Moonpenny Island Page 10

  It’ll only be two and a half pairs of hands, Flor thinks, knowing it’s a mean thought, and what makes Dr. Fife so sure she has nothing else to do? Jasper shifts in her seat, clinking and clanking with embarrassment. She’s too old for her father to be finding her playmates.

  But now she’s turning around, moving equipment so Flor can fit in the backseat, and now Flor’s ditching her bike, and here they go, hurtling toward Moonpenny Quarry. Let it be recorded, Dr. Fife is the worst driver on the face of the Earth. He brakes for nothing, then speeds up like somebody’s giving away hundred-dollar bills and they have thirty seconds to get there. Forget backing up. By the time they get to the quarry, Flor’s stomach thinks it went to Cedar Point Amusement Park.

  “Our brains are made of very soft tissue,” Jasper whispers. “Good thing our skulls are so hard.” She knocks hers with her fist, and Flor laughs.

  Down in the quarry, all Dr. Fife’s goofiness vanishes. It’s like a fairy tale where the bear’s mangy old hide falls away, and out steps the shining prince. He produces picks and chisels and hammers. Brushes and Sharpies and balls of twine.

  “Trilobites inhabited Earth approximately three times as long as dinosaurs,” he tells Flor, in case she’s wondering. It’s easy to see where Jasper got her lecturing tendencies. “Think of it! They rode along when the continents drifted! They made themselves at home in arctic and tropic waters. They were there as mountain chains rose and landmasses sank. Humans will be doing well to last a fraction as long.”

  Flor has to admit, he’s good. Listen to him for a few minutes, and you want to be a trilobite cheerleader too. You too are convinced those little guys were heroes.

  “I hope the weather holds.” He squints at the sky. “In another couple of weeks, Jasper and I will have enough specimens to keep us busy all through the winter.”

  Jasper rolls up both her XXL sleeves. Tap tap tap. The two Fifes work slowly, painstakingly, happily. Tap tap tap. Minuscule splinters of stone fall away. With a small brush, Dr. Fife tenderly sweeps aside the slivers, and Jasper gathers them in a ziplock bag she keeps clamped to her side. It’s impossible two hands could be quicker or surer than her one. Tap. Tap tap. Now a magnifying glass, and the two of them make a thoughtful inspection before he chisels away more rock.

  Flor might as well have vaporized, but she doesn’t mind. Quarry quiet. It’s so personal. Like, if Mother Earth has a brain, she’s giving you a peek inside, letting you read her thoughts. Not just the ones on top, the everyday thoughts she shares with everyone, but the private ones. The ones she usually keeps to herself, all hidden and secret.

  If you want to be truly alone. If you want the rest of the world to stop hurting you, stop confusing you and knocking you around. Here’s where you should come.

  But before long, Dr. Fife walks over to where Flor perches on a rock. His eyes twinkle.

  “This is where we are.” He points to a spot on a hand-drawn map. “And this is where I want to dig next. Why do I have the feeling you’re good at measuring?”

  Before she can answer, he’s handing her a ball of twine, scissors, and a measuring tape.

  “Jasper will tell you what to do,” he says.

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  They both glance toward where Jasper is busy sweeping up rock dust.

  “She’s glad to have you for a friend, Flor,” he says quietly. He looks at Flor in a way that reminds her of her own father, who understands some things so well and others not at all. He gives his white beard a tug. “She doesn’t meet many other young people. That always seemed to suit her just fine, but lately . . .” Another tug, like he’s trying to pull the thoughts out. “This past year, I’m afraid she’s been a little . . .”

  “Lonesome?”

  “You’ve put your finger on it. In fact, if I had to quantify it, I’d say she’s been more than a little lonesome. Perhaps even very.”

  Jasper looks up, like she senses they’re talking about her. This is embarrassing. Flor jumps down, takes the map from Dr. Fife.

  “Who knew we’d meet a unique specimen like you, Miss Flora and Fauna?” Dr. Fife smiles and clasps his hands. “We came hunting trilobites and found you too. It’s life at its most glorious, unpredictable best!”

  Wait.

  “I thought science was all about predictable,” Flor says.

  “Scientists love having our expectations overturned! We delight in the unanticipated. That’s where we make our most valuable discoveries.”

  Flor’s never met an adult happy about what he didn’t know. Scientists are their own species, this is clear.

  “Can I ask something?” she says.

  “Please!”

  “Is sight still evolving? I mean, will future humans be able to see miles away? Or through walls? Or in the dark?”

  “A fascinating question.” More beard tugging. “I don’t know the answer, Flor. But I do know one thing for sure. We humans could always get better at seeing. How often do we look at something, yet only see the surface? Or what we expect to see? Sometimes we even refuse to see what’s right before us.” Tug tug. “I’ve always disliked that saying ‘There’s more than meets the eye.’ Everything is visible, if only we know how to look. Truly seeing is the first step to truly understanding. Sometimes I think that’s why we were put on Earth—to see as much as we can, as clearly as we can.”

  Flor’s brain turns this over as she and Jasper measure out a new grid, closer to the swim hole. She steadies the stakes while Jasper drives them in with sure, one-handed whacks. The sun rolls up the hill of blue sky, spills down into the rocky craters and cracks. Dr. Fife’s map shows every one of them. On a regular map, Moonpenny is just a dot, a titch, a pinch. On your usual map, the lake is so enormous it could swallow the island in one gulp.

  But the map in her hand is different. Every square inch of the island is important, says this map. Pay attention to each stone, each patch of dirt, says this map. Who knows what you’ll see. What’s under your own two big feet. What Jasper said, that very first day they met, echoes inside Flor: There’s plenty to see. You live here—shouldn’t you know that?

  “Hey,” Flor hears herself say. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Jasper frowns. “For what?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been coming to this quarry my whole life, but it’s like I never really saw it.”

  “That’s good. But why thank me? You’re developing your own powers of observation.”

  This girl does not tell lies. She may be the only person Flor ever met who doesn’t.

  Except Sylvie, of course.

  “Jasper, you could just say you’re welcome, you know.”

  Flor lays the map on the ground and anchors it with a smooth yellow rock. They measure out another square. The afternoon’s warm, and Jasper pushes back her hair with her ABS arm. Flor’s almost used to that arm by now. There may be some things Jasper can’t do, but so far, don’t ask Flor to name them. Another square. They’re working hard. They make a good team.

  “It must’ve been so bizarre to get the first eyes,” says Flor. “Like in the beginning, maybe things would be blurry and shadowy, like looking through out-of-focus binoculars. Or like when you just wake up and your eyes are full of sleep till you rub them. Or like when you pull at their corners so things go mushy.”

  She demonstrates. Jasper laughs.

  “Or maybe it was like looking out through a curtain, and very, very slowly it got thinner and thinner till it finally disintegrated and then one day, wow! There was nothing but perfectly clear transparent glass, and the trilobites could see the whole world, all colorful and beautiful and terrifying at the same time.” Flor windmills her arms. “That must have boggled their tiny trilobite brains. Did they even have brains?”

  “A rudimentary system.”

  “Like my brother’s.”

  “Sight took eons to evolve. We still don’t know for sure how it all unfolded.”

  Flor deflates. Ssssss. Sylvie would’ve jum
ped in with her own theories, and by now they’d be stumbling around pretending to see trees and rocks and deer poop for the first time. But Jasper? Negative imagination. What you see is what you get with this girl.

  Then Jasper says, “You’re like a trilobite yourself.”

  “What!” cries Flor.

  “Didn’t you just say you’re seeing this quarry for the first time?”

  Dr. Fife is waving to them.

  “Flor, Jasper, my little guppies! Come look!”

  Bulging from the face of the limestone is something that resembles a miniature mummy case. He waves his hammer.

  “Back at my lab, we’ll do a CT scan and find out everything there is to know. But that’s nothing compared to this moment. This is the best part, isn’t it, Jasper? Nothing sets a geologist’s heart pounding like the initial discovery. We’ve found something, but what? Is it just a fragment, or the tip of something much bigger? Is it a species we already know, or something never before seen?”

  Dr. Fife’s excitement is contagious. The rocks! The silent rocks! He knows how to make them speak. He knows how to hear them when they do.

  “Our friend has waited in the very same spot for millions of years. Humans and animals have walked past her, sat on her, never knowing she was there. But now we’ve found her.” His eyes are candlelit, like Thomas’s. “Or, as I like to think, she’s found us.”

  He does something surprising. He sets one hand on Flor’s shoulder and the other on Jasper’s.

  “Little nestlings, let’s honor the moment,” he says. “Let’s make it last a bit longer.”

  So they stand there, not saying a word, and it’s nice. Flor half closes her eyes, and the air flickers to life. Strange, spiny fish flash their silver fins. Pearly seashells encrust the rocks, and enormous translucent jellyfish drift by. The creature in the rock is still alive, busy being who she is, living in her world. Flor’s world now. The rocks link them all, then to now, life to life.

  The world is so big. And so small. It makes you dizzy. Flor opens her eyes.

  “Ready?” Another gentle tap, and the fossil is in Dr. Fife’s hand. “Aah. Phacops rana. The leader of the humble, the mighty trilobites.”

  Pulling out a magnifying glass, he gives Flor a guided tour. He shows her how the body has three parts, hence the tri. The thorax is made of tiny joints, so it can roll itself into a ball.

  “It’s articulated,” says Jasper, Namer of All Things.

  “Right there?” says Dr. Fife. “That’s her head. And these are her eyes. What resemble dozens of pins all lined up? Actually lenses. Pixels, if you like. If our friend were alive, she’d be staring back at us with crystal-clear vision. And, no doubt, with enormous surprise.”

  He chuckles fondly, as if he and the gazillion-year-old creature really are best buds. Setting the fossil in Flor’s hand, he gently cups her fingers around it.

  “For you.”

  “For real?”

  Like a diamond in the sky—thus Dr. Fife’s eyes.

  Afterward, they drive Flor back to where they picked her up. There’s her bike, leaning against a tree. An old, tired tree. Its roots stick up like bent, gnarly knees. Her bike? Obviously, it’s a bike, not a horse. Here is the trouble with observing closely. The happiness Flor felt in the quarry drains away.

  “Are you okay?” Dr. Fife and Jasper twist around to face her. Their heads tilt at the precise same angle.

  Flor feels like she swallowed a fish hook. If she tells them about Mama, they won’t understand. They’ll think they do, because Mrs. Fife left too, but how can they possibly? Their family is different from hers. Their family is odd and strange. Jasper will recite a scientific fact, one that is fully supported. Her father will tug his beard. The two of them inhabit their own exotic desert Island of Fife.

  “I’m okay,” says Flor.

  “You look pale,” says Dr. Fife.

  “She always looks like that,” says Jasper.

  Flor climbs out. Jasper watches with those penetrating green eyes, eyes that miss exactly nothing. Flor might as well be under that magnifying glass. Jasper knows Flor’s not okay. But she doesn’t know what to do about it. Flor’s heart twists. Who does she feel worse for, herself or Jasper? It doesn’t matter. There’s no room in her life to worry about anyone else. She grabs her bike.

  “Thanks for everything,” she says.

  At home, Thomas rushes to her, his face panicked.

  “Where’d you go?” he demands.

  Why should she tell her little brother where she was? It’s her life!

  “To the store.”

  She’s getting like Cele! No. No she is not.

  “Then where’s the food?”

  “Look.” She grabs her backpack and pulls out the treats she carries for Violet’s dog. “I got this for Petey!”

  Thomas bursts out crying. The tears cut tracks down his grubby cheeks.

  “Petey’s lost! I can’t find him no place!”

  Flor finally notices—the house is a wreck. The couch and chair cushions are on the floor. The kitchen cupboards stand open, pots and pans strewn around. Somebody yanked every coat and jacket out of the hall closet and tossed around the winter boots. How can you tell? she wants to ask her brother. How do you know when something invisible disappears?

  “Did you look upstairs?” she hears herself say.

  “I looked every place!” Thomas mashes his face into her stomach. “He ran away!”

  “No,” she says, stroking his hair. “Petey would never! He loves you!”

  They sit on the rug, Thomas in her lap. Shaking the bag of treats, Flor softly calls, “Petey! Petey, where are you, boy?”

  Misty, where are you, girl?

  Mama?

  Sylvie?

  Cele?

  “Petey!” She tightens her arm around her brother. Her voice trembles as she calls, louder and louder. “Come on home, old Pete! What do you think you’re doing? Come on back right now, you hear? Right now!”

  “I think I hear him,” Thomas whispers. He leans forward. “You hear him, Flor?”

  “I think so. Yes, for sure I do.”

  Those tiny candles flicker in his big brown eyes.

  “He’s here!” Thomas leaps off her lap and tears out the door. But a moment later he’s back, pressing his snotty cheek against hers.

  “You’re never going away, right?” he says.

  Who does he think he’s talking to?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Flor’s book report is due tomorrow and she’s barely halfway through Anne of Avonlea. For the first time in her life, she has trouble reading. Her mind skids this way and that, so she reads the same sentence a dozen times and still has no idea what it says. This is how reading always is for Sylvie. This is why she’d much rather arrange books into towers than read them.

  Last night, she sent Flor a long email. They only talk about once a week now, because Sylvie is so busy dodging soccer balls and being the star of the art club and learning to speak French like a Parisian mademoiselle. It’s better, they agreed, to write emails. Sylvie’s have a million typos and mistakes. She’s always been a disastrous speller, but last night, Flor could tell she wrote with approximately one-eighth of her brain.

  Plus, the font was bright green instead of purple.

  Still, a couple of lines made Flor smile.

  Like: “I finely went for a bike ride. My cosin’s bike is a mule not a wild horse.”

  And: “I got contacts! I can see to the sides now not just strait ahead. Why didn’t you tell me the world is so wide?”

  Every day, Flor sends another suggestion for getting sent home from Ridgewood. It’s hopeless, but she won’t give up. “You are so stubborn!” Mama always tells her. “It’s your weakness and your strength, Florita!”

  She takes Anne of Avonlea outside at recess. She’s going to have to skim it, and her report’s going to be a disaster. Sitting on a bench, she skips ahead to one of her favorite parts, where Anne, who’s expecting im
portant company, intends to rub her nose with antifreckle lotion but by mistake smears on scarlet red dye. Anne of accidents! Flor laughs out loud.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Joe Hawkins stands beside her. Weighing a good-sized rock in each hand.

  “Don’t do it,” says Flor.

  But he does. Bonk. The first rock bounces off the face of the clock and lands in the grass.

  “If Mrs. Defoe catches you, your head is history.”

  Joe shrugs. The second rock bounces off the face of the clock—plonk—and rolls back at their feet. Joe scowls at the tower like it attacked him instead of vice versa.

  “I’m not sure what you’re trying to do,” she says. “But I’m pretty sure it’s not working.”

  “Time’s not supposed to stand still,” he says, still scowling. “It’s supposed to march on.”

  What is this? He’s sitting down beside her. Pulling a piece of sandpaper out of his pocket, attacking a splinter sticking up between them on the bench. Flor closes her book.

  “I don’t think bombing the clock will fix it,” she says.

  Jocelyn appears, taps them each with her wand three times, and canters away.

  “But I wish somebody would,” Flor goes on. “Fix it, I mean. Because these days, every time I look at it, I swear I hear it say, Na na the boo boo. Nothing’s going to change, so just get used to it.”

  For sure Joe will shrug.

  But no.

  “I know how to fix it.” He’ll sand straight through the bench if he keeps it up. “Anyway, I think I do.”

  “Really?”

  “Ow.” His finger got a sliver. He scowls at it too. He’s a scowling machine. “You know anything about that clock?”

  “My father says it’s right twice a day.”

  “Yeah, well, my father says people used to set their watches by it. They were really proud of it, back in the day. It was like a symbol of the island. People used to get their pictures taken in front of it.”

  “Like in those old photos outside the office,” says Flor. “Mrs. Defoe’s in some of them. She has long curly hair! But you can still tell it’s her.”