Kyle's Island (16 page)

It was very quiet then.

“Are we going to leave the candles lit?”

“Mom made me promise not to. She didn't want us sleeping with what she called ‘an untended fire.' But we'll be okay.”

I blew out the candles and crawled over to my sleeping bag. “‘Night, Josh,” I said.

“Good night. Thanks for bringing me, Kyle.”

I smiled even though he couldn't see me in the dark. “I'm glad you're here.”

I lay there then, listening to the night sounds outside the cabin. Just as I was beginning to get drowsy, I heard Josh ask sleepily, “How many days are there in May?”

“Thirty-one. Why?”

“I'm counting the days Dad's been gone. I miss him, don't you?” I started to say no automatically, but the word stuck in my throat. “Kyle?”

“Yeah, I miss him.”

It was quiet again, and I was almost asleep when I heard, “One hundred fifty-two.”

I WONDER HOW OLD YOU ARE
when you quit getting excited about birthdays. A lot older than me, I guess. It was fun to wake up July 19 and know that now I was (un)officially a teenager. Three years and five months and I'd be able to drive!

The early part of the day was like any other. Tom Butler had offered to let me have the morning off if I wanted, but I told him I'd really just as soon fish with him in the morning as do anything else. Fishing with Tom had come to be a really—what's the best word?—companionable way to start the day. I still didn't like the way he ate so much, but it didn't disgust me the way it used to. I was trying to understand it, like I was trying to understand Mom's smoking, but it wasn't easy.

In the afternoon we all went swimming. Even Mom went. For the first time, Josh swam all the way from our pier
to Marshalls' float. I swam right alongside him, naturally. When he got to the float and pulled himself up, even Jeff and Brad applauded him. Good thing he didn't have on a shirt; he would have “bust his buttons”—another Gram expression. I used to love when she said it. I'd see a mind-movie of a fat man in a plaid suit puffing out his chest, and all his buttons would come flying off and bounce around on the floor.

It was a fun afternoon. Vicki and Andrea and I splashed around and raced each other just like old times. Brad and Jeff weren't as bad as they'd been before. Around four, though, I was ready to go fishing again. To my surprise, Andrea said she wanted to go along this time, so the two of us swam lazily back to the pier. Then she went up to the cottage to get her sketchbook while I loaded up the boat.

“Want me to row?” she asked when she came down.

“Think we'll get there today if you do?” I teased.

She made a face at me and hopped into the boat. “Just watch,” she said. As soon as I got settled, she grabbed the oars. There was no way I was going to get them back.

I kind of lay back on my elbows, curious to see where she would head. Like I expected, she rowed us down where the water lilies grow. “We should have flowers on the table for your birthday dinner,” she told me.

When we were anchored, I threw out my line, and she settled back to sketch. Andrea's great to have along when you're fishing. If you bring one in, she'll help you net, but mostly she just sits still and looks at things. Funny, I can look at something and think I've seen it, but then Andrea will say, “Did you notice…” and she'll have seen something about it that I completely missed.

After a while, I glanced over at her drawing. She'd sketched a single water lily with a dragonfly poised above. Her drawings were so good!

“Did you just start that sketchbook today?” I asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You mean you've filled a whole sketchbook, and I haven't seen anything in it?” I decided not to mention that one page I'd seen before, when she got all mad.

“I guess so. I'll show you later.”

After that, neither of us said much for a while. I fished till Mom rang the bell. As I pulled in my line, I said, “This has been a great birthday, in spite of the cottage.”

She knew what I meant and nodded. Then she smiled and said, “But it's not over yet. Presents still to come, you know.”

I knew, but somehow the thought of them wasn't as important as usual. It would take a fairy godmother to give me what I really wanted, I thought.

For supper we had chicken and dumplings. Mom said having chicken and dumplings in the middle of the summer was the dumbest thing she ever heard of, but on our birthdays she'll cook anything we ask for, and chicken and dumplings is my favorite.

All during the meal Andrea and Vicki were giggling and whispering, but this time I didn't mind. I knew they were trying to get me curious about something, so I just pretended not to notice.

When we'd finished the chicken and dumplings, which were great, Andrea and Vicki cleared the table, and Mom brought out the cake. It was from the bakery in Cassopolis, because Mom said she didn't trust the oven after Vicki's cookies got burned. I didn't care. It was chocolate, and that was enough.

Everyone was singing “Happy Birthday” and I was blowing out the candles when Tom Butler knocked at the door and walked in.

“Sit down, Tom. I'm glad you could make it,” Mom said.

“Never turn down a chance to eat birthday cake,” he answered.

For the next half hour, we laughed and talked and talked and laughed until Mom said, “Well, if everyone's finished, I guess it's present time.”

She was about to move the leftover cake to the countertop when I happened to look at Tom. He was watching her pick up the platter, and the look on his face was more than I could take. “Cut Tom another piece first,” I told Mom. So what if he'd already eaten more than anyone else—he could have worse faults, I guess.

Now Josh said, “Open my present first, Kyle, please!”

He handed me a large wrapped package. It was thin and light, with an odd shape.

“Thanks, Josh,” I told him.

“You haven't seen it yet! You're going to like it, I bet.”

I pulled off the paper and there was a plywood poster in the shape of a fish. It had a picture of a fisherman with his arms stretched out, and underneath was a poem called “Fisherman's Prayer”:

I laughed. “It's a great present, Josh. Thanks.”

“Mom next,” said Vicki.

Mom handed me two packages. One was a book, I
knew, because we always get a book from her for our birthdays. I opened it first. A thick, grown-up-looking volume was in my hands.
“The Compleat Angler, or The Contemplative Man's Recreation
, by Izaak Walton,” I read. “Hey, that's not how you spell
complete
.”

“That's the way they spelled it in the 1600s,” Mom said. “That's when it was written. It's a classic. I hope you'll enjoy it.” She looked anxious, the way she always does when she gives us a book.

“I'll probably never even read it,” I told her with a grin. I love to tease Mom. My second present from her was my own tackle box.

I stared at it with a lump in my throat. I didn't say anything.

“Don't you like it?” she asked.

“It's great,” I said. “Just the kind I wanted. Only, where will I use it?”

I didn't mean to be ungrateful. It just hit me, and the words came out of my mouth before I knew they were going to.

There was an awkward silence, and then Andrea jumped up. “Now, ours!” she said—in such a hurry to smooth things over that she practically shoved a package under my nose. “This is from Vicki and me.”

I wasn't having fun anymore. What I wanted to do was leave the kitchen and go sit out on the pier in the dark all by myself on my last birthday here. But I tried to look eager as I unwrapped the package. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vicki grab Andrea's hand—whatever it was, the two of them were sure excited about it.

Inside was a sketchbook. I stared at it, puzzled. Why would I want a sketchbook? I opened it slowly, and there on the first page was a drawing of the cottage. It was beautiful. It looked just right, down to the shadows on the steps. Underneath, in Vicki's calligraphy, it said, “For Kyle, who loved it best.”

“Turn the page,” Josh urged.

I turned page after page. Each one had a sketch of something I knew and loved. The pump, the roll-away with Vicki lying on it, reading. Mom sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her, the glass with the wildflowers Vicki had picked. And underneath each sketch Vicki had penned a caption or comment.

“You guys …” I said. I couldn't say anything more.

“Now you know why I wouldn't let you see my sketchbook,” Andrea said.

“And why we were always whispering,” Vicki added.

Even though I was thirteen, I gave everyone a hug.
When I got to Tom I hesitated, I guess, because he laughed and pushed back his chair. He got to his feet, saying, “It's okay to give another man a hug, Kyle. Long as you thump him on the back at the same time,” so we hugged and thumped each other, and then he sat back down and looked at Mom. “Time for you to tell him, Dorrie.”

I looked at Mom, too. She had a big smile. “Tom is offering you the chance to spend next summer with him in his cottage, Kyle. Free room and board, and all you need do in exchange is fish with him in the mornings. Not only that, but he's said the rest of us can spend a few weeks there, too, if we like.”

Everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to say something. But I couldn't. If I tried to talk I'd cry. All I could think was, I don't have to say good-bye for good! I get to come back!

“Course, if you're not interested …” Tom teased.

That was enough to snap me out of it. I smiled so wide I thought my face would break. “You bet I'm interested! I'm just having trouble believing it.”

“Not such a big deal. I need your help.”

“Thanks, Tom. It's so—it's—just thanks.”

A knock at the door surprised us all. Mrs. Morley stuck her head in. “Happy Birthday, Kyle. Call for you over at our
house. Your dad wants to know will you come talk to him?”

I looked at Mom. She looked back at me with pleading eyes. I looked at Tom and remembered what he'd said: “Mostly we don't know, about other people.” And Vicki and Andrea—I'd been mad at them for shutting me out, when all the time they'd been planning for my birthday. Then I looked at Josh. He looked steadily back at me, and I realized I hadn't the slightest idea what he was thinking. I just didn't know. Maybe there were things I didn't know about Dad? “All right, Mrs. Morley,” I said. “I'll talk to him. Come on, Josh. You can talk after.”