn’t reach that high.
“Betsy, I’ll help you in the morning.”
“You won’t.”
Megan reached over and switched on her light. “Bets?”
Betsy turned her blotchy face to Megan. “I can’t see what to get.”
“Hey, guess what?”
“I don’t want to guess.”
“We’re going to the island tomorrow.”
“We are?”
“Yup, with Aunt Marie and John. Till Sunday.”
“It’s my turn for the top bunk, right?”
“Right.”
Betsy stood up, threw her arms into the air, and then flopped backward onto her bed. “Capital idea!”
Capital? Oh, yes, Sherlock Holmes. “Capital idea, my dear Watson.” Dad must have read another chapter this evening. Megan was now three-quarters awake. “Betsy, did you know that the sun is a star? Betsy?” But Betsy was four-quarters asleep.
Megan stared at the empty place on the floor beside Betsy’s bed. She remembered being Betsy’s age, waking up in the night and not wanting to go back to sleep because sleeping felt like disappearing. Then she would see Tomorrow Megan on the floor, where Mum had arranged her, ready and waiting for the morning, and it would be okay.
Tomorrow Betsy. She was outgrowing it. But not quite.
Megan rolled out of bed and went to the dresser to pick out an armload of clothes. She sorted through the pile of shoes in the cupboard until she unearthed Betsy’s sandals. Then she arranged a little girl on the floor. Underwear, a panda T-shirt, denim skirt, red cardigan, striped kneesocks, sandals, legs crossed. She reached into her own cupboard and brought out her baseball cap for the little girl’s head. Then she flicked out the light, sat on the edge of her bed, pulled her knees up inside her nightgown, and stared at the figure.
But Tomorrow Betsy needed something. Megan glanced around the room. The glitter wand was on the bookcase. She slid it out from behind a stuffed lion and leaned over to place it in the little girl’s shadowy hand. There. Tomorrow Betsy and her magic wand of power.
Chapter Sixteen
THE FIRST FERRY TO THE ISLAND was very early, as soon as they got on board Mum and Aunt Marie staked out a table and produced their books and a thermos of coffee. “We’re on vacation as of now,” said Mum. “Here’s money for breakfast. Don’t fall overboard.”
“Ferry breakfast. Capital,” said Betsy.
Megan, who had managed to stay more or less asleep during the flurried early-morning packing and the trip to the ferry dock, thought about finding a comfortable bench to curl up on. But Betsy and John were full of plans. Besides, the breakfast smells from the cafeteria were tempting.
They pushed their trays around the cafeteria line and met at a table near the window. Megan had sunshine scrambled eggs. Betsy had a chocolate doughnut and green Jell-o. And John had two glasses of water.
“How come you’re not eating?” asked Megan.
“I want to use the money for video games,” said John. “They have great ones on the ferry. But Mum thinks that video games stifle creativity and model inappropriate behavior. Anyway, this isn’t such a bad breakfast. Wait a minute.”
John pushed out past Betsy and went over to the cutlery counter. He came back with a little pillow of ketchup, two lemon slices, a packet of sugar, and two stir sticks. He squeezed the lemon into one glass of water and added sugar. He squeezed the ketchup into the other glass. Then he stirred them both. “There we go, lemonade and tomato juice. All for free.”
The tom
ato juice looked particularly repulsive. “Free but horrible,” said Megan.
Betsy, however, was staring in fascination. Megan had the feeling that John had just modeled inappropriate behavior with respect to cafeterias.
Megan and Betsy looked at all the souvenirs in the shop while John blasted evil aliens until he ran out of quarters. Then they went outside, to the back deck, to look for sea gulls and whales. There were plenty of sea gulls, and Betsy spotted several dark waves that might have been whales but weren’t.
Megan hung over the rail and stared down into the foaming white wake. With it she tumbled out over the dark green water, time and again.
“Let’s play eavesdrop,” said John.
Eavesdrop was a game that John had made up. Each player was to go around the ferry and, without being obvious about it, listen in on conversations. Then they were to report back with the funniest line that they had heard anyone say.
“Betsy’s too young for eavesdrop,” said Megan.
“Am not,” said Betsy. “It’s one of my best games.”
“Okay,” said John. “This is a sudden-death round. Five minutes only. Meet back at the kids’ playroom.”
Megan wandered off to her favorite eavesdrop area in the bookstore. She pretended to browse through a book called Univalves of the Pacific Northwest while she waited for the perfect overheard remark. But although there was a buzz of conversation around her, she kept listening to the buzz and not the words. She made one last effort to concentrate and then gave up and stared at a picture of a spotted keyhole limpet. Maybe it was still too early in the morning.
A velvet voice wormed into her head. “Please refrain from starting your vehicle engines until the ferry has docked and vehicles in your lane are requested to begin disembarking. . . .” Yikes. The announcement already. They were almost there. Better head back to Mum and Aunt Marie.
“I won,” whispered Betsy as they walked off the ferry.
“Oh yeah, what did you hear?”
‘”Jeff has been posted to Flin Flon.”’ Betsy giggled and skipped beside Megan. “Flin Flon, Flin Flon, Flin Flon . . .”
Megan looked over at John, who shrugged. “What can I say. She’s a natural.”
As soon as they arrived at the cottage, Mum sent Betsy down to the beach. “I don’t want you around the broken glass,” she said, pointing to the smashed window beside the front door.
“I hope there isn’t a dead bird inside,” said Aunt Marie as she pushed the door open over crunching glass.
“That’s why I banished Betsy,” said Mum. “You know how she is. I didn’t want to spend the whole day arranging a bird funeral.”
A careful search revealed no birds, dead or alive, so John got the broom, and Mum and Aunt Marie put on gardening gloves and pulled glass shards out of the window frame. Megan watched.
“Lookit, everybody. Lookit.” Betsy was calling from the beach. Megan and John went out to the deck and looked down to see Betsy holding up a big piece of driftwood above her head. “Come on, there’s lots!”
“Go on, you’re excused,” said Mum. “We’ll just nail some boards over this hole.”
John and Megan climbed down to the beach. Betsy was right. There was a whole new supply of driftwood lying in a tangled, seaweedy line on the sand.
“Hey, these are good,” said John, pulling pieces free from the tangle. “There’s even some long pieces.”
“Let’s make a house,” said Betsy.
John looked at Megan. “Want to?”
Megan shrugged. “Okay.”
John propped up the long pieces against the bank, and they all started to collect wood to lay across them for walls.
Megan gathered a few armloads and then it just started to seem like work. She stopped and stared at the bits of wood piled up against the rocky cliff. She tried to make it be a house, but it wouldn’t go. It was like one of those optical illusions, a black vase that turns into two white profiles after you’ve stared at it for a while. But her mind wouldn’t make the flip. The pile of wood remained a pile of wood. A heaviness crept up her legs as though she were turning into a lump of wood herself.
She wandered away up the beach, staring down at the sand. A piece of green beach glass, part of a broken pop bottle carved by the sea, glinted in the sunlight, and she picked it up and pocketed it. When she came to the big flat rock they called the table, the incoming tide was lapping at its edges. She drew water pictures on its black surface, and the sun came and erased them. She turned her earrings in her ears.
“Megan.” Betsy was coming toward her with a determined look on her face. “Megan, you’re not helping. Come on.”
“It’s not a house anymore,” explained Betsy as they returned to the driftwood. “It’s a store. We made a security gate so robbers don’t steal things.”
John was busy hanging strands of slimy, rubbery seaweed over the entrance. “Welcome to Flotsam and Jetsam ‘R’ Us,” he announced. Megan crouched down and pushed her way through the curtain. Inside were arrangements of shells, wood, and pebbles. Betsy followed her in, making it a tight fit.
“What do you want to buy?” asked Betsy.
Megan reached into her pocket and touched the beach glass. It could be an emerald. And then suddenly it couldn’t. It was just a hunk of glass. She couldn’t even think of anything to say to Betsy except the kind of stupid stuff that grown-ups say when they are only pretending to play. The salt seaweed smell was overpowering and there was a hollowness inside her in the place where her stomach might be. Maybe she just needed lunch. “Betsy, want something to eat?”
Betsy looked offended. “But we just started.”
“I know. Sorry. I’ll come back later.” Megan pushed her way through the seaweed door and headed up to the blackberry patch that lay behind the beach.
The narrow path between the blackberry bushes had a dusty noontime smell. Megan picked her way carefully. How come she wasn’t able to play with Betsy and John? It wasn’t like not wanting to. It was like not knowing how. Was that what it was like for grown-ups? Was that why they didn’t make believe, because they had forgotten how?
She popped three sun-hot blackberries into her mouth and crushed them with her tongue. She was just a step away from the side of the cottage when a stray blackberry branch reached out and grabbed her sock. As she stopped to unhook herself she heard Aunt Marie’s voice.
“What’s the problem?”
Then Mum’s. “Oh, it’s just that know-it-all stage.”
Megan froze.
“She’s just so sure about everything. I feel like I’m always biting my tongue. Oh, Marie, I wasn’t prepared for this.”
Marie laughed. “She’s just like you were at that age. I remember you laying down the law to father about civil disobedience.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make her any easier to take. Nobody told me about this part.”
Megan clenched her fists and her teeth. She hated it when her mum discussed her. What right did she have . . .
The wood heaviness in her legs exploded into energy. She turned and ran pounding back along the blackberry path. A branch whipped across her arm. Once out in the open she turned away from the beach and headed toward the woods behind the house. She plunged in, kicking through the undergrowth of ferns and bushes. Her foot caught on a root and she fell, like a tree. She lay still, winded, gulping in the dark green-brown air of the forest. A rough chunk of bark pressed into her cheek. The sunshine and the sounds of the beach were left far behind.
When she sat up, the bark stayed stuck to her cheek. She picked it off, shook the tears from her eyes, and began to talk to her mother. She talked until the words inside her mouth were polished, as perfect and sharp as pine needles.
A thin glowing band of white on a nearby stump caught her attention. A bracket fungus, growing out of the spongy wood like a little lumpy shelf.
She pulled it off and turned it over. The underside was clean, untouched, creamy white. She picked up the piece of bark and scratched a jagged brown line across the fungus page. Then she started printing, holding the bark tight in her fist and pressing the bark point deep into the velvety white. “I HATE”— she paused for a second — “THIS. M.H.”
Holding the fungus carefully, she got up and pushed through the woods toward the sun. She stood in the shadows at the forest edge and looked back toward the house. Movement. John and Betsy and Aunt Marie were getting out the bikes. She watched as they wobbled up the hill and away. Then she walked down to the beach, across the rocks and sand. She put one foot precisely on the high tide line and threw the fungus as hard as she could, overhand, out across the waves. To Asia.
There. Done.
Chapter Seventeen
“MEGAN!” MUM WAS CALLING from the deck.
Megan turned, and a breeze caught her hair and blew it across her face. She pushed it away. Yuck. It had bits of leaves and dirt in it.
“Megan! The others have gone into town for ice cream. If you hurry, you can catch them.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“What? I can’t hear you.”
“It’s okay.”
Megan trudged up the beach and climbed the stairs to the deck. Mum was lying on a lounge chair.
Megan pushed open the screen door. “I’m going to wash my hair.”
Mum put down her book. “Oh, Megan, can you leave it until we get home?”
“But it’s dirty.”
“It looks okay to me. Just give it a brush.”
Megan turned away sharply and clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth.
“Come on, Megan, chill out.” Mum gave a little smile. “It’s just the water situation. We don’t want to risk a dry well. You know what happened last year.”
It was so revolting when Mum thought she was being cute by saying things like “chill out.” Megan forgot to stay inside herself. “Yes, I know what happened last summer. I know a lot of things. I guess I’m a know-it-all. I’m sorry you weren’t prepared for it.”
