Kyle's Island (2 page)

The narrow road went straight and level like an arrow pointed at the lake. Trees crowded in on either side till it felt like we were driving through a long green tunnel. We rolled down the windows and let the summer air take the place of the air-conditioning. Much better. I forgot about the way Josh was hogging most of the seat and leaned
forward to look through the windshield. Pretty soon we would take a curve to the right, and I'd get this summer's first glimpse of the lake.

Suddenly, there it was. It was greenish-gray tonight, with whitecaps as far as you could see. There was just that one glimpse, and then the car was climbing the hill, and a line of cottages blocked the view. The road ran along the backs of the cottages, and in front of them the land sloped steeply down. I saw that the Dieners were here. And the Wilks. Most people I didn't know by name, only by sight from years back. But anyone who was out waved as we went by, and it felt like a homecoming.

We turned the last curve, and there was our cottage, small and gray with red trim around the windows and along the edge of the roof. Over the back door was a wooden sign. “Gladimere,” it said. That's what Gram had named it: “Glad I'm here.” Lame, I know, but it was like Gram, and it always made me smile when I thought of it. Even though Gram hadn't stayed at the cottage while we were there, we always knew she was just back in Cassopolis. We'd take a couple of days to visit her there, and often she'd drive over to see us. But she'd died in December. For some reason, that made the cottage look lonely. I guess because it was still boarded up from the winter. Other summers, she'd have been out here
before us, raising the shutters that were hinged at the top and acted as awnings once they were propped open, and airing out the cottage. Funny, I hadn't thought much about missing her, but suddenly I realized I did.

I climbed over Josh so I'd be the first one out of the car. It felt so good to straighten my legs. I opened the front door and smiled at Andrea, wondering why she hadn't moved. “Hey!” I said. “We're here!”

She kind of wrinkled her eyebrows and gave her head a little jerk toward Mom, who was just sitting there, not moving. “Mom?” I asked. “Mom, you all right?” She turned her head toward me, but she didn't seem to focus exactly. “You made it,” I told her. “Another fine job of driving.”

That kind of woke her up—it was what she always said to Dad at the end of a trip—and she smiled, but it was a tired smile. Maybe she was thinking of everything we still had to do before we were really settled in. “Well, might as well get started,” she said.

We never unloaded right away. First we'd file around the cottage on the pump side and go straight to the flight of steps leading down the hill. From the top you could see the lake stretched out in front of you, with the opposite shore only a blurry line. Nothing but the pier and the water and the island about halfway across. We stood there and
looked our fill, then Mom unlocked the padlock on the door of the screened-in porch.

“I get to sleep out here!” Josh called, pushing ahead.

“Mom?” Vicki appealed.

But this time things went my way. “Kyle will sleep on the porch,” Mom said as we went on into the main room. “Vicki and Andrea will sleep in the big bed, and Josh can have the roll-away or the upper bunk. I'll take the lower.”

“The bunk! I want the bunk!” Josh almost mowed Vicki down on his way to the bunk. He started up the ladder.

“First, we unload,” Mom said firmly.

“I'll prime the pump,” Vicki offered. I should have been quicker. I like to be the one who primes the pump. The cottage had no indoor plumbing, just the outhouse down the hill—and the less said about that, the better—but the water from the pump is the best-tasting water there is.

“Guess we'd better get busy,” Andrea said, smiling at me. She grabbed Josh by the waistband of his jeans and pulled him off the ladder. Then the three of us went out to the car while Mom started setting things up in the kitchen. It wasn't long till I smelled coffee. For some reason, smelling the coffee made me feel almost like crying. Dumb. But in my memory the blue pot on the stove at the lake is always perking, and the cottage is always filled with the
smell of coffee. I don't know how something that tastes so bad can smell so good.

It took us a couple of hours to get the car unloaded, the beds made up, and the suitcases stowed away under the beds. By then it was way dark, and Josh was so tired he climbed straight up the ladder to his bunk, with his copy of
Billy and Blaze
under his arm. I'll bet he didn't read two pages before he went to sleep. Andrea and Mom were sitting at the kitchen table talking, and Vicki was lying across her bed reading (what else?), so I let myself quietly out the front door and went down to the lake. As I walked along the pier, I smiled at the hollow, drumlike sound of my footsteps on the slats. By the benches at the end, I stopped and looked up at the night sky.

There are a million stars in the sky above the lake that you never see in Cincinnati. The moon was out, and its light lay on the water like a stream of spilled milk. Crickets chirped. An owl hooted. A damp breeze lifted the hair hanging down to my collar, and I was glad I was letting it grow. I pulled my jacket close. I stood looking out at the water, at the shadowy mound of the island, at the lights on the opposite shore. It was so beautiful. A tight knot in my chest that I didn't know I'd had just sort of melted away. “We're back,” I whispered to the lake. Then I sat down on one of the
benches and stretched my legs out and tilted my head back to look up at the sky. I was as happy at that minute as I had been for months. At least this part of my world, the lake, the cottage, hadn't changed, wouldn't change, I thought. Life up here would go on the same as always.

I WOKE TO THE SOUND OF
hammering nearby. Cripes, it wasn't even full light yet. Who was working at this hour? The hammering stopped, then started again, a little farther away, and I realized—a woodpecker, that's what it was! I'd forgotten how loud woodpeckers can be. I didn't mind, though. Thanks to him or her, I'd get an early start on the day. Now I heard other birds stirring and chirping, and the light beyond the screens seemed to brighten by the minute. I lay under the warm covers a bit more, then stretched my arms over my head. Right away goose bumps puckered my skin. I could feel a smile stretch across my face. I threw the blankets off and jumped to my feet, pulling my jeans on in a hurry. Sweatshirt and sneakers, and I was ready to go.

I opened the door to the cottage proper. It was warmer in here, dark and still except for quiet whispers of breath. I tiptoed through to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and
grabbed the milk carton. I raised the carton to my lips and took long gulps. Naturally I couldn't do that when Mom was around, but I figured, why dirty a glass—washing dishes up here was a real production. You had to pump a teakettle of water, carry it inside to heat on the stove, pour a pan for washing and a pan for rinsing … you get the idea. I put the milk carton back, grabbed an envelope of Pop-Tarts, and went out into the morning, careful not to let the screen door slam. At the pump I splashed cold water on my face. My toothbrush, along with everyone else's, was waiting in the cup on the shelf outside the door. But I didn't see any point in brushing if I was going to eat Pop-Tarts in a minute, so I just swished some water around in my mouth, then hurried down to the lake.

The reeds to the west were still wrapped in mist, and the Wilks' sailboat, bobbing at anchor a few cottages down, was only a ghostly shape. From the fields behind the cottages a crow cawed, and another answered from farther away. I took off my sneakers and rolled up my jeans, got the oars and life jackets from the shed, and laid them on the pier. Then I dragged the rowboat down to the lake, which wasn't easy, believe me. I was sweating by the time I got the boat into the water. I gave it a strong shove, then jumped in after it. The shallow water felt warm on my legs,
compared to the chilly air, and the bottom was squishy under my feet. I tied the boat to the pole sticking out of the water, then waded to shore, watching out for clamshells—they weren't sharp enough to cut, but it hurt to step on them. Back on the pier, I maneuvered the oars down into the boat and buckled on my life jacket. Then I stepped into the boat, untied the rope, and pushed off.

This was the second summer I was allowed out in the boat by myself. First I'd had to pass a zillion swim lessons at the Y, and then I'd had to promise faithfully never to fish without my life jacket. And still Mom hadn't wanted to say yes. I remembered standing at the cottage door last June and seeing Dad put his arm around her. “Let him go, Dorrie,” he'd said. “He's sensible and careful, and you've got to let go sometime.”

She'd given him a long, funny look, and I kind of held my breath until she shook her head a little and smiled. “Go on, then,” she told me. “I can't hold out against both of you.” And Dad had walked down the steps with me and handed me my bait can, then stood on the pier watching as I rowed away.

Today it took me just a few minutes to row past the end of the pier and head toward the island. Later on I would get bait, and Josh and I would fish. Right now I just wanted
to enjoy being almost alone on the lake. It was “almost,” because out beyond the point of the island the serious bluegill and bass fishermen were already hunched over their poles. The water was deep there; they wouldn't be disturbed by small fish nibbling at their bait. When a fish took the bait, pulling the bobber under with an I-mean-business downward tug, a cry of “Socko!” would go up, and the other fishermen would glance over with brief interest.

I rowed steadily, watching the cottages on the hill grow smaller as I got farther from shore. When I was about fifty feet from the island, I turned the boat and let it drift while I studied the tree- and bush-covered shoreline. This was the year, I promised myself. This summer I was finally going to explore the island. By myself. Dad had said it was uninhabited, except by birds and maybe a snake or two, but I wanted to investigate anyway. It wasn't a large island, only about the size of a football field, and it rose from the water in a gentle mound like the back of a giant turtle. Did that border of crowded trees and bushes extend clear to the other side? Maybe someplace in there was a clearing or two you couldn't see from the water. Maybe there was a cave. Could you have a cave on an island? Sometimes I was sure I could see the trace of a path leading into the trees from a point on the southwestern tip, but Dad had said I was
imagining it. Well, I wasn't taking his word for anything anymore. I'd find out for myself if he was right about the island. Soon.

After I'd rowed around the island, I headed back toward the cottage. I thought it would be nice to put on a pot of coffee for Mom while she was still asleep. But when I climbed the steps, I found her sitting on the bottom of the two steps to the porch. A cup of coffee sat on the step beside her, and she was smoking a cigarette. That was Dad's fault. She'd quit years ago, but the day after Valentine's she'd gone out and bought a pack of cigarettes, and she'd come home and lit one in front of all of us with a look that just dared us to complain. None of us said a word, but I'd seen tears in Andrea's eyes.

“Been out around the island?” Mom asked me now.

“Yeah.”

“We'll get some bait this morning.”

“I know.”

I sat down beside her, and we just stayed there listening to the birds and the sound of the water lapping the rocks along the shore until the door behind us creaked open and Josh threw his arms around Mom's neck and twisted around into her lap. “Brrrr. Keep me warm,” he said.

That was the end of the quiet time. Mom fixed breakfast
while Andrea played catch with Josh down by the lake and Vicki folded up the roll-away bed. “I thought you and Andrea were going to share the big bed,” I said.

“Sleeping with Andrea is like sharing a lifeboat with a puppy,” Vicki said grumpily. “It's no wonder she's so skinny—she doesn't lie still for two minutes straight. She turns, and she shifts, and the springs creak, and the mattress moves up and down constantly. It's enough to make you seasick, so I pulled out the roll-away. I don't see why I can't have the porch. You've got a reading lamp and everything. Just because …”

She was winding up for her Just Because You're a Boy speech when we heard Mom's warning—“Victoria!” She was quiet then, but she threw a dirty look at the kitchen doorway. Vicki doesn't wake up well. At home she'd sleep until eleven, but even she couldn't sleep with four other people moving around in three small rooms.

I went into the kitchen to start making toast, and Vicki went outside. “I'm going to take a little walk down the road,” she called through the screen door. In just a bit she came back with a handful of purple flowers she put in a glass on the middle of the table.

Andrea came up from the lake just then. “How pretty!” she said when she saw the flowers.

“Aren't they?” Vicki answered. “Hey, maybe you could begin with them!” She and Andrea exchanged what a book would call a “significant” look. It bugged me a little—what could be significant about a handful of flowers?

“Begin what?” I asked, but Vicki said only, “Oh, just an idea Andrea and I had last night. Nothing important.” She paused. “We'll have to throw them out if they make me sneeze, though,” she went on. “I don't know why I have to have hay fever when none of the rest of you do.”

Just then Mom brought over bacon and eggs, so we dug in and began to make plans for the day. We had plenty of time to plan, because we all ate a lot. Food tastes really good at the lake, even things you don't ordinarily like. I don't know why that is.

We'd cleared the plates when Mom brought over a box of glazed doughnuts. “Dessert?” she asked with a smile. While we ate the doughnuts, we made a list of things for Mom to get from the little store on the way to Cassopolis. I asked, “Who's going to go with you?”