The Penderwicks at Point Mouette (11 page)

But Skye never got to the sandwich, let alone the stars. She managed only to wander out to the sleeping porch and collapse onto her cot with
Death by Black Hole
. After two paragraphs about cosmic plasma, the book slipped from her hands, and Skye was gone, sleeping the sleep of an overtaxed OAP.

S
OMEONE WAS POKING AT
S
KYE
, trying to wake her up. But because she was determined to stay lost in dreams unburdened with younger sisters, she jammed her fist in the general direction of the poking.

“Ouch!”

She opened her eyes and saw Jeffrey hovering next to her cot, rubbing his stomach.

“What are you doing?” she asked. It was ridiculously early in the morning. “Is somebody else hurt?”

“No, everyone’s fine.”

“Then I’m going to continue sleeping.” Her eyes closed, but before she could escape back into slumber, Jeffrey was shaking her.

“No, you have to get up, because I’m too happy to sleep and I want company.”

He moved on to Jane and started poking her. It took a while, but finally Jane rolled over and muttered, “I do adore you, Gary.”

“Who’s Gary?” Jeffrey asked Skye.

“Probably one of Sabrina Starr’s boyfriends,” she answered, reluctantly sitting up. “You’d better leave Jane alone if she’s in that kind of mood—and go away so I can dress.”

“You
are
dressed,” he said. “When we came home last night, you were out cold and Hound was standing guard over you.”

Skye looked down and saw that she was indeed wearing the clothes she’d fallen asleep in.
Death by Black Hole
was beside her pillow, looking like it had been rolled on. Now she remembered—she’d gone to sleep and hadn’t woken up again.

“Then who put Batty to bed?”

Jane suddenly threw out an arm as though to catch at someone. “And I adore you, too, Herschel! Stay with me.”

“She did,” said Jeffrey.

“Jane?” Skye told herself that Jane was surely capable of putting Batty to bed without help. “Maybe I should just go look …”

“I’ll meet you outside.”

Skye swung out of bed and made her way through the dark to Batty’s room. In the pink glow of the night-light, she could see Batty’s dark head on the
pillow, and next to her Hound, who thumped his tail twice, his way of saying a silent hello. Little green Ellie had tumbled out of bed—Skye picked her up and tucked her in next to Batty, who now stirred and murmured a few words that sounded like “bee” and “sharp.” This made no sense to Skye—and then she wondered if Rosalind had ever gone around at night listening to her sisters talking in their sleep. How strange. But Skye had nothing to worry about. She was certain that anything she herself said would be more interesting than boys’ names or bees.

She slipped away and found Jeffrey waiting for her in front of Birches. It was that bewitching hour when night has gone but day hasn’t arrived, when there are no greens anywhere—not in the grass or in the leaves—but instead only grays and shadowy blues, and the birds are frenziedly singing, encouraging the sun to rise yet one more time. Skye shivered, because it was also chilly.

“Come on,” said Jeffrey. “You’ll warm up when you start moving.”

Skye thought that she would more easily warm up by going back to bed. Still, when Jeffrey took off toward Ocean Boulevard, she followed, sleepily curious about this happiness of his. When he turned left instead of right on the road, she almost balked. There was nothing in that direction but the pinewood, and she saw no reason to explore it so early in the
morning. But Jeffrey took her hand and pulled her to the end of Ocean Boulevard and on into the trees. It was another world in there—dark, with the thick branches blocking the faint light of dawn, the ground slippery with fallen needles, and the heady smell of a thousand Christmas trees. Skye couldn’t see at all, but Jeffrey led her safely past tree after tree after tree until they spotted a glimmer of light up ahead. A moment later, they were out of the wood and on the edge of yet another world altogether. To their left were the same rocks and ocean they’d left behind, but in front of them and to their right was a great expanse of short grass, broken only by the occasional tree, big patch of sand, or small pole with a numbered flag on it. One of these flags was only yards from where Jeffrey and Skye stood—number twelve.

“It’s a golf course.” Skye couldn’t believe it. “Why are we here? We hate golf. Besides, your clubs are back at the house.”

“We’re not going to play golf. Alec told me that sometimes if you’re out here early enough, you can see moose.”

“You dragged me out of bed at dawn to
maybe
see a moose?” But the truth was that she was already hooked. She’d never seen a real moose, only pictures, and of course that statue in front of Moose Market.

So once again she followed Jeffrey. Heading away from the ocean, they kept to the edge of the pine trees and found themselves gradually climbing. They’d seen
several of the flags—and Skye had long been warm enough to forget about shivering—when Jeffrey stopped at a large boulder jutting out of the pines. Here the golf course sloped down away from them, and at the bottom was a small lake rimmed with tall marsh grass.

“Alec said that the lake is the best place for moose. We’ll wait.” Jeffrey sat down and leaned against the rock. “Admit you’re glad to be here.”

“I won’t give you that satisfaction.”

“Then I won’t tell you why I’m so happy.”

“Okay, don’t.” She knew he would anyway.

“Because of last night and the music. Alec played the sax—Skye, he’s so good—and Turron played the drums, of course, and they were fooling around with some jazz, which I know nothing about, but Alec told me to listen and drop in with the piano whenever I could, and I didn’t think I’d be able to, but after a bit it started to make sense, and I could follow along a little. Then Alec told me that once I understood the melody, I could work out some chord progressions, and that was hard until all of a sudden it was easy.” Jeffrey stopped his rush of words. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Nope.” She yawned and stretched out on the ground. She enjoyed listening to Jeffrey, especially when he didn’t care whether or not she understood him. And when he didn’t expect her to respond with long speeches about what she herself was thinking. Or feeling—feeling was the worst.

“Never mind about that part, then, but listen to this. The red house belongs to Alec’s family—he’s been coming here for summers most of his life. His real home is in Boston, though, not very far from my school, and he already said that I could visit him there. And Turron lives in New York City, but he plays in Boston sometimes, so maybe I’ll see him, too. Skye, I could learn so much just from hanging around them.”

“I know.”

“You actually were listening to me, then?”

“Sort of.” She grinned up at him. “Want to arm-wrestle?”

“Skye!”

“Oh, come on. The moose isn’t here or anything.”

With a show of reluctance, Jeffrey lay down opposite Skye and grasped her right hand with his. After a brief struggle, Skye’s arm was flat on the ground.

She protested. “You’re stronger than I am!”

“No kidding.”

“Let’s do it with our left hands.”

They switched hands and once again Jeffrey won, even more quickly this time.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Never mind,” Skye answered grouchily. “You’d better go back to talking about music.”

“Right. Well, you know how much I want to make music my whole life. Then last night, when Jane was asking Alec and Turron questions about love—”

“Please, no.” Skye shook her head. “I should have gone after all.”

“It was all right, because Aunt Claire didn’t let her ask anything too embarrassing. Anyway, Alec and Turron ended up talking about how difficult it is to mix family with music, because of all the travel and uncertainty. They’re both divorced and neither of them have any children. Alec’s marriage was so bad he won’t even talk about it—just that he was young and it lasted only a few months. That’s sad, don’t you think?” Jeffrey shook his head at the sadness. “I hope I never get divorced.”

“You can’t even get married for years and years. Why worry about getting divorced? Besides, I’m sure there are plenty of musicians who manage to stay married.”

“I guess so,” he said, then: “Do you ever wonder if we’ll get married?”

“To each other? Good grief.” She felt his forehead for a fever. “What’s wrong with you? Is Jane getting to you with all her crazy talk?”

Jeffrey laughed. “Maybe.”

The sky was brightening now, its pink-edged clouds reflected in the lake below. Skye watched as the grass on the golf course turned from blue to green and tried not to be discouraged about the arm wrestling. But the summer before, at Arundel, she’d been just as strong as Jeffrey, and almost as fast a runner.

“Let’s see who can do the most push-ups,” she said.

“I already know. I can do twenty-nine.”

“Twenty-nine!” Skye could do ten, twelve at the most. “You never told me that.”

“I don’t tell you
everything.
”

“I thought you did.” She stuck out her tongue at him. At least she was still a slightly better soccer player than he was.

“But I should tell you what happened with Batty last night. Alec was showing her a few things on the piano—”

“So that he could avoid Jane’s love questions.”

“No, Skye, listen. When he showed Batty the difference between major and minor chords, she understood right away. He thinks she might have real musical talent. And you should have seen her listening to us play.”

“It’s you she adores, not music. What about sit-ups? How many can you do?”

Jeffrey shook his head, warning her. “Hundreds.”

“I dare you,” she said, and got into position for a sit-up contest. “Ready?”

Maybe Jeffrey could have done hundreds of sit-ups and maybe Skye could have kept up, but before they made it even to thirty, he was grabbing her arm and pointing to the woods on the other side of the lake. What they’d come for was happening—moose were arriving. First came a huge cow moose, pushing her way out of the trees and sauntering casually to the
water, dipping her head to drink. A great big brown beast, she was treat enough, but what came next made Skye catch her breath—two young calves, wobbly on their still-spindly legs and playfully bumping each other as they rushed to catch up with their mother.

“Twins?” she asked in a whisper, although the moose were much too far away to hear.

“Yes. Alec told me that we might see twins.”

They sat quietly for a long time, watching the family below go about its morning business. Skye had a pang of regret that Batty wasn’t there to see them, too, especially when the calves teamed up on one of the golf flag poles and head-butted it until it broke in half. Batty would have loved that. It was just a brief pang, though, and Skye figured she wouldn’t have had it at all if she weren’t getting hungry for breakfast.

When the moose finally wandered back into the trees, Jeffrey had one last thing to say before leaving for Birches.

“It’s just that sometimes I wish we lived closer to each other, Skye. I sometimes sort of miss you. Sometimes.”

“I do, too.” She cleared her throat. “Sometimes.”

Batty was on the little beach, up to her ankles in frigid water. It wasn’t enough this morning to just dip her feet into the ocean. No, she needed to keep them
there for a long time, trying as hard as she could to be close to Rosalind.

“I wish I could swim,” she told Hound. “I’d swim to New Jersey to see her.”

Thinking this a terrible idea, Hound grabbed hold of Batty’s orange life preserver.

Batty went on. “Rosalind would never go see a moose and her babies without me.”

It didn’t matter to her that Skye and Jeffrey hadn’t been positive they’d find a moose. They shouldn’t have even gone looking without her, and once they saw the moose, they should have come to get her, and now she would never see a baby moose in her whole life, let alone two at a time. Hound let go of Batty’s life preserver to lick away her tears, but they kept coming, and soon her face was as wet and salty as her feet, though not as cold.

Batty only stopped crying when she noticed the seagulls floating on the water not far from her. They were the same ones that Hoover had chased away the other day—Batty was certain about that—and she was glad they were back and not worried about being eaten by a dog. But, oh, how she wished Ben were there to see the seagulls with her. She missed him terribly and had so much to tell him. Bad things, like not seeing the moose, and good things, too, like how she’d decided to be a musician when she grew up.

She pulled her harmonica out of her pocket and played a few notes of one of the songs Jeffrey had
played the night before. The notes sounded good, but not as good as they had on the piano. But that was all right, because Batty had also decided that she wanted her own piano. She would keep it in her bedroom at home, and Ben could sit on the bench beside her and listen while she played.

Hound, who had been patient until now, decided that Batty had been in the freezing water long enough, and he dragged her to higher ground. She submitted because her feet really were awfully cold, and because playing the harmonica had made her feel better. But she felt worse all over again when she looked up at the deck, where Jane was supposed to be watching over Batty, making sure she didn’t drown. This is what Jane had promised she would do before Skye and Jeffrey had left for Moose Market.