Read The Other Side of the Island Online
Authors: Allegra Goodman
Tags: #Nature & the Natural World, #Social Issues, #Families, #Family, #Juvenile Fiction, #Individuality, #Fantasy & Magic, #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Family Life, #Weather, #Peer Pressure, #Islands, #General, #Domestic fiction
The Other Side of the Island (27 page)
Will shook his head.
“Blue. I remembered the name of our boat. Do you remember what we called her?”
“No,” said Will.
Pamela laughed. “We called the boat Shamela. Wasn’t that a funny name?”
“You remembered all those things?” asked Mrs. Pratt.
“Oh, it was lovely. Delicious. I remembered things I haven’t thought about in years. All those times in the past came back to me, but they began rushing faster and faster. They began to blur. The boat and the water and the kites in the sky began to spin and I felt lighter and lighter. Soon the mail carriers were lifting me from the sack and setting me down on the ground.”
“Were you in pain?” Will asked.
“No,” said Pamela, “nothing hurt me, not even the needle tattooing the number on my arm.”
“Didn’t you want to run away?” asked Honor.
“Even if I’d wanted to, I had no control over my body. My legs wouldn’t carry me,” her mother said. “I grew lighter and lighter as the tranquilizer wore off. Then they fed me and gave me mineral water to drink.”
“Orderlies consume much stronger food and drink than the rest of us,” Mr. Pratt said. “Ordinary people only lose their long-term memories—of their childhoods, their parents, their first loves—but they keep their short-term memories. They’re up-to-date within five years. I always thought orderlies lost their memories altogether.”
“They lose the recent past and dream of long ago,” said Pamela. “The longer orderlies work, the less they remember of themselves or where they were when they were taken. Eventually all they have is fragments of their early lives. They start dreaming all the time. It’s like living in a trance.”
“If you were in a trance, how did you remember me?” Honor asked.
Pamela thought for a moment. “You were always in my dream,” she said. “You came back to me as you were in the Northern Islands. In the bakery you didn’t look the same as the little girl that I remembered, but I knew you must be Honor, because you looked directly at me.”
“So your eyes worked,” said Honor.
“Orderlies can see what’s right in front of them. And they can see faces too,” said Pamela. “But no one ever looks.”
“What else did you remember?” Will asked Pamela.
She sifted the white sand through her fingers. “I remember the other beach,” she said.
And for a moment Honor could remember too. She could remember the smooth pebbles on the beach in the Northern Islands and the gold light and the cold water. And she could almost remember something else. She could almost touch the memory; she wanted to, but she only felt the edge of it.
“Did you remember all the constellations?” Will asked Pamela. “Could you still find them when you looked at the stars?”
“No,” Pamela said. “I never looked at the sky.”
Mr. Pratt set his battered box on the sand. He opened the lid and unpacked something wrapped in scarves and soft cloth. It was a strange musical instrument of satiny smooth wood. The instrument had a body shaped like a teardrop, a long thin neck, and many strings. Honor counted fifteen. When Mr. Pratt plucked the strings, they rang softly. He turned pegs to tune each one, and as he tested the strings, Honor heard their sound amplified by the rounded body of the instrument.
“What is it?” she asked.
“This is a lute,” Mr. Pratt told her. His left hand played on the instrument’s neck as his right hand plucked. “Listen.”
They lay on their backs in the sand and listened. Mr. Pratt played music that sounded like sweet rain falling and then like fairy tales. Like princesses running up and down secret staircases. He played music that sounded like dances and then like the memory of those dances, wistful recollections of times past.
“Why is the lute so sad?” Honor asked when Mr. Pratt finished playing.
Mr. Pratt smiled. “The lute isn’t sad. The music was. I was playing a song in a minor key.”
Honor was surprised. She went to music class three times a week, but she had never heard of a minor key. “We only learn happy songs,” she said.
“Oh, you’ve been missing out,” said Mr. Pratt as his fingers played on.
There was no other sound in the world like the sound of the lute mixed with the shushing waves. The music was wistful and quiet, ancient music with ancient patterns, sometimes expected and sometimes Unpredictable. Honor lay between her parents, and as they listened, they looked up at the stars. There were so many they seemed like silver dust. So many more stars than Honor remembered.
SEVEN
BEFORE DAWN, THEY BRUSHED THE SAND OFF
as best they could and walked back into the trees. They followed Mr. Pratt on a path skirting the shore to a cover where the Thompsons were waiting. They rushed to Pamela and to Honor. They wanted to touch Pamela and talk to her. She seemed almost like a dream to them. They had to know that she was real. And they had to ask Honor about Helix. If only there had been more time. The sky was brightening. Soon the sun would rise.
as best they could and walked back into the trees. They followed Mr. Pratt on a path skirting the shore to a cover where the Thompsons were waiting. They rushed to Pamela and to Honor. They wanted to touch Pamela and talk to her. She seemed almost like a dream to them. They had to know that she was real. And they had to ask Honor about Helix. If only there had been more time. The sky was brightening. Soon the sun would rise.
Mr. Thompson and Mr. Pratt and Honor’s father walked back into the forest. When they returned, they dragged a boat through the sea grapes onto the sand. The boat was an outrigger canoe, and it was made of hollowed-out logs and rigged with the sinew of plants. In the hull of the canoe the Thompsons had hidden food and water. They also had new clothes for Pamela and Will. Mrs. Thompson gave Pamela a hat to protect her bald head from the sun.
Together they all pushed the boat into the shallow water. Mr. Pratt held it there, ready to sail.
“How will we all fit?” asked Honor.
“We aren’t all going,” said Mr. Pratt. “Just the Thompsons and your parents.”
“But what about me?” asked Honor.
Her mother wrapped her arm around her.
“Why can’t I go with you?” she pleaded.
“Who will watch Quintilian?” asked her mother.
Honor bowed her head, ashamed she had forgotten him. “But couldn’t we take him too? And Helix? We could get them and—”
“You know it’s not safe to get them,” said her father. “And where we’re going is not for children.”
“We don’t know if we’ll succeed,” her mother said.
“Other people have tried to take the Weather Station,” Mr. Thompson told Honor.
“And what happened to them?” Honor demanded, holding on to her mother.
“No one knows,” said Will.
“Then you can’t go,” Honor said. “I won’t let you.”
“We have to go. It’s a day’s sailing at least. Maybe two.”
“How is it safe for me to stay here?” Honor demanded. “They’ll send Retrievers after me. You know they will.”
“We aren’t going to let Retrievers find you,” Will said. “You’ll go back to school first.”
“I can’t go back there.”
“You have to,” said Will.
“We’ll come for you, just like you came for me,” Pamela promised.
“If we succeed, it won’t be long,” Will said. “Watch the sky and you’ll know if we have the Weather Station.”
“But you might not succeed,” Honor said.
“We have to try,” said Will. “We have to try, even if we might fail.”
“And what will happen then?”
“Then you’ll be at school,” said Pamela. “You’ll think about what to do next. You’ll take care of your brother.”
“We named you Honor for a reason,” Will said.
EIGHT
“THIS IS WHERE I’LL LEAVE YOU,” SAID MR. PRATT. HE HAD
guided Honor back over the mountain to the edge of the Old Colony School’s Model Forest. “You remember what your parents said.”
guided Honor back over the mountain to the edge of the Old Colony School’s Model Forest. “You remember what your parents said.”
Honor nodded.
“All right, then. Good-bye. No crying,” Mr. Pratt added.
“I’m not.”
Mr. Pratt looked hard at Honor and cleared his throat. Then he left her alone.
Garden orderlies were repairing damage from the storm, carting off debris and wheeling in new plants. Honor saw one orderly kneeling, planting new ferns, and another with a whole cart of potted orchids. He transplanted each into a special niche in a rock or on a tree. Honor hadn’t understood before how tame the Model Forest was or how organized, with its pretty orchids hanging from every rock and tree. The real forest had no orderlies to keep it neat. The real forest was thick and dark and overgrown, not pretty; it was frightening—and also beautiful.
She came to a bench and lay down. She closed her eyes and dreamed of her parents and Helix’s parents sailing out on the blue ocean. She imagined the clear warm night and her mother navigating by the stars.
Screams woke her. She started up to find Helena and Hortense shrieking in terror at the sight of her.
“Heloise!” Hortense exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
Helena didn’t say a word. She ran as fast as she could to call for help.
Orderlies arrived in minutes to pick up Honor. A pair of them scooped her up and raced off with her down the path toward school. Familiar buildings flashed by, but they were all in ruins. Walls weren’t just cracked; they’d crumbled. The vegetable gardens were soupy mud, the greenhouses piles of shattered glass. Monkeypod trees had been torn up by the roots, upended. Everywhere orderlies were digging, sweeping, raking, carting away more rubbish. Everywhere Honor heard the sound of hammers and saws. She smelled new lumber. Carpenters were erecting rough new wood buildings. The orderlies carried Honor into one of these. She saw a row of beds and a familiar desk. The orderlies had brought her straight to the infirmary.
“Heloise,” gasped Nurse Applebee. “Look at you. Your uniform. Your hair!”
Honor looked down at herself. Her shirt was torn, her identity card missing. Her skirt was caked with mud.
Nurse Applebee looked almost as frightened as Hortense. “We almost gave you up for lost.”
Honor was taken to the infirmary bathroom. Nurse Applebee gave Honor a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo and a white towel and a fresh new uniform. Then she left Honor to wash herself.
When Honor emerged from the bathroom, she was pink and clean. Her fingers were wrinkled because she had enjoyed soaking so much. She had to sit on a low chair while Nurse Applebee combed the tangles out of her hair and searched for nits. The nurse was afraid that Honor was infested with lice.
There were no lice in Honor’s hair, and so Nurse Applebee did not cut it off. She took Honor instead to rest in a clean infirmary bed and answer questions for an accident report.
“Did you leave the shelter during the storm?” the nurse asked.
“I don’t know,” Honor said.
“What happened to you?”
“I don’t know,” Honor said.
“Did you leave school grounds?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you try to run away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
“I think so,” Honor murmured. The warm bath had made her so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. She wanted to say she was too tired to lie properly, but she knew better.
When she woke up, she had no idea how much time had passed. Nurse Applebee and Miss Blessing were sitting by her side.
“Welcome home,” said Miss Blessing in her soft sweet voice. “We are thankful you are back with us.”
Dazed and sleepy, Honor stared at Miss Blessing.
“What do you say?” Miss Blessing asked.
Honor wasn’t sure. “I’m thankful,” she said.
This seemed satisfactory, because Miss Blessing said, “We have a visitor for you.”
Then Nurse Applebee opened the door and Quintilian rushed in and threw himself onto Honor’s bed.
Honor dared not say anything in front of Nurse Applebee and Miss Blessing, but she smiled.
“Do you recognize this boy?” asked Nurse Applebee.
“Yes,” said Honor.
“What is his name?”
“Quintilian,” Honor said dutifully.
“And where are we now?”
“The infirmary,” said Honor.
“And where have you been for the past four nights?”
“I don’t know,” said Honor.
“Where were you on the night of the storm?” Miss Blessing asked.
“What storm?” Honor asked, and she glanced at Quintilian.
“Would you like to tell about the storm?” Miss Blessing asked Quintilian.
“We had some rain,” said Quintilian.
“Is that all?”
“Wind.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“There was no power,” Quintilian said. “No power whatsoever.” He grinned. “It was a pretty good storm.”
Miss Blessing’s smile faded. “Tell Honor what happened to you.”
“I got lost in the forest,” Quintilian said.
“Did you get lost, or did you attempt to run away?”
“Actually,” said Quintilian, “I got lost and then me and Helix both got lost, but searchers found us.”
“That is Accurate,” said Miss Blessing.
Honor lay still, afraid to react to what Quintilian said.
“Tell us why,” Miss Blessing said gently.
“To find Mommy and Daddy,” said Quintilian.
“And did you find them?” asked Miss Blessing.
“No,” said Quintilian.
“And why is that?”
“Because they are no more,” Quintilian said sweetly, and he bowed his head.
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