The Different Girl (17 page)

“Why did you say that?”

“Because I do.”

“But why? What does that mean? Veronika—why do you say
love
?

“Because.” I felt like I was on the dock, so alone. I felt like I was on my face in the sand, struggling. “Isn’t that the right word?”

“Word for what, honey? Why do you say it now?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know. Irene smiled and sighed at the same time.

“I love you, too, Veronika. Don’t you forget it.”

I felt her lips on my forehead, soft and warm, and then the click.

• • •

There are different ways to understand time, different units to count. We knew minutes and hours and seconds without even thinking—as just part of waking up—but as we learned more about the world, our vocabulary for time expanded, too. It could be small things like meals—how long one took to make or eat—or how often the water filter had to be refilled, or how often Irene or Robbert went to the chemical toilet. It could be larger forces that touched the entire island, like tides or moons or seasons or birds laying eggs or grass flowering. We named these as increments, regular and repeated, each one a new-sized gear whose interlocking teeth made up the schedule of our world.

More complicated were the increments that floated alone: flights of birds, or the time it took us to reach the beach compared to Robbert, or to Irene, or how many whacks with the machete it took to open a coconut, depending on the person and also the coconut. As we grew capable of noticing all these measurements we couldn’t
not
notice them, and so every different increment joined with hundreds, and then thousands, of others. And because we didn’t forget things, our understanding kept everything ready to connect.

May, of course, presented entirely new measurements, and while we had figured out some of them—how wide she stepped, how long she took to eat—a lot still remained uncertain because of how sick she’d been when she arrived. We knew May was faster than us, but not how much, mainly because her feet had been hurt. Was she faster than Robbert or Irene? We didn’t know, but we were watching.

So when I woke to find May kneeling next to me, out of breath, her body moist with sweat, I didn’t know how long it had taken her to reach the kitchen from her hiding place on the cliffs. I knew that it had been twenty minutes since Irene had left us, and that it took Robbert half an hour to walk down from the cliffs. It seemed probable that May had come down in a hurry at almost the same time the five of us had seen the boat.

“Get up!” she hissed. “Get up! We have to go!”

“What’s wrong?”

May pulled with both hands to heave me up, though I was too heavy. I caught myself before I fell, and moved my legs off one at a time so I could stand.

“Where are Irene and Robbert?” she asked.

“They went to meet the supply boat,” I said. “But now you’re here, maybe we can all get a peek.”

“Bloody hell! They could be here any minute!” May flung herself toward Isobel’s cot and began groping behind her ear.

“May, it’s all right—Robbert and Irene won’t make you do anything you don’t want.”

“It’s not Irene and Robbert!”

“May, you have to be gentle—”

“Wake ’em up!” she cried. “Wake ’em up! We have to go!”

“May—”

“We don’t have time!”

She found Isobel’s spot, and Isobel blinked awake. May moved to Eleanor. “Get her up!” she called to me, meaning Isobel.

“What’s happening?” asked Isobel.

“I don’t know,” I said. “May says something is wrong. The supply boat—”

“That’s no supply boat!” snarled May as Eleanor stirred to wakefulness.

“But Irene saw it,” said Isobel. “Didn’t she recognize it?”

May shook her head. “Then she wasn’t paying attention!”

“Tell us why, May.” I reached for her arm, but she pushed me away and hurried to Caroline. “May, what did you see?”

When we had a lot of things to think at once, our eyes blinked. With May it seemed like too many words came into her mouth from different directions. Her jaw worked and the thoughts came out in bits.

“Everyone knows—Will told me. You can tell! They have a flag!” May shut her eyes and waved her hands. “They don’t even care—because they don’t care if you know—they’re coming anyway! And there’s nothing anyone can ever do!”

She thrust her fingers under Caroline’s head, searching for the spot.

“You have to be gentle!” cried Isobel.

May ignored her. She pressed the spot, and Caroline shifted on her cot. “We have to go! We have to hide!”

“But where are Irene and Robbert?” asked Eleanor.

“They must still be at the dock,” I said.

“Do they know about the flag?” said Eleanor.

“May said everyone knows,” said Isobel.

“We don’t,” said Eleanor. “May,
who
is in the boat? Who is coming?”

May groaned aloud, looking down at Caroline. “Why won’t she get up?”

Caroline’s eyes flickered.

“She’s had a dream,” said Eleanor.

“What?”

“When Caroline dreams, she wakes up slowly,” said Isobel.

“There isn’t
time
!” cried May. Her eyes had filled with tears.

A sound we’d never heard chopped through the air, echoing across the island. A flat, loud, rattling crack, like a chain yanked fast through an iron loop. It came from the dock.

“O no,” whispered May. “O no.”

I reached for Caroline’s arm, like Irene did. “Caroline, wake up!”

Caroline rolled her head toward me, still blinking.

“The notebook,” she said.

“May says we have to go.”

“Take Robbert’s notebook.”

We got Caroline to sit. Isobel stood at the door, holding the screen open and listening.

“What was that sound?” she asked.

Caroline’s head tilted to one side. One eye blinked faster than the other. “I remembered. They want us to take the notebook.”

“It isn’t here,” said Eleanor, looking around her.

“Then it’s in the classroom,” said Isobel.

“We have to go,” said May, tugging Caroline toward the door.

“It’s important,” insisted Caroline.

“I’ll get it.” I let Isobel take my place with Caroline and went out first.

“You can’t!” hissed May behind me.

“Go ahead,” I whispered back. “I’ll catch up!”

I glanced once at the dock path, then crossed the courtyard as fast as I could.

• • •

I hadn’t been inside the classroom since we’d crept in to look at May. The bedsheets were balled into a pile, as if Robbert meant to wash them but hadn’t made time. The rest of the classroom looked just as disorganized, with things in stacks and boxes pulled out and left open. The boxes were for supplies, so it seemed Robbert had opened them to find out what they needed from the supply boat. I realized the pallet cart hadn’t been under the classroom porch. Robbert must have taken it to the dock, so they could carry back everything the boat delivered.

I didn’t understand what made Caroline dream, but Irene and Robbert always considered it important. If she thought we needed Robbert’s notebook, it was because some inside part of her had been given a question—or realized the question should be asked—and this was the answer she had found.

Because of the boxes and the piles, I didn’t see the notebook right away—or, I didn’t
not
see it, because it took me longer than normal to see it wasn’t anywhere. I searched the desk and looked underneath piles, all the time knowing I had to move fast. The notebook usually lived on the desk or in Robbert’s satchel. I didn’t see his satchel anywhere in the classroom. Did he have it with him?

The back room was full of machines stacked in metal shelves, with whirring fans to keep them cool. I saw the window where I had peeked in. The notebook wasn’t there, either.

The kitchen had an upper floor where Irene slept, reached by a set of narrow stairs. Because the top of the classroom was filled with batteries connected to the roof panels, there wasn’t enough room for a proper bed—which was why Robbert slept downstairs. But there was an open ledge that Robbert used to store things, and when they put May in his bed he’d stacked those boxes and laid out a place to sleep. Instead of a staircase like Irene, he had a wooden ladder nailed to the wall. I had never climbed a ladder, but this was the last place the notebook could be, so I hurried to it and put my foot where I’d seen Robbert put his. The rungs were gritty with sand.

I pulled myself up, doing my best to grip the wide rungs, nearer to the whirring fans and less able to hear anything else. When my head came over the edge, I didn’t see the notebook anywhere. But right in front of me, as if it had been hastily shoved there from the ladder, was a round shape, like a ball, covered with one of Robbert’s white coats.

I climbed another step, enough to reach for the coat sleeve. I pulled. The ball underneath turned as the coat came free. From the sand I knew this was what Robbert and Irene had found on the beach that morning, and taken away before any of us could see.

It was someone’s head.

I’d never seen a head quite like it, but I knew enough to recognize the shape, and the eyes and the mouth and what was left of the hair. The head stared right at me, even though something sharp had been shoved into both sockets and rattled around, like a knife getting the last bits from a can, leaving the socket edges broken and scratched. The mouth was dented with round welts, like from a hammer, and smeared with bright red paint, as if there were lips. There wasn’t a nose, but I don’t think it ever had one. The hair was mostly torn out. Only a few lank strands remained, revealing tiny holes where the rest had been woven through, now stubbled with uncoated wire. A tangle of cable trailed from of the neck, bedraggled with sand and kelp, like the tail of a jellyfish left by the tide.

There was more red paint on the forehead, symbols I didn’t know, the lines just wide enough to be made with a finger.

• • •

I could only hear the fans. I didn’t see the notebook. I had to go. There was nothing to do about the head except think, and I could think as I went. I wanted to know what her name had been, where she had lived, everything she’d known, but I knew I’d never get a single answer. Before this, the only thing we were certain never to know was our parents. Was that what death meant—no answers, a finally locked door? As my foot touched the floor I decided that was wrong, because death always left a why, and a how, and a what next. Questions weren’t the same as answers—they didn’t tell me this dead girl’s name—but for her sake I wasn’t going to let them go.

I rushed down the steps to the courtyard, holding the rail. The rattling crack ripped through the air again, this time much closer, and a cloud of birds burst from the palms, frightened by the noise.

• • •

Halfway up the hill, I heard them call. I had almost fallen twice, trying to go too fast and slipping on the slick red dirt. I hadn’t seen them, crouched in the rocks.

“
Where have you been
?” whispered May.

“Do you have the notebook?” asked Eleanor.

“Did you see Caroline?” asked Isobel.

Caroline wasn’t with them. I looked behind me, down to both buildings and the courtyard. She wasn’t anywhere.

“Where did she go?”

“To find you,” said Isobel. “To find the notebook.”

I shook my head. “She didn’t come to find me. She went somewhere else. Didn’t she say?”

“She just went,” said May. “By the time we noticed she was halfway back.”

“She said it would only be a minute,” said Isobel.

“We’ve been waiting for you both,” said Eleanor.

All three of them—the other two imitating May—were crouched in the rocks, and I realized I’d crouched down, too. I looked down the hill. How could Caroline be out of sight so quickly?

“We have to
go
,” said May. “It’s too late. Didn’t you hear the shots?”

“You should keep going and hide,” I said. “I’ll find Caroline. Maybe by then Robbert and Irene will be back, too—”

“
No
.”

May burst from the rocks. She grabbed my arm, spun me toward the hill.

“We’re all
going
,” she grunted, “and we’re going
now
. You don’t understand.” She called ahead, still angry, to Eleanor and Isobel.
“Move!”

They hurried in front of us, holding hands for better balance, while May pulled me after. There were more sounds behind us that I didn’t know.

“What’s all that?” I asked May.

She was too caught up with hauling me to reply. We were almost to where the path turned, the point beyond which someone standing in the courtyard couldn’t see. I looked back. The kitchen blocked my view of the beach path, which was where the sounds echoed. They were
voices
—far away, speaking loudly, but with words I couldn’t understand.

“It’s people!” I said.

“Get down!”

May dropped to her knees, and I did my best to crouch with her. Isobel and Eleanor had stopped ahead of us. May furiously waved for them to keep going. She peeked back herself and either decided we’d come far enough to stand or that there wasn’t enough time not to. We caught up with the others.

“What are they saying?” asked Isobel.

“Do you understand them, May?” asked Eleanor.

But May only let go of my arm and pushed to the front. Her face had changed, jaw stuck out and eyes all hard, like when she was angry, but I knew she was also scared, even mainly scared. This was how people were able to do things when they didn’t want to—they made themselves feel something else, like anger, more than the fear. May must have learned it from her uncle, the way we learned deductions from Irene, which made me think of deducing what had happened to Caroline.

She’d woken from a dream where Robbert had said to take his notebook. I thought of my own dream, the only one I’d ever had: May’s eyes and the round holes in the plank, and somehow knowing that May’s past would tell me what had happened in the storm. Since Caroline’s dreams weren’t a random matter of sand so much as direct results of what Irene whispered before bedtime, or questions Robbert asked her when they were alone in the classroom, with time I could guess what the different connections were. But there was no time. I looked back. All I saw were rocks and palms and, higher and higher around us, the bright blue sky.