The Different Girl (16 page)

“I don’t know, Veronika. We don’t know where she is. She must have found some place. I hope it’s dry.”

I looked up. Even though Irene’s bedroom was directly above us, I could still hear rain pounding on the roof. “What place could be dry?”

“Maybe she found a cave,” said Robbert.

“Are there caves?” I asked.

“There might be,” Robbert’s pale fingers scratched in his hair. “On the cliffs. A person would have to climb.”

“How could anyone even find them to begin with?”

Robbert smiled. “How do you think, Veronika?”

“By going right to the edge and looking down? Even though that’s too dangerous?”

“How else?” asked Irene.

She leaned forward to watch me thinking, and I knew they both already had the answer—that they’d known about the caves before May had ever arrived. Now it was a problem for me, to imagine a part of the island that had always been there but somehow lay beyond our consideration. I thought of the cliffs, and where May had stood, farther out, looking down.

“By the birds.”

“What about them?” asked Irene.

“The patterns where they fly. From the cliff wall, when they go out of sight. The angles don’t make sense unless there are places down below to stop and then start off again.”

“But why is that a cave?” asked Robbert. “Why not just an outcropping of rock?”

“Because of their speed, and the angles. They have to be going farther in.”

Robbert looked at Irene and smiled.

“That’s very good, Veronika,” she said.

I was glad to see them smile, and also to know that May did have a cave after all, even if she had to share it with birds.

The kettle began to whistle.

“O let me do it,” said Robbert, waving for Irene to stay.

“I’ve set out the green. Only half a scoop.”

Robbert tapped the loose tea from the scoop until he had the right amount, tipped it into the pot, then poured the water in after. I knew he was supposed to warm the pot with water first, and Irene knew I knew because she saw me looking. She shrugged and leaned back again. With the gas turned off, the only glow came from the machines on the counters and shelves, colored pinpricks. But these were faint, and Irene’s face lay in shadow.

“Is it time for you to sleep?”

“Do I need to?”

“You’ve had a very big day. Escaping the storm. Were you frightened?”

“It happened so quickly, and you both were there. Are storms always so fast?”

“Not all of them. Listen to it. What do you hear?”

What I heard first was Robbert getting the teacups, so I turned to face out the window.

“It’s like a finger of the sky,” whispered Irene, “dragging across the world.”

“The sky does not have fingers,” I said.

Irene laughed. Robbert set a steaming teacup near her hand.

“I hope the trap holds up,” he said.

“I wish that girl were indoors.”

Now it was Robbert who shrugged. He sat with his cup. Irene didn’t say anything more until finally Robbert said, “I don’t want anything to happen to her, either.”

“She’s just a child.”

“I know it. Look, I’m going to drink my tea, and then I’m going to the classroom and make sure of the windows. You should double-check upstairs.”

“I will. And then what?”

“I don’t know, Irene. Except this one should say good night.”

“This one” meant me. “Can I wait until you’ve finished your tea?”

“Of course,” said Irene.

I kept my face to the window. I tried to imagine the black sea and a girl struggling in its heaving waves, her body shuddering with cold.

Irene picked up her tea. I heard her blow across the cup to cool it.

• • •

We woke up together. The storm had passed and the sky was back to blue, so bright and rich it bled straight into the sea at the horizon, a giant blue bowl.

The four of us stood with Irene on the beach path, looking out. Robbert was in the classroom, testing if everything still worked. They had been up for hours, if they had slept at all, checking for damage.

When we were putting on our smocks I asked if they had seen May in the night, or any time that morning. Irene said they hadn’t, but that she had walked to the cliff and called for May and left more food where she could find it.

“Are you sure she’s all right?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Veronika. It was a very powerful storm. But the birds survive, and she’s hiding where they do, so I hope we’ll see her soon. She can’t be comfortable.”

I told the others everything while we got dressed and went outside. We wanted to walk to the cliff, but Irene said we weren’t skipping class. We knew perfectly well that class after a storm was always studying what had changed.

Three large palm leaves had blown into the courtyard, and we helped Irene put them in a pile. The day was very hot, without much wind, as if the storm had used it up. I knew there was no barrel of wind that could run out, but thinking like that was a way to imitate Irene, who sometimes described things differently from what they actually were, like saying the sky had fingers. When we were younger we would always ask why—if she said “that took forever” or “hot enough to fry an egg”—because we knew how long it had really taken and that there were nests in the trees where no eggs were being fried. But we sometimes made exaggerated points of our own, to be like her, even though she told us not to try.

Irene wiped the sweat off her neck with a kerchief, folded it over, and then stuck it into the pocket of her dress. She wasn’t wearing her white coat, only an old dress without sleeves that came to her knees. Whenever I saw Irene’s bare arms I thought of how strong they were and how far she could reach. Her skin was a different color than May’s, more reddish from being burnt by the sun, though the parts under her arms weren’t burnt. They were almost as pale as Robbert, who almost always wore his white coat, no matter how hot it was. The paleness under Irene’s arms made me think of the bottom of May’s feet and the palms of her hands, which were lighter, too. I didn’t know if that was because of the sun—I didn’t think anyone got much sun on the bottoms of their feet, but May’s hands were in the sunlight all the time. The four of us didn’t change color at all, even if we went outside without our smocks.

Irene shaded her eyes with both hands and studied the water. We were looking at the beach. Fresh footprints went off from where we stood in either direction.

“Have you already been here?”

She looked down at me. “We had a quick look.”

“Maybe we’ll find something you didn’t,” said Caroline.

“Because you’re good at finding?” asked Irene.

“That’s our job,” said Eleanor.

We walked together, all five in one direction—toward where I’d found May—keeping on past where Irene’s footprints stopped, until we reached the rocks. These were the same black rocks that made the cliffs, only here they were low, rising from the sand to break up the beach, like they stuck out of the water and broke up the waves. The ground on the island rose here, so while it wasn’t yet the cliffs, it was where they began. I tried to see May’s cave, but the island kept curving as the ground rose. The actual cliffs were too far away, beyond a spur of rock.

What we did see, however, was what the storm had thrown onto the rocks.

“More planks.” I pointed to a tangle of broken white boards, like the one Robbert had buried only longer. Since I had told the others, and since we had all talked about the
Mary
being sunk on purpose, I decided I could say “more” instead of simply “planks”—and Irene didn’t correct me.

“Are they from the
Mary
?” asked Eleanor.

“Are they from the supply boat?” asked Caroline.

Irene shook her head. “The supply boat is mostly steel.”

“How does steel float?” Isobel said, but then nodded, blinking. “Displacement. Could anything float with displacement? Could we?”

“If we were shaped like boats,” said Eleanor.

“Just being in water is dangerous,” said Caroline. “Not only sinking.”

“Is anyone shaped like a boat?” Isobel asked Irene.

“I’m afraid not.” Irene turned back to the debris, and we all looked with her.

“We should tell May,” I said. “If they’re from her boat.”

“Wouldn’t anything from the
Mary
have drifted away by now?” asked Caroline. “It’s been weeks.”

“Work out the current,” said Irene.

“It depends on the storm,” I said, but then I nodded to Caroline. “Probably not.”

“Then whose boat could it be?” asked Eleanor. No one had an answer.

“Do you see anything else?” Irene asked.

We looked from where we were, because no one felt confident climbing out on the rocks, especially because the rocks were full of little pools. If we had seen something special Irene could have collected it, but we didn’t: only knots of nylon rope, chunks of packing foam, and strips of plastic that could have once been anything.

We returned down the beach, each of us trying to walk in our original footsteps. This was one of Robbert’s tests for balance, and even after we got it right we all kept doing it. We passed the beach path and continued in the other direction with Robbert’s and Irene’s footsteps ahead of us.

We just found more junk. Most was what Irene called natural junk, like coconuts or driftwood or jellyfish or shells or kelp. Irene said this was how palm trees got from one island to another. With jellyfish it was different, because they were all dead. Eleanor once compared the dead jellyfish to things on land that couldn’t live in the water, wondering if there were jellyfish swimming past dead sunken birds and people, wondering where they were from. It had made Robbert laugh. He patted Eleanor’s head and made an entry in his notebook.

This junk was the same: coconuts and wood and kelp and jellyfish, and also regular fish as well, caught in a wave and flung up to die. Mixed in were more of what we’d seen on the rocks, except not planks, just plastic, packing foam, bottles, nylon rope.

It was disappointing, but then we came to where the back and forth tracks from Robbert and Irene stopped at the same place, where there had also been some digging.

They had reached this spot, dug something up, and then come home.

We all turned to Irene. If Irene really hadn’t wanted us to know about what they’d found, she would have stopped the walk halfway.

“What did you find?” asked Caroline.

“Did you bring it back?” Eleanor tugged Irene’s hand. “What was it?”

“Should we guess?” asked Isobel.

“Was it something useful?” asked Eleanor.

“Was it another plank with holes?” I asked.

But Irene wasn’t listening. She stared over the water. She went up on her toes and shaded her eyes with both hands.

“Irene?” I asked.

“What do you see?” Irene asked. She extended her arm. “What do you see
there
.”

We all looked. A gleaming fleck against the darker waves, spray breaking across it like a rock, except the fleck heaved up and down, in motion.

After all this time, it was a boat.

10.

We had never
actually seen the supply boat, so as much as Irene hurried us back, we kept craning our heads to catch another glimpse. We talked aloud to each other, describing the color, the size, and making guesses about displacement, wind shear, speed. At the courtyard Irene called for Robbert, then waved us impatiently to the kitchen. Robbert came out, and we all shouted that the supply boat had finally come. Irene wheeled and told us to get going. Robbert ran back into the classroom.

Since we’d seen the boat from a distance, we hoped to see it up close, too, and meet the men who sailed it, because finally it had come when we were awake and ready. Irene just shook her head.

“No. Everyone on their cots.”

“But, Irene—”

“No.”

“But, Irene—”

“
No!
Keep your smocks on—there isn’t time.”

We were very disappointed. Robbert called from the yard. “I’m going ahead!”

“Be right there!” Irene called back. Robbert’s footfalls went thudding off. Irene knelt next to Isobel.

“We could help,” Isobel said.

“I know you could,” said Irene. “That isn’t why you have to stay.”

“Why, then?” asked Eleanor.

“Sleep tight, Isobel.” Irene touched the spot behind Isobel’s ear and shifted to Eleanor. “It’s because we don’t know everything that’s happened. Next time, if things are fine, I promise you’ll see more.”

“Everything that’s happened where?” asked Eleanor. “Do you mean with May?”

“Sleep tight, Eleanor.” Eleanor fell asleep, and Irene swiveled to Caroline. Caroline turned from Irene’s hand.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” asked Irene.

“Don’t go,” said Caroline.

“Why not?” Irene’s hand curved gently around Caroline’s neck. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to know, but I can’t.”

Irene frowned. “What makes you say that? Was it a dream?”

Caroline nodded. Irene glanced at the door, then back to Caroline. “Is it the boat?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it the men?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Caroline. You’re doing very well. We’ll talk it through when I get back.” Irene’s finger found her spot.

“Don’t,”
whispered Caroline.

“We’ll talk later, I promise.”

Irene pressed the button and Caroline settled, fluttering eyes gone still. Irene reached for me.

“What did she know?” I asked.

“It was just a dream, Veronika.”

“Sometimes her dreams come true.”

Irene looked at me. “Why do you say that?”

“Caroline had a dream about hiding.”

Irene sighed and shook her head, as if she’d been thinking I’d say something else. “I know she did. But no one has to hide.”

“May is hiding.”

“But she doesn’t have to. That’s different—and it’s not what Caroline dreamed. Sleep tight. I’ll be back before you know it.”

I felt her hand behind my ear.

“I love you, Irene.”

Her finger found the spot but didn’t press. Irene bit her lip.