Moonpenny Island (12 page)

“Not really.” Flor spins away from the sink. “When I read something good, it's like I'm right inside it. It's all around me, not flat at all.”

“Yeah, but that's you, Flor. That's not me!”

“Well.” Flor's spine goes stiff. “I guess that's true.” She turns back to peer at the field, where her brother is having a dog hallucination.

“I wish Moonpenny School had art! I mean real art, not cutting out paper snowflakes. We didn't even know what we were missing. We—” She breaks off to speak to someone else for a moment. “I have to go. My aunt signed me up for soccer!”

“What! You hate sports.”

“She says soccer will give my self-esteem a boost. Probably it's going to give me a dislocated head.”

“Sylvie. Wait. I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“My mother.” Drip. Drip. “She left.”

“What?”

“I mean, not
left
left. Lita's sick, and she went to help.”

“Oh no. Poor Lita!” Sylvie's voice crumples. “Is she going to be okay?”

“It's just bronchitis. You don't die from that.”

“Oh, whew. That's good!” Sylvie sighs. “You miss your mom, I know. Everything seems really weird
and wrong. You keep thinking she's in the other room, but she's not. Like when the power goes off but you still keep trying to turn on the lights.”

“Exactly.” Flor sags against the sink. As much as she missed her friend before, it was only a tiny teaspoon of missing compared to right now.

“That's how I felt when I first got here! But your mother had to go! And she misses you too. She loves you and Thomas and Cele more than anything. Just keep telling yourself that.”

“You left out my father.”

“What?”

“There's another thing. . . .”

“Okay! Okay!” Sylvie calls to her aunt. To Flor she says, “I'll call tomorrow, same time. I promise!”

“Don't break any bones, okay? Or . . . wait. Maybe if you did, they'd send you home. Maybe just a small . . .”

“Must exit.” Her alien robot voice. And she's gone.

Flor stares at her big ugly feet. She didn't get to tell about taking that ride with Perry. And he must not have called his sister after all, because Sylvie definitely would have said.

The astonishing fact is, Sylvie didn't utter one word about her brother. For the first time since she left, Perry slipped her mind. A Perry-less mind, that's what Sylvie had. Flor's off the hook. She should be relieved.

So how come she's not?

When she turns back to the window, a new sight meets her eyes. Jasper has appeared out of nowhere, and she's playing with Thomas. Jasper swings her arm, and a stick arcs against the cloud-heavy sky. Jasper does not throw like a girl. Definitely not like a one-handed girl. Thomas races across the grass and bounds back with the stick in his mouth. He goes down on all fours, and Jasper pats his head. Flor bangs out the back door.

“Spit that filthy thing out this second! You'll get worms!”

The stick shoots out of his mouth as quick as if Mama herself stood there scolding.

“That's not likely,” says Jasper. This afternoon she wears a knit hat pulled down to her eyes and a tool belt, with hammers and picks and other unidentifiable things dangling like charms on a giant industrial
bracelet. “He looks as if he's very familiar with dirt. Besides, his gut's already colonized by millions of microorganisms.”

“I can't figure out if you're insulting my brother's gut.”

“Why would I do that?” Jasper looks genuinely confused. If she's still offended by Flor, she doesn't act it. She tosses another stick. Her half-empty sleeve swings like a floppy pendulum. Suddenly Thomas morphs back into a boy.

“Where's your arm?” he asks.

Jasper yanks her sweatshirt up over her nose, flicks her eyes from side to side. A trilobite curling up inside its shell, hoping to fool its predators. Flor thinks it again: there cannot be a mother in this picture. A mother would say,
You think you're invisible inside that shirt, but guess what? You're only drawing attention to yourself. And beside, why are you hiding? You're pretty!
A mother would command,
Look, I bought you this nice new shirt in your right size. Put it on this minute
.

“Are you double-jointed?” Thomas asks. “Benjamin, my friend in summer, he could fold his thumb
all the way back. It made his mother scream.”

“Thomas, what did Mama tell you about asking personal questions?”

“Mama's not here.” He flings himself through the tire swing and drags his fingers in the dirt. Jasper's face softens.

“We have that in common,” she tells him.

Flor waits for her to say more, but for once Jasper has no info to impart. So Flor flat out asks.

“I've been wondering about that. Where is your mother?”

The corners of Jasper's mouth curve up. “You just told your brother not to—”

“Okay. Right. Sorry.”

“You're full of contradictions.”

“I am? No, I'm not.”

“My mother's in Chile.” Jasper's smile fades. “Unless she's already back in Central America.”

“What's she doing so far away?”

“She's a renowned paleontologist, specializing in toxodontidae.” Jasper peers at the lake. The water's the color of a beat-up pot. “My parents divorced when I was six, and I rarely see her.”

“I'm six,” says Thomas.

“Statistics show it's better to have two parents. But Father and I adapted nicely.” Jasper tugs her hat so low, how can she even see? Between that hat and the oversize clothes, approximately two percent of this girl is visible. “Besides, my mother made a choice, and . . . it wasn't me. It wasn't us.”

“Mothers are not allowed to do that.”

“I've said it before and I'll say it again. You aren't very observant. My mother did do it!”

“I know, but—”

“When I was small, I required extra care. Even more than the . . . the average child.” Jasper pauses. She's busy clearing her throat for quite a while. “Did you know Charles Darwin was the first to uncover toxodon fossils?
Toxodon platensis
lived during the Pleistocene period and resembled a hippo or rhino, with a large snout and curved teeth. Its habitat was South America, and its study requires travel to remote terrain.” She tugs her hat even lower. “You know who Charles Darwin was.”

“I said I did.” Flor puts her hands in her pockets. “But I don't.”

“He sailed around the world on the H.M.S.
Beagle
, exploring and collecting specimens. Back in the eighteen hundreds, most people believed that God was done creating, but Darwin proved that new species appear all the time. For example, he found that the finches of the Galápagos Islands, who all started out the same, evolved to have different kinds of beaks. Fat beaks, thin beaks, curved or straight beaks, depending on what they needed to survive and flourish. For example, some ate seeds. But others . . .”

Flor only half listens. How could Jasper's mother choose prehistoric roadkill over her and Dr. Fife? Her heart must be cold. Colder than the swim hole. What mother abandons her family for any reason whatsoever in this world? Flor watches her brother drag his feet and hands in the filthy dirt.

“She made a huge mistake.” She interrupts Jasper. “I mean, colossal. Your renowned mother.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.” The sun breaks through a cloud, and Jasper's ginger-ale-colored hair fizzes in the light. “Thank you.”

“Maybe she'll change her mind and come back.”

“It's been five years.”

“Still!”

“All evidence is to the contrary. Your hypothesis is not supported.”

How strange she is! Like one of those kids raised in a forest by wolves. Only for her, it's a white-bearded guy in love with extinct creatures. Jasper picks up a rock, flips it with a quick jab of her chin, judges it worthless, and tosses it away.

“Charles Darwin was shy. He preferred to observe the world rather than have it observe him.” She leans down to scratch Thomas's head. “Good dog!”

“Ruff ruff!”

She clanks out of sight.

C
ecilia still isn't home at suppertime. Never, ever has she been late without calling. “What kind of teenager is so good?” Mama always teased. “Just once, be bad!
¡Vaya, sea malita!
Break some rules! Have a little fun!”

People should be careful what they wish for.

The three of them are staring glumly at their meatballs, which to tell the truth taste of freezer burn. Thomas puts one on the floor for his dog, and Dad doesn't even notice. When the phone rings, Flor races to answer.

“Tell him I'm studying with Lauren Long.” Click. Cecilia's gone.

“Cele's studying with Lauren Long.”

“See?” Dad gets up to clear the table. “Nothing to worry about. Not with our Saint Cele.”

Could he be more aggravating? Doesn't he notice who cooked the spaghetti? Who, when Cecilia still doesn't appear, forces Thomas to peel off his clothes, only to discover that he's wearing three sets of underpants on top of each other, his translation of “put on clean underwear”? Who makes him get in a tub that immediately turns the color of ditch water? Does their father have eyes in his head? If he isn't careful, Flor will begin to yell at him, just like Mama did.

Does.

It's raining, but when Cecilia finally comes home, she's dry as dry can be. Beyond dry—she's a pile of kindling that will burst into flame at the hint of a match. Studying with Lauren must have been very stimulating. Dad asks if she's hungry, further proof he has no clue, because when was the last time he saw Cecilia eat, really eat? He actually looks sympathetic when she groans that she still has a ton of homework,
heads for her closet, and shuts the door.

Only Flor seems to notice that it's Friday night. Or that her backpack full of books still sits on the kitchen floor.

The rain is mean. Mean like cruel and mean like this means change is coming. Flor's still awake, listening to it throw itself against the windows, when Dad climbs the stairs. Within minutes, the
ffft ffft
of his snoring blends with the sound of the rain.

For once Thomas is in his own bed, and her room's so lonesome it's like even she isn't there. Dragging her pillow and covers out onto the landing, she opens her book. Anne Shirley's having trouble with one of her boy students, but it breaks her heart to discipline him. Anne makes so many mistakes herself! She's always rushing headlong, and feeling things with trembling intensity, and letting her imagination run completely, insanely wild. She reads her students fairy tales and takes them rambling through the woods. Mrs. Defoe could take a lesson here.

“De foe,” Joe called her today. “De opposite of de friend.”

The rain is on a mission to soak every inch of the
island. Flor thinks of Joe and Jocelyn and the many Hawkinses crammed into their falling-down house. She thinks of Mrs. Defoe, asleep between brown sheets. Thinks of Jasper and Dr. Fife in their room with the slanted roof, their beds like islands in a sea of fossils. She thinks of Jasper's mother, camped out in some remote forest, and of Charles Darwin, sailing from one exotic, rocky island to another. Finches. What did Jasper say about finches?

She won't think about Mama. Won't.

Huddled in her pile of covers, Flor's an island herself. The rain is the sea, slapping her shores, washing over her rocks. Is that a boat on the horizon, sails rustling, a woman peering at her through a telescope? The woman waves. She murmurs Flor's name.

“Flor.”

When Flor opens her eyes, her sister's face is an inch away.

“Aren't you starving?” Cele whispers. “Come on.”

They tiptoe down the stairs. Cecilia snaps on the kitchen light and starts pulling things out of the fridge. Plops a chunk of butter in a skillet. Cracks four eggs, whisks them with cream. As the eggs sizzle,
she throws in cheese and shakes on the hot sauce they both love. Her wrist is a perfect golden hinge. After days of unrelenting tomato sauce, the smell is so delicious Flor can hardly stand it. You'd think they'd wake their father, but nothing ever does. “That's the sleep of a man with a clean conscience,” Mama says.

Toast. More butter. The delectable rose-hip jelly Two Sisters sells at the end of summer. They don't even bother with plates but eat right out of the skillet. Cecilia shovels it in like a girl who hasn't eaten in forever. The two of them together. It feels nice. It feels so snug and nice. Cecilia smiles at Flor.

“Thanks for covering for me.”

Mouth gluey with toast, Flor shakes her head. Cecilia sets down her fork.

“You didn't?”

“I just told him what you said.”

The wet, black window reflects two close-together heads. One—the pretty one—draws back.