Water Steps (4 page)

“My grandparents know the owners of your house, the Kenricks. They can't come up to the lake this year because Mrs. Kenrick broke her leg.”

That's what I should've done. Jumped from my tree fort and broken my leg. You can't go in the water with a cast. Why didn't I think of that?

“Anyway, they said they rented it to a family with
a kid my age.” If the town kids wouldn't play with him, he probably figured he could make friends with another kid on vacation.

We sat there a second, waiting for one of us to say something cool. I thought of asking him what he thought of a nighttime photo shoot, but he said, “Name's Tylo Bishop. When we go back home, I'll be in fourth grade.”

“I'll be in fifth. I'm Kyna.” Fifth grade meant a trip to the Bighorn Water Park. My school went every year. Maybe just a sprained ankle would get me out of that. I hear there's lots of stairs to climb at those water parks.

“Tylo!” called a woman carrying a watermelon to her car. A trio of boys swarmed her, one of them dive-bombing her with corncob airplanes, another zipping in and out using a plastic wrapped plate of sweets as a steering wheel, and the last one walking kind of crossways, trying to look aloof and cool as he carried a bright pink bag bulging with fruit.

“My brothers,” Tylo rolled his eyes. “It's like living in one of those stupid movies where guys do one dumb trick after another, and I've got all the bumps and bruises to prove they're idiots.” He rubbed a cut on his forehead. “Got this when Trevor tried to prove a scrap of metal could work as a Frisbee.”

“Ouch.”

“Tylo!” His mom called, sounding desperate. Who wouldn't, traveling with that crew?

“Gotta go,” he shouted, at a run toward his family.

“Later!” I yelled after him.

Just then Mem came back, asking, “Brussels sprouts for lunch?”

I snarled at her. She knew I hated those things, almost as much as I hated spinach, and she cooked that, too.

“All right, how about prunes? They had nice home-dried fruit.” Pep shook the bag as we got into the car.

Dried fruit is like dead fruit. It should never be eaten. “Did you at least get some cherries?”

“No cherries, no watermelon.”

“No apples, no bananas.”

“No fruit a certain girl likes.”

“Why not? ” I popped up against the back of their seat.

“You can buy any fruit you want, dear.” Mem held up her money pouch. “But
you
have to buy it.”

Dropping back into my seat, I said, “Never mind.” No fruit, and water everywhere I went. The only good thing about this place had to be that kid Tylo and the promise of a nighttime photo expedition. Hey, we
might even get a few shots of bats. And Mem hates bats. Maybe I'll leave pictures of them on her pillow one night. Then we'll see how she feels about facing something she fears.

O
nce we carried the groceries inside, I turned to head out for another mountain trek, but Mem said, “Don't you go rock climbing again. I've seen your knees there, lass. Or what's left to the knees in your new jeans. No more climbing alone.”

So I had a few scrapes. Big deal.

Like he read my mind, Pep said, “Yesterday it was just a couple of nicks, but today or tomorrow it could be broken bones. You might fall up there and we wouldn't find you till the vultures started circling.”

“Ronan!” Mem dropped her shopping bag onto the counter and covered her heart. “How could you say such a thing?”

“Scare tactic, sweet.” He kissed her cheek.

“Well, it scared me more than Kyna. So stop it.” She gave his arm a twisting pinch.

“Ow.” He rubbed the spot. “Right-oh. Vultures aside, you get my meaning, Kyna?”

“Yes.” I rolled my eyes. My parents overreacted to everything. I've scraped my knees worse by climbing a tree. If I didn't show up for lunch at exactly noon, Pep would have Search and Rescue out there faster than Mem could say, “What's their number?”

“Why not check out the woods?” Mem suggested as she started to put the food up.

Giving her a hand, Pep said, “Maybe you can ask that boy you met for a good guide about?”

I headed out, saying, “I can find my own way, thank you very much.”

“Go, Girl Guide, go,” Pep cheered. They called Girl Scouts “Girl Guides” in Ireland. Who knows why? It's not like we go about guiding people through the woods or something. Not that I couldn't do a great job of that myself. I know what side of the tree moss grows on and how to get my bearings from the stars in a clearing.

I know my way around the woods. With nothing but their leaves, I can name over fifty different kinds
of trees even this far from home. I had like twenty of them named by the time I reached this mega cool clearing with a “God's hand” stream of light reaching down into it—one of those bright streaks of sunlight shooting down from a cloud that looks like God's just reaching to give old nature a good pat on the ground for looking so gosh darn pretty.

Had me staring at the rocks looking all craggy, the woodland violets just getting ready to bloom, and the wild strawberries shooting out their tiny white blossoms. Add the blackcap bushes along the rim, and that clearing had all the fixings for a good hideaway. I stepped into the sunlight and
shazam
, I realized God just might have been pointing that clearing out to me, because there on the far side stood the biggest spread-your-limbs-wide-best-thing-for-a-tree-fort old oak I had ever seen. Even had a stubby old pine tree too small to grow in that grand oak's shade right up close, so I could use it like a ladder to reach the lowest branch.

A monkey swing here, a good stretching climb there, and
ta-da
, I stood on a branch big enough to hold a house. Standing in that tree, looking over that clearing, I realized that silly old lake could fill up with rain for a year and still not overflow enough to reach me there. I could picture the floorboards under
my feet, a rope railing between those two peace sign branches to the northwest, a hammock between the two goalpost branches to the southeast, a nice chair up against the trunk—a sweet little tree-fort-away-from-tree-fort kind of place. Now this was my kind of vacation house.

Then I heard a noise, a
glug, glug, swoop, swoop
. Oh no, not water. Turning around, I realized this fantastic tree had a view. I'd walked myself right up to a low bluff overlooking the lake. Girl Guide, my bum !

I couldn't even steer clear of the one thing I wanted to avoid.

Spinning around to make my escape, I saw that sunlight stretching into the clearing, touching down on those violets, imagined my little hammock swinging in the breeze. Ah, what could that stupid old lake do to me this far up, anyway?

Didn't even give my mind a chance to think about it, just headed back to the house to see what I could scare up to get started on my new fort.

A quick search of the old stone shed turned up a few good boards. Hit up Pep's traveling tool kit for twine. Borrowed rope from the tarp on the woodpile. Then I used an old blanket for the hammock. By lunch, I had the foundation for a pretty good tree fort.

I couldn't talk about anything else over grilled cheese and tomato soup. Mem and Pep nodded and smiled. During a sandwich-dipping break, Pep asked, “And did you ask the tree for permission to go building that fort?”

I remembered Pep standing below the tree in our backyard, praying before he lashed down the first board of the fort he built for me. Just five at the time, I figured trees could be like people. Why not? I had thought the same thing about the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.

Now, I wondered why Pep still talked about such things. Didn't he know I was too old to believe that stuff? Then again, those stories were the strongest thing I had in common with Mem and Pep. Except for the water steps. And I'd rather forget all about them.

I put my sandwich down, feeling kind of guilty for forgetting our tree spirit tradition. Felt almost like the time I forgot to tell him about career day at school last year. Everybody had a mem or pep come to talk about what they did for a living. And Pep had a pretty good job as a freelance writer for magazines, but I knew he'd come to class with his jolly green Irish accent and his fairy stories and the kids at school would imitate
him for weeks, asking me all sorts of questions about Ireland that I couldn't answer.

It happened after my class heard Mem and Pep talking to my teacher about using artificial instead of real trees for the classroom during the Winter Pageant. They are real nature lovers, my parents. They use post-recycling, environmentally friendly, organic products only. And their motto is to never harm nature. So I guess I didn't really forget about career day. I just stalled a little. Like until the event was over.

Pep moped over that one for weeks, looking all sad and misty each time he asked after my day at school. Guess I made him feel bad. And I didn't want to do that again, so I said, “I forgot. Can you come help me do it after lunch?”

He tilted his head like he had to think about it, then sighed and said, “I think I can fit that into my schedule.”

I loved how he said
shed-yule
for schedule. Made me think of a shed just for Christmas, chock-full of presents. The kids in my class may make fun of Irish accents, but it's music to my ears.

“Right-oh!” I shouted with the best Irish brogue I could muster. Mem and Pep laughed, then did their deep-in-the-throat American “No way,” like a couple
of fog horns. I guess Yanks sounded like bull frogs to them.

After lunch, Pep and I trekked back to the tree. Pep leaned back to take in every branch and leaf, then he patted the wrinkled old trunk. “Grandmother of a tree, this one. Probably nearly two hundred years old. Been here since all these trees were but saplings.” He waved to the trees around us. “Probably had a clear view of the mountains in her youth.”

I could almost see it—that tree just stretching into sapling height, nothing but grass, rocks, violets, and wild strawberries for miles around, all that nature butting up to those craggy old mountains without a road or a human in sight. Would that be the “good old days” to nature? Sometimes I really did wonder if nature thought for itself.

Pep gave me a wink. “I see that you used twine to tie in the boards like I taught you.”

“Nails poison trees,” I recited, remembering that lecture from when he built my first tree fort. I had learned a thing or two from Pep. And it felt pretty good to be there with him, asking for the tree's permission to build my fort in its branches. The early peoples of the world always respected nature—the Druids of Pep's homeland, the Mohawks of New York,
even the Bantus of Africa that we'd studied in school. And since many of their people still believe in the spirits of nature today, why should I find it odd that Pep did? No good reason, I guess.

And as we worked the day away, building and making trips into the woods or to town for this or that to make a nice old fort, I began to think this summer in New York might not be so bad after all.

T
hat night, I slept in my own room, knowing Mem and Pep would go back to the lake after I fell asleep. Couldn't put them this close to water without expecting to see them go for a dip. And if I had my fort, then they should be able to do a bit of swimming.

I tried to sleep with the sound of the waves lapping away down below. Even did it for a little while, thanks to Kippers' purring. Then Mem and Pep showed up in my doorway, whispering with some woman I didn't know. I kept my eyes closed and didn't move so they'd think I was still asleep, but I could hear them as clearly as if they'd whispered in my ear.

“Here she is, Rosien,” Mem whispered. Rosien? That's an Irish name.

“She's a real cutie,” the woman said, but she didn't sound like she believed it.

Her accent had me itching to jump out of bed. She sounded Irish with her echoing “cue” for cutie. That meant she came from Ireland. Might even have known Mem and Pep in their Irish days. What if she was mates with Mem when they were kids? Wow. Bubble-blowing-wow. Finally, somebody who'd clue me in on their past.

I had to hold my breath to keep from letting them know I was eavesdropping, but I so wanted to ask that lady some questions about Mem. What was she like in school? Did she ever do her math homework (because she never helped me with mine)? What kind of bike did she ride? Who did she play with?

If they didn't leave soon, I'd pop like a balloon. The only reason I didn't bolt out of bed was because I knew Mem and Pep wouldn't let her say a word with them standing there. No, I'd wait until I could talk to her alone, then I'd get the real scoop.

As they closed the door and walked away, I felt all cozy warm with the idea of getting the real story about my parents. No more fairy tales or goofy lines about
pictures dropped in ponds. Someone would finally tell me about Mem and Pep before they came to the U.S. Mem claimed I wasn't ready for all that “business,” as she called it.

One time she sat me in her lap, pulled her long hair over my shoulders, and let me braid it, saying, “You got a bit of your own childhood to deal with before we muddle it up with ours.”

“Huh?”

She kissed my cheek. “That fear of yours, it's like a tidal wave, washing out the rest of the world when it takes you over.”

“What's that got to do with you as a kid?”

She put her head next to mine and hummed. “What I'm saying, Kyna, is you have enough to deal with. Your mind's about full up with the worry of it. You get yourself past that fear and the whole world will be yours. Including our lives before you came along and cheered them up.”