Moonpenny Island Page 7

  “You miss my sister, don’t you.”

  Not a question, she notices. Flor hugs her backpack tight against her chest. Being alone with Perry feels aloner than with other people. He’s driving way too fast.

  “But it’s good she went away,” he says next.

  “What?” Her tongue unknots.

  “It’s good for her.”

  “No. No, I don’t think so. It’d be way better if she stayed here. You and I both need her.”

  She didn’t mean to say that! Lumping herself together with him. Dark trees rush by the windows.

  “You’re right,” he says. “But what I said is, it’s good for her.”

  What is this? Is he trying to make Flor feel bad? Like he knows what Sylvie needs. Like he even cares!

  “We’ll see about that,” she says. Thomas’s stupid phrase! What is wrong with her mouth? It’s done nothing but cause trouble and blurt stupid things all day long. The truck slows down. Moments ago it seemed like she’d never get home, but look, here they are already, the gravel driveway crunching beneath the truck’s tires.

  Perry leans to open her door, and she breathes in the smell of soap and something else she has no name for. A spark races upward and sets her cheeks on fire. She jumps out.

  “Thanks for the ride.” Mama will have a falling-down fit over her taking a ride with him. Mama! She’s already in so much trouble with Mama. She’ll have to lie about how she got here.

  “Don’t let me catch you out alone after dark again.”

  Like he’s her big brother! Flor’s cheeks burn. Long long ago, he actually played with her and Sylvie. He’d ride them piggyback, buy them candy at Two Sisters. Sometimes at night, while they watched TV, he even let them play beauty parlor on him. They’d twist his beautiful hair into tiny braids and clip it with barrettes. Flor still remembers how soft his hair felt. Soft as milkweed down.

  Does Perry still remember that? A sudden smile lights up his face, like something buried rising into the light. A rare pleated shell, poking through the surface of a rock.

  This is why Sylvie loves him so. For a heartbeat, Flor loves him too.

  What!

  “You better call your sister right away,” she says, her knees wobbling. “Like yesterday, you hear me? She really wants to talk to you.”

  “Got it, chief.” He nods, then juts his chin toward the house. “Hey. Sorry about what’s going on.”

  The door slams, the pickup roars away. Why does he have to drive so fast?

  Going on?

  Flor streaks across the grass. The second she steps inside, her whole family boils up around her, hugging and scolding.

  Wait. Not her whole family.

  “Where’s Mama?”

  “Did someone drop you off?” Cecilia parts the curtain. “Did I hear a pickup?”

  “I drove all over creation looking for you,” says Dad. “I didn’t even get to clean my gun.”

  “We can’t find the phone.” Cecilia turns from the window. “I used my cell to call everyone, but nobody had seen you.”

  “Everything happened so fast,” says Dad.

  “What happened? Where’s Mama?”

  “You ran away.” Thomas is sucking Snowball’s ear. “I said don’t go, but you still did.”

  “I’d never run away! I . . .”

  “All of a sudden, it’s an emergency,” says Dad. He runs his hand through his hair. “Just like that, everything’s changed.”

  “Somebody better tell me where Mama is!” Flor shouts. “Right now!”

  Quiet.

  “Lita’s sick.” Dad puts his big arm around her. His voice turns gentle. “That cold of hers got worse and the aunts finally made her go to the doctor. It’s bronchitis. She’ll be all right, don’t worry.”

  “But where’s Mama?”

  Dad’s arm slides off her shoulder. He runs his hand across his head again. His hair stands up, petrified.

  “She’d be beside herself staying here, Flor. She needs to be with her family.”

  The three of them stand around him in a little circle, like they’re about to join hands and play a game. We’re her family. Flor can’t be the only one thinking that.

  “It’s just for a little while,” Dad goes on. “A few days, tops. We’ll all pitch in. It’ll be an adventure!” He picks up Thomas and spins him around. “You ready for an adventure, old buddy?”

  One of you should go. Should go. Go.

  Cecilia pries Flor’s backpack out of her arms.

  “She really wanted to say good-bye to you. She said to tell you she’ll call tomorrow.”

  Without the backpack, Flor’s arms feel unbearably empty. They flop around. Cecilia tucks Flor’s hair behind her ear. She smells like soap and something else.

  “Hey,” Cecilia says. “You know what? It might be good she went.”

  What Perry just said about Sylvie! Something inside Flor gives a hard, painful twist.

  “Maybe,” Flor says. “If Lita gets better and she comes right back.”

  But Cecilia means something else. She hangs the backpack on a hook and turns to Flor. Her eye makeup is smudged. It makes her look even older and more beautiful, like in a movie when the star just gets out of bed.

  “You were right. What you said this afternoon? Maybe Mama going—it’s the right thing. Maybe it’s the only way things can change around here.”

  “I never said that. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  But Cecilia’s black hair swings across her face as she turns away. So much for her changing. So much for her behaving like she and Flor actually have something in common besides the same name and parents and living in the same house!

  Later, Flor’s in bed, not falling asleep, when she sits up so quickly she goes light-headed. When Perry told her “sorry about what’s going on”? He must have already known Mama was gone. Word travels fast on Moonpenny, but still. It’s wrong that he knew before she did. He’s the last person she’d pick to know her business, the last person she wants feeling sorry for her.

  Getting out of bed, she picks up Sylvie’s fossil. Jasper Fife would spout its scientific name, but a name is not the point, not with this fossil. Can you make four wishes on the very same fossil? Flor closes her eyes. Hopes so. Hopes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Without Mama’s voice, the church choir sounds pathetic. It’s all Flor can do not to cover her ears. The islanders spread themselves around the mostly empty church, a family in this pew, an old lady in that one, the way Thomas breaks a cookie into pieces to convince himself he’s got more than he really does.

  Flor prays for Lita. Prays for Mama.

  Monday she stands in the school yard shivering. Mama would’ve checked the weather and made her wear her jacket, but instead she’s just got this flimsy sweater. Thomas wears shorts and two different-colored socks. He sits on a swing, pretending to smoke a crayon. Cecilia’s with the other high schoolers, but not really. How far away is her mind? Light-years, Flor can tell.

  Still 11:16. Flor quit paying attention to that clock long ago, but today it makes her depressed. Time can’t stop—things are too messed up. Time needs to get going, move along and make things better. But the stubborn hands refuse to move. They haven’t moved in so long, some bird made her nest behind the hour hand.

  There’s an expression “No man is an island,” but apparently eleven-year-old girls can be. Being a one-hundred-percent isolated person leaves you time to notice things you missed before, when your faithful friend was forever at your side. Flor sees Lauren Long laugh, then look pointedly at Cecilia. Sees her sister’s laugh come a beat too late. Sees Lauren’s snarky look bounce to the other two girls. Sees Cecilia flush and press her lips together.

  She sees a distant flock of birds splatter the sky like dark paint. Sees Mary Long stop complaining about her allergies long enough to scream “Don’t!” when Larry Walnut walks by, minding his own business. Sees Larry stagger and look amazed. How can he possibly not know Mary is cuckoo for hi
m? How can she possibly be cuckoo for him? Are they both blind?

  Blindness was once a natural state. Dr. Fife says the first eye was little more than an optic nerve. Whatever that is. Eyes had to develop. Can some people’s eyes still be a more primitive variety? Can eyes still be evolving? Will future humans be able to see stuff we can’t? Like the insides of things. The hidden, secret parts?

  Jasper would know. Flor peers across the road, where the lilac bush is uninhabited, unless you count the sparrows hopping among the dried-up flowers. FREE FILL DIRT says the cemetery sign. Flor’s read it a hundred times, but never thought what it actually means, till now. Her knees go weak. Her knee muscles seem to be deteriorating. She’s cold all through. Recess must be going on longer than usual, though how can she be sure, considering the stupid clock says 11:16 no matter what?

  “Look what I found.”

  Flor turns around. Jocelyn Hawkins extends a hand.

  “A fossil,” says Flor, and can’t help but add, “It’s horn coral.”

  “No. It’s a shark tooth.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I found it. It’s what I say.” Casting a withering look, Jocelyn stomps over to her brother Joe, who’s using a small wrench to tighten bolts on the wooden climber. “Isn’t this a shark tooth?”

  A quick glance. “Nope. Horn coral.”

  “Oh.” She throws it in the dirt like a piece of trash, then scrambles up the climber. The red-and-blue lights work on only one of her hand-me-down sneakers.

  “She wouldn’t believe me,” says Flor.

  Joe shrugs. “Prehistoric roadkill is prehistoric roadkill.”

  He tightens another bolt. His curls are wild and thick, and this must be where the word ringlet comes from—slide your finger through one, and you’d be wearing a shiny band. Suddenly Flor’s cheeks are the only part of her that’s warm.

  “What are you doing that for?” she blurts. “It’s your father’s job.”

  Come to think of it, she’s often seen him before or after school, hauling a ladder or carrying a mop and bucket. How much of his father’s work does he do? How much does he cover up for his dad? And why hasn’t she ever noticed before? To her surprise, Joe looks nervous, like he got caught at something. He changes the subject.

  “Want to know a secret about Defoe?” he says.

  “Sure.”

  “She konks out at lunchtime.”

  “She does?”

  “She puts her head down on her desk and snores her big blockhead off. My dad’s seen her.”

  “She’s pretty old.”

  “Try prehistoric.”

  “Archaic.”

  “Antique.”

  “Ancient.”

  “Antediluvian.”

  “You win,” says Flor, and Joe laughs.

  “You’re nicer without that Sylvie Pinch around,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Okay, maybe you were always nice. But it was hard to tell, since you two were like a secret society or something.”

  “Help! I’m stuck!” shrieks Jocelyn, and even though she’s just being a drama queen, he scrambles up to rescue her. Jocelyn throws her arms around his neck and presses her little cheek to his. For a girl in a Toledo Mud Hens sweatshirt, she manages to be very girly. Joe sets her on her feet, pats her head, and throws a rock at the clock tower. Jocelyn sticks her tongue out at Flor.

  Later, Flor ponders whether that’s dried drool or milk on the corner of her teacher’s mouth. Mrs. Defoe is always on Mr. Hawkins’s case, directing him to burned-out lightbulbs or leaky faucets he’s neglected. Poor Mr. Hawkins. Out of school but still her minion. Maybe he made up the nap story, to get back at her. It’s not like adults are above bad behavior.

  Her mind slides toward Mama. Who will not be there when they get home, standing in her usual place by the sink, chopping peppers and onions so fast the knife’s a blur. A small, invisible blade stabs Flor’s heart. On the phone last night, Mama told Flor to help Dad, mind Cecilia, and make sure Thomas changes his socks. She sounded stern but also strangely cheerful. Flor could hear the clatter of pots and pans in the background, Titi Aurora or Carmen or Gloria scolding and laughing. She strained to hear I miss you in Mama’s voice.

  “Flor.” Mrs. Defoe is calling her up for sixth-grade language arts. On her desk lies a copy of Anne of Avonlea, by L. M. Montgomery. Flor has already read it. She loves the heroine, Anne Shirley, with her red hair, her pale (pale!) skin, her seven freckles, and her wild, free heart. It’s old-fashioned, the kind of book that makes Sylvie’s eyes roll up inside her head, but Flor found it wonderful.

  Dried drool, definitely. Flor cuts her eyes at Joe, who clunks his head onto his desk and makes a soft but unmistakable snoring sound.

  “I’ve assigned this book to every sixth grader for forty-four years, and do you know why?” Mrs. Defoe’s voice is hushed. Like she’s about to reveal a deep, meaningful secret. Flor tries not to look at the dried drool. She feels a drop of dread. Mrs. Defoe draws a breath.

  “I first discovered it when I was your age. This book is the reason I became a teacher. Anne Shirley inspired me.”

  This is sad. Tragic, actually. Anne Shirley’s eyes are always shining, her cheeks flushing, her hair streaming behind her in a torrent of brightness. Drab old Mrs. Defoe and lively, fun-loving Anne Shirley have nothing whatsoever in common. Well, they both live on islands, but there it ends.

  Mrs. Defoe goes on and on about Anne and the torch of knowledge. Flor tries to hide her disbelief. Feeling sorry for an adult is so confusing.

  “I liked it,” she says.

  “You’ve already read it?” Mrs. Defoe looks offended. “Well, Flor O’Dell, you are about to reread it.” She hands Flor a sheet of paper obviously typed on a typewriter, that’s how old it is. How antediluvian. “Your six-hundred-word book report is due in two weeks. Follow this format without deviation.”

  Joe unleashes a volcanic snort.

  “Joseph Hawkins Junior to my desk,” Mrs. Defoe barks. “Once again!”

  “It’s true,” Flor whispers to him, pointing at the corner of her mouth, and he smiles.

  Mrs. Defoe tells Joe that despite his continuing efforts to appear ignorant and intractable, she’s not giving up on him. Joe shrugs. He’s a shrugger, all right. Who cares? is his message. It’s a useful one, considering what people think of the Hawkins family. Mrs. Defoe invites him to take a seat out in the hall.

  But as he saunters out, Flor wonders if it’s all an act. A shell to ward off predators, like the trilobites had. Except they outgrew theirs, and had to cast them off, and wander around naked for a while.

  Joe Hawkins and naked? Who let those words into her head at the same time? Flor slides down in her seat. Thank goodness only Sylvie can read her mind.

  After school she and Thomas ride home together. His legs are so short and pudgy, she could easily leave him in the dust, but not today. Something about the trusting way Jocelyn looked at Joe makes her want to be nice, the kind of big sister you can count on.

  Unlike her own.

  Thomas begs to stop at the old quarry, where he’s forbidden to go alone, and even though Flor needs to pee, she says, in her new, kindly-sister voice, “Okay, just for a second.”

  Standing on the rim, they see Dr. Fife and Jasper down there, hard at work. He’s pounding small stakes into the ground. She’s measuring, handing him tools.

  “What are they doing?” Thomas asks.

  “Excavating. They dig up stuff.”

  That’s all Thomas needs to hear. Flor grabs him as he starts to butt slide down.

  “Let go!” Another of his talents: the set-your-teeth-on-edge whine. “You’re hurting me! Let me go!”

  Jasper looks up and waves. The half-empty sleeve of her big shirt flaps around.

  “You’re spying on us!” she calls, shading her eyes.

  Thomas squirms, but Flor hangs on. Is Jasper accusing or teasing? Flor can’t be sure, and besides, she still feels bad about t
he other night at the inn. She’s pretty sure Jasper doesn’t go around revealing her ABS arm to everybody—why else would she hide it inside those crazy-big clothes? For some reason, she trusted Flor. Who acted like she couldn’t wait to get away. Which she couldn’t. Only now she feels bad. Only not bad enough to go down there and be nice.

  “I have to pee,” she whispers to Thomas.

  “Go in the bushes!”

  “Maybe you’re an animal, but I’m not.”

  “My sister has to pee,” he hollers as she drags him away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Even though Mama left in such a sudden way, she somehow managed to stock the freezer full. Container after container of spaghetti sauce, chili, stew, and several trays of frijoles. At dinner that night, Cecilia picks at a salad. She says she’s turned vegetarian. Mama would fall into a dead faint, but Dad just drums his fingers on the table. It’s not like he’s got a big appetite, either. Thomas’s hands are sparkling clean as far as his wrists, where the dirt takes over. He picks at a scab on his elbow till Flor yells is he trying to make her barf?

  Lita’s doctor claims the antibiotics should be working by now, but Mama says when Lita coughs it’s like a wolf gets her in its jaws and shakes her head to toe. That makes Flor feels terrible. How can she be thinking only of herself, when her grandmother’s so sick? Mama tells her to mind her temper and to be sure Thomas wears clean underwear. She says Cecilia is taking her place, and Flor has to do everything her big sister tells her, does Flor understand? Everything. Flor starts to protest that Cecilia doesn’t care if they live or die but Mama just cuts her off. Repeat, Cecilia is the substitute mother, and now please put her on the phone. After Cecilia comes Thomas, who doesn’t say a word, just nods and breathes through his mouth. Finally Dad takes the phone. He inhales like he’s preparing to run ten miles, or appear before the Supreme Court.

  “Hello, Beatriz.” Her whole name, like she’s a stranger and they just met. He and the phone disappear upstairs.

  By the time he comes back down, it’s too late for Sylvie to call. Her aunt and uncle have strict rules. By now it’s been . . . can it be? Five full days since they talked. Sylvie doesn’t even know about Mama. She doesn’t know Perry rescued Flor from the murderous darkness. She doesn’t know Flor met the spy girl.