The Wayward Gifted - Broken Point (2 page)

Negotiations
were delicate until Steuart proposed a plan that included not only his mother,
but also a delicious new mock-turtle soup recipe created by his grandmother, an
excellent cook. In exchange for both Olivia and the recipe, the pirates
presented Steuart, Ida, and Sam with a five-year-old donkey named Quantro, a
bottle of two year old rum, and twelve chocolate coins—four for each of
them. Having never read that there were donkeys on the islands, Steuart
reasoned that the pirates seized the unfortunate animal during a raid on
another ship with the knowledge that he could be useful in a trade.

For a while, Steuart enjoyed his
stories. He smiled, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and envisioned the
taste of chocolate delights and rogue sounds in the night, as pirates sang
songs and a contented donkey played happily beside a crackling beach bonfire.
He grew sad again thinking about the move. “I’m wishing for a perfect moment of
magic,” he whispered. Perhaps a friend would appear in the darkness and give
him the power to keep time from moving forward. “I need a power that will allow
me to live thankfully and happily in the now,
a nowness
so huge that I can stay suspended permanently in the
happiness I love with Grandmother and Sam, here on Atchison Bay.” Suddenly, for
some inexplicable reason, Steuart wondered about his father.
Where’s Daddy? Does he think about me?
Steuart couldn’t sleep.

He glanced across his big tall room at
the giant, antique world map on the far wall. The map belonged to Ida’s father,
Matt Prescott when he was a boy. Turning away, Steuart watched the moonlight
streaming through the transom above his dark French doors. He was beginning to
understand what it meant to take something for granted.
This is unfair
. He reached for the cup of water on his nightstand
and put it to his lips. The cup was empty. “Great,” he groaned. Steuart took a
deep breath and closed his eyes.

He thought about eating breakfast under
the oaks. He thought about sitting in the swing at the end of the pier with his
favorite books. He wondered how Ida would get along without him.
We’re a team
. He thought of how he
enjoyed throwing a line of cord far out into the bay with a smelly, rotting
chicken neck tied to the end. He did this early in the morning as he crabbed
the old-fashioned way with his grandmother who refused to use crab baskets.

“It’s not sporting if you trap them,”
she’d say. Steuart didn’t object because Ida’s way was the most fun. He loved
standing shirtless with his back straight, feeling the warmth of the sun behind
him, and the coolness of salt-water lapping softly against his ankles. He loved
the morning breeze coming in across the bay as he waited for a little nibble,
pulling the cord tight. That’s how he knew a hungry crab—maybe two,
feasted on a hearty breakfast at the end of his line. This was the signal for
Steuart to slowly reel-in the cord, while motioning for Ida who ran quickly and
quietly with the long-handled net ready to scoop up the crabs that were too
busy feasting to notice either of them. He thought of how his toes squished
into the sand as she pulled and lifted the net filled with crabs and how just
as quickly, with a huge grin and a laugh, she’d turn the net towards the water and
release the crabs into the bay. “Steuart Dahlin’, I don’t think it’s their time
yet. Do you?”

“Not yet Grandmother—looks like we’ll
have to find them another day.”

“Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. Those
lucky crabs are safe for now.” Steuart and Ida watched as the crabs scurried
back into the murky darkness of the water.

Steuart blinked. He took a deep breath,
exhaled and rubbed his eyes. He thought about swimming in the bay with his
sister and grandmother, each of them floating lazily on a raft or an inner
tube, all three held together by a long line of cord. He thought about sitting
on the screened porch in the late afternoon, sipping sweet iced tea, and
nibbling on leftover homemade buttered biscuits from breakfast as he worked on
his favorite pastime—anagrams. Steuart thought of the holiday boating
parade and the lights on the boats in the darkness. He thought about watching
the sailboats in the distance. “One day I’ll sail.”

He looked up again and listened to the
sound of the old ceiling fan, a soft slow exhaling
fwoh, fwoh, fwoh,
rotating gently above his bed. Again, he looked
at the tall doors. His mind continued to wander. After a while, Steuart reached
for his glasses, grabbed Sparky, and crawled out of bed. He opened the doors
and walked quietly onto the sleeping porch that connected his room to his sister’s.
Steuart couldn’t sleep.

* * *

As early as she could remember, Sam
collected colors. “I love colors,” she’d eagerly share with anyone who asked, and
a few who didn’t. “They make me happy and I am certain they hold a special
magic that I cannot explain. I don’t remember how old I was when I began my collection;
maybe I was two or three. I can only say that I’ve done this for most of my
life. I can’t tell you why I started, but I can tell you that my grandmother is
my biggest supporter.
Sam
, she says,
the colors will lead you where you want to
go.
Color collection makes me happy.”

Sam had a nightly color ritual. To keep
her collection organized she kept an expandable folder, purchased one early
Saturday morning while visiting community garage sales with Ida. It was pink
with illustrations of large white cabbage roses and slid effortlessly into her
backpack. Each night she began by locking her bedroom doors and pulling the
pink comforter away from her bed. This allowed Sam to take the colors out and
examine them against her crisp white sheets. “It’s most important to be careful
and cautious arranging the swatches,” she’d say. “I arrange them in a variety
of different ways while taking time to look at how they interact when mixed
with different shades or textures.”

After looking at the colors and moving
them about, Sam arranged them again and viewed them, this time, as a group. She
played with various combinations, selecting three or four at a time and then
laid them side-by-side in a straight line before putting them into a box
formation. Next, she created a grouping that allowed only the corner points of
each color to touch.

She walked around the room and watched
the colors from the opposite side of her bed, paying close attention to her
newest acquisitions. She stood on her chair and stared down at the colors. She jumped
up and down quickly, opening and closing her eyes, blinking fast and then
blinking slowly. She looked for shade changes in her groupings as she turned
the lights on and off, then on and off again before standing in the darkness
and counting to twelve. Next, she flipped the switch on, off, on, off, and on
one more time as she continued to watch for changes. Sam knelt down beside the
bed and moved her eyes directly across the colors, one by one, moving closer
until her eyes failed to focus.

She tried to smell the colors. She
turned her back, bowed her head, counted slowly to four, and then quickly
counted to three as she jumped up, turned back and looked, once again watching for
developments. She bent down close and low. She whispered to the colors. She
hummed. She sang a song. She licked her pinkie and touched one corner of each
swatch, stopping to record her observations in a small pink notebook.

She used a magnifying glass and repeated
exactly one-half of the ritual. However, the part she repeated was not always
the same. Once each week Sam chose five colors to put into retention. It was
her belief that
colors need a break.
These colors were tucked away for three or four weeks and given a vacation from
all the others. The remaining colors were put into a pile and stacked cautiously,
one on top of the other, between alternating squares of tissue before sliding
into their home. Sam relaxed. She lay next to the folder. She called the names
of each color in silence. She stood up. She stood on her head. She stared at
the walls. She sat in her chair with her back to the bed and recited a poem.

You draw me in closely

Like crowds all around me

Your silence says little

Your voice filled with knowledge

I listen for clues

To riddles unknown

With the color ritual complete Sam looked
outside and noticed her brother on the sleeping porch.

TWO

Steuart
lay on a summer bed and held Sparky against his chest
. He watched the crescent moon hanging
midway over the bay and listened to the gentle sound of waves lapping against
the shore. Sam sat on the opposite bed. “Why are you awake?” she asked.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Neither can I.”

“It’s happening too fast.”

“I know.”

“Everything was fine. Life was perfect,
and then all of a sudden we’re moving.
 
She decides to change everything and that is that. She didn’t even ask how
we feel about it. Did she ask for your opinion?”

“No.”

“How did this happen?”

“She made a choice,” Sam shrugged.

“She didn’t care. She didn’t ask either
of us. I mean it. This is all wrong.” Steuart had tears in his voice. “Why
didn’t she tell us sooner?”

“I don’t know.” Sam was crying too, but
as the older sibling, she tried to hold her feelings inside. “Are you scared?”

“No.” Steuart squeezed his pillow and
spoke softly, “I want to stay here.
This
is our home.”

Sam nodded.

“Don’t you want to stay here?”

“We can’t.”

Steuart stood, turned around and then
sat down. “Mother’s new house doesn’t even have a name. How stupid is that?”

“Not stupid, I don’t think they do that
in other places, at least they don’t do it everywhere.”

“I think it’s stupid. All I have to do
is tell my friends I live at Point Taken. People know how to find me.”

“The new house has a number out front.
Our friends will find us.”

“What friends?”

“We’ll make friends.”

Steuart huffed, “She’s taking us away
from everything that matters. What will Frank and Caffey do?”

“Dogs adjust.”

“Who’ll walk with them?”

“They’ll be fine with Grandmother.
She’ll walk with her friends, or she’ll go out by herself.”

“Friends are not the same as grandkids.
She’ll be lonely without us.”

“That’s true, but she has friends.” Sam
changed the subject, “You know what?”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a
dog once we’re settled.”

“I’d be shocked. What made you say
something like that? Mother won’t even let us have a gold fish.”

Sam made a face and pulled on her toes.
“Wishful thinking.”

“I’m serious. She won’t even let us
have a fish. She told me I’d kill it unless she took responsibility for the
thing.”

“That’s because she killed hers when
she was little.”

“What?”

“I got the same response. Mother had a
couple of goldfish she really loved. She named them Marti and Ben. Grandmother
told me that Mother took good care of them. She fed them everyday. She talked
to them. And, she made sure they always had clean water. One day she put them
in the sink when it was time to change the water. But she forgot to plug the
drain, so Marti and Ben went swimming. She never wanted a pet after that.”

“And you think she’ll let us have a
dog?”

“Wishful thinking. Forget what I said.”

Steuart held Sparky tightly around the
middle and buried his head in another pillow. “Have I told you my new pirate
story?”

Sam looked up and shook her head. She
giggled, and added her thoughts, as Steuart talked. “I think Mother would take
over immediately. She’d become the head pirate, and be in charge by the end of the
first day. I’d feel sorry for the poor pirates. Just imagine how it would go
for them once Mother pulled out
Right,
Good, and Appropriate.
They wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d run away crying
like little babies.”

“
Pig-eye
traders
!”

“What’s that?”

“Greedy pirates. They’d beg us to take
Mother back. They’d offer us five million tons of gold.”

“That’s a lot, but we couldn’t take
it.”

“Blood money,” Steuart nodded. “I’d
pull out our super official, signed and binding, contract. I’d stand here on
the porch, look down at the crowd on the beach and read it for everyone to hear.”

“What would it say?”

Steuart took a deep breath. “It would
say:
Hear ye, hear ye, Know ye this day
that all signed agreements between the Galapagos Pirates, aka Pig-eye Traders,
and the DuBoise children of Atchison Point are final and binding forever. That
means our agreement is irrevocable. This document is undeniably signed, dated, and
properly notarized by all interested parties. It may never, ever, ever, be
undone.”