Kyle's Island (8 page)

“Sure, if you want.”

On the ride over Josh sat perfectly still, staring ahead at the island. Something about his bulky orange life jacket made him look skinnier than ever, and I reminded myself not to let him stay in the water so long that he got cold. I love lake weather, but it never gets hot here the way it does in Florida. Michigan always has a little chill in reserve, ready to throw at you.

When we were close enough that the water was only a couple of feet deep, I asked, “Want to get out?” Josh didn't bother to answer, just jumped over the side. I anchored the boat and got out, too.

The lake bottom around the island is rough and stony. It doesn't make for comfortable wading, but on the south side it slopes down so gradually that it's a good place to practice swimming. That's what I had in mind for Josh next. First, though, we waded around a bit. Trees and brambly undergrowth crowded together, reaching right to the water's edge in a sort of inhospitable way. It was like the island was saying “Keep off,” and it was easy to believe that no one had ever set foot on it. Or had someone? I waded close to the spot where I used to think I could see a path. If there had been one, it was overgrown now. Still, it looked like the most likely spot to begin, whenever I had a chance to explore. I didn't let Josh in on my plan. When I stepped onto the island for the first time, I was going to be alone.

I was planning what I'd need to bring with me when cold water splashed on my back. I turned. Josh had pulled the bailing can from the boat and was filling it with more water to throw at me. He had the biggest smile I'd seen on his face for a long time. “I'll show you!” I called and went after him. We splashed and chased until he'd had enough and yelled “Uncle!” Then I told him we were going to have another swimming lesson.

“I don't need more lessons. I know how to swim now.”

“But you need to know more than one stroke. If you
know the side stroke, you can use it as a kind of resting stroke on a long swim,” I answered.

I can't say he improved any, but at least he tried. After about half an hour, I decided he'd had enough, and I let him wade around and pull up stones. He said he wanted to take one home as a souvenir, but it had to be a special one. He couldn't explain what a “special” one would look like, but he seemed to have no doubt he'd find one. He was still looking when I heard the bell from the cottage. A long time ago Gram had bought a big old bell at a country auction, and she'd had Grandpa mount it on a post down by the pier so she could call him in from the lake when she needed him. Mom said he had grumbled about it but finally admitted it was useful, and from then on he and everyone else had called it “Hazel's telephone.”

“Must be lunchtime,” I said. “Mom's ringing for us.”

Back in the boat I expected Josh to want to row again, but he must have been tired, because he plopped down in the stern without a word. We were about halfway back when he asked me, “Kyle, what were you and Vicki and Andrea talking about this morning?”

“Those people who looked at the cottage,” I said. “They want to buy it so they can tear it down and build a new one on the lot.”

“Why do they want to do that? It's a good cottage.”

“They don't think so.”

“Well, we can all just sit down in the middle and not move, and then they can't tear it down.”

“I wish it were as easy as that,” I answered, careful not to grin.

“You won't let them do it, will you, Kyle?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“What can I do so they won't tear it down?”

I looked at him. His jaw was set the way it is when he's dribbling the ball down the soccer field. It made him look older, somehow. I thought about what he asked. “I know what you can do,” I said. “We're all trying to earn money so Mom won't have to sell. You can catch crickets.”

“Crickets?” He looked a little uncertain.

“Sure, I'll show you how to do it. You can use Gram's old cricket cage, and after you've caught a bunch, I'll sell them to Clyde Stemm for you.”

“I want to sell them myself. They're my crickets.”

“Not until you catch them, they aren't.” This time I did grin at him.

When we reached the pier, I tried to show him how I tie the boat up with a half hitch at each end. But he'd listened to me enough for one day. His mind was on crickets.

Up at the cottage Mom had tuna salad sandwiches and tomato soup ready. As soon as Andrea saw me come into the kitchen, she shook her head at me, moving her eyes in Mom's direction. She was telling me not to ask anything. It was a quiet meal. Even Josh seemed solemn. Finally Mom shook her head, like she was coming out of a daydream. “How was the rowing lesson?” she asked.

“Me and Kyle had a great time, didn't we?” Josh said.

“Kyle and I,” Mom said automatically. Whenever we make a grammar mistake, she always repeats what we said the correct way, and then we say it right after her. Her heart didn't really seem in it today, but Josh went ahead and corrected himself.

“Kyle and I,” he said. “I'm getting real good, aren't I, Kyle?”

“Pretty good,” I answered.

“Andrea and I are going to swim out to Marshalls' float and hang around there for a while this afternoon,” Vicki said. “Want to come along, Kyle?”

She didn't sound too enthusiastic about having me join them. “Nope,” I answered. “Even if Jeff and Brad have their braces off, they're a couple of snobs as far as I'm concerned.”

“They are not!”

“I said, as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to think
so if you don't want. But I know them better than you.” A couple of summers ago I'd hung out with those guys, till I finally figured out that if they couldn't brag about all the things their family owns, they wouldn't have any conversation at all. Vicki would just have to learn that for herself.

Mom had sort of dropped out of the conversation again. Maybe she really was thinking hard. “I'm going to lie down for a while,” she said now, pushing back her chair.

It was Andrea's turn to do the dishes, so she started clearing the table.

“Come on, Josh, let's get the cricket cage,” I said.

Two hours and twenty-three crickets later, Josh lost interest. I told him to go get some lettuce to put in the cage and to be sure to keep the cage in the shade. Clyde Stemm wouldn't pay for fried crickets.

After the crickets, Josh talked Andrea into playing Crazy Eights. I got out the push mower and did the bit of lawn between the bottom of the hill and the lake edge. Then I lay down on the pier to sun myself a little, and I fell asleep. It's a good thing I don't burn easily like Vicki does, because I slept for quite a while, I guess. Andrea woke me up by scooping up some water and dribbling it on my back.

“Supper's finally ready. It's way late,” she said. “But first Mom wants to talk to us.”

We climbed the steps together. “Has she decided?” I asked.

“I think so,” Andrea said. “But I don't know which way.”

Mom was sitting in the rocker on the porch. Andrea and I dropped down on my bed. Vicki took the other rocker, and Josh sat on the floor, leaning back against the bed.

Mom took a deep breath. “I've decided to turn down the offer,” she said.

Vicki ran over and hugged Mom. Andrea clapped. I sat up and rumpled Josh's hair. “Hear that?” I asked him. “Mom's not going to let the Thompsons tear the cottage down.”

“However,” Mom said, rubbing the back of her neck. “The cottage is still for sale. It's my hope that a family will buy it, a family who will love it as much as we have. You kids will have to accept that. This is our last summer here, so enjoy it as much as you can.”

I scowled. Why did she have to say that?

“I don't want you to think,” she went on, “that this changes anything. I'm still determined to sell. It's just that I couldn't bear to see it torn down.”

After that, there wasn't much to say. I didn't know how I felt as we sat down to eat. Sure, the cottage was saved temporarily, but Mom was right. Nothing had really changed.

NOT MUCH HAPPENED THE NEXT
couple weeks as far as the cottage was concerned. Nobody else came to look at it, and I began to hope nobody would. Maybe everyone was like the Thompsons and wanted something fancier, more up-to-date. I'll admit, I wouldn't have minded having running water and a bathroom instead of the outhouse, but those things weren't a big deal to me. Why complain about pumping buckets of water or spending a few minutes in an outhouse if you got fishing and swimming and a view of the lake in exchange?

Once or twice on weekends, a strange car or two would drive down the road and slow down by the “For Sale” sign. Then I'd worry for a couple hours, but when no telephone call came, I'd relax again. My worry didn't go away then, but it kind of subsided, the way a dog will lie down and just growl low in his throat when he decides he can quit
barking now. When those cars went by, I'd sometimes consider writing Dad again, but I always decided against it. Andrea and Vicki wrote him, though. So did Mom. Even Josh did. Someone was always asking me if I wanted to add a P.S. Mom drove into Cassopolis every day to send everyone's letters and check for mail at the post office there. But she always came back empty-handed. Big surprise.

In the meantime, I was earning money. Every afternoon I'd take my worms and night crawlers and Josh's crickets down to Clyde's. Mornings with Tom Butler had settled into a routine. I'd go by his cottage around five, and he'd be waiting. By the second week I was staying for breakfast with him when we came in from the lake. “Don't like to eat alone,” he said when he suggested it. While he made the food, I'd weed his flower bed or bury his garbage across the road or rake his parking area, whatever he wanted that day. It meant more money, and it was nice of him to feed me, I guess, but I was kind of uncomfortable about it.

It was the way he ate. Not just that he ate a lot (he did), but also he ate as if he was afraid someone would grab his plate away from him. He'd sit down to four eggs, six pieces of toast, half a pound of bacon and a quart of orange juice, and he'd be finished eating most of it before I had time to eat one egg and a piece of toast. Then he'd pour himself a
big bowl of cereal and eat a couple of doughnuts. He didn't chew with his mouth open or anything gross like that, but he kind of grunted as he ate, and he chewed so fast you didn't see how he had time to swallow. He never talked, so I don't know why he wanted me there, but after he'd finished everything on the table, he'd go over to the stove, pour himself a cup of coffee, and fill the cup with sugar and cream. I did the dishes (I thought I should, since the food was free), and while I did, he'd sit and read the paper.

When I'd finished I'd hang up the dish towel and say, “So long,” or something like that, and he'd just make a little noise in his throat, not even looking up at me.

I liked going out with him, though. For one thing, I was learning a lot more about where the fish hang out. When we got in the boat each morning, I'd ask, “Which way?”

Then he'd make his longest speech of the day—something like, “It's pretty cloudy. Bluegills will be close to the surface. Let's go down by the channel.” And no matter where we went, we almost always did well.

I was still thinking about him one morning when I got back to the cottage. Mom was in the kitchen by herself. “You look serious,” she said. “Something bothering you?”

“Not bothering me,” I said. “Just making me wonder. Was Tom Butler always so fat?”

She kind of tucked her lips in, the way she sometimes does when she's thinking. “Fat? No, not always, I don't think. Why?”

“It's just—well, some people, I guess, they can't help being fat. But he could. You should see the way he eats. Dad would have a fit. It's disgusting.”

“Disgusting?”

“How much, I mean. And he's always eating—I mean all the time. Every morning out in the boat he eats doughnuts or cookies, and then he comes in and has this humongous breakfast.”

“And you think that's wrong?”

“Well, it's not healthy, is it, to be so fat?”

“No, I guess not. But people do strange things sometimes. Maybe he's eating because he misses Mary Ann. People sometimes eat when they're lonely.”

“But he was fat before she died,” I pointed out.

“That's true,” Mom admitted. “Why does his eating bother you so much?”

“Because—” I stopped. How could I explain that Tom acted like he never had enough, he was never
full
. I wouldn't be surprised if he got up and ate in the middle of the night. And when I thought that, suddenly I could almost see him sitting in his pajama bottoms and undershirt,
a full plate in front of him, the kitchen all dark except for the lamp shining down on his bald head, his fork moving steadily back and forth, back and forth. I couldn't really see that, of course, but for a minute the image was so clear it was almost real, and so sad I blinked my eyes to chase it away.

I started over. “I just think people should take care of their health,” I said, looking at the pack of cigarettes lying beside Mom on the table. “Besides, it's gross, how much he eats. He should have a little self-control.”

“Judge not, that ye be not judged,” she murmured.

When Mom starts quoting the Bible to you, you might as well give up.

To change the subject, I asked her, “Where are Andrea and Vicki?”

“I think they're taking a walk,” she said. “They shouldn't be gone long.”

“They might have waited for me. They knew I'd be home soon,” I grumbled. “They're always off by themselves these days.”

“They're probably just talking girl talk and think you'll be bored,” Mom said.