Thirteen Plus One (14 page)

“You’re
fourteen,”
she said. “It’s your birthright to be snarky. Own it. Live it. Re
joice
in it.”

“Rejoice in being snarky?”

“Absol
ute
ly. Just don’t let it poison you.”

We lay on our sides on her bed. She had yet to unclasp me, and we were so close that our foreheads touched.

“You look like a Cyclops,” I informed her.

“And this, above all,” she pontificated. “Stay true, little sister. Even in the snarkiest of times, stay true.”

“Now you sound like a graduation speech.”

“Oh, and as an aside? You’ll find this hard to believe, but I was
occasionally
obnoxious myself when I was fourteen.”

“No.
Way.”

“Way,” she replied. She breathed a warm, intentional huff of broccoli breath on me from the casserole Mom made for dinner, then grinned when I gagged. “And just look at me now.”

Make a Prediction

T
HIS MUST BE IT,” Mr. Devine said, taking a right off the two-lane highway.

“Eeee!”
Dinah said, bouncing in the front seat. She whipped around. “I’m so excited!”

I perched on my butt and took in the view. Unlike what we’d been seeing for the last several hours—flat, flat, and more flat, all of it shimmering with heat mirages—the private drive we’d turned onto took us into a whole new land. A canopy of foliage arched over us, dappling the sunlight. The silver-barked trees were gnarled and ancient, and moss hung from the branches. The moss was magical looking, like something from a fairy tale. Like troll’s hair.

We pulled up to a weathered gatehouse, and Mr. Devine told the aging security guard that we were here for the sea turtle project.

“Ah-right then,” the guard said. “What y’all want is the MacKinnon-Karrer house.” His South Carolina accent was thicker than grits. His stretched-out vowels
were
grits, taking up so much space in his mouth that there wasn’t room for anything else.

He shuffled to his desk and grabbed a map, which he spread on the ledge of the gatehouse window. “Yer a-gun keep on this here road fer ’bout two miles. You’ll pass the clubhouse on yer right. Best she-crab soup you’ll evah taste, if you git the chance.”

Dinah and I shared a look of delight—not because of the she-crab soup, but because this old man was such a character. I kind of wanted to marry him, only not really. Not at all, actually. But I loved listening to him talk.

“Then you’ll cross on over the marsh,” he continued. “Be sure to keep an eye out for Old Gran’Pappy Blue Heron. He likes to greet the visitors, so he sits way up high on one of them posts by the bridge.”

“Sweet,” I said.

The old man jabbed at the map. “After that, you’ll take a sharp left, and not too much later, a sharp right. More like an S curve.”

Mr. Devine rubbed the spot between his eyebrows.

“Yer not too far now,” the man said. “Jess look for the sign that says MacKinnon-Karrer, and if you don’t see that, look for a big ol’ house with a stained-glass window in the shape of a nautilus.”

“What’s a nautilus?” I asked.

Dinah spoke up. “I know. It’s one of those gym machines they have the infomercials for. I think it’s called the Bow-Flex? ”

The guard looked at Dinah funny. “Naw, it’s a shell. Kinda like a snail shell.”

“Oh,” Dinah said.

“The Bow-Flex,” I said under my breath, flicking her head and making her giggle.

“Well, all righty then,” Mr. Devine said. “Reckon we should get going.”

“All righty then” and “reckon” weren’t words Dinah’s dad normally used, and Dinah giggled harder. I giggled, too.

“Reckon so,” the old man said as Mr. Devine flushed and lifted his hand to his collar. It was as if he was adjusting a nonexistent tie.

 

The final leg of our journey was jam-packed with yummy, beach-y things, starting with Old Gran’Pappy Blue Heron, who was indeed perched on a wooden post by the marsh. He had long, spindly legs and a long, curved neck, and as we drove past him, Dinah rolled down her window and called, “Hi!”

Old Gran’Pappy swiveled his head and eyed her with his beady black eyes, as shiny and flat as pebbles. Then he spread his wings—which were enormous—and flapped away.

The marsh itself was interesting, too. Pale green reeds stuck up from the swampy water, and snow-white egrets dipped and darted among them. I didn’t know they were egrets until Dinah told me. She’d read up on the Carolina wetlands to prepare for our trip.

One somewhat freaky thing we saw was a wooden sign standing at a tilt at the edge of the marsh. PLEASE DO NOT FEED OR MOLEST THE ALLIGATORS, it said.

“Alligators?” Dinah squeaked.

“Molest?”
I squealed. “What does that even mean? And why would anybody want to?”

Dinah blinked at the murky water. “There aren’t really alligators, are there, Dad?”

“It’s a marsh, so probably,” he said. “Did you not come across alligators in your research?”

Dinah gulped, and I suppressed a smile. Knowing Dinah, she probably read up on all the cute South Carolina creatures—egrets, baby turtles, hoppy toads—and selectively blanked out any and all mentions of grinning reptiles with sharp teeth.

“If Cinnamon were here, she’d steal that sign,” I said. “She’d take it home with her and put it in her bedroom.”

“No, she would not,” Dinah said, doing a meaningful head-jerk to remind me that her dad was in the car with us.

“Oh, please,” I said, because what was Mr. Devine going to do, bust Cinnamon for a crime she couldn’t commit even if she wanted to? And then I thought,
Ooo, it’s the “stealing” part Dinah wants me to shut up about, because of Mary Woods and
the
makeup.

I changed the subject. “What is up with Cinnamon, anyway?” I said. “Is she ever going to tell us her ‘big news’?”

Dinah lifted her shoulders. We’d bombarded Cinnamon with phone calls and texts from the road, but every call went straight to voice mail, and the one text she’d sent back was purposely evasive.
Dear fellow countrymen: I am unable to text right now, as I am ... well, I can’t exactly say. Or rather, I
^*
could
^*
, but I choose not to. Pip pip, cheerio, and all that rot!

“I’m trying her again,” I announced, pulling out my iPhone. The call went straight to voice mail.
Aargh!

I punched END CALL. Then, needing to somehow punish her, I went to the SETTINGS function. I would change her incoming ringtone, oh yes I would. I would take away her beloved evil laugh and replace it with ...
hrmm.

What to do, what to do?

I scrolled through my options. Perhaps the cheerful chorus of “Walking on Sunshine”?

Heck, no
.

Well, what about the melodic “Dolphin Splash”?

And no again. Sorry, Cinnamon. You may not pass go, and you may not swim with the dolphins.

“Jungle Monkey”? Maybe. It was the sound of a chimpanzee screaming its head off, if I remembered correctly. Still, it wasn’t obnoxious
enough.

Aringtone called “Cleanup Johnny” caught my attention. “Cleanup Johnny”? What was this “Cleanup Johnny”? I gave it a tap to make it play, and a rough voice snarled,
“All right, boys, clean up Johnny and send him home.”

It made me jump, and I’d known it was coming. Apparently it startled Mr. Devine even more, as he swerved violently to the right.

“What the ... ?!” he exclaimed, glancing over his shoulder.

“Sorry!” I punched at my phone to make it shut up. “Sorry, sorry, sorry!”

“Omigosh,” Dinah said, giggling. “If an alligator attacks us? Play
that.”

“Ha ha.” The ringtone looped back to the beginning.
’All right, boys, clean up Johnny and
—”

Dinah raised her voice. “And then bean him with it. The alligator, with your phone.”

“Never,” I said indignantly. I finally managed to shut up Mr. Crime Lord, but there was no OFF button for Dinah’s giggles.

A drop of sweat trickled down Mr. Devine’s face. “All right, girls, time to start looking for the MacKinnon-Karrer house,” he said in a strained tone.

“But I haven’t seen the ocean yet,” Dinah said. “Where’s the ocean?”

“I can smell it,” I said, inhaling the wonderful scent of salt, sun, and seaweed. “It’s got to be out there somewhere.”

“There’s a sign,” Mr. Devine said. He eased up on the gas. “Dinah, can you make out what it says?”

“LOGGERHEAD TURTLE NESTING AREA,” Dinah read. “EGGS, HATCHLINGS, ADULTS, AND CARCASSES—” She broke off. “Carcasses?!”

“—ARE PROTECTED BY FEDERAL AND STATE LAWS,” I finished. “Loggerhead
turtles,
Dinah!
Loggerhead turtles
!”

I squealed, which made Dinah squeal, which startled Mr. Devine anew. He stomped on the brake, and the car stopped, lurched forward, and then rocked back. Gripping the steering wheel, Mr. Devine pressed his upper body against his seat.

“Sorry, Daddy,” Dinah said. “But it’s so exciting, don’t you think?”

“I think I need a cold drink,” he muttered.

Dinah’s voice shot back up to screeching-chipmunk level.
“Ooo! Ooo! That’s it I know it I know it! Look there’s the sign!”

I hyper-bounced along with her and added my chipmunk screech to the din. It was so fun to ride this wave of manic energy, so fun to be fourteen and at the beach, coming up on a sprawling, weathered house that was all angles and slopes and peeling wood. A deck wrapped around the front, its railing draped with swimsuits and towels. At the tip-top of the house was a small, square room with windows on every side, like the observation room of a lighthouse.

“Turn, Daddy!” Dinah ordered. “Turn!”

Mr. Devine hauled the steering wheel to the right, and gravel popped against the belly of the car. He pulled into the driveway and cut the engine ... and suddenly it seemed
really
quiet.

“Eeek,” Dinah whispered. She twisted around with big eyes. “Winnie ... we’re here!”

I gazed at the house and swallowed, because we were. We really were.

“What do you think we’re supposed to do?” I asked. “Do we just ... go up and knock?”

“I don’t think we have to,” Dinah said. She nodded at the ramp of the deck, where strolling toward us was a woman about my mom’s age, her blond hair streaked with gray. She wore a loose blue dress and no shoes. Also, no makeup.

“Girls, hi!” she said, approaching the station wagon. “Dinah and Winnie?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dinah said.

“Hi,” I said. In another situation, I might have felt intimidated—capable-seeming women who didn’t wear makeup sometimes intimidated me—but her smile was so sunny that intimidation wasn’t possible. Plus, I loved her earrings. They were beautiful silver spirals interspersed with tiny shells.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you inside. My name’s Virginia, by the way.”

She and Mr. Devine did the grown-up nice-to-meet-you thing as we climbed out of the car. My tank top stuck to the small of my back, and I pulled the fabric away and fanned myself with it. Dinah had it even worse. She was wearing thin cotton shorts, and they were wrinkled and slightly damp.

I grabbed my duffel bag from the back of the car, along with a baseball cap of Bo’s I’d accidentally-on-purpose borrowed from Sandra’s dresser. I slapped it on and tugged down the bill.

Virginia led us up the walkway and across the deck.

“No sand inside the house,” she said when we reached the front door. She gestured at a mat. “Wipe your feet here. If your shoes are sandy, leave them under the bench.”

“Okay,” I said, kicking off my flip-flops.

She pushed through a screen door, and we followed her into a large main room with built-in bookshelves. An L-shaped sofa made a comfy looking sitting area, and sprawled on the sofa was a comfy looking boy. A
very
comfy looking boy, who was reading a paperback and not wearing a shirt. I didn’t glance at Dinah, and she didn’t glance at me. But a message vibrated between us nonetheless.
Hmmm,
was the gist of it.
In-n-nteresting.

“Girls, meet Alphonse,” Virginia said. “Alphonse, meet Winnie and Dinah, the last of our group.”

Alphonse put down his book and got to his feet. He was a black guy, medium dark skin, with dreads that grazed his bare shoulders. Caribbean, maybe? Jamaican? He was our age (ish) and extremely cute—as in, he-should-star-in-a-movie cute. As in, Dinah-was-no-longer-breathing cute.

He wasn’t as cute as Lars, of course, but that still left plenty of cuteness to be gobbled up and enjoyed. Not that I planned on doing any gobbling!

But. Yes.

Cute.

“Hey,” he said, holding out his hand. I gave it a firm shake and said “hey” back. Dinah, whose cheeks had grown pink, did a little wave with her elbow tight by her side.

“Alphonse is from Louisiana,” Virginia said. “He came last week. Tomorrow, he’ll show you how to patrol the beach for crawls.”

“What’s a crawl?” I asked. I put down my duffel bag, and Dinah copied me by plunking down her suitcase. She’d started to breathe again, which I knew only because her chest was rising and falling far too rapidly.

“Sea turtle tracks,” Alphonse said. He had an easy way of holding himself. He also had a completely smooth and hairless chest. “They look like small tractor trails.”

“Huh?” I said, jerking my gaze back to his face.
Omigosh,
had I been staring? Great, now I was blushing just like Dinah. I could feel it. She and I were the staring twins—I mean the
blushing
twins. Oh god. Both.

“The turtles come on shore to nest,” Virginia explained. “They push themselves up with their flippers, and their tracks look like tractor trails. One of the things you’ll do is keep a record of where you spot those tracks, which means getting out to the beach in time to beat the early morning walkers.”