The Penderwicks at Point Mouette (23 page)

“Hello, Skye,” he said.

She was so relieved at that simple “Hello” that a few tears escaped down her cheeks, and she was so
embarrassed to be crying in front of Jeffrey that she forgot how off-balance she was with that heavy bag. Swaying dangerously, she yelped, and Jeffrey was immediately on his feet.

“Don’t cry, please don’t cry,” he said, steadying her.

“I’m not, I mean, I’ve stopped. But, Jeffrey, I’m sorry for not telling you about Alec going to Arundel. I should have warned you.”

“You couldn’t.”

“No, I couldn’t. But I hated not being able to.”

“I know you did.”

“And I’m also sorry about—”

“Shh.” He took the bag from her. “What’s all this?”

“Nourishment,” she said. “Jane and Mercedes made the sandwiches, and Batty sent your clarinet, and Aunt Claire sent love.”

“She’s not mad at me?”

“Aunt Claire? Good grief, why would she be?” said Skye. “She just wants what’s best for you.”

“And—Alec? Is he mad at me?”

“No one is angry at you, I promise. Come on, eat something. They made about a dozen sandwiches.”

Her silly tears flown away, Skye was hungrier than ever. Still, she waited and fussed until Jeffrey had sat back down and eaten a sandwich. When his color started coming back, she pressed another on him and only then allowed herself to dig in. Jane had been
right—the sandwiches were messy, but oh so delicious.

“I’ve been out here thinking about my mother,” said Jeffrey after finishing the second, and then a third. “Did she really hate Alec so much that she had to keep me from him? And if I’m so much like him, does she … ?”

“No.” Skye was certain of this, if not much else. “Your mother doesn’t hate you, Jeffrey Tifton.”

“Or whatever my name is.” He tried to laugh, but it was enough like a sob to make Skye pull out the chocolate crème pie. When together they’d polished off several slices, plus most of the lemonade, Jeffrey told her what Churchie’s letter said—that she liked Alec but loved Jeffrey and would always love him, no matter what happened. And that she hoped he was eating plenty of vegetables.

“Good old Churchie,” said Skye.

“Yes,” said Jeffrey, spinning a lemonade bottle round and round. “So, what should I do?”

“I don’t know,” said Skye.

“Really? No advice from the most opinionated person I know?”

“Very funny.” She went to punch his arm, but he was too quick for her, dodging away, eluding her. This pleased her immeasurably. “Really, I don’t know. It’s too hard to imagine not knowing Daddy from the beginning. Although I wonder if he would have liked us
before he knew we were his daughters, as much as Alec liked you before he knew you were his son.”

“He did like me, didn’t he?”

“He still does.”

“I guess so.” Jeffrey shrugged his shoulders and opened his clarinet case. He was done with talking and ready for music.

As he put together the clarinet, Skye stood and waved her arms in the general direction of Birches, knowing that Jane would be watching and ready. By the time Jeffrey was beginning to play, he had a full audience—four girls to listen to him, cherish him, and wish they could keep him there forever, safe from the perilous world of grown-ups.

O
NCE AGAIN
J
ANE WAS TALKING
in her sleep. This time, however, Skye was so worn out from the day before that nothing could wake her. Jeffrey, on the other side of the bamboo curtain, would have been next, but he was even more worn out than Skye. In the end, Jane had no one to wake up but herself.

“Sabrina Starr held the helicopter steady over the rock island and tossed out the rope ladder. ‘You’ll have to climb,’ she shouted to the pathetic figure huddled on the rocks below her. ‘I’m your only hope of rescue.’ ” Jane’s eyes flew open. “Who said that?”

By the time Jane figured out that she was the only person who would babble about Sabrina Starr, she was wide awake, and another line from her new book was
working its way into her consciousness.
She still wasn’t sure that the Heartbreaker shouldn’t be left to suffer.…
She needed more. How about this?
He should be left to suffer, alone with his guilty memories
. Excellent, thought Jane. She was going to have to write this stuff down before she forgot it.

Quietly she climbed out of bed, pulled on her clothes, and took her blue notebook outside. The sun was just barely above the horizon, the last of dawn’s pinkness was fading, and Jane had the ocean, the sky, and the wheeling seagulls all to herself. She blew a good morning toward England, and another toward New Jersey, and a third to a place much closer than those—the red house next door, where she worried that Alec was slowly eating his heart out for Jeffrey. She knew that she shouldn’t have an opinion about what was best for Jeffrey, but everything in her hoped that he would reconcile with Alec.

In the meantime, Jane was very glad to have her book to work on, since whatever problems Sabrina Starr had were nothing compared to those of the real world. She opened her notebook and escaped happily to the island where the Heartbreaker had been stranded by all the girls whose lives he’d wrecked. A sudden inspiration had her adding Batty’s seals to the island, and they, too, would spurn the luckless anti-hero. Happily crushing him into the lowest misery before letting him be rescued, Jane wrote and wrote, so
engrossed that she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps. It wasn’t until a shadow was cast across her notebook that she realized she wasn’t alone. She looked up and recoiled. Standing in front of her was Jeffrey’s stepfather, the dreadful, the loathed, the vile and mustachioed Dexter Dupree.

“You!” Frantically Jane tried to remember what revengeful curses she’d rained down upon the pillow, out on the porch the day before. Had she somehow drawn Dexter out of Massachusetts and up to Point Mouette?

“Hello, Skye,” he said.

She watched him narrowly. This was disturbing behavior. Not the part about him calling her Skye—he never had figured out which sister was which—but that he was acting polite. He’d never been polite before.

“How did you get here?” she asked. “That is, have you come of your own volition?”

“I drove, if that’s what you mean.” He rubbed his face and yawned. “All night—I drove all night. You don’t happen to have any coffee, do you?”

“No.” Aunt Claire was a tea drinker.

“Figures.” Now he sat down uninvited, which Jane didn’t think was polite. This was more like the Dexter she knew.

“Mrs. T-D isn’t with you? That is, of course you think of her as Mrs. Dupree. She’s in good health?” Now all of Jane’s threats to the pillow were coming
back to her. “Not having problems with mysterious outside influences or anything?”

“No, she was too upset to make the trip.” He glowered at Jane. “Don’t pretend you don’t know why she’s upset. Yesterday some friend of your family shows up out of nowhere claiming to be Jeffrey’s father—”

Jane interrupted. “Alec
is
Jeffrey’s father. And he’s not out of nowhere. He’s next door.”

“Great. That figures, too. And after he left, my wife cries for hours until I promise I’ll drive to Maine and get Jeffrey for her.” Dexter stopped, embarrassed at having been so open with a despised Penderwick. “So, if you could go tell the kid to pack, we’ll be on our way.”

Much was now clear, so clear that Jane was ashamed of herself for wasting time thinking about that pillow. Of course Dexter had come to take Jeffrey away. That was what he and Jeffrey’s mother were best at—taking Jeffrey away. They’d managed to steal him from the Penderwicks early one morning the summer before, but this time would be different. Jane was determined not to let go of Jeffrey until he had the chance to make up with Alec. But to keep Jeffrey safe, she had to plan carefully. First thing was to keep him away from Dexter for as long as possible. Second thing was to keep Aunt Claire out of it, since as a responsible adult, she might have to let Dexter talk to Jeffrey. After all, a stepfather, even an awful one, probably had more rights than the aunt of a friend.
But did a newly found father that the son wouldn’t talk to have more rights than either of those? For a moment, Jane wished that she’d spent less time writing about Sabrina Starr and more time studying law, but after a quick glance at Dexter—he was getting impatient—she pushed legal questions out of the way and went back to thinking things through.

What she needed was Skye. Jane had no illusions when it came to bravery—Skye was by far the most courageous of the sisters and the best at confronting wicked grown-ups, and she would have no problem in subduing Dexter. But Jane couldn’t get Skye without leaving Dexter alone, and that was too dangerous. She had to keep him from wandering off and discovering Jeffrey on the sleeping porch. She had only one solution until Skye—or any reinforcements at all—appeared. She would stall.

“You want Jeffrey to pack?” Jane asked, gaily innocent. “Heavens, I’m sure he’s still asleep at this time of the morning, and you don’t want me to wake him up. Boys need their rest.”

Dexter squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, and seemed disappointed that she was still there. “You’re kidding, right?”

Jane prattled on. “While we’re waiting, why don’t you give me all the news from Arundel? How are the gardens? And the bull that lives next door—have you seen him lately? No? Then I could tell you how my writing is going. You remember that I’m a writer,
don’t you? Last fall I wrote a play called
Sisters and Sacrifice
, though it was really my sister’s homework assignment, and then I wrote another Sabrina Starr—goodness, look who’s here!”

Somehow Dominic had snuck up on them. Dismayed, Jane asked herself how it was possible. And then she realized—he hadn’t come on his noisy skateboard.

“I don’t know,” said Dexter. “Who is he?”

“He’s Dominic Orne, and Dominic, this is Dexter Dupree, who’s Jeffrey’s stepfather. Dexter, Dominic is …” She wasn’t sure how to define Dominic, so she dropped it and went on to what most concerned her. “Dominic, how did you get here? That is, did you come of your own volition?”

“I walked, if that’s what you mean,” he answered. “My skateboard has a loose wheel.”

“Oh!” Jane remembered her angry rant about Dominic the day before. Could that have affected his skateboard? Thank goodness she hadn’t gone so far as voodoo. Who knows what would have happened?

“Skye, this is all very chummy, but I really need to get Jeffrey back to his mother,” said Dexter.

“She’s Jane,” said Dominic.

“Who is?”

“I am,” said Jane with more irritation than she’d meant to show. Dominic was not the reinforcement she’d wanted. “Dominic, what are you doing here, anyway?”

“You didn’t come to the park yesterday or even answer my note.”

“Of course I didn’t. Not after you made a mockery of my love and poetry and everything I hold dear and true, and also taught me never again to fall for an empty shell of a boy who cares only for his skateboard and stealing kisses.”

Dominic’s face puckered in confusion. It looked as though he were trying to form a question, but Dexter was too quick for him, cutting in sharply.

“Skye—Jane—whatever your name is—oh, no, here comes another one.”

It was Mercedes, who also wasn’t Jane’s choice for backup, especially not as she was teetering toward them on the bicycle she still hadn’t learned to control. But even Mercedes was better than being alone with Dexter and Dominic. So Jane waved to her, and Mercedes joined them by crashing her bike into the deck and jumping off before it fell over.

“I don’t remember her,” said Dexter. “Is she the one who always wore wings?”

“You’re thinking of Batty,” answered Jane. “Mercedes isn’t a Penderwick.”

“Does he think I am?” Mercedes looked kindly upon Dexter. “Wow, thanks, mister.”

Dexter frowned back, then turned to Jane. “You sure you don’t have any coffee, not even instant?”

“No, sorry. Now, where was I?” said Jane. “I know—Dominic!”

She was answered by a low growl, which made her nervous—if Dominic was going to start growling, she really did need more help. But then the screen door opened, and out slid Hound in his hunting stance, his I-remember-you-and-don’t-like-you-at-all voice rumbling in his throat. Following him was Batty, who, though not quite growling, had the same scowl of dislike on her face.

“
This
is Batty,” said Jane.

“Oh, yeah.” Dexter edged his chair farther away from Hound. “Where are her wings?”

“She gave them to Jeffrey last summer,” answered Jane.

“Terrific. Just what the kid needs—fairy wings.”

“They were
butterfly
wings and he did so need them,” said Batty. Startled by her own courage, especially with Dominic right there, too, she clutched at Jane’s hand. “Hi, Mercedes.”

“Hi, Batty. That man thought I was you.”

“He doesn’t know anything. He’s Jeffrey’s stepfather.”

“Oh, no!” Mercedes was horrified, and Jane was certain she was about to blurt out the bad things she’d heard about Dexter, which would not have a soothing effect on him.