Moonpenny Island (15 page)

“Thanks for everything,” she says.

At home, Thomas rushes to her, his face panicked.

“Where'd you go?” he demands.

Why should she tell her little brother where she was? It's her life!

“To the store.”

She's getting like Cele! No. No she is not.

“Then where's the food?”

“Look.” She grabs her backpack and pulls out the treats she carries for Violet's dog. “I got this for Petey!”

Thomas bursts out crying. The tears cut tracks down his grubby cheeks.

“Petey's lost! I can't find him no place!”

Flor finally notices—the house is a wreck. The couch and chair cushions are on the floor. The kitchen cupboards stand open, pots and pans strewn around. Somebody yanked every coat and jacket out of the hall closet and tossed around the winter boots.
How can you tell?
she wants to ask her brother.
How do you know when something invisible disappears?

“Did you look upstairs?” she hears herself say.

“I looked every place!” Thomas mashes his face into her stomach. “He ran away!”

“No,” she says, stroking his hair. “Petey would never! He loves you!”

They sit on the rug, Thomas in her lap. Shaking the bag of treats, Flor softly calls, “Petey! Petey, where are you, boy?”

Misty, where are you, girl?

Mama?

Sylvie?

Cele?

“Petey!” She tightens her arm around her brother.
Her voice trembles as she calls, louder and louder. “Come on home, old Pete! What do you think you're doing? Come on back right now, you hear? Right now!”

“I think I hear him,” Thomas whispers. He leans forward. “You hear him, Flor?”

“I think so. Yes, for sure I do.”

Those tiny candles flicker in his big brown eyes.

“He's here!” Thomas leaps off her lap and tears out the door. But a moment later he's back, pressing his snotty cheek against hers.

“You're never going away, right?” he says.

Who does he think he's talking to?

F
lor's book report is due tomorrow and she's barely halfway through
Anne of Avonlea
. For the first time in her life, she has trouble reading. Her mind skids this way and that, so she reads the same sentence a dozen times and still has no idea what it says. This is how reading always is for Sylvie. This is why she'd much rather arrange books into towers than read them.

Last night, she sent Flor a long email. They only talk about once a week now, because Sylvie is so busy dodging soccer balls and being the star of the art club
and learning to speak French like a Parisian mademoiselle. It's better, they agreed, to write emails. Sylvie's have a million typos and mistakes. She's always been a disastrous speller, but last night, Flor could tell she wrote with approximately one-eighth of her brain.

Plus, the font was bright green instead of purple.

Still, a couple of lines made Flor smile.

Like: “I finely went for a bike ride. My cosin's bike is a mule not a wild horse.”

And: “I got contacts! I can see to the sides now not just strait ahead. Why didn't you tell me the world is so wide?”

Every day, Flor sends another suggestion for getting sent home from Ridgewood. It's hopeless, but she won't give up. “You are so stubborn!” Mama always tells her. “It's your weakness and your strength, Florita!”

She takes
Anne of Avonlea
outside at recess. She's going to have to skim it, and her report's going to be a disaster. Sitting on a bench, she skips ahead to one of her favorite parts, where Anne, who's expecting important company, intends to rub her nose with antifreckle lotion but by mistake smears on scarlet
red dye. Anne of accidents! Flor laughs out loud.

“What's so funny?”

Joe Hawkins stands beside her. Weighing a good-sized rock in each hand.

“Don't do it,” says Flor.

But he does.
Bonk
. The first rock bounces off the face of the clock and lands in the grass.

“If Mrs. Defoe catches you, your head is history.”

Joe shrugs. The second rock bounces off the face of the clock—
plonk
—and rolls back at their feet. Joe scowls at the tower like it attacked him instead of vice versa.

“I'm not sure what you're trying to do,” she says. “But I'm pretty sure it's not working.”

“Time's not supposed to stand still,” he says, still scowling. “It's supposed to march on.”

What is this? He's sitting down beside her. Pulling a piece of sandpaper out of his pocket, attacking a splinter sticking up between them on the bench. Flor closes her book.

“I don't think bombing the clock will fix it,” she says.

Jocelyn appears, taps them each with her wand
three times, and canters away.

“But I wish somebody would,” Flor goes on. “Fix it, I mean. Because these days, every time I look at it, I swear I hear it say,
Na na the boo boo. Nothing's going to change, so just get used to it
.”

For sure Joe will shrug.

But no.

“I
know
how to fix it.” He'll sand straight through the bench if he keeps it up. “Anyway, I think I do.”

“Really?”

“Ow.” His finger got a sliver. He scowls at it too. He's a scowling machine. “You know anything about that clock?”

“My father says it's right twice a day.”

“Yeah, well, my father says people used to set their watches by it. They were really proud of it, back in the day. It was like a symbol of the island. People used to get their pictures taken in front of it.”

“Like in those old photos outside the office,” says Flor. “Mrs. Defoe's in some of them. She has long curly hair! But you can still tell it's her.”

“A clock guy came over from Cleveland every year to inspect it and clean it. My father would go up
there with him and watch. From up there, you can see across the lake in every direction.”

Jocelyn is back. She wiggles onto the bench between them, sticks her feet straight out in front of her. Joe pretends to sandpaper her head. A small brown bird lands on the clock's hour hand and starts to sing. A big song, for such a pipsqueak bird. Is it a finch?

“My dad says what's wrong could be simple as a worn-out spring. Or maybe one of the weights fell off. He says by now, rain and wind have damaged the wood so bad, it's letting in moisture and causing more damage.”

“Daddy is super smart,” says Jocelyn, folding her hands in her lap.

“When the island hit hard times, they quit hiring the clock expert,” Joe goes on. “The clock slowed down and finally stopped. My dad told the village council he'd watched the guy for years, and he knew he could fix it. He practically begged them to give him the chance. But Mayor Pinch? That sack of cow manure said no.”

“That sack of cow manure!” shouts Jocelyn.

“But that's so stupid,” Flor says. “Why wouldn't they let—”

“Because.” His voice pitches so low, she has to lean across Jocelyn to hear. “They said they don't want him climbing up there. They don't trust . . . He might . . .”

Flor looks back at the tower. It's high. Steep, narrow steps or a ladder—however you got up there, you'd need to be careful. Watch your step. Keep your balance. Have all your wits about you. Her bad dream wings over her, plunging her into its shadow.

“Oh,” she says softly.

“Hey.” Thomas gets into the act, squeezing his way onto the bench next to Jocelyn, who kicks him. He kicks her back. They're having a wonderful time. Joe speaks to Flor over their heads.

“But if I went up there with him, I could, you know. Keep an eye on him. I've watched every YouTube ever made on how old clocks work.” He crumples the sandpaper in his fist. “Between him and me, we could get it going. I know we could.”

“That'd be great. That'd be a service to the whole island.”

“Right?” He pounds his fist on his knee. “And maybe when people looked up at it, they'd think,
Huh. What do you know. Look what those trashy Hawkinses did
.”

“We're not trashy!” yells Jocelyn.

“Yes, you are!” yells Thomas.

They're off, chasing each other across the grass.

“Your dad needs to ask again,” Flor says. “He shouldn't give up. Nobody should, but especially not parents!”

Joe's shoulders start to lift, but Flor pushes them back down.

“You shrug too much.”

Joe's eyes go wide. Flor snatches her hands away and hides them behind her back. Like
that
never happened.

Except that, all through the afternoon, her hands keep remembering the bony-soft feel of him. Untouching him is impossible. Impossible.

Covered casseroles and plates of cookies and brownies pile up on their kitchen table, like after a funeral. Platters of fried chicken, bowls of butterscotch
pudding, canning jars of pickles and tomatoes and plums. Queenie has organized a rotating list of cooks, and when Dad says it's not necessary, she says her left foot it isn't. With all he does for the island, the least they can do is help him and the kids out in their own hour of need!

Dad tells Flor, Cele, and Thomas that they're not in need. Have they got that? They're just fine. But you never insult people who want to help. Remember that, kids.

How often do we look at something and not really see it?

Flor has to talk to Mama. Not just for a few minutes, with the rest of the family eavesdropping, but alone.
People are acting like you died
, she'll say.
They're treating us like half orphans
. When Mama hears that, she'll get so upset, she'll get so angry, she'll jump on the next ferry. And if that doesn't work, Flor will move on to precious baby Thomas.
He's scooting around the house on his bottom, claiming he forgets how to walk. Also, his bed is full of dog biscuits. Also, Dad promised to take him target shooting
. This last isn't true, but so what.

And if all that fails, there is Cecilia.
She's sneaking around, Mama. I know you don't believe me, but it's true. That's how bad things are here. That's how upside down and inside out, Mama!

Obviously she can't say any of this while standing in the kitchen. She's got to talk to Mama in private, but how? Cecilia never lets her cell phone out of her sight. And Flor doesn't know anyone . . .

Wait. Yes she does.

She finds Jasper sitting on the porch of the Red Robin Inn, her nose in a book. When she looks up, she's so startled to see Flor, the book slips from her hand and slides onto the floor. Flor picks it up. A biography of Charles Darwin.

“You really love this guy, don't you?”

“Guess what. He almost didn't become a scientist. His father made him go to medical school. But that was back before they invented anesthesia, and the first time he saw an operation, with buckets of blood and the patient shrieking, Darwin ran out and fainted. Then his father tried to force him to be a minister, but he wasn't any good at that either.”

“Parents!”

“Thank goodness he followed his true heart.” Jasper tugs the hem of her giant sweatshirt and gives a shy smile. “You came here.”

She looks so pleased. Flor swallows.

“I wanted to . . . Can I ask you a favor? Can I borrow your cell phone?”

“Oh. Sure.” Jasper stands up too quickly. “It's upstairs.”

Flor follows her up. The room is even more of a catastrophe than last time she was here. The rocks have taken over. They have conquered. It is the Land of Rocks.

“You probably want privacy,” says Jasper, handing her the cell phone. “I'll wait downstairs.”

Flor dials Lita's number. It rings and rings till the message comes on. Of course she won't pick up, Flor realizes too late. Lita won't recognize the number, and she only answers people she knows.

“It's me!” she squeaks after the beep. “It's Flor. I—”

“Flor!”

Her name! Her name pronounced the proper way. For a split second, Flor thinks Mama picked up, but
no, it's one of the aunts, she's can't tell which, they all sound alike. She sinks into a chair and a rock jabs her butt.

“Hi, Titi. Is Mama there?”

“No,
mija
. Not right now. How are you all doing? Are you all right?”

Flor can tell she's picturing them in their island hut, chomping on bones, wild dogs roaming the streets. The aunts love the city, bustling in and out of each other's houses, babysitting each other's kids so often the baby cousins hardly know which one's their real mother.

“We're okay. We're just fine.” Wait! This isn't what she planned to say. She's supposed to be making Mama come home!

“You're eating? That papa of yours knows nada about food.”

“He's taking good care of us.” Flor can't help it—she can't let Titi badmouth Dad or the island. She has to defend them. Yanking the rock out from under her, she tosses it on the floor. “And just so you know, precious baby Thomas is fine. Don't bother to ask.”