Kyle's Island (14 page)

“I can walk,” he said grimly. “Can't do this old fisherman in.” He stepped out into the water, began wading to shore. “Follow me!” he yelled, over a clap of thunder, and I did.

He pushed his way through the bushes and around trees as if he knew right where he was going. In a couple of minutes, I had a suspicion. In a couple more, I was sure. He was heading for the cabin. He'd known it was there all along.

WE STUMBLED THROUGH THE
cabin door, and Tom barred it shut against the wind. Once inside, we just stood there panting, hearing the rain drumming on the roof, the wind whistling in the trees, and over and over again, the rumble of thunder.

“That was close,” Tom said, and a grin stretched over his face. “But exciting. You look like a drowned rat, Kyle.”

“What do you think you look like?” I joked back. “For starters, you have a bump the size of a baseball on your forehead.”

He felt his head gingerly. “I can feel it.” He walked over to the crates along the wall, and it was good to see that he seemed steady on his feet. For the first time since the rain started, I relaxed a little. Tom got busy digging into one of the crates. “Here's what we need,” he told me.
He brought out some matches and a couple candles. Then he set one of the empty cans upside down on the floor. He lit a candle and held it at an angle over the can. When the melting wax formed a warm puddle on top of the can, he plunked the candle down into the hot wax and held it firmly till he was sure it was secure. “Learned that in Boy Scouts,” he said.

I must have looked surprised, because he asked, “What's the matter? You think they didn't have Boy Scouts when I was young?”

I had thought that, but I wasn't going to admit it, so I just shrugged. I watched him light two more candles. In the flickering light, the cabin seemed cozy, somehow, even cheerful, and the sounds of the storm less threatening. “Pretty cool,” I told him.

“Careful not to knock them over, now,” he warned. “Last thing we need's a fire.”

He got back to his feet and looked down at his sagging overalls. “Ought to have a change of clothes here,” he said, kind of talking to himself. “Should have thought of that.”

He looked closely at me then and asked, “You cold? Want to wrap up in the blanket?”

“No, I'm not cold,” I lied. “You use it.” He didn't reply,
just sank down on the cot, like he was exhausted. I'd never thought of him as an old man, but suddenly I realized that he was. I hoped he was going to be all right and not have a stroke on me or something like that.

“Why didn't you say the cabin was yours when I was asking about the island?” I asked, to get him talking more than anything else.

“You didn't ask me about it. You asked if anyone'd ever lived on the island, and I answered you true. The cabin's just a kind of a getaway, not a real house. When my daughter, Lou, was in school, she was always having a bunch of friends come up and stay at the house. Sometimes they'd stay for a week or so. All that chattering and giggling like to have drove me out of my mind. So I built the cabin, and now and then I'd come out here for a little bit of peace and quiet.”

I didn't answer. I was busy trying to imagine Tom as the father of a teenager. Funny, even when Mom was talking about growing up near the Butlers, I'd just sort of pictured Tom as being like he was now. But he'd probably have been a good father. He'd be hard to please, but when he thought you'd done well, he'd let you know it. He might not say anything, but you'd know by the way he looked at you that he was proud, and that would be worth working for.

I wandered over to the window and looked out. The
rain was still streaming down, and the lightning was still flashing. “Looks like we're here for a while,” I said. “I hope Mom's not worried.”

“I hope not, too.” He stood up, grunting a little, and moved over to the wall. “Well, now,” he said. “Let's see what there is to eat.” To eat? How could he want to eat now? He'd had bologna sandwiches and Fritos and Little Debbies on the boat. And two cans of pop.

I watched him pull out the can opener from the open box, then move over to another crate. “I think …” he murmured to himself. “Yep! Here it is. Baked beans. Ever eat baked beans straight from the can, Kyle? Not bad.”

He turned to look at me, and he must not have liked what he saw.

“Now, listen here,” he said, slamming the can down on the crate lid. “I'm getting mighty tired of you looking at me like I'm a freak or something every time I have a little bite to eat.

“Let me tell you something, boy. I made myself a promise in nineteen forty-five, the day I got out of that POW camp. Three years I'd been there. Shot down March twenty-first, nineteen forty-two.”

He lifted his head and seemed to be staring at something I couldn't see. The pain on his face was something I'd
never seen before and never wanted to see again. He went on, his voice lower, like he was talking to himself. “Nothing to eat but watery soup once a day. Maggots in the soup sometimes. So hungry I'd eat it anyway. The day they liberated us, I got weighed. Eighty pounds. I'd weighed a hundred seventy-five going in.

“When I got out, when I first got food, I couldn't eat it. Stomach cramps, diarrhea. But the docs took care of us, and one day I could eat again. I promised myself I'd never go hungry again, and I'm keeping that promise. When I feel like eating, I do. And I'm not about to change my ways just because some young know-it-all thinks I should.”

He glared at me, and I guess my face was all shades of red. I watched him fiddle with the can opener. “I'm sorry,” I said, kind of low. “I didn't know.”

“Mostly we don't know, about other people,” he answered, his voice gentler. For some reason I thought of Mom, crying on the steps because of selling the cottage. I hadn't even known about her, had I?

“I'm having some baked beans,” he said now. “Here if you want 'em.”

We must have looked a sight, each of us wetter than the other, squatting over a can of baked beans, two forks going lickety-split. But I'll have to say, those cold baked beans
tasted extra good. So did the fruit cocktail we had afterward.

When we'd finished, it seemed to me the rain was letting up a little. Tom seemed to think so, too. He stood in the middle of the floor, looking all around. “Pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Not a leak, after all these years.”

“It's awesome,” I said. “I thought about staying out here some night—when I didn't know it was yours, that is.”

“You want to stay, that's all right with me. Maybe bring along your brother for company. That'd be quite an adventure for him.”

“I'll say.”

Just when I was feeling comfortable again with Tom, he clammed up. Neither of us said anything for maybe fifteen minutes. I wondered if he was thinking about the war, and I looked at him, trying to imagine how he might have looked weighing eighty pounds. I couldn't. There was too much of him that'd have to disappear.

Finally, he spoke. “I think it's let up enough now for us to start back. Your mom is like to be worried sick.”

“Maybe she thinks I'm waiting out the rain at your cottage. She may not be worried at all.”

“She's a mother. She'll be worried.”

* * *

It's just as well my clothes hadn't begun to dry, because
brushing through the bushes and brambles would have soaked them again anyway. I marveled at how Tom seemed to know right where he was going all the time. Without my compass I'd have been lost, but he strode out purposefully, and as far as I could tell, we made a straight line to the boat.

It had about an inch of water in it, so we used the empty cans to bail it out a little. By the time we finished that, the rain had trailed off to a drizzle, and the sky was beginning to lighten. The air had the freshness that comes after a good, hard rain, and birds were beginning to sing again.

We didn't speak until we docked in front of his cottage. “Thanks, Tom,” I said. I wasn't quite sure what I was thanking him for, but I felt thanks were due.

“If you decide to sleep over on the island some night,” he said. “Let me know. I've got a portable radio you might want to take along.”

We said good-bye, and I hurried back to the cottage, where I found everyone playing a game of Parcheesi. Mom looked up as I came in, “You're soaked!” she said. “Weren't you down at Tom's during the storm?”

“Actually,” I said, “we were on the island.”

It was kind of fun seeing their startled faces, and it was lots of fun telling them all about the cabin. (I hurried over
the storm part, and I didn't mention Tom's fall at all. There are some things it's better for moms not to know.)

“You bum,” said Andrea, “not to tell us before.”

“Well, you and Vicki have your secrets, so I can have mine,” I said, only half-joking.

“But that's—oh, never mind.”

Of course, when I told the part about Tom suggesting Josh stay on the island with me, Josh wanted to do it that very night. He kept pestering Mom until finally she said, “If I hear one more word, you won't go at all.” That silenced him, but all the rest of the day he hung around me, offering to do things for me or to bring me things. He was going to be sure he stayed on my good side.

That afternoon, while Vicki and Andrea and I were playing rummy on the porch, we heard a knock on the kitchen door.

“Tom, come in!” Mom called. The screen door scraped, and Mom exclaimed, “What happened to your head? What a goose egg! Does it hurt?”

There was a pause. I held my breath—what would he tell her? Then Tom answered, “Gave myself a good bump, didn't I? Kyle tell you about the storm, Dorrie?”

“A little. Mostly he wanted to tell us about the cabin.”

“Well, I owe you an apology. I know better than to let
myself get caught on the water like that. You trusted me with your boy, Dorrie, and I let you down.”

“You're both here, aren't you?” Mom said. “You made it home okay.”

“Oh, but I didn't—”

I dropped my cards on the table and pushed my chair back as noisily as I could. “Tom,” I called, crossing to the window between the porch and the kitchen, “tell her about that bluegill you caught!”

Tom looked at me for a long minute, then shook his head and grinned. He turned back to Mom. “It was a whopper, Dorrie! Didn't know we had any that big left in the lake.”

They started talking fishing, and I went back to the card table and picked up my hand again.

Andrea looked at me. She smiled wickedly and whispered, “Pretty soon you're going to tell us the part you don't want Mom to know, aren't you, Kyle?”

And of course I did.

“I was asleep before my head hit the pillow”—Mom used to say that to show she'd been really tired, and I always thought it was an exaggeration. But if it was ever true, it was true of me that night. I just had time to picture the cabin filled with candlelight, and I was gone.

“FLASHLIGHT.”

“Check.”

“Mosquito spray.”

“Check.”

“TP.”

“Check.”

Josh and I were on the porch, going over our list of supplies to take down to the boat. He liked saying “check” and shifting around the things I read off. This was the day—tonight we'd sleep on the island! Josh was so excited he could hardly stand it—too excited, maybe.

“That's all, now, isn't it, Kyle? Now can we go?” He must have asked this a million times already.

“I still gotta—” I broke off, puzzled, as I heard the crunch of gravel out back. As far as I knew, we weren't expecting anyone. A car door slammed. Josh's face lit up, and he banged
out the screen door so hard I thought the hinges would break. I followed at my own pace. I knew what he was thinking, was hoping, knew he couldn't be right, but still …

“Hi, Josh! Your mom home?” Not Dad's voice. Mr. Barach's.

“She's in the kitchen,” Josh said. “Hi, Zach!”

I guess selling a house, even a cottage, is pretty complicated. The Barachs had been stopping by with questions so often that Josh and their little boy, Zachary, had gotten to be kind of friendly. “Can I go down to the lake, please, Dad?” Zach asked now, already inching toward Josh.

“Sure, go on down. Stay with Josh, though.”

“Want to see my cricket cage?” Josh offered. In a minute the two were pounding down the steps. There went my help. I thought about calling Josh back, but then I thought again. It was probably fun for him to have someone younger to show off to. I went back to the list. I didn't want to get out to the island and have to turn around and come back for something.

I could hear the low voices of Mr. Barach and Mom in the kitchen and, pretty soon, the thumping of the soccer ball down by the lake. Josh and Zach hadn't spent much time looking at the cricket cage, I noted. Maybe I'd go get Tom's radio while Josh was busy, then I could—

“I can get it! I can get it!” Zach's voice was shrill and excited. Footsteps on the pier, then a thud, a splash.

“Zach!” Josh's voice was frightened. “Kyle, come help!”

I was out the door and down the steps before I knew it. But at the bottom, I stopped. Zach was only chest deep in the water. He held a dripping soccer ball high above his head as he waded to shore.

“Zach! Get up here! Your mom's going to kill me.” Mr. Barach must have heard the commotion. He was standing outside the porch door. I couldn't tell if his voice sounded more angry or afraid. Zach handed the ball to Josh and dripped past me up the steps.

“Did you kick that ball?” I asked Josh. I didn't give him time to answer. “How many times have we told you—you don't kick down here, you dribble! Do you realize what might have happened if Zach'd fallen in over his head? You don't even know if he can swim.” I took a deep breath, and then I added coldly, “If you can't follow directions any better than that, you're not old enough for a night on the island.” Okay, so I was a little rough. I didn't really plan to leave him behind, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to let him think that for a while.