Moonpenny Island (22 page)

She is saved.

Perry Pinch has her by the shoulders. He lets loose a string of curses, some words Flor has never even heard, then hugs her till her bones flatten. Face against his broad chest, Flor may hear him say “Sylvie.” But her ears, not to mention every other part of her, are so waterlogged, how can she be sure?

“Oh my God.” Cecilia can't stop saying it as Perry
peels off his jacket and wraps it around Flor. No human ever shivered this hard. Her head may shake off. Someone lined her mouth with tiny castanets. Water streams out her nose and ears and all of a sudden her mouth, a stinking, puking stream that lands on Perry's feet.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

“We gotta get you home,” he says. “I'll go warm up the truck.”

He disappears through the cattails. Cecilia's still crying, shaking her head, saying, Oh, Flor, what were you doing? You are so crazy, you followed us out here, what were you thinking? And then she gives a sob, a sob so big and hard it nearly knocks them both over.

“Flor! I was so scared you'd die!”

“Me too.”

That makes Cecilia cry even harder. Flor grabs her sister's ice-cold hand.

“But I didn't. And I won't. I promise, Cele! Not ever! And I won't let you die either.”

“Oh my God, you are crazy crazy
loca
. I love you so much.”

No one talks as Perry drives them home. The
heater blasts, but still Flor shivers. When he stops in front of the house, Flor takes off his jacket and gives it back. The end. The air is dense with it. In spite of how hard Flor tried, something died after all, and they all feel it. The second Flor and Cecilia get out, Perry speeds away.

Dad doesn't wake up. For once, Flor is glad. Tonight she's sneaking in too. A secret life—she owns one now too. Tiptoe up the stairs, step around three empty milk glasses and a plate of cookie crumbs. Was it really tonight they all played Town?

Not daring to take a shower, she staggers into her room, peels off her wet, muddy jeans, and pulls on sweatpants. Her skin smells like lake. She's all fumbles, her arms and legs so heavy. Cecilia appears in the doorway and stands there like she's waiting for permission to come in, which is, for sure, a first.

“What?” whispers Flor, and her sister sits next to her on the bed.

“Why'd you do that?”

“To save you.”

“Save me!” Cecilia looks astonished. “From what?”

How can Cecilia ask? Flor would like to bite her. Sink her teeth into her sister's arm till she tastes hot blood.

“What do you think?” she cries, then lowers her voice to a hiss. “Save you! From him!”

Cecilia leans back on her hands. Laughs a jangly laugh.

Flor jumps up, furious. Furious! What's worse, humiliated. How could she think that saving Cecilia would make her sister love her forever, with a love that never wobbled or changed? That Cecilia would be so grateful she'd never leave? Instead, her sister's laughing in her face.

Maybe
Flor
should run away. Maybe she will! She stomps toward the door, but Cecilia catches the hem of her sleeve. Flor keeps going, and the sleeve stretches and stretches. Her big sister reels her in, for the second time tonight.

“I'm sorry.” She pulls Flor down beside her. “Listen. You did save me. But not from him.”

“You are in shock,” Flor informs her.

Cecilia pulls the comforter off the bed and wraps it around them both. She tells Flor that Perry was
breaking up with her. Not the other way around. They're no good for each other. At first they were. At first it was so wonderful, Cecilia felt like she died and came back as someone else, and he said she made him feel the same way, and when he kissed her . . .

Cecilia rests her cheek on Flor's shoulder. She's quiet for a long time.

“The swim hole,” she says at last. “That was our special, secret place. Our own world, where we could be those two new people. Not smart goody-goody Cecilia and troublemaker Perry, but just us. We could get away from everything and everybody and just be.”

But then the arguments started. Perry was smart, way smarter than people gave him credit for, and Cecilia tried to convince him to take school seriously. He said she sounded like everyone else, and why couldn't she just love him for who he was? The last thing he needed was another person trying to change him. She was the one good at school, not him. So they'd argue and make up and argue and . . .

“People say opposites attract.” Cecilia's face is like one of the complicated knots fishermen tie. “And they do. But for Perry and me, it turns out, just for a while.”

Mama and Dad. Flor shivers and clutches the comforter. What if that's true for them too?

“Arguing made me so miserable so deep down, I wanted to break up too. But . . . I wasn't brave enough. I hate to make mistakes. It's a bad way to be. You never learn anything, trying to be perfect.” Cecilia takes Flor's hand, lifts her fingers one by one. “Perry's way smarter and braver than me. He knew we were only making each other sad. He said he'd already made enough people in his life sad, and he wasn't going to do it anymore.”

Flor's heart slides sideways in her chest. She feels it bump against something. Hate—the hate she's cherished for Perry Pinch IV. Flor feels her heart bump against it, feels the hate break into tiny bits. That hurts. Hating someone becomes a habit as sure as loving him does. Letting go of a feeling, even a terrible one—it's hard. It hurts.

“I guess I got it all wrong,” she whispers.

But Cecilia pulls the comforter closer around them, and her breath warms Flor's cheek. As if the hating was keeping her cold, Flor begins to feel warmer all through.

“Me too,” Cele says. “I got it wrong too. Really,
Flor? You didn't save me from him. You saved me from me.”

The scent of wild roses, the smell of new pencils, the smell of Cecilia—Flor breathes it in. If she saved her sister from anything, anything at all, she is glad.

“Something else.” Cecilia's voice teeters. “I didn't want to break up because . . . because I don't want to feel all alone.”

Their heads tilt together.

“Me either,” Flor whispers.

“You're not.”

“You're not either.”

“I know. I found out.”

F
lor waits all day long, till late afternoon. The chilly air buzzes with chain saws, and the ground is deep in leaves. Every tree is bare now, the afternoon light waterfalling through the branches. She rides past the damaged ferry landing, where a crew is hard at work, past Two Sisters, where a sign says
SORRY—OUT OF MILK AND BREAD
, past the Cockeyed Gull, where Violet sits on the bench, Minnie at her feet. Around the island she pedals, past the school, where the fallen branches are neatly bundled and tied and where Joe and his father climb the front
steps, carrying toolboxes. Mr. Hawkins's step is sure and steady. When Joe spies her, he points to the clock tower. Gives her a thumbs-up. Flor waves back so wildly she almost rides into a tree.

Cecilia's cell phone is in her backpack. A one-time-only loan. And when Flor figures orchestra practice (what is a bassoon, anyway?) and soccer practice and tutoring and whatever else Sylvie does on Saturdays have to be over by now, when, the truth is, she just can't stand to wait one more second, Flor gets off her bike. The rocks on the shore are still wet, so she doesn't sit down, just stands on top of one, facing the distant, distant mainland, and calls her best friend's number.

The phone barely gets the chance to ring.

“You!”

“You!”

And then perfectly in synch, like they practiced, like two halves of one and the same person, they cry, “Sorry!”

“I should've told you everything before,” babbles Sylvie.

“I was so sad!” babbles Flor. “After you left I
thought I would die. I mean, for real.”

“I'm sorry!”

“But you're not really, are you? Sorry? Because it's better for you there. It is, isn't it?”

Sylvie doesn't answer.

“I get it, Sylvie. I get it now, and it's okay. You don't have to be sorry. It's good you went. And you're becoming a sculptor. That's so awesome. It wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed here.”

“Do you really mean that?”

Flor clutches the phone. Nods. Sylvie hears the nod.

“So you're really not mad.”

“Everybody wants something,” Flor says. “I mean, you can't map the ways of the heart, but maybe you can. Everybody wants something big and beautiful.”

“You're really not mad!” cries Sylvie.

Out of nowhere, Flossie Magruder steals up beside Flor. She flicks her ragged ear, makes a rusty sound that could be a purr or a growl. Back in the day, whenever they got to make a wish, Flor and Sylvie would wish to understand the language of animals. That was once the biggest, best wish they could think of. Flor bends and pets the old cat.

“I'm mad,” she says. “But not at you.”

“That night I fell down the stairs, something snapped inside me. I could actually feel it. I thought I heard it! Not a real bone, but some part of me I didn't know was in there. And then I felt something else grow in its place, something stronger and tougher. Do you think that's possible, to grow a bone or a muscle you didn't have before?”

“I'll ask Dr. Fife.”

Flossie weaves between her legs. Out on the choppy bay, a bobbing, beady-eyed cormorant disappears,
zoop!
Now you see him, now you don't. The day Sylvie announced she was going away to school, they watched one of those big greedy birds, maybe the very same one, watched and waited, counting the seconds till he came back up. That was so long ago! Uncountable seconds ago. Remembering, Flor feels like she's looking back at someone else, two someone elses, not the Flor and Sylvie talking to each other now. She thought she knew everything there was to know about herself and Sylvie, but now she thinks maybe the real trick of seeing, the kind of seeing humans could really use, is the kind that lets you see
through someone else's eyes.

“I'm glad you're sticking up for yourself,” she tells Sylvie. “You learned that from me, you know.”

“You are my best friend.” Sylvie's voice trembles. “I will never, ever, even if I live to be a hundred, have a friend half as good as you.”

“Me either.”

“Not even one sixteenth.”

“Not one billionth.”

“Trillionth.”

“Gazillionth.”

Flossie purrs. It is, for sure, a purr. Out on the water, the cormorant—the flightful cormorant—surfaces. His skinny head gleams. Water drips from his long, pointy beak. Rays of sun zap each drop, spark spark sparkle.

M
ama is coming on the next ferry. This is for sure.

What's not is: will she stay?

They all drive to meet her. Along the back shore road and down Moonpenny. The clock tower says 1:09. Flor resets the car's clock by it.

Flor has her fossils in the pocket of her jacket. Since the night they accompanied her to the bottom of the bottomless quarry, she's carried them with her everywhere.

The
Patricia Irene
is a dot on the bay, still more
the idea of a ferry than the real thing.

The day is so bright, it's hard to believe there's such a thing as the dark. Sunshine hits the asphalt, ricochets. Light tap-dances across the water, radiates from the yellow wood of the new pilings. Jasper and Dr. Fife are already there.

“It's the perfect day to travel!” Dr. Fife's blue eyes twinkle. He and Jasper are leaving on the exact ferry bringing Mama back. The ferry goes round and round, never getting anywhere, but what would they do without it? It's another kind of humble hero.

Boxes of specimens, marked
FRAGILE THIS SIDE UP
, are heaped on the dock. Jasper wears her work boots and an enormous jacket. No hat today. Her carbonated hair fizzes in the sunlight.