Seeds of Time (6 page)

“It's Conrad Kennedy, like that's any of your business,” he snickered, and his friends drew closer.
“But what's it to you ...
Slant
?” Both of Conrad's cronies laughed.

“Well ...
Conrad
,” Brodie continued so quietly that the group surrounding them all leaned in closer. “My name is Broderick Stewart Sun. My friends call me Brodie. My grandmother calls me Broderick.” Brodie's eyes glittered dangerously, and he straightened to his full height. “But nobody calls me Slant.”

Darrell gazed with sick recognition at the boy called Conrad and cursed herself for not making a quick trip up the arbutus tree at the beginning of their walk.

Conrad got lazily to his feet and looked at the small group on the beach. He was easily three years older than any of Darrell's group, but he was short and stocky, not any taller than Brodie.

Conrad caught sight of Darrell. He sneered. “Look who's here, boys. It's Gimpy! Caught any rocks, lately, Gimpster?”

“Not lately,” she snapped back. “Picked up a fishing license, yet?”

The other boys looked uncomfortable, but Conrad just smiled. He looked around.

“I don't see anyone fishing here, Gimpy. Just a group of friends enjoying the beach in the summertime.” The two boys with him nodded and blatantly flexed their muscles.

“Well this happens to be a private beach, and you're trespassing.” She looked at Brodie and Kate. “Let's just go back to the school, guys. We can register a complaint.”

The three started to walk away. Conrad leaned in front of Darrell. “After you,” he said with a sneer. As she stepped by him he stuck out his foot to trip her. She stumbled but managed to stay upright.

Kate, walking behind Darrell, deftly turned and, using Conrad's weight against him, slipped his protruding foot out from under him and flipped him to the ground. Conrad lay on the rocky surface, a stunned look on his face. His mouth worked as though he was going to say something, but no words came out.

“Watch your step,
Connie
,” Kate said to him sweetly. “It's slippery on these rocks, and you wouldn't want to fall and
hurt
yourself.”

Conrad's friends quickly scooped him to his feet and hustled him over onto their boat. Conrad, sand all over the back of his jacket, hissed, “I won't forget this. You three stay away from this beach. Consider yourselves warned.” He turned to his friends. “Start the boat, Lastman,” he snarled. The other two scrambled over to the outboard, and the engine roared into life.

As the boat pulled away, Brodie turned to look at Kate.

“How did you do that?” he asked, admiringly.

Kate smiled. “Tae kwon do. Third degree black belt.”

Darrell and Brodie stared. “I thought you always had your nose glued to a computer screen,” marvelled Darrell.

“A girl's got to do something when she's away from school,” grinned Kate.

“Wow.” Brodie shook his head and looked admiringly at Kate and Darrell. “One thing about this place; it's never boring!”

That night, Darrell was back in her bed, and Lily and Kate were in their accustomed positions, snoring and computing, respectively. She pulled out her notebook and began writing down questions about Conrad and his friends.

Who is Conrad Kennedy?

Why does he feel that he can get away with poaching?

How come he acts like he owns the beach?

Why do he and his friends react so violently when someone steps on the beach?

What are they hiding?

She thought back to earlier in the day when she had made her report to a frowning Arthur Gill. When Darrell had mentioned that Brodie had asked Conrad's name, a light went on behind Mr. Gill's
eyes. “Did you say Conrad Kennedy?” he asked, slowly. “I know that boy.” He dropped his chin to his chest and thought for a moment, and then looked back up at Darrell. “His father owns some land on the small island you can see out in the fjord to the south of the school's property. I believe his family are fishers.”

Darrell snorted. “That may be so, but does he have the right to be running crab traps just off the beach line here? I asked him if he had a license, and he didn't. And yet he didn't seem worried about it at all. He acted like he owned the place.”

Arthur Gill looked serious. “Well if he
is
crabbing along this stretch of coast without a license, he's going to have a bit of a problem.” He made a few notes and promised to inform Professor Tooth of both incidents. Darrell left the office feeling somewhat relieved to have finally been able to tell the story to an adult who took her seriously.

Tapping her pencil against her notebook in bed, Darrell realized that she had nothing really solid to go on with Conrad Kennedy. She decided that she needed to come up with a plan to catch him poaching crabs red-handed. It was time for a little more observation in her trusty arbutus tree.

For the next few days, Darrell spent much of her free time sitting in the arbutus and watching the beach, occasionally making notes or sketching in her book. Invariably, Delaney was curled up nearby.

She noticed that Kate and Brodie seemed to have decided to keep their distance for a while. One sunny afternoon while perched in her tree, Darrell saw them sitting together on a log in the garden, watching Lily training in the water while they ate their lunch. Their voices carried on the salty air, and Darrell pretended she couldn't hear their conversation.

“That girl is quite a swimmer,” remarked Brodie admiringly as Lily stroked by, her brown arms glistening in the sun.

Kate rolled her eyes. “You should hear her talk! If that were an Olympic event, she'd win gold for sure.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Come to think of it, she'd do pretty well in the snoring Olympics as well.”

“She probably needs her sleep, after all these hard workouts,” Brodie said, sensibly. He shaded his eyes and looked up toward the arbutus tree. Darrell bent her head to her notebook.

“Why is she still in that tree?” asked Kate.

“I don't know.” He looked back down at Lily, not meeting Kate's eyes. “I feel kind of sorry for her,” he admitted.

Kate looked quizzical. “For Lily?”

Brodie laughed. “Not Lily. Darrell.”

Kate shrugged. “I do too, sometimes. But every time I try to talk to her, she's either rude or nasty.” She glanced up at the tree to see Darrell scribbling away in her book. “I've known her for a long time, you know.”

“Have you?” Brodie looked embarrassed. “Ah ... how did it happen?”

“Her leg, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

Kate sighed. “It was a really sad story. She was in a motorcycle accident with her dad. He died and she lost her foot.”

Brodie winced. “She probably needs to talk about it to get the bitterness out of her system.”

Kate laughed, and looked with interest at Brodie. “That doesn't sound like something most boys would say.”

Brodie looked a bit defensive. “Let's just say I've had a few of my own problems. I think talking them out helps a bit, that's all.”

Kate looked out at Lily, still swimming like a fish in the ocean. She bit her lip.

“Do you mean problems like with what Conrad said the other day?”

Brodie stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“When he called you Slant. I mean, that's really racist. I couldn't believe he could say something like that.”

Brodie shrugged. “He called Darrell a gimp, too. He was full of kind thoughts.” Brodie looked serious for a moment, then brightened. “Loved that little flip that you pulled on him, though. That kind of made up for the name-calling.”

Kate smiled. “Glad you liked it.”

They stood up to head back to the school. Darrell slipped down out of her tree and followed.

Brodie spoke again. “You know, sometimes I know how Darrell feels. My dad's family came to Canada to help build the railroad in 1887. They were from Shanghai. That was five generations ago.” Kate nodded as Brodie continued. “My mother is actually from Scotland, but she moved here to go to university, and that's where she met and married my dad.” He thought for a moment. “Growing up on the West Coast has been great. There are people of all backgrounds here and almost everybody is pretty cool. Most people I have met are a little more enlightened than those idiots on the beach.” He reddened, slightly. “It just gets to me when people judge others purely on how they look. They did it to Darrell and they did it to me. I guess I shouldn't let it get to me.”

Kate nodded. “You're right, they were just idiots,” she said.

Brodie looked serious. “Still ... I have run into a fair share of racists in my time. It feels awful when some jerk tries to make you feel like you don't fit in for a reason as lame as the colour of your skin or the shape of your eyes.”

Kate looked horrified. “You don't get that feeling here at Eagle Glen, do you?”

Brodie smiled as they rounded the corner to the school. “Our beach idiots excepted, not really. But I think I know someone else who feels like an outsider.” Darrell froze, and leaned up against the corner, straining to hear.

“I think I will try again, to see if she'll talk about it,” Brodie said firmly.

Kate laughed. “Good luck! If she gets too hard to handle, just call on me. I think I know a few tae kwon do moves that will hold her in place so you can you get away safely!”

Darrell silently steamed as the voices faded into the school doorway. She bit her lip and then, after a few moments, trailed into the school.

At dinner that night, Professor Tooth stood up with archaeology teacher Mr. Dickerman to announce that Brodie Sun had won the Katzenberg Award for an essay he had written about ancient arrow heads found on the west coast of Canada. With the award came a scholarship
that would offset the cost of his summer school courses at Eagle Glen. Everyone applauded politely.

After dinner, Brodie asked Darrell if she would be interested in looking at some rock formations on the beach. She thought about refusing and then swallowed her pride and agreed. They walked down to the beach and followed the rock face for some distance. Delaney met them on the sand and trailed them down to the rocks. Brodie pointed out several fossils embedded in the cliff walls. After half an hour or so of hard fossil hunting, they headed for a log in the sand near the cliff face.

Darrell sat down on the log and ran her toes through the sand. Delaney curled up on the sand between them. The late evening sun felt warm on her face, and she turned to Brodie.

“Your family must be proud of you,” she said quietly. “About the award, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he answered.

There was a long silence. Brodie looked down and collected his nerve as he glanced at Darrell's leg. “How did you lose your foot?” he asked quietly, his face carefully blank.

Darrell felt her anger from earlier in the day surge. “How did you get to be such an idiot?” she replied with a snarl. “It just happened, that's all. A long time ago.” She fell silent, and then looked at him defiantly. “I don't have to tell you anything, y'know. It's none of your business.”

Brodie looked embarrassed. “You're right,” he said, standing up. “You don't have to tell me anything.” Darrell lifted her head, and Brodie looked straight into her eyes. “I'm sorry. I just wanted to learn more about you. We'll be in school together all summer and ...” he paused. “I just thought you might
want
to tell me.”

“It's okay,” Darrell cut him off, her anger breaking. She ducked her head again, and picked up a stick from the sand. “I'm just a little sensitive about it. My foot was amputated after I broke it really badly in an accident three years ago.” She sighed. “It's a long story.”

Brodie winced and looked again at Darrell. She could feel the wind blow her hair around lightly, and tried to blink away the tears in her eyes. He bent to pick up a rock and tossed it out toward the surf.

Darrell tapped the toes of her prosthetic foot with a stick and remembered the day when, at ten years of age, her life had changed forever. She lost her father and her leg in one terrible instant.

Darrell threw the stick violently at the sea. She opened her mouth to say something sharp, closed it again, and burst into tears. She cried bitterly for a few minutes. As her sobs tapered off, Brodie handed her an old paper napkin.

“Sorry,” he said. “It is clean, it's just been in my pocket for a while.”

Darrell sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“It's okay,” she said indistinctly, and a moment later she remembered to say, “Thanks.” Brodie sat back down. Darrell began to speak as though in a dream, slowly at first and then with increasing speed.

“I can hardly remember it,” she began. “I never really lived with my dad. He and my mother split up when I was really young. He worked as an extra in the movie industry and just drove around from job to job. He would rent a place to live for a few months and then just move on.” She blew her nose and continued. “My mom says it was no life for someone who had a kid, but he just kept doing it.”

“How was your dad involved in the accident?” Brodie asked.

Darrell took a deep breath and told Brodie the story. She spoke about the day in the summer when she was ten, driving down a winding highway on their way home to Vancouver after an afternoon of swimming and ice cream. Their motorcycle was blind-sided by a car, and she and her father had been thrown in front of a truck by the force of the crash. In his final millisecond, he put the strength of all his love into a brutal push that sent Darrell spinning sideways out of the path of the oncoming vehicle that took his life. She flew through the air with sickening speed and landed on her feet, improbably upright, at the side of the road. Her left foot was driven eight inches into the soft dirt that edged the highway.
Her right foot landed squarely on the asphalt at thirty-five kilometres an hour. Her ankle, broken once when she was six, shattered a second time, more permanently. The pain had been so pure, clear, and exquisite that Darrell, mercifully, had fainted immediately.