Kyle's Island (12 page)

“C'mon in,” he called when I knocked at his kitchen door for the second time that day. He was sitting at the table, a plate of ham and potatoes and green beans in front of him. There was a big stack of bread, a stick of butter, and a little pitcher of honey on the table, too. An open quart of milk stood by a full glass.

“I came to find out if you were feeling better,” I said.

“Fine now. Just a touch of indigestion.”

“Indigestion?” I asked, glancing at the table.

He grunted. “I said I was better.”

“Oh. Well, I guess you'll want to go out tomorrow?”

“Far as I know. You want to take your brother along with us?”

“You sure you want him? I know he'd like to go, but sometimes he can be a pest.”

He let out a sound that I think was a laugh. “A pest, hmm? Just like most boys, I suspect. Tell him if he don't behave, we'll pitch him overboard.”

“Okay, then. I'll see you tomorrow.” I started to go, then turned around. “Say, Mr. Butler—I mean, Tom. Do you know, did anybody ever live on the island?”

“Nah,” he said, shoving half a slice of bread into his mouth and chewing vigorously. He swallowed before going on. “You couldn't live out there. What would you use for heat in the winter? And drinking water, that would be a problem.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” I said. “I was just wondering, that's all.”

I let myself out the door and headed back for the cottage. So Tom Butler didn't know someone had a cabin on the island. And if he didn't know, was there anyone else who might?

As I got close to the cottage, I saw Andrea ahead of me, strolling along with her head down, her sketchbook under her arm. I thought I might as well catch up with her. Things had been kind of prickly between us lately, but I couldn't stay mad at her, and I didn't think she could stay mad at me.

I hurried, and she heard me coming and turned her head. “Hey, Kyle,” she said.

“Hey, yourself.”

“Those people this morning?”

“What about them?”

“You sounded funny when you were talking to Mom. Didn't you like them?”

“I only met the kids. They were cute. And they want a cottage real bad. I don't know what their parents thought about it.”

“Do you suppose we'll get lucky and no one will want to buy it?”

“I don't know.” I kicked a little stone, then bent over and picked up another. I pitched it at a nearby sapling. Bull's-eye! “I'm beginning to lose hope. I asked Mom, if we could pay the taxes, then would we still have to sell? I didn't tell her about the plan, I just said, what if? But she wouldn't say we could keep it. She said she'd have to think.”

“Do you think maybe we should write Dad?”

“What for? If he didn't care enough to come up here, why would he care if we have to sell it?”

“I guess you're right.” She sounded discouraged, and I felt lousy for putting her in a bad mood, too.

“I thought you were going swimming this afternoon,” I said, hoping to cheer her up.

“I had something I wanted to do first.”

Again. Just like a door slamming in my face—“something I wanted to do.” Not, “I wanted to sketch the Petersens' cottage” or “I thought I'd …” Well, cripes, what had she been doing? Not that I cared. If she wanted to keep her secrets, let her. But I bet she'd tell Vicki.

Before I could get really mad again, she said, “I'm going to swim now, though. Want to come?”

“Sure.” At least I'm good enough to swim with, I thought but didn't say.

Maybe some of my anger sounded in my voice. She gave me a long, serious look, like she was trying to read my mind. “You don't have to if you don't want,” she said.

But suddenly that was what I wanted to do more than anything else. Just dive into the water, swim out to the float and let the water wash away all my worries. Why let the Marshalls or anyone else spoil my fun?

“Beat you to the cottage,” I told Andrea.

She laughed. “In your dreams, slowpoke,” and we both took off.

Fence number three was a hard one to mend, I thought as I ran.

I'D NEVER FOUND TOM
much for laughing, not until the day Josh went fishing with us. But that morning he laughed a lot, and he probably talked twice as much as usual. For some reason, Josh affected Tom the way Mom did—both of them seemed to loosen his tongue. Tom even told Josh a riddle: “What's gray, has four legs, and a trunk?”

Of course Josh guessed, “An elephant.”

“No,” said Tom with a perfectly straight face, “a mouse on vacation.”

I didn't let Josh row. I figured there'd be too much weight in the boat. Besides, Tom suggested going almost all the way to the channel, down where the reeds stood high above the surface. There was plenty of bird life in the reeds and enough babies in the water to keep Josh's bobber busy. “Don't want you to get bored,” Tom told Josh.

“I won't,” Josh said, and I believed him. As soon as
they'd gotten back from town yesterday, Josh had gone straight out to the pier with his bait and his pole, and he hadn't left until Vicki suggested swimming.

I had warned Josh before we left that he wasn't supposed to chatter to Mr. Butler, and he was positively not to complain about anything. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Tom Butler was going to make sure that Josh had a good day. We'd hardly got our lines in the water when Tom reached into the big bag he'd brought along and pulled out a bag of little Milky Ways.

“Have a candy bar,” he invited us.

“No, thanks.” I shook my head—I don't eat candy that early in the day. “It'll make you thirsty,” I warned Josh as he took one.

“Thought of that,” Tom said. “I brought something to wash it down.” It was pop, of course. I noticed he hadn't brought along a toothbrush, which Josh's teeth could use after all that sugar.

How come Tom could eat candy and cookies all the time and not get sick? It didn't make sense. But nothing made sense this summer. It should be Dad here telling jokes with Josh and giving him fishing tips, like how to decide where to set his bobber, things like that.

But Dad wasn't here, and since he wasn't, it was nice of
Tom to give Josh so much attention. I didn't blame Josh for eating it up. Once he tried to tell Tom a joke. He took a long time, because he kept getting mixed up and saying, “No, I mean …” and backing up a little. But Tom listened patiently, and when Josh said, “No, that's not right, I meant …” for about the eighth time, Tom winked at me and smiled over Josh's head. It was kind of like we shared a grown-up secret. I was surprised at the nice warm feeling that gave me.

But as the sun rose higher and the morning wore on, I started to get seriously annoyed. Tom had prepared for this fishing trip as if it were going to last days instead of hours. I never saw so much junk food in my life. And Josh, of course, thought it was great. Everything Tom offered him he ate.

I tried to discourage Josh from eating any more. “You'll get a stomachache,” I warned, sounding just like Gram.

“Leave him be, Kyle,” Tom said. “He's a growing boy. A few treats won't hurt him.”

So the two of them kept eating and fishing and eating and fishing while I sat there feeling helpless. It was as if Tom knew ahead of time what a sweet tooth Josh has. I tried shaking my head at Josh and frowning when Tom offered him a second candy bar. After all, they'd already eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a whole bag of potato chips. But Josh just ignored me.

On top of everything else, in between bites Josh caught a really mammoth smallmouth bass, and he brought it in without any help, except for the netting at the end. You think that didn't make him proud? He wasn't about to pay any attention to me after that.

So all I could do was sit there fuming. I thought Tom would never say it was time to go in, but he did, and to my amazement he said it just like always, “Must be nine o'clock. Time for breakfast.”

After we pulled in, on the way up to Tom's cottage, I lagged behind and pulled Josh's arm. “He's going to ask us to stay for breakfast,” I whispered. “You can't be hungry still.”

“Sure I can,” Josh said with a grin.

Later, sitting at the table with a tall stack of pancakes in front of Josh, a smaller one in front of me, and a giant one in front of him, Tom looked over at me. Something of what I was thinking must have been showing on my face, because he said quietly, “Don't be a killjoy, Kyle. Eating ain't a sin.”

I was glad to get out of there that day. Josh and I walked home side by side, and I had absolutely no pity when Josh said, “My tummy doesn't feel so good.”

Later on, though, when he threw up, I wasn't as mad at him as I was at Tom. He shouldn't have encouraged Josh. When Mom started asking Josh about what he had eaten
that might have made him sick, I just exploded. “It's not what he ate, it's how much he ate,” I said. I told her about all the snacking and the big breakfast. “Tom says eating's not a sin,” I said. “But there's some sin that has to do with eating—I remember learning that in Sunday School.”

“Gluttony,” Mom said quietly. “But it's not for us to judge.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Didn't he make Josh sick?”

“Josh made himself sick,” she said. “Tom didn't stuff food down Josh's throat.”

“But you should see the way Tom eats,” I raged. “It's sick. No wonder he's as big as a whale.”

“Tom Butler has been good to you,” Mom said. Her eyes darkened, so I knew she was getting angry. “That's no way to talk!”

I couldn't understand her. Her own son was sicker than a dog, and she was defending the man who'd made him that way. Well, I didn't care what she thought. I was mad at Tom Butler, and it would be a long time before I'd forgive him.

Josh went in to lie down on Mom's bed then. I hadn't been back long enough to wonder where Andrea and Vicki were, but now I heard Vicki call to someone, “See you out there!” and she and Andrea came through the kitchen door.

“Hi, Kyle! You guys have a good time?” Vicki asked.
She poured a dipper of water into one of the paper cups Mom kept by the water bucket. Andrea went straight to the fridge and pulled out a slice of cheese—Andrea doesn't eat much, but she eats often. She sat down with Mom and me.

“Aren't you coming?” Vicki asked Andrea, throwing away her empty cup.

“I may come out later—you don't have to wait for me.”

“'Kay.” Vicki went into the main room.

“Where's Vicki going?” I asked.

“Brad and Jeff asked us to come swimming,” Andrea said. “Vicki is so glad she bought that new suit.”

“Aren't you going, too?” Mom asked.

Andrea shook her head. “I don't think I should.”

“Because …” Mom prompted, cocking her head the way she does when she wants more information.

“No reason,” Andrea said. “I don't know why I put it like that.” I haven't been Andrea's twin all this time without knowing how to tell when she's trying to fool someone. She had a reason, all right. She just didn't want to explain it to Mom. She got up from the table before Mom could ask anything more. “Can I take the rowboat, Kyle? I thought I'd row down to where the ducklings are, try to sketch them.”

“Sure, take it,” I said.

I thought maybe she'd ask me to go with her, but she didn't. Instead, Mom told me, “If you're going to be here, maybe I'll run into Cass and see if there's any mail. I think Josh fell asleep.”

Andrea left, Mom left, and Vicki'd already gone. I wandered into the main room and stood in front of the table where Gram's old books were stacked. I found one called
White Fang
by Jack London. I thought I'd heard of him, and the title sounded exciting, so I took it out on the porch and lay down to read a little. I had maybe a half hour of quiet before I heard someone coming up the steps. I raised up to look through the screens. It was Vicki. She was moving slower than usual, looking down at her feet, so her hair fell like a curtain and hid her face from me.

She opened the porch door and started past me to the main room. “I thought you'd be out at the float all afternoon,” I said.

“Brad and Jeff decided they'd had enough sun,” Vicki said, and then she added kind of under her breath, “since Andrea didn't come back out.”

“Andrea? Why should she make a difference?”

Vicki sighed. “She's the only one the guys pay attention to. They tell her jokes, they offer to take her water-skiing. And while she wasn't there this afternoon, they spent the
whole time asking me if she had a boyfriend—stuff like that.”

“A boyfriend?” The thought of it almost made me laugh. “What makes them think she'd have a boyfriend already? She's too busy with her art stuff.”

“Oh, Kyle, you're so—so blind, sometimes. Have you looked at Andrea lately?”

“What do you mean? I look at her all the time. We're together every day, aren't we?”

“Well, if you'd really looked, you'd have noticed—she's beautiful. You two have always been the good-looking ones, with your black hair, and those blue eyes, and now …”

Vicki trailed off, like she was thinking of something she didn't want to say. She didn't look very happy. I felt like she was hoping I'd say something.

“You're pretty too, Vick,” I told her.

“If you like streaky blond hair with no body to it,” she said. Suddenly she grinned, and just like that, her mood seemed to change. “Anyway,” she said, “who cares what a couple of dumb boys think? Do you know neither of them has read
Catcher in the Rye
?”

I hadn't either, but I didn't say so.

“I'm going to get a pop and then go lie out on the pier a bit. Unless you want me to stay up here with Josh.”