Island of Fog (Book 1) (3 page)

Hal twisted around and glanced at the final desk, the ninth, which stood behind Fenton. No one sat there anymore. Before Thomas had died, when they were all young, there had been much swapping of desks and moving around as best friends became nuisances, and sworn enemies became pals. But on the day Thomas died, his desk and chair had become a tombstone, a memorial, and despite several swapped desks since then, his alone remained empty.

Mrs. Hunter’s chair creaked and she stood up. “Okay, children, time’s up. Pencils down, please.” She started moving between the desks, collecting up the test papers, and the class took a moment to stretch and fidget.

Next, Mrs. Hunter gave the class an essay to write while she marked the tests. Hal yawned his way through it, and the morning dragged on. Outside, the rain stopped and the gray gloom brightened to a white haze.

“Very good, Emily,” Mrs. Hunter said, nodding with approval. “Top marks. Thirty out of thirty.”

Emily grinned and glanced around the class, glowing with pride.

“Also, well done Lauren and Hal, not bad at all, apart from a few silly mistakes. Abigail, you need to concentrate a little more. Very poor score indeed. As for Dewey and Robbie, well, I suggest you take a little extra homework and actually study this time. I’ll re-test you both after school tomorrow.”

“Oh, Mrs. Hunter!” Robbie cried, sounding exasperated. He slumped back in his chair, his arms dangling at his sides.

“And Fenton,” Mrs. Hunter said, now sounding serious. She gave him a long stare and held up his paper. “Only four right. Or, to put it another way, twenty-six wrong. That’s a terrible score by any standards. But what’s worse is that you cheated.”

“Mrs. Hunter!” Fenton said, sounding like a shocked grown-up. “What do you mean?”

“It was question seven that gave you away: ‘What was the name of the great explorer who discovered America in 1492?’ Both you and Hal gave the same answer: Columbo.”

There was a silence, and then Fenton sputtered, “But—yeah, he copied me, I saw him peeking, and anyway, isn’t that the right answer?”

“The answer is
Columbus
, not Columbo,” Mrs. Hunter said. “Columbo was just some detective character on television. Hal, I guess you must have heard your father talking about the old days and somehow got the name mixed up.”

Hal shrugged.

“But, Mrs. Hunter,” Fenton argued, “how do you know Hal didn’t copy
me
?”

“Stop it, Fenton,” Mrs. Hunter snapped. “You’ll stay an extra half-hour after school all next week, and you’ll re-take the test tomorrow with Robbie and Dewey. Is that understood?”

Furious, Fenton spent the rest of the class glowering at Hal, as if it were all his fault. Luckily, Mrs. Hunter kept Fenton in during mid-morning break, otherwise he might have pounded Hal into the soggy meadow.

When class finally ended at midday, Hal kept an eye on Fenton. The big boy had a nasty look on his face, a grim determination that caused his surly features to twist into a grimace. But when Mrs. Hunter tapped on Fenton’s shoulder and spoke to him in a low voice, Hal seized the opportunity and grabbed Robbie’s arm. “Come on, let’s go while we can.”

“I’m not scared of him,” Robbie grumbled, as they emerged into cool but fresh air.

“You should be. He could beat you to a pulp if he wanted to.”

Abigail appeared between them as if by magic, much as Fenton had done earlier only without shoving them so hard. “Ooh, looks like Fenton’s going to be beating up a certain skinny boy. You’d better run, Robbie.”

“Mind your own business,” Robbie retorted.

“Ooh, touchy,” Abigail said. She nudged Hal’s arm. “So can I talk to you for a moment? Alone?”

Hal shook his head and increased his pace. “Go away, Abi. Go play with the girls.”

To his annoyance, Abigail broke into a skip and linked her arms though Hal’s and Robbie’s. “The girls are boring,” she said. “All they talk about is hair and homework. Especially Emily. Did you hear her earlier, boasting that she got every question right? Boys are much more interesting. What shall we do? How about going down to the docks and building a raft to escape the island?”

Both Hal and Robbie tried to shake her loose, but she hung on and giggled. “Oh, come on,” she pleaded. “Let me come along. I won’t be a nuisance, I promise.”

“You already are a nuisance,” Robbie said through gritted teeth. “Abi, get lost. You’re not wanted.”

Abigail released them and slowed to a stop. “Be like that, then,” she mumbled. “See if I care. But Hal, I really do have to tell you something sometime.”

“Why me?” Hal asked over his shoulder. “Tell Darcy or Emily. Emily loves gossip—go tell her.”

The boys hurried on, putting distance between them and Abigail. She was trudging along now, looking out across the fields and daydreaming. “Good riddance,” Robbie muttered. “What a nuisance she is. What with her and Fenton . . .”

“She’s always pestering me these days,” Hal said. “Keeps saying she needs to tell me something. Tell me what? What’s so important that she can’t just come out and say it? Why all the secrecy?”

“I bet I know,” Robbie said with a sudden mischievous grin. “She wants to tell you that she’s fallen in love with you.”

Hal punched him hard on the arm. “Get lost. The only one who’s in love around here is you—with Lauren. Why don’t you talk to her, ask her if she wants to go bug-hunting or something?”

“Yeah, right,” Robbie said, kicking at a stone.

Laughing, Hal shot a glance over his shoulder to check for Fenton. There he was, just emerging from the school building some distance away, looking harassed; it seemed Mrs. Hunter had had a few serious words with him. Lauren’s mom was nice, but she had a sharp tongue from time to time, cowing even the likes of Fenton Bridges. That was good; he needed taking down a few pegs. In the meantime, Hal and Robbie had put some space between them and the school, so all they had to do was keep an eye open in case Fenton came pounding after them in a rage. They could outrun him if they had to.

Abigail, last seen staring into space as she ambled along, had vanished into thin air.

A raft.

Her silly, foolish suggestion about building a raft to escape the island echoed in Hal’s mind. Of course she’d been joking . . . but what an idea! Imagine if it could be done!

“A raft,” Robbie repeated, staring with growing excitement at Hal. “You really think we can build one? You really think it’ll float?”

Hal nodded. “Of course it will. We’ll sail Out There, to where our parents came from, and find out what all the secrecy is for. I reckon it’s a place much bigger than this island, with lots of people and tall buildings and—”

He broke off, remembering where he was. Mrs. Hunter’s Friday morning math class was on break, and Hal stood with Robbie outside the school. It was a bright morning, and the nearest hills stood out clear and sharp against the pure white fog beyond. The hazy glare from the sun made Hal squint. Because it was drier today, Hal, Robbie, and a few others had brought their bikes to school. They were lined up in a neat row against the side of the building, the front wheels inserted into a rusty rack.

A quick glance around assured Hal that no one was eavesdropping. Darcy, Lauren and Emily were huddled together as usual, while Abigail was busy teasing little Dewey Morgan by following close behind him wherever he walked. Every so often he would turn and yell at her to leave him alone, and each time she would stop, spread her hands, and say, “What? What am I doing?”

Meanwhile, Fenton leaned against a wall with a frown on his face. He was prodding around inside his mouth with a pudgy finger.
At least he’s not beating on Robbie and me
, Hal thought. But he feared that would come later, after school; Fenton, Robbie and Dewey were supposed to be staying late to re-take the history test. It would be a perfect time for Fenton to pounce on Robbie and pummel him into the ground.

And for what? Because Hal had agreed to help Fenton cheat? He vowed never to give in again.

Satisfied that no one was eavesdropping, Hal turned back to Robbie. “We’ll go to the old barn and find the materials we need, and I’ll borrow some of Dad’s tools. Hopefully he won’t notice.”

Robbie nodded, his eyes shining. “Let’s get started tonight.”

“After your detention,” Hal reminded him. “I’ll hang around for you.”

Mrs. Hunter appeared in the doorway. “Break is now over. Come on in.”

Everyone filed back inside, the three girls first, then Dewey—with Abigail on his tail—and then Hal and Robbie. Fenton shuffled in last, still frowning.

With a noisy scraping of chairs, the children resumed their seats. Fenton raised his hand at once. “Pweathe, Mithith Hunter? Can I pweathe go home? I’ve got a toothache.”

“Goodness, Fenton,” said Mrs. Hunter with concern. She rounded the desks and stood before him. “May I see?”

Fenton opened his mouth a little, and said “Ah” while Mrs. Hunter peered in. She stared for what seemed a very long time, and then cleared her throat.

“That’s, uh . . . that’s quite a toothache you have there, young Fenton Bridges,” she said. “Yes, you may go home. Perhaps you should ask your mother to take you to Dr. Porter. She may have something to alleviate the pain.”

Fenton nodded and got to his feet. Without another word he shuffled from the room, quite unlike his usual surly, boisterous self.

Hal stared in amazement, then turned to Robbie. Robbie looked delighted.

“Poor boy,” Mrs. Hunter said. She looked across at Abigail. “But I should think your mother can brew something that will help, can’t she, Abigail? Like when Darcy broke her ankle years ago. Dr. Porter’s healing paste soon eased the pain, and she was walking again in a few weeks.”

“Mom’s always messing with potions and stuff,” Abigail said, nodding. “Most of it smells horrible. As bad as Robbie’s breath, actually.”

Everyone laughed except Robbie, who swung around and glared at her.

“It’s true,” Abigail said, spreading her hands and looking around the class. “You know when you step in something that stinks, like in the cow field? Well, Robbie’s breath is—”

“All right, that’s enough, Abigail,” Mrs. Hunter interrupted. “Back to work, children. Robbie, face front. Just ignore her.”

Hal couldn’t help grinning as his friend returned his attention to the front of the class, his face bright red and his eyes ablaze. Abigail had a way of riling everyone up.

But then Hal noticed something odd, and his grin faded.

Robbie had been holding a pencil in his fist as he swung around to face Abigail in anger, and now that pencil was in two pieces, snapped in half. Robbie noticed it himself just then, and stared at it as if wondering how it had got there.

As Mrs. Hunter resumed scrawling boring math problems on the whiteboard with a squeaky black pen, Hal stifled a yawn and started doodling on his paper. He sketched tiny detailed pictures of rafts, considering what to use for each component. He and Robbie would need a large platform to sit on, say five or six feet across, and something fastened underneath to keep the thing afloat. He couldn’t think what to use as floats though . . .

“Hal?”

He jumped and looked up. “W-what?”

Mrs. Hunter was staring at him expectantly. Hal cleared his throat and gazed past her at the problem on the board, frowning as if thinking hard.

“Dimwit,” mumbled Abigail from behind.

“Come on, Hal,” said Mrs. Hunter, tapping her foot. “Weren’t you paying attention? I know math is not the most interesting subject in the world, but it is very important that you grasp the basics. Anyone else know the answer?”

In the front row, Emily Stanton raised her hand like she was trying to touch the ceiling.

“Yes, Emily,” said Mrs. Hunter.

“Forty-two,” the dark-haired girl said triumphantly. “It’s a very easy problem, Mrs. Hunter. I can’t think why Hal didn’t get it.”

Mrs. Hunter shot Hal a glance. “Neither can I, Emily.” She returned to the board and started on another problem.

Her voice faded into the background as visions of a raft floated through Hal’s mind, a raft bobbing up and down on the ocean waves, forging through the fog and emerging into clear, brilliant light where the sky was blue and the sun was blinding. And on the horizon lay land! What would they find Out There? Thousands of people milling around, cars and motorcycles roaring along the roads? His dad had suggested there was nothing left there anymore, but what did that mean exactly?

That was the trouble with adults: they kept so many secrets. It was as though they were trying to forget their old life Out There, and yet often one adult or another would make a casual remark about the way things used to be. Hal’s mother, for instance, as she scrubbed clothes in a bucket of heated soapy water, would often mention “washing machines” and how easy things once were. And most mornings, when she drew up icy cold water from the stream and struggled back to the house with a bucket in each hand, she would arrive red-faced and make some comment about how she used to take running water for granted.

So what had changed? Maybe now, with a raft, he and Robbie would find out.

Class ended at long last, at least for those who weren’t re-taking the test. As Fenton had managed to get out of it, Robbie and Dewey were left alone in the classroom with Mrs. Hunter while Hal lingered around the corner by the bike rack. He watched Darcy, Lauren and Emily wander off and wondered where Abigail was.

As if on cue, she emerged from the school and looked around.

Hal ducked down behind the bike rack. The last thing he wanted was for her to be pestering him for the next half-hour while he waited for Robbie.

But then she started toward the bike rack. Hal groaned. What was she doing? Only two bikes were left, his and Robbie’s, so she had no reason to be here.

“Hal?” she called.

Hal bolted around to the other side of the building and headed out across the meadow. When he was a safe distance away he threw himself down into the long grass and held his breath. Moments later Abigail appeared, looking around with a puzzled frown on her face.

“Hal? Are you here?”

He remained still and quiet, peering through the grass. The things he had to do to avoid that girl! She stood there a while, searching for him, then continued on around the school. She soon disappeared from sight.

Through one of the windows, Hal could see Robbie working hard on his test, and behind him the tiny figure of Dewey bent over his desk. It would be a while before they got through, so Hal rolled onto his back and stared up into the fog.

It was peaceful lying there alone, and after a while he dozed off. He was woken by his name being called, this time by Robbie. Hal jerked upright and looked around. There was no sign of Abigail; she must have gone home. He trotted around the building to the bike rack.

“Where’d you get to?” Robbie asked, looking puzzled. “I knew you hadn’t left, because your bike’s still here.”

“Dozed off,” Hal said. “Come on, let’s get going.”

They extracted their bikes and set off for the dirt path that led back to the main road. But as they got close, Abigail sprung up out of the grass. “Hi, Hal.”

“Ignore her,” Robbie murmured. “Just ride past.”

“Hal, I need to talk to you.”

Hal sighed and stopped. “All right, talk. What do you want?”

Robbie clicked his tongue and slowed. “Come on, Hal.”

Abigail brushed herself down and removed some grass from her hair. “You carry on, Robbie. I want to talk to Hal alone.”

“Look, Abi,” Hal said, “we’re busy and don’t have time to stand around waiting for you to say what you’ve got to say. Spit it out.”

She frowned. “You’re busy? Doing what? Can I come?”

Robbie laughed. “Sure, Abi, if you can keep up with us without your bike.”

Abigail raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to one side, looking smug. “Oh, trust me, I can keep up with you, even without my bike.”

This made Robbie snort. “So you can run as fast as we can ride, can you?”

“I don’t need to run. But I bet I can keep up with you anyway.”

Hal and Robbie exchanged a look. Then Robbie shrugged. “There she goes again, being all strange and secretive as if she knows something important. Like we care.”

Abigail took a step closer to Hal, her eyes wide. “But I do know something important,” she whispered. “Hal, tell your friend to buzz off so we can talk. It’ll just take a few minutes, honest, and you’ll be amazed.”

Robbie snorted again. “C’mon, Hal, we’ve got things to do. Important things.”

Hal paused. Abigail stared hard at him with big brown eyes, and in a flash he found himself curious. What could be so important that had to be kept a secret? And why insist on telling
him?
Maybe he should send Robbie on ahead so he could listen to what she had to say . . .

But, as if reading his mind, Robbie sneered and said, “I’m sure whatever Abigail’s got to say is much more important than what
we’re
about to do—right, Hal? I mean, Abigail’s always got important, useful things to say, hasn’t she? Last week she told us Emily’s neck was getting longer. And a few days ago she told us Lauren had hairy fingers. Are you sure you want to stop and listen to her, Hal?”

Put like that, Hal had to admit his friend was right.

“It’s all true,” Abigail said, frowning. “Look, Hal, I know how it sounds, but—”

Hal held up his hand. “Abi, when you learn to stop telling fibs and yanking everyone’s chain, maybe I’ll stick around long enough to listen to what you have to say. See you.”

And the boys rode off together, leaving Abigail standing alone.

“She’s so weird,” Robbie said after a while, as they cycled down the narrow path that ran through the fields. “So anyway, what’s the plan? Get tools first, or what?”

“No, let’s go to the barn and see what we can find. We can take it down to the docks bit by bit, and stash it there.”

Robbie nodded. “And start building it tomorrow. We have a full weekend ahead of us.”

The barn stood alone in a field just beyond the main road, right behind the house that Dewey Morgan lived in. Although Dewey’s dad would still be out at the farm on the other side of the island, with all the other men, his mom would no doubt be home, and she had only to glance out the back window to catch Hal and Robbie making off with long wooden planks and materials.

So they would need to break in around the back, as they always did.

They cut through the fields and approached the barn from the rear, keeping it between them and Dewey’s house. There at the back was a small door set with a dirty window. This door was always locked, as were the huge double doors at the front, but the boys had no intention of trying to break open the lock.

They worked to remove the window frame. It was metal and very rusty, and the screws that were supposed to hold it in place just popped right though the delicate, crumbling frame. It came away in sections, leaving a sprinkling of rust on the doorstep. Once the frame was removed they pried the glass out of the housing and stood it in the grass against the wall.

The boys climbed though the narrow opening into the dark, musty barn. Great metal racks of shelving spanned the length of the barn, and on them were piled endless crates of supplies. Hal and Robbie wandered down the first aisle, reading the labels on the plastic crates. Here were school items like pens and pencils, notepads, and sticky tape; next to that piles and piles of new clothing to fit all sizes; then blankets and sheets, towels, face cloths, and all sorts of bathroom accessories like soaps and bath salts; and on the end were plates, silverware, pots and pans, and other kitchen utensils. And all of that on just
one
rack.

“How many bars of soap are left, do you think?” Robbie said, trying to peer through a fogged plastic crate. “I bet we run out of that next. First it was the shampoo, then the toothpaste . . . I worked out once that if a family gets through a tube of toothpaste once a month, let’s call it fifteen tubes a year, and there were originally nine families—”

“And we’ve been here twelve years,” added Hal.

“—then they must have brought in something like sixteen hundred tubes. Can you imagine sixteen hundred tubes of toothpaste? None left now though.”

“They underestimated,” Hal agreed. “We’re using homemade gunk now. I can’t remember the last actual tube we used. Must have been a year ago.”