A Million Miles From Boston (5 page)

I walked to the farthest rock and ran my fingers over the dozens of snails attached to the boulders. Mom and I liked how bumpy and smooth they felt and we were careful not to pull them off.

This was where I wanted to be, near the water—smelling it, hearing it. That day it was perfect, sparkling blue and silver, waves gentle.

I sat and flipped through
Birds of America
. Mrs. Jonas had given it to me on our last day of school. “Here, Lucy,” she’d
said. “Since you’re the only student in the last forty years to check it out of the library, you might as well take it with you.”

“Really?” I’d laughed. “Forty years? Thanks!”

I knew the torn and yellowed pages by heart, the wild turkey and Bachman’s warbler. The white-headed eagle took up two pages. I closed the book and picked up my notebook. It was filled with drawings of things at the Point and every year I added to it.

Right now I wanted to draw an eagle, from memory. My art teacher could do this. But when I tried to go inside, as she called it, the idea got lost. If I had something to see, to copy, I could draw it.

Superior startled and I looked up to see a pair of seagulls circle above us. I looked down at my blank page and sighed. No use.

I opened my bird book to the eagles. The male and female stood next to each other, eyes slanted in confident stares. Eagles didn’t travel in flocks but mated for life. They were partners, even taking turns sitting on their eggs. They built nests in sturdy nooks near the treetops, in the open, because nothing preyed on them. And every year they came back to the same nests and made them bigger, stronger.

I’d never seen Dad as excited as he was the day he found the nest. I was in my room when he charged up the stairs. “You have to see it, Goose, it’s amazing!”

“Can we take the boat?” Then I could sit on a seat next to Dad, holding on.

“Too rocky for the speedboat. You’ll have to take the Ramseys’ kayak.”

I nodded but didn’t move. I’d never been in a kayak.

One night when the PT came to dinner and Dad told her about the amazing nest, I came up with an idea. I’d use the money I’d make from camp to buy Dad his own kayak for his birthday. Then he could see the eagles whenever he wanted.

I looked up to see a fishing boat, the only boat moving this early. Later the bay would fill with boats, kayaks, tubes.

And Ian.

But the Point was so big that you could go weeks without seeing everyone. If I ignored him, he wouldn’t be able to twist my words around or tease me.

My stomach started grumbling and we headed back. We stopped at the Steeles’ cottage and looked in through the screen. Mrs. and Mr. Steele were at the kitchen table.

“Come in!” Mrs. Steele pulled out a chair. She poured a glass of orange juice for me and a bowl of water for Superior. “Goodness, you look more and more like your mom!”

“Thanks!” Mrs. Steele said this every summer.

“I saw on the email exchange that you’re starting a camp,” she said.

“Every Monday and Wednesday morning.”

“That’s a lot to take on!” Mrs. Steele said. “Your mom was so good with kids. Remember, Walt, how she’d take the little ones after parties and play hide-and-seek?”

“She was good at everything!” Mr. Steele grunted. “Kind, too.”

Everyone had liked my mom.

Mrs. Steele brought a plate of muffins to the table. I took one, still warm and plump with blueberries. It was so delicious that I nearly finished it in three bites, but I slipped the last piece under the table to Superior. Her tongue was warm against my palm.

“Heard you know the Dorsey owners,” Mrs. Steele said. “Tell us about them.”

“Ian’s my age, Allison’s older. I didn’t meet their dad but their mom is nice.”

“I met him. Owns a business,” Mr. Steele said. “A real go-getter!”

“It’ll be nice for you to have a friend up here,” Mrs. Steele said.

“Yeah.” Allison was older, but she
could
be my friend.

“You should show him around,” she said. “There’s so much to see.”

Ian?
I drained my juice. “How was your winter?”

“Not cold enough! Global warming.” Mr. Steele grunted.

Under the table Superior stretched across my feet, her body warm and heavy. I reached down to stroke her head and she licked my hand.

“Talked to your grandma yesterday. She sends her love,” Mrs. Steele said. “Too bad they won’t be up this summer.”

I nodded. My grandparents usually came up for a week or two, but they had decided to spend that summer in Colorado with Granddad’s brother, who’d just had surgery.

“Walt, remember how Lucy’s mom used to make her granddad laugh?”

He grunted again.

“She made
all
of us laugh. Such an open, free spirit.” She told me this every summer but I couldn’t picture what she meant. When I asked Jenny about it, she said to imagine Mom standing in the open and letting the wind take her.

I got up to go and Mrs. Steele pushed the plate toward me. I took another muffin and said, “Thanks!” as I bounced out the door.

Outside, the wind blew through my hair and swirled dried-up leaves at my feet. On windy days I sometimes stood on the rocks at the beach and held out my arms, trying to let the wind take me. But all I ever felt were tangles in my hair and ocean spray on my skin.

Inside our cottage I listened to the quiet. Back in Boston, we’d moved into our house only months before Mom got sick, so I wasn’t sure what had been there before she died, or what came after. But up here I
remembered
her.

Working on puzzles. Stretched across the bed, pillow bunched under her chin. Standing at the living room window in her flowered sundress. We’d held hands as we had explored the shore under the dock, and we’d eaten cereal in the mornings, side by side, at the wobbly table in the kitchen.

Dad told me that the first time he brought Mom here, she ran to the water and burst into tears. It reminded her of
where she’d grown up, on Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, only she loved here much better.

I heard Dad’s voice and climbed the stairs. Usually he didn’t talk while working. He sat, phone to his ear, and motioned me into his room. I stayed in the hall.

“Thanks, I’ll call later.” He smiled as he hung up. “That was Julia.”

Ignore her. That’s the best way to make something go away. “How’s it going?”

“Big news! Someone from the historical society found a journal, dating from the early nineteen hundreds. The writer lived on the Point.”

“And it’s real?”

“Yep. One of the old houses in town sold last spring and the new owners found it tucked into a hole in the foundation. This throws my project into
complete
disarray.” But he smiled.

“Isn’t that bad?”

“No, it’s another source. Wonder how it’ll hold up next to Thaddeus’s.”

“Why do you need another source? Isn’t Thaddeus’s enough?”

“History’s a funny thing, Goose. Two people can see the same event, yet tell it differently. Thaddeus and the journal writer lived here around the same time. Could be very telling how they both talk about things.”

How could you ever be sure that anything in history was true?

Dad stood, fastening his phone to his belt. “I’m headed into town to take a look at this. Bucky’s in his room. Will you stay with him until I get back? I won’t be long.”

“Sure.” I sat at his desk. Dad had been on the computer nonstop, so now was my first chance to go on email. Rachel and Annie were at sleepaway camp with no computers, but Mei wasn’t going to her camp until the second half of summer. I told her about Ian and ended with
When are you going to come up here? And what am I going to do about Ian? Help!

I glanced out the window and saw Mrs. Richards walking by. I leaned on the sill. She looked as if she’d walked out of a magazine, with her green skirt and blouse and perfect hair. I leaned out farther. Maybe she’d call to me, ask more questions.

But Ian followed. As they got closer I saw that Mrs. Richards was frowning and staring at the road. Why didn’t Ian catch up? Maybe he’d done something wrong.

Then Ian looked up at me and I dove to the floor. It wouldn’t be easy avoiding him after all.

t nine a.m. I stood next to the Big House, holding my clipboard with the morning’s plan, Superior at my feet. “Camp’s open!” I shouted.

The six-year-olds, Olivia and Lauren, sat near me. Becca, who was nine, ran toward me with Bucky and the eight-year-olds: her brother, Peter, and Henry.

“We’ll start with playing chase, then do a craft.”

“Yay! Chase!” Becca yelled.

“Craft? When do we play baseball?” Peter pointed to his glove on the steps.

Baseball? But we didn’t have enough equipment. “How about kickball on Wednesday?”

“Okay.”

We played chase until Lauren started to cry. “I’m not playing. I’m always the first one caught.”

I sat next to her. Her brown hair fluttered in the breeze
and she had a big space where her two front teeth should be. When I was six, I didn’t have front teeth, either. I leaned over and whispered, “How about we
always
be teammates?”

She nodded and wiped her tears on her stuffed polar bear. Then she helped me bring out pretzel bags and juice boxes for everyone.

I squatted and scratched Superior behind her ears. The Point was quiet. Parents who commuted from Portland and Boston had gone back to work. No sign of Ian. And even though we were off schedule, camp was going okay.

“Can we have more juice?” Peter asked. I tossed a box and he caught it in his baseball glove. Everyone laughed. The woman who taught the babysitting course said kids should drink lots of fluids. Good thing I had bought so many drinks. They were all tired, their faces red and sweaty, but they seemed happy.

Little kids were great, because they just wanted to have fun. One day the past summer when I’d babysat for Lauren, we’d played with a balloon for two hours, trying to keep it in the air. And little kids could play with anyone. They didn’t care if you were different.

Craft time. I went inside for glue and Popsicle sticks. When I returned, Ian walked across the field toward us, lacrosse stick in his hand. The boys stopped talking.

“What are you doing?” Ian asked.

“It’s camp,” Lauren said. “Lucy’s camp.”

“Camp?”
Ian said. “You have a
camp
? Oh! Can I join?”

Peter giggled. Everyone looked at Ian, then at me.

Ian wore gym shorts to his knees and a T-shirt. His cowlick stood up like a cresting wave and he squinted as he smirked. “How do you know how to run a camp?”

“It’s like babysitting.” He followed as I walked around, picking up juice boxes.

“Yeah, but who said you could do this?” he asked.

“I just decided.”

“How do you know what to do?”

Everyone was quiet, watching. “I just do.”

Peter walked over to Ian. “Is your lacrosse stick new?”

“Yeah,” Ian said. Peter just kept staring at him.

It was almost noon and we hadn’t started the craft. Only Lauren and Olivia wanted to do it, so I showed them how to glue Popsicle sticks in a square, making a frame. Bucky and Henry set up army men. When Ian squatted in front of Superior, Peter squatted, too.

I walked to Superior and patted her head. She leaned into my leg.

“Great dog.” Ian smiled at her but didn’t try to pet her. “What’s her name?”

“Superior,” I said. She looked up at me. Smart girl. Don’t trust him! I thought.

He stood. “Our next-door neighbor told me that pirates buried treasure here years ago. And your dad’s writing a book about the Point.”

“Supposedly smugglers buried stolen goods somewhere on
the Point. But my dad doesn’t think it’s true. He never said anything about pirates.”

“Smugglers, pirates, same thing.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“Sure they are.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s the difference?”

Was there a difference? Then Ian grinned. He was trying to tangle me up.

“Ian, wanna push me on the swing?” Peter asked.

“Okay.”

Peter jumped onto the small plastic saucer that was tied to the end of the rope. Ian pushed, and Peter tipped back his head, laughing, as he flew through the air in big looping circles.