Jubilee (5 page)

I
slid dishes and glasses onto the table for Saturday-night dinner as Gideon burst in the front door, his boots loud on the hall floor. “I hope it's not liver. I hope it's not pork chops,” he sang.

At the table, Aunt Cora and I glanced at each other. Gideon always made us laugh. He filled the kitchen with his huge self, his great grin.

Dog backed under the table. He rested his head on his paws, unsure about Gideon. But Gideon reached into his pocket. “Cora told me about you this morning.” His voice was softer than usual. He held out a dog biscuit.

Dog hesitated, then moved forward, tail thumping on the floor as he took the biscuit. He stretched out under the table while we ate scallops in a thick white sauce. Aunt Cora and Gideon loved scallops.

Actually, they were almost as bad as liver or pork chops. Even Dog just sniffed at the one I sneaked to him.

We ate quickly because Gideon and I were going out in his small motorboat, to putter around the island. We'd watch the sun roll down below the horizon, and maybe I'd draw cartoon gulls with baseball hats, or fish with eyeglasses popping up to have a look at the horizon.

Most of the time I'd take the tiller, guiding us wherever I wanted to go.

Best of all, Gideon and I were quiet. He didn't mind my not speaking. Not one bit.

“Back soon,” he told Aunt Cora on our way out the door. “Unless Red and I decide to head for the Fiji Islands.”

I put my hand out, in a
stay there
motion, and Dog closed his eyes.

Halfway to the wharf, Gideon stopped. “Someone is coming with us tonight, Red. A new partner on our Saturday night ocean voyage.”

I walked around him and went toward the boat. Saturday nights were Gideon's and mine, not a new partner's.

Gideon followed. “A nice kid. Big family.”

A girl with a big family?

The island wasn't that big. Maybe someone had just moved across from the mainland.

But suppose she wanted to take the tiller?

To decide where we'd go?

To talk when Gideon and I were quiet?

I closed my eyes and shut out those thoughts. I was looking for a friend, wasn't I?

“A good worker too,” Gideon went on. “Scrubbed the deck the other day. Wait till you see it.”

Scrubbing out the boat. Smelly. Sticky. Gideon and I hated to do it.

I looked up at Gideon's face. How old was she?

Gideon read my mind. “The same age as you, Red. And you need a better friend than an old guy like me.”

I ducked my head to show him I wasn't Saturday-night happy, but he didn't notice. He wasn't always as good with my signals as Aunt Cora was.

We stepped onto the wharf; I breathed in the smell of the sea and heard the waves lapping against the pilings. In front of us was Gideon's shiny boat, the
Take It Easy.

Mason sat on the side bench, waiting for us.

Mason!

His leg was bent, and he scratched a mosquito-bitten ankle. He looked like the lone egret that fished at the Ivy Cottage pond.

I climbed onto the boat, angling past his skinny legs, his knobby knees, and his big feet.

I sat as far away from him as I could. It wasn't very far. Gideon's boat wasn't that big.

Gideon jumped in, heavy enough to tilt us sideways, a feeling I usually loved.

“Mason,” he said. “This is Judith.”

“Hi,” Mason said to my back.

Gideon revved up the motor. “Want to take her out, Red?”

At least he hadn't asked Mason.

I wanted to show Mason I could do that easily. But I'd have to scramble past him again.

I shook my head and looked straight ahead at the small boats docked on our starboard side. As we passed, each one rocked from our wake.

We motored out on that calm water, Gideon singing in his deep voice. I drew gulls getting ready for the night, one wearing a pair of striped pajamas, the other with a puffy nightcap.

I turned, just an inch, so I could see what Mason was doing. His head was tilted as he watched a pair of large gray gulls circle, then dive into the water for their dinner.

Under my feet, the deck was clean. Gideon was right. Mason had done a good job, which made me feel worse.

Maybe Mason would be around forever: in my classroom, on our boat.

Maybe even at Ivy Cottage.

I swallowed, then began a wishing game that Aunt Cora and I played at breakfast. Sometimes they're silly wishes, like sailing to Antarctica after lunch. But sometimes serious ones, like my mother coming in on the ferry.

“Judith,” she'd call. “Get your pad, your favorite straw hat, and climb aboard. We're leaving this minute. Wave goodbye to Mason.”

A motorboat chugged past us now, throwing up waves that splashed over the side of our boat.

Mason jumped.

Without thinking, I looked straight into his eyes. I didn't care if he could see I was angry.

Hadn't he invaded the seat next to me in my new classroom?

And now he'd taken my favorite seat on this boat.

What nerve!

Gideon veered around the side of the island, going west, straight into the sun.

I squinted at the glowing path the sun sent across the sea. I could almost reach out and run my fingers through the liquid gold water.

If only my mother could see that water and hear Gideon's warm voice singing “Red Sails in the Sunset.”

Maybe she'd want to come back home to our island.

C
uddled under my quilt on Sunday morning, there was just enough time to draw a cartoon of Dog. He lay on his back, tongue lolling, all four paws in the air.

“Ah, no school today, I'm free as a bird,” said the bubble over his head. Me too!

Aunt Cora and I walked to church. On the way, we heard the organ playing and Gideon singing “Bread of Angels.” Inside, there were chrysanthemums in silver vases and green bows on the altar.

I prayed,
Let me open my mouth. Let me sing.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

That was what happened every Sunday.

But after church, I remembered: homework!

It was a day filled with sunshine, a sky that was totally blue; leaves fluttered in the breeze. But I went to my room to find the yellow homework paper that rested under my bed with a few dust balls.

Choose one living thing from the island. Can you tell something about it? We want to know.

Actually not such a bad assignment. I might sit under the wharf and find a sea star, or maybe a killy that'd escaped from the bait man's trap.

But suppose Mason was there?

I leaned forward. “We've had enough of Mason, right?” I whispered to sleeping Dog.

He opened one eye.

I tucked the paper into one pocket and my cartoon book into the other and went down the hall with Dog behind me, yawning.

Aunt Cora pattered back and forth in the kitchen. She was beginning to fix dinner for later: ham and beans thick with molasses, and a spinach salad with apple slices from the tree in the garden. It would be hours before we ate.

“Love you, Jubilee,” Aunt Cora said as I headed for the door.

I grinned at her and tapped the molding. Sometimes the tap meant
I love you too.
Sometimes it meant
I'm on my way out.
And sometimes it didn't mean anything more than
It's a great day.
Aunt Cora could always figure it out.

Outside, the day was warm, but I could feel fall in the air. As I walked, a single orange leaf fluttered from a maple tree, and two perfect red leaves lay on the path. I reached down and tucked one inside my pad.

Summer was almost over.

I stopped in front of Ivy Cottage, remembering the shoe print I'd seen on the sandy floor.

I moved the rock and took the old broom from the ruined steps. Someone had rested it against the wooden railing a long time ago, and most of the straw must have become part of some bird's nest.

I took it inside, and tried not to look at the print. But my eyes went toward that mark…

It was gone.

The grains of sand had rearranged themselves. Maybe a cool wind had come in through the broken window and changed the pattern.

I swept anyway.

Down the hall.

In the corners…

And glanced in the living room.

Another print.

I stood still, listening.

The caw of a crow sounded outside. Inside, it was silent except for the swish of the broom and my sneakers as I swept over the print in the living room. A drift of sand remained in the doorway.

But that was all right.

Sand belonged.

“Let's go to the pond,” I whispered to Dog, and we headed outside, sinking down beside each other in the oozy grass on the edge.

An egret swooped in on the other side. It was fierce-looking, with its crested head and eyes like shiny blue jewels. Eyes that saw all those poor fish under the surface. They'd never have a chance against that egret.

Egret was not going to be on my yellow paper!

Gideon said everyone had to eat. True. But the egret was very sneaky about it.

I leaned forward, my fingers dabbling in the cool water. Maybe I'd known all weekend what I wanted to write about.

Two years ago, during a storm, a branch had fallen into the pond. Pieces of the wood had decayed so one end of it looked like lace. And now, in the center, a bale of turtles sunned themselves.

As soon as they saw my shadow, they slid into the water and disappeared.

I wrote about them: their shiny dark shells, their terrific night vision. I said that turtles had been around for more than a hundred million years, and the best part, some of them liked to play.

I knew about them from a library book I read last year. I thought more about what Ms. Quirk had said. If you knew about something, maybe you appreciate it.

I certainly liked turtles. Was it because I understood them?

Once Gideon said that a snapping turtle had eyes close to the top of its head. At the bottom of the pond it could look up and watch the rest of the world go by.

I poked my toes into the water. It was colder than it had been all summer. Turtles were cold-blooded, their temperature the same as the water. I tried to pretend I didn't mind the cold either.

I'm brave,
I told myself, and Dog tilted his head, watching me.

I tucked the turtle paper under a rock. I hoped Ms. Quirk wouldn't mind the splotches of water from my wet fingers.

Then I dashed into the pond, clothes and all. I dived underneath, and came up sputtering.

It was freezing!

I began to swim, taking long strokes until I was warm. Then I floated on my back, watching the clouds make patterns in the sky.

Dog barked and I raised my head, but he'd turned away from me, staring at the trees and the dirt path that led away from the pond.

Was someone there?

I dived, swimming fast underwater, and in moments I was out of the pond.

Dog had stopped barking; he wasn't even looking toward the trees anymore.

I was shivering. I wiped my hands on my jeans, picked up the yellow paper with two fingers, and started down the path.

Halfway down, I saw what Dog had seen.

Travis was curled up underneath a sycamore tree, turning the pages of a picture book.

He'd escaped from Sophie again.

I went quietly, so I wouldn't bother him. Maybe he needed a little time alone, like the turtle. Besides, Sophie didn't want me near him.

Back home, with the sweet smell of molasses wafting through the house, I sat on the back porch, the sun drying my damp clothes.