The Different Girl (15 page)

“A rain trap!” said Caroline.

“And just in time,” said Irene. “Because there’s going to be another storm.”

9.

There was a time
of the year when storms came more often, but two so close together was unusual. Irene called out for Robbert. When he called back, everyone had to search to find where the sound was coming from.

“Under here!” he called again, and we saw him on his hands and knees behind the classroom steps. He made a big grunting sound and a large blue plastic barrel appeared. Robbert shoved the barrel into the courtyard—yelling for us to get out of the way—and then scrambled up in front of the barrel to stop its roll.

Everyone spent the rest of the day setting up Caroline’s rain trap. First the barrel was cleaned with an orange powder that Robbert mixed with water, changing it to a bright gel he rubbed over the inside of the barrel. We thought he would then have to waste water to rinse it off, but he said that we could just filter any rainwater that the barrel caught—which we had to do anyway, because of the sky—and it would strain out the orange chemicals. After this everyone helped to hang the canvas on the slanted edge of the kitchen roof, which meant Robbert and Irene getting on the roof and all four of us holding the canvas as best we could down below. The roof made all kinds of creaking noises when they walked and both their faces got red while they worked, from the sun and the effort. Eventually they came down and we attached the ends of the canvas, which had been tied into a tube with nylon rope, to the barrel. Irene cut a new plastic lid for the barrel. It had a hole for the canvas tube but was otherwise tight so the water wouldn’t evaporate (because that was the reason to make a rain trap).

They went back on the roof to make sure of all the nails and ties. Irene reached toward Robbert and tapped twice with her hammer. He looked up, but she only nodded past him. I thought this was just like Caroline telling me where the plank had been buried, so even when Robbert didn’t turn to look—maybe he didn’t understand her signal—I did. I couldn’t see anything. Then I realized that Irene could see farther from the roof than I could from the ground. And because I was watching I saw that Robbert did look a minute later, even though he still didn’t say anything.

I looked again and saw a dark shape in the grass that hadn’t been there before and I guessed it was May, the black of her hair just visible as she watched what we were doing. I wanted to wave, but didn’t, because neither Irene nor Robbert had done anything to let May know she’d been seen. Usually we all liked to be seen—because we liked being together—but Robbert and Irene wanted to look at May without her running away, even if she still planned to leave again after her peeking. But seeing May in the grass meant she hadn’t fallen off the cliff or into the ocean, and meant she’d walked by the new tubs of rice—that she’d at least had a cold breakfast instead of nothing at all.

Worrying about May’s breakfast only made me worry more about the storm, because she didn’t know one was coming. I knew how dangerous it was to be caught outside, and I didn’t understand why Irene and Robbert hadn’t shouted
that
to her, to let her know. Of course in school they let us discover things for ourselves, so I supposed they were content to wait for the clouds to form, or even for the rain to start falling—so the decision to come back inside was one May made without anyone giving her the answer. But what if, once the rain started, May couldn’t come back even if she wanted? What if the rocks were too slippery? What if she got too wet? What if the wind blew her over? What if she fell and no one heard her call for help?

I began to walk up the hill.

“Where are you going?” called Isobel.

“May doesn’t know about the storm.”

The others didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t have known, either—whether to follow or to call out to Irene and Robbert or whether to keep quiet. By the time I’d reached the path, they’d all seen May, too. Behind me the hammering had stopped, but Robbert and Irene didn’t call out. As I came near, what had been a shadow became a face, with two bright eyes. This time I waved. May didn’t wave back, but she didn’t run, either. Since she was faster, maybe she thought she could run whenever she liked.

May rose halfway, hunched like she was ready, so I stopped.

“How are you feeling, May?”

May looked past me and I glanced back. Caroline, Eleanor, and Isobel had followed, but just to the foot of the meadow path. Robbert and Irene watched from the roof.

“Everyone is worried, May. We thought you might have been hurt.”

May shrugged, as if to say she wasn’t hurt, and didn’t care about our worry, either.

“Can I come closer?” I asked. “I need to tell you something. If you get scared, you can always push me over again.”

“I said I was sorry.” May didn’t say anything else, so I came nearer.

“Did you enjoy the rice?”

“What are they doing?”

“Making a rain trap.”

“Why?”

“To catch water.”

“Why
now
?”

“Because there’s going to be another storm.”

“When?”

“Soon. You should come inside with us. It isn’t safe where you are.”

“You don’t know where I am. No one does.”

“But inside it will be warm. We’ll make soup and hot tea.”

May shrugged.

“You’ll be cold.” I took another step and May drifted backward.

“What is wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”

“It’s them.” She meant Robbert and Irene. “They’re going to hand me over.”

“They won’t,” I said.

“They will. I heard them. You don’t know what would happen.”

“What would happen, May?”

“They know. Everyone knows. Will had seen it. That’s why we were so careful. You have to be careful. You can’t just meet people.”

Her words were like islands, just the visible tips of mountains underneath.

“But I’ve thought about it, May. They can’t send you away. You’ve seen us.”

May glared downhill. “Then that’s even worse.”

I could see her chin shake, how ready she was to run. But to where, and for how long?

“Come with me, May. Let’s take a walk, just us.”

I held out my hand. May didn’t say anything, but when I took another step she didn’t run. I kept going until she was near enough to take my hand, even though she didn’t. But that was fine. I started to walk up the hill. May walked with me, and neither of us looked back.

• • •

While I was worried I would say the wrong thing and May might really push me down—and not on soft sand but on hard rocks or even near the cliff—I had other thoughts that kept me walking.

“Do you think about your uncle Will and Cat?”

May’s eyes went darker. “Why?”

“Because I think we feel the same.”

“No we don’t. You
can’t
feel like I do.”

But I shook my head and explained what Robbert had told us, about the two planes and the explosion and our parents and the people who would be very frightened and angry if they found us. “Just like you were frightened. You saw me and you screamed.”

“You can’t blame me for that. Anyone would have.” May’s eyes focused on her feet as we walked, but she also peeked over, like she was trying to see me for the first time all over again. I stopped walking and let her look.

“I’m your friend. I’m a girl like you.”

May glanced back down the hill. The other three were where they’d been, still watching. I waved to them, and they waved back.

“Why do you do that?” May asked.
“Wave.”

“Irene says that saying hello is a nice way to make sure everyone is okay. Waving says ‘I see you’—and when someone sees you, it tells you where you are.”

“I know where I am.”

“But where is that, May? Where is that without anyone to help you?”

She looked like she wanted to push me.

“I heard them!” she shouted. “Of course she’s going to tell! Of course they’ll come! We can’t take the chance!”

May made a croaking sound in her throat and spat, stabbing her head forward to send the spit as far as possible. I had almost never seen anyone spit, and didn’t know that it could be another kind of speaking, angry and hard.

“They were worried, May, because of the explosion that happened with our parents. And because of the plank with three holes.”

“‘We can’t take the chance!’” May shouted, and swatted at the grass with her feet. “What do you think that
means
?”

I braced myself to be kicked like the grass, but May didn’t come near me. She stumbled farther up the hill and angrily swung her arm as if it could push us all away.

“But the boat hasn’t come, May.” It was important for her to know. “That’s why we need the rain trap. Because we don’t know when there will be more supplies. There may never be a boat again.”

“It doesn’t matter!” called May, retreating farther.

“But what about the storm? May! You won’t be safe!”

May broke into a run. I tried to follow, but I moved too slowly. I had only gone a few yards before she was lost between the trees. She hadn’t understood me at all. I needed to explain how she was wrong.

I turned to something touching my arm. It was Robbert. I hadn’t heard him. Had May?

“Let her go, Veronika. We have to get back.”

“But she might get hurt.”

“May will be fine. She knows she can come back any time. She knows you’re her friend.”

“She thinks you and Irene want to put her on the boat.”

“Is that what she said?”

“Or even worse.”

He frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but bad.”

Robbert sighed. “Veronika, you know we only want to help her, don’t you?” I nodded. He gently turned me around and started us both back down the path. “You
know
that. And you can tell her so when you next speak. But now we have to go home.”

“But May—”

“Look at the sky, Veronika.”

I looked. The clouds beyond the beach had become a high dark wall, advancing straight toward the island. Irene and the others were already indoors.

“Quick as you can, now,” said Robbert. The wind had risen, a chilled hiss cutting through the palms.

I went as fast as I could, though downhill is harder than going up. Robbert put a hand on my shoulder. The dark clouds came quickly and the light began to dim.

“Did you finish the rain trap?”

“We did. Let’s hope it holds together.”

I stopped at a sudden, unexpected impact. The center of my smock was darkened by a blotch of wet cotton. A raindrop. I looked up and another spattered on my face. At once Robbert was towering over me, his body shielding mine as he tore at his white coat.

“Don’t move, Veronika. Don’t worry. Tuck in your arms.”

I pulled both arms tight to my sides. Robbert draped his coat over my head and torso. I stood for a moment in soft darkness, and then felt a hand behind my knees and another across my back. The raindrops probed against the coat, isolated taps growing into a ragged, continuous volley. Robbert grunted with the effort of lifting me, and I shook with the heavy lurch of his steps. I felt the thud of his feet on the grass and then the harder surface of the stairs. The rain slapped on the porch. The wet coat clung to my body. The screen door wheezed and then we were inside, Irene helping to set me down and both of them wiping me with warm towels and making sure I was fine.

The others were on their cots, asleep. Outside the rainfall grew to a roar. It had happened so fast. I hoped May had reached her hiding place, and I hoped it kept her dry.

• • •

Every few weeks—the exact time depended on what we’d been doing, especially how much time we’d spent near the beach—Irene and Robbert would talk to each of us alone, asking simple questions and making us do all sorts of simple things, like moving our arms in different directions, picking up objects of different weight, making different sounds, and that was just the start. This was called “basic diagnostics.” On the shelf in the classroom were four blue binders, one for each of us, where the details of every basic diagnostic had been noted down, all the way back to our beginning.

After they made sure I was dry, Irene asked me diagnostic questions, and when I was able to answer they had me walk across the room and move my arms and legs and lift things and read small type and identify sounds they made behind my back. When I did all of it, just like always, Robbert let out a big sigh and sank onto a chair. He ran his fingers through his hair and asked Irene if she wanted any tea, which was also his way of asking Irene if she would make it. I offered to make it instead, but Irene was already filling the kettle from the filter. She set the pot on the cooker and lit the blue gas ring.

Before she sat in her own chair, Irene turned out the kitchen light. This only left the glow from the gas ring, which gave a faint halo to each of their heads. I looked at my bare arms and saw them both reflect pale blue. Outside, the rain fell hard as before, and the wind pressed tight against the glass.

“Primitive man around the fire,” said Robbert.

“Stop it,” said Irene.

“Irene likes to listen to sounds in the dark,” I said.

Robbert nodded. “I know.”

I wondered when they would put me to bed with the others. I didn’t want them to. The water began to hiss inside the kettle.

“What did you say to May?” Irene asked me, but at the very same time I had a question of my own.

“What is primitive?”

Our words overlapped, but since Irene’s questions were always important I began to tell them everything I had said to May and what May had said back. I wasn’t sure how they would react to the part where May got so angry—about overhearing Robbert and Irene—but since I didn’t understand that either, I hoped they would explain it. I also wasn’t sure about my telling May about the explosion, but again it seemed like she needed to know how we shared losing parents—that being the same was the best way for her to trust me.

“It’s good to know she isn’t hurt,” said Irene, after I finished.

“But will she be hurt in the storm?” I asked.