A Million Miles From Boston (2 page)

I raised my hand to my ear and twisted my new stud. The
saleswoman had told us to do that twice a day to keep our ears from getting infected.

“Don’t our ears look
fab
?” Annie asked. Everybody laughed and agreed.

Earlier, when we had gotten our ears pierced, each mom had stood by her daughter, taking pictures, clapping. When it was my turn, all three moms crowded around me.

“You’re ready for middle school,” Mrs. Stein said.

In two weeks we’d be done with Taylor Elementary, forever. Exciting. Scary, too.

But one good thing to look forward to: in the big new middle school, I could get away from Ian Richards.

aylor Elementary was named after Jack Taylor, a hero in World War II who had been from our neighborhood. My brother, Bucky, thought that was cool and he loved to talk about it with our dad, who taught history at a college.

But what I liked most about Taylor were the people.

Every morning our principal greeted us at the door. My first-grade teacher gave me hugs when I saw her. And Mrs. Jonas, the best librarian in the world, looked the other way when I was late returning my favorite Audubon book,
Birds of America
.

I knew that the gym teacher set up the obstacle course in the fall, the art teacher taught pastels in the spring and the lunch lady made extra brownies on Tuesdays. Sometimes teachers retired and new ones were hired. Sometimes they switched classrooms or taught different grades. But mostly Taylor was the same year after year.

I thought about that as I looked out the window of the bus at Duggan Middle School. It had been nearly a week since we had pierced our ears. Since then, our class had sung in its last concert and had its end-of-the-year picnic.

That day we’d toured Duggan. It was brand new and huge—four elementary schools fed into it—with three wings, a five-hundred-seat auditorium and a cafeteria so big you could barely see across it. The teachers we met were busy, official. And there were many of them.

“You’ll get into a routine next year and then it won’t be so new,” Jenny, our babysitter, had said that morning as I’d stared at my uneaten toast. She grinned. “You’re such a creature of habit.”

“Is that bad?”

“No, silly.”

Now Annie and Rachel bounced into the seat in front of me.

“Wasn’t it awesome?” Annie said. “Finally! My cousin in Rhode Island has been in middle school since fifth grade.”

Our class had stayed in elementary school an extra year, until Duggan was completed.

“Did you see the cafeteria?” Rachel asked. “This is
way
cool!”

“Yeah.” I swallowed.

Charlie and Michael dove into the seat in front of Annie and Rachel. Everyone laughed and talked. I smiled. Duggan
was
cool. How come I wasn’t excited? Was I the only one who felt this way?

A paper wad sailed over my head. When I looked up, Ian stood next to me.

Ever since the day at the mall, we’d ignored each other. Now he stared at me, his hands jammed in his sweatshirt pockets, his freckles scrunched on his nose. I squeezed my knees. Was he going to sit here? Say something?

Then someone pushed him from behind and he moved on. I let go of my knees as Mei ran down the aisle and sat next to me.

The bus driver pulled away as she said, “What’d you think?”

“It’s pretty big.”

“Huge.” She tucked her black hair behind her ears. “I’m kinda dreading it.”

I whipped my head to look at her. I’d known Mei since kindergarten. We were part of a big group of kids who went to each other’s birthday parties and played on the same soccer teams. This year Mei, Annie, Rachel and I had become best friends. But we’d never really talked about anything too serious.

“Why?” I asked.

“I got lost. A custodian had to take me to the principal’s office. My first day and I was already in the principal’s office. I’m terrible at directions. And I’m
so
dreading seventh-grade math. It’s supposed to be super hard.”

“I guess we’ll have to study harder, right?”

She nodded, eyes down.

I looked out the window. I wasn’t worried about math or getting lost. “I wish we could stay at Taylor.”

“Me too.”

We smiled at each other.

I sat up. “Don’t worry about the first day. I’ll walk with you to your first class. And I’ll help you with math, too. It’s gotta be easier if we work together.”

“Okay, thanks.” She smiled, more broadly this time.

I was glad to help. But what could Mei do about my worries? I couldn’t stay in sixth grade forever.

When I walked into my house, I heard Superior barking, her nails clicking as she ran down the stairs and into my arms.

“I missed you, too.” I sat on the kitchen floor. Superior, licking my face, tried to get into my lap, but she was too big and fell out. I laughed, turned her over and scratched her tummy as she swished her tail on the floor. I stood.

“Well?” Jenny walked into the kitchen. When Dad had hired her, she had been a graduate student at the college where he taught and was only supposed to be our babysitter until she graduated. But that had been six years earlier and she was still with us. She was still a graduate student, too.

“It was okay.” I loved talking to Jenny, but I just wanted to forget about that day. Superior barked again and tried to wiggle between my legs. I scratched her back.

“She’s been looking for you for hours.” Jenny opened a cabinet and started putting food into a big box on the counter. I peeked inside—tomato soup, chicken noodle soup, pasta, canned tomatoes.

I grinned. Moving up to Pierson Point for the summer was the best part of the year and it was only days away.

But it was a little sad, too. Every summer we went to the Point and Jenny went back to her family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin. We didn’t see each other for two months.

“I’ll miss you,” I said.

“Me too.” She held out her arms and I sank into her big tummy. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

I pulled away. The week before, after Rachel had a surprise party, I begged Jenny never to throw a party like that for me. Rachel’s party was okay, but I saw her panic when everyone yelled, “Surprise!” I like knowing what’s going to happen.

“Don’t worry,” Jenny said, laughing. “It’s just dinner. Burritos, your favorite.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s having dinner with Julia.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. At first Dad had called her his physical therapist, when she’d treated him for his sore back the year before. By the time I met her, three months ago, it was just “Julia.” I thought of her as “the PT.”

“Why?”

“You’re headed to the Point soon. He probably wants to say good-bye.”

I reached for Superior, who licked my hand.

Good-bye to the PT. Good riddance. See you next fall. Or if we were lucky, never again.

“Why don’t you take Superior out before she splits a gut?” Jenny said.

Outside, Superior trotted to the bushes. We’d adopted her not long after Mom had died. Dad had gotten her from a friend; she was a reject from a guide dog program, because she carried a gene that might cause her to go blind. I’d been in my room the afternoon Dad had brought her home, and I remembered lifting my head off my pillow to look at her.

She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Silky black, big eyes, big smile.

All day I played with her, showing her the house and walking her around the block. That night she slept on the rug next to my bed, and the next day I taught her to fetch the newspaper and pee in the grass behind the garage.

Dad couldn’t believe how quickly she learned. Jenny said she was “far superior” to any dog she’d ever known, and the name stuck.

I couldn’t always remember what had happened to me when I was younger. But whenever I asked Jenny if my memories of Superior from those first two days were right, she said, “That’s exactly how it happened. And she’s been
your dog
ever since.”

I sat in the grass near Superior. Our yard was tiny, the nearby houses crammed close. We lived in Boston, with shops and buildings at the end of our street. A stop for the T, our subway, was just around the corner.

Once, I’d seen a hawk in Boston, but mostly all I saw were people. The Point had ducks, geese, seals, cormorants, foxes, crabs, turtles, raccoons. The year before, Dad had seen an
eagle. Up there the sky was big and clear, with so many stars that at night you hardly needed a flashlight. And all day long, you could go without shoes or socks. Everyone kept their cottage doors unlocked, windows open.

The screen door creaked and Jenny stuck her head out. “I was thinking. Might be nice for you all to have visitors up to the Point this summer. Don’t you think?”

Visitors? Occasionally a friend of Dad’s came up. But there was so much to do, so many old friends already there. And I loved keeping our lives at the Point separate from our lives here. But then I had a thought: maybe Mei could come before she went to sleepaway camp. She’d love it!

“I think Julia is okay, Lucy,” Jenny said. “I feel it in my bones.”

I stroked Superior. Thinking about the PT turned my stomach into knots, just like middle school did.

But in two days we’d leave for Maine. Two months was a long time. Anything could happen.

jumped out of the car. Superior followed, barking, as I ran to the edge of the yard and looked at the bay, breathing in the cool sea air.

Our cottage sat high above the water on the east side of the Point. I glanced down the wooden stairs that led to our dock, then out at Bucket Island, then to the open waters of the ocean. My heart pounded, and my smile stretched so wide that it hurt.

We were only ninety miles from Boston, but I felt as if we were a million miles away.

“Lucy, I need your help!” Dad yelled.

“Well, Superior,” I sighed, “you heard him. He needs us.”

We ran to Dad and Bucky, who were unloading the car. Mr. and Mrs. Steele, our next-door neighbors, stood in the gravel by Dad.

“The Dorseys’ cottage was perfectly fine and these new
owners have turned it into a …” Mr. Steele shook his cane at Dad. “Pierson Point will never be the same. It’s the beginning of the end!”