by Liz Kessler
“Love?”
“And then something else. Sadness. Enormous sadness.” Mom took her coat down to the engine room to hang it up. “I told you I was talking nonsense, didn’t I?” she called. “Now get that teakettle on, and I’ll go and give Mr. Beeston a shout. I’ll bet he’s wondering where we’ve been.”
I glanced out of the window as I filled the kettle. Mr. Beeston was on his way up the pier! My whole body shivered. He was striding fast and didn’t look happy.
POUND! POUND! POUND! He banged on the roof as Mom came back in the kitchen.
“Oh, good. He’s here.” Mom went to let him in. “Hello.” She smiled. “I was just coming to —”
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“We’ve been out for a little adventure, haven’t we Emily? Just up along the —”
“I was here at three o’clock,” he snapped, stabbing a finger at his watch. “I waited a whole hour. What’s the meaning of this?” His head snapped across to face me. I swallowed hard.
Mom frowned at us both. “Come on, there’s no need to get upset,” she said. “Let’s have some coffee.” She went to get the cups and saucers. “What have you got for us today, Mr. B.? Some lovely cinnamon buns? With vanilla glaze?”
“Doughnuts,” Mr. Beeston said without taking his eyes off me.
“I haven’t done anything,” I said.
“Of course you haven’t, Emily. Who said you did? Now, won’t you please join us?” Mom held a cup out to Mr. Beeston as he finally turned away. He took his jacket off and folded it over the back of a chair.
“No, thanks.” I lay on the sofa and eavesdropped, waiting for Mr. Beeston to try to inject her with the memory drug. I had to catch him in the act, to prove to Mom that he wasn’t really her friend. But what if he got to me first? What if he injected me with the memory drug, too?
But he didn’t do anything. As soon as he sat down with Mom, he acted as though nothing had happened. They just drank their coffee and munched doughnuts and chatted about condo owners and the price of mini golf.
They’d barely finished eating when Mr. Beeston glanced at his watch. “Well, I’ve got to move along,” he said.
“You’re going?” But he hadn’t drugged her yet! Maybe he didn’t do it every week. Well, I’d be waiting for him as soon as he tried!
“I have a four-forty-five appointment,” he growled, the left side of his mouth twitching as he spoke. “And I don’t like to keep people waiting.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Goodbye, Mary P.” He let himself out.
Mom started clearing the cups away, and I grabbed a hand towel.
“So you were saying earlier,” I began as Mom handed me a saucer to dry.
“Saying?”
“About our outing.”
“Oh, of course — the little trip to the headland,” Mom smiled. “Lovely, wasn’t it?”
“Not just the headland,” I said. “The rocks.”
Mom looked at me blankly.
“Rainbow Rocks . . .” The words caught in my throat as I held my breath.
“Rainbow what?”
“Mom — don’t tell me you’ve forgotten! The rocks, the rainbow colors when the sea washed over them, the way you felt when we were there. Love. And sadness and stuff?”
Mom laughed. “You know, Mrs. Partington told me at our last parent-teacher conference that you had a good imagination. Now I know what she means.”
I stared at her as she bustled around the galley, straightening the tablecloth and brushing crumbs off chairs with her hands.
“What?” She looked up.
“Mom, what do you think we were talking about before Mr. Beeston came around?”
Mom shut one eye and rubbed her chin. “Heck — give me a minute.” She looked worried for a moment, then laughed. “You know — I can’t remember. Gone! Never mind. Now bring me the broom and dustpan. We can’t leave the carpet like this.”
I continued to stare at her. She’d forgotten! He had drugged her, after all! But how? And when?
“Come on, shake a leg. Or do I have to get them myself?”
I fetched the broom and pan out of the cupboard and handed them to her.
“Mom . . .” I tried again as she swept under the table. “Do you really not remem —”
“Emily.” Mom sat up on her knees and spoke firmly. “A joke is a joke, and any joke is usually not funny after a while. Now, I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about multicolored rocks, if you don’t mind. I’ve got more important things to do than play along with your daydreams.”
“But it’s not a —”
“EMILY.”
I knew that tone of voice. It meant it was time to shut up. I picked up the doughnut bags from the table and went to throw them away. Then I noticed some writing on one of the bags: MPW.
“Why does this one have your initials on it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Probably so he knows which doughnuts are mine.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Come on, Emily, everbody knows I’ve got a sweet tooth. I always get the ones with more sugar.”
“But can’t you tell which ones have more sugar just by looking at them?”
“Emily, why are you being so difficult today? And what do you have against Mr. Beeston? I won’t have you talking about him like this. I’m not listening to another word.”
“But I don’t understand! Why can’t he just look in the bag?”
Mom ignored me. Then she started whistling and I gave up and went back to my cabin. I took the bags with me. They held some kind of answer, I was sure of it — if only I could figure out what it was.
I stared so hard at her initials that my eyes started to water.
And then, as the letters blurred under my gaze, it hit me so hard that I nearly fell over. Of course! The memory drug!
He gave it to her in the doughnuts.
When I got home from school on Monday, I slumped on the sofa and threw my backpack on the floor. Mom was reading. “Did you have a nice day?” she asked, folding over the corner of the page and putting her book down.
“Mm.” I got a glass of milk out of the fridge.
I could hardly stand to look at her. How was I ever going to make her believe me? Somehow I had to make her see for herself what Mr. Beeston was up to. Plus I still had to find my father.
A gentle rap on the roof startled me out of my thoughts. I clenched my fists. If that was Mr. Beeston, I’d —
“Hello, Emily,” Millie said in a mysterious kind of way as she unwrapped herself from her large black cloak.
“Are you going out tonight?” I asked Mom.
“It’s the Bay Residents’ Council meeting. I told you last week.”
“You did?”
“Nice to see I’m not the only one around here with the memory of a goldfish.” She tweaked my cheek as she passed me.
I checked my watch. “But it’s only six o’clock!”
“I need to get there early to open up. It’s at the bookshop,” she called from down the corridor. “Thanks for this, Millie,” she added as she came back in with her coat. “Get out the sofa bed if I’m late.”
“I might just do that,” Millie replied. “My energy is a little depleted today. I think it’s the new ginkgo biloba tablets on top of my shiatsu.”
“Sounds likely,” Mom said, doing up her coat. Another knock on the roof made me jump again.
“Heavens to Betsy, Emily, you’re a bit twitchy tonight, aren’t you?” Mom ruffled my hair as Mr. Beeston ’s face appeared at the door.
I froze.
“Only me,” he said, scanning the room without coming in.
“You didn’t tell me he was going,” I whispered, grabbing at her coat while Mr. Beeston waited outside.
“Of course he’s going — he’s the chairman!” she whispered back. “And he’s offered to help me set up,” she added. “Which is nice of him, by the way.”
“Mom, I
don’t want you to go!”
“Don’t want me to go? What on earth are you talking about?”
What could I say? How could I get her to believe me? She wouldn’t hear a word against Mr. Beeston — the sweet, kind, lonely man. Well, I’d prove to her that he wasn’t anything of the kind!
“I just —”
“Come on, now. Don’t be a baby.” She pried my fingers from her sleeve. “Millie’s here to look after you. I’m just up at the shore if you need me urgently. And I mean urgently.” She gave me a quick peck, rubbed my cheek with her thumb — and was gone.
“How come you don’t go to the Bay Residents’ meetings, Millie?”
“Oh, I don’t believe in all that democratic fuss and nonsense,” she said, shifting me up the sofa so she could sit down.
We sat silently in front of the television. Once her first show had finished, I waited for her to tell me it was bedtime. But she didn’t. I looked across at the sofa; she lay on her side, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open.
“Millie?” I whispered. No reply. She was fast asleep! When would I get an opportunity like this again? I had to do it.
The Great Mermer Reef might be too far to swim — but it wouldn’t be too far by boat! And now was the perfect time. In fact, it might be my only chance.
Could I do it? Really? I looked at the clock. Half past eight. Mom wouldn’t be back for ages yet, and Millie was fast asleep.
I grabbed the engine key from the peg and crept outside. There was probably another half an hour or so before it was dark. I could handle the darkness now anyway; I’d gotten used to the sea at night.
But would I remember how to operate the boat? I’d only done it a few times. We have to go around to Southpool Harbor every couple of years to get the hull checked out, and Mom usually lets me take it some of the way. We hardly ever use the sail. I don’t know why we have it, really.
The pier was quiet except for all the masts clinking and chattering in the wind. I pulled at my hair, twisting it frantically around my fingers. I probably looked like somebody about to take their first bungee jump. But I simply had to do it, however dangerous or scary or insane it might be.
Uncoiling the ropes, I had one last look down the pier. Deserted . . .
Almost.
Someone was coming out of the arcade. I ducked below the mast and waited. It was Mandy’s mom! She was heading down the pier, probably to the meeting. And a figure was standing in the doorway of the arcade. Mandy!
I ducked down again, waited for her to go back inside. Had she seen me?
The rope slackened in my hands — I was drifting away from the jetty. Close enough to jump back and pull the boat in again — but floating farther away by the second. What should I do? There was still time to abandon the whole thing.
Then a breeze lifted the front of the boat off the water and, without any more thinking on my part, the decision was made. I glanced back. She’d gone. I hurled the rope onto the jetty and turned the ignition key.
Nothing happened.
I tried again. It started this time, and I held my breath as its familiar dunka dunka dunka broke into the silence of the evening.
“HEY!”
I turned around.
“Fish girl!”
It was Mandy! She stepped onto our dock.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” she called.
“Nothing!” Nothing? What kind of a stupid thing was that to say?
“Oh, I know. Are you running away now that Julia doesn’t want to be your friend?”
“What?”
“She doesn’t want to know you anymore, after you blew her off last weekend. Lucky she had me there to make her see someone cares about her feelings.” Mandy paused as she let an evil smile crawl across her face. “Your mom knows you’re taking the boat out, I assume?”
“Of course!” I said quickly. “I’m just moving it over to Southpool.”
“Yeah. Shall we check?” She waved her cell phone in front of her.
“You wouldn’t!”
“No? Want to make a bet? You think I haven’t been waiting for an opportunity like this? Little miss goody-goody two shoes, making out like you’re soooo sweet and innocent.”
The boat bobbed farther away from the dock. “Why do you hate me so much?” I called over the engine.
“Hmm. Let me think.” She put her finger dramatically to her mouth and looked away, as though talking to an audience. “She gets me grounded, steals my best friend, turns the swimming teacher against me. She’s a great big fat SHOWOFF!” Mandy looked back at me. “I really don’t know.”
Then she turned and started walking back up the jetty, waving her phone in the air.
“Mandy, don’t! Please!”
“Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” she called over her shoulder. “See ya.”
What should I do? I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t. This was probably my one and only chance to find my father. And Mandy Rushton was NOT going to ruin it. I forced her words out of my mind. She wasn’t going to stop me — she wasn’t!
I turned my attention back to my plan.
Minutes later, I was edging away from the pier, holding the tiller and carefully navigating my way out of the harbor. I went over what I’d done when I’d driven the boat to Southpool — and tried hard to convince myself that what I was doing now really wasn’t very different.
As I sailed out to sea, I looked back at Brightport Bay. The last rays of the sun winked and glinted on the water like tiny spotlights. Ocean spray dusted my hair.
I closed my eyes for a second while I thought about what I was doing. I had to find the Great Mermer Reef. Based on the time Shona and I had gotten halfway there, I knew more or less where it was, so I studied the horizon and aimed for the section that was lighter than the rest. The part that would shimmer a hundred colors when I got close by.
It got dark very suddenly as we sliced slowly through the water. King never does anything in a hurry. My hand was getting cold, holding on to the tiller. And I was getting wet. King bounced on the water, gliding along with the swells, then rising and bumping down over the waves. It had been quite calm when I set off. The farther out I got, the more hilly the sea became.
Above me, stars appeared, one by one. Soon, the night sky was packed. A fat half-moon sat among them, its other half a silhouette, semivisible as though impatient for its turn to come.
King swayed from side to side, lumbering slowly through the peaks and troughs. Was I getting anywhere? I looked behind me. Brightport was miles away! If I closed one eye and held up my hand, I could hide the whole town behind my thumbnail.
Up and down we went, climbing the waves, bouncing on the swells, inching ever closer to the Great Mermer Reef.
My eyes watered as I strained to keep them on the patch of light on the horizon, shimmering and glowing and coming gradually closer. I let myself dream about Jake — about my dad.
I’d get into the prison and we’d escape. Hiding him in the boat, we’d cruise back to the pier before anyone even realized he was gone. Then Mom would come home from the meeting. Dad would be waiting in the sea at the end of the pier, and I’d ask Mom to come for a walk with me. Then I’d leave her there on her own for a minute, and he would appear. They’d see each other, and it would be like they’d never been apart. Mom would remember everything, and we’d all live happily ever after. Excellent plan.
Excellent daydream, anyhow. A “plan” was something I didn’t exactly have.
“EMILY!” A voice shattered my thoughts. I spun around, searching the night sky. There was a shape behind me — a long way away but coming nearer. A boat, one of those little motorboats with outboard engines that they hire out in the summer. As it got closer, I could see an outline of two people, one leaning forward in the front, one in the back at the tiller.
“Emily!” A woman’s voice. And not just any woman. Mom!
Then I recognized the other voice.
“Come back here, young lady! Whatever
you think you are doing, you had better stop it — and now!”
Mr. Beeston!
I shoved the tiller across and quickly swapped sides as the boat changed direction, pushing the throttle as far forward as it would go. Come on, come on, I prayed. The boat sputtered and chugged in reply but didn’t speed up.
“What are you doing here?” I shouted over the engine and the waves.
“What am I doing here?” Mom called back. “Emily, what are YOU doing?”
“But your meeting!”
The motorboat edged closer. “The meeting got cancelled when Mrs. Rushton’s girl phoned in a state. She thought you might be in danger.”
I should have known she’d do it! I don’t know how I could have thought even for a moment that she wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I called. “I’ve got to do this. You’ll understand, honestly. Trust me.”
“Oh, please come back, darling,” Mom called. “Whatever it is, we can sort it out.”
King’s engine sputtered again and seemed to be slowing down. Seawater soaked my face as we bounced on the waves, rolling and peaking like a mountain range.
“Look what you’re doing to your mother,” Mr. Beeston shouted. “I won’t have it, do you hear me? I won’t allow it.”
I ran my sleeve over my wet face. “You can’t tell me what to do,” I shouted back, anger pushing away my fear — and any desire to keep my stupid promise to Mr. Beeston. “It’s not like you’re my father or anything.”
Mr. Beeston didn’t reply. He was concentrating hard and had almost caught up with me. Meanwhile, the shimmering light on the horizon was glowing and growing bigger all the time. I could almost see the different colors. Come on, King, I said under my breath. It’s not much farther now. I looked back at the motorboat. Mom was covering her face with her hands. Mr. Beeston held the tiller tight, his face all pinched and contorted.
“You remember my father?” I called to him. “You know, your ‘best friend.’ What kind of a person lies to their best friend’s wife for years? Huh?”
“I don’t know what foolish ideas you’ve gotten into your head, child, but you had better put an end to them right now. Before I put an end to them for you.” Mr. Beeston’s eyes shone like a cat’s as he caught mine. “Can’t you see how much you are upsetting your mother?”
