My dream changed after I told Carlos about it. It was the same, but slowed down and thick, like my brain needed to color in all the spaces in my memory. Sometimes afterward it feels like everything that’s already bad is worse. A cool breeze makes my teeth chatter. Noises are extra loud. I can’t hide when I’ve had a bad night. Dad says he can tell from my eyes. He offered me a ride to school and even stopped for cocoa.
I could barely stay awake. Grouchy teachers. Scratchy shirt. I didn’t really fit in before, but I especially didn’t now. This kid Stilton, who is named after moldy cheese and wears the same clothes all week, has more friends than I do. He’s staying at Murphy School, of course. It’s like I’m missing something everybody else has. Maybe it’s because I’m quiet. Or I’m one of the oldest kids in our grade. Or there’s something I don’t know, like I have the worst breath in the world. I’ve got Ethan and a few other friends. There’s Rocket. He goes surfing a lot. His mom taught him how, and now sometimes he gets to school with wet hair and blue lips. He’s probably going to Lincoln Bay. We used to be close, but he didn’t visit after the attack, and we don’t hang out much anymore. Maybe next year.
People assume that if you’re on an island, you find ways to be friends with all the other kids, since you’re the only ones there. But that doesn’t happen, at least not on Murphy, and not for me.
I sit out gym class when my leg hurts. We’re supposed to wear gym shorts, but I don’t. Mom made a deal with Principal Erica for me to have a “lenient year.” If I skip gym, I can go to the library, the art cottage, or the school garden. On Wednesday, I chose the garden. I wanted to be alone, but Rocket was there. He gets special permission to plant things three afternoons a week. He says it helps him think more clearly in class.
“How’re the kittens?” I asked him. Rocket’s cat had kittens a few days before. I put on some gloves and grabbed one of the hand rakes.
“They’re so cute, dude. Three tiny little calico puffs and one gray one. Their mom put them behind the couch, so I laid out an old blanket and made it cozy for them. Mostly they sleep.”
I scraped the weeds around some new tomato plants. They were still scrawny, but last year the school grew and donated over sixty pounds of tomatoes to the community food bank. Kids like Rocket volunteered to take care of the garden over the summer. They grew all kinds of stuff. No kid leaves Murphy without knowing how to compost and fertilize. I’d bet a hundred dollars there isn’t a garden at Lincoln Bay.
“Did you decide about school next year?” I said.
“I don’t know. I think Lincoln Bay would be cool, but I want to build boats.” The older grades at Murphy build big wooden boats. “But you know the school on Palatine Island sounds pretty great too. Their science teacher is a real marine biologist, and the waves are stellar down there.”
“Oh.” Palatine Island is twenty miles south. We wouldn’t be friends in Lincoln.
“You?”
I snagged a couple of peapods off a vine and munched.
“Lincoln Bay. My mom wants me to stay on Murphy, but my brother went. I’m thinking of moving there—my grandma lives near the school.”
Rocket stopped patting compost around little corn sprouts.
“What about Ethan?” he said.
“What about Ethan?”
“Well, he’s staying. Isn’t he? I just thought you guys would stick together.”
“You don’t have to be in the same place to be friends,” I said. “My mom sent the registration papers yesterday. I haven’t told Ethan for sure yet, so don’t say anything.” It came out more defensive than I meant. Rocket dug his fingers straight into the dirt, no gloves.
“Being in the same spot definitely makes friendship easier.” Rocket worked the dirt in new beds and I picked peas until the last bell rang.
I woke up on Sunday morning on the floor next to my bed in my sleeping bag. The bear’s teeth cut into my calf. I’ve tried sleeping in every room in the house, but it finds me wherever I go. I tried to think of a new ending to the dream. Carlos said the wilder the better. I could poke the bear with a pin before he bit me and watch him pop into confetti. I pictured my body disappearing before the bite, teleportation-style, and I tried to see myself punching it in the nose. None of it cut through the brambles of the dream. Parrots squawked in the tree outside my window, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. The sky wasn’t even pink yet. I lay there shaking in a sweaty hand-me-down T-shirt. I wanted to get as far away from the dream as I could. I took one of the books Leti gave me and grabbed apples from the kitchen for the goats. They aren’t supposed to have much apple because of the sugar, but they love treats. If I moved to Lincoln, I would visit them on the weekends and sneak them new fruits to sample.
Once the sun was up, I went back inside to get ready to visit my grandma with Leti. The chickens followed me back to the house, but they don’t try to come inside like the goats do. Mom tapped her nails on the counter while she waited for toast.
“Do you miss going to church?” I asked. She could go back to Lincoln more. There are pictures on our bookshelves from her First Communion and church potlucks. But she shook her head.
“Not really. I went my whole life, and the pews are hard.”
“You could go with Beth and Ethan. They like their church. Or you could start a church here,” I said, “with softer seats.” I’ve never seen a woman in priest clothes, so maybe they’d wear something different. Mom would need a microphone. I smiled to show her it was a joke, but she looked confused.
“For me, making something with my hands is like a prayer. Listening to the birds from the porch is like a gospel.”
“But not abuela’s kind,” I said. She readjusted the ribbon of milagros around her neck. Lately, she’s been wearing a truck for the Rooster.
“No, not abuela’s kind. Tell them hi for me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t get off work.” Mom gave me ferry money and went outside. I watched her carry a coil of wire like a truck tire out to the garage and close the door behind her. Dad would pick us up in Lincoln after his shift.
When Leti and I drove to the dock, I saw Izzy heading toward the spring pools with a woman in a big floppy hat. I waved and Izzy looked excited to see me, but we had to get to the ferry before it left. It was the end of the weekend, so a lot of tourists headed back from vacation houses and golf resorts on the other islands.
Once we were on the ferry, I picked out some chips from the concession stand, and Little Leti got a pretzel. We sat in a booth near the front, starboard side. Starboard is boat talk for the right side, but it’s my favorite because it sounds like a spaceship headed far away.
People watched the water, read books, and tried to get service on their phones. A gray-haired couple kissed in the corner. No one looked around at the other passengers, except for one guy. A man by the pinball machine on the portside caught my eye over his coffee cup. He wore red pants and a mustard-colored velvet jacket. His hair reminded me of how my grandpa and uncles used to wear theirs back in the day, combed up and slick. A pompadour, it’s called. I stared and the man stared back. He nodded at me without smiling. I made Leti move to a booth in the stern. She’s not a baby anymore, so keeping an eye on her should be easy. Once I moved to Lincoln, Mom and Dad would have to trust her to be alone more instead of having me babysit. I went to the bathroom for two minutes to put some pain ointment on my knee and fill up my water bottle, and when I came back, she was telling the guy in the mustard jacket that I’m a good driver.
“Go-karts, she means,” I said. Leti wanted to argue, but I squeezed her arm. His jacket was made from material like my tía Carrie’s curtains. His boots used to slither. But it wasn’t just the clothes. He looked like he didn’t believe me about the go-karts and he wanted to say something about it. Instead, he asked where the stairs to the car deck were and left. I let out a long breath when he moved down the aisle. Leti read a comic.
“Don’t talk to strangers, Leti! Especially not about our business.”
“Everybody is a stranger at first,” she said, and turned the page of her book without looking at me.
“Well, don’t talk to strange strangers,” I said. She twisted her face. I couldn’t stay mad at her, because we were on our way to my grandma’s house and it was going to be great.
“Slow down! These shoes are hard to walk in,” Leti said. We headed down the ramp off the ferry. She stopped and adjusted one of the many straps on her sandal.
“Why didn’t you wear your tennis shoes?” I said.
“Abuela likes it when we look nice.” I looked at her closer. She wasn’t wearing her usual T-shirt and track pants. She had on a skirt and a button-down blouse her nina sent for her last birthday. I was going to say she looked nice in her regular clothes, but I knew what she meant. I was wearing the new hoodie Carlos gave me and my best jeans. A noisy engine revved behind us, and I pulled Leti closer to me. The guy in the mustard jacket nodded as he passed in a purple van. It said MINERVA ANTIQUES & ODDITIES on the side, with a picture of an owl with butterfly wings. He revved the engine again. Leti barely noticed. She was looking for our dad. He waved from his truck with an arm covered in drywall dust.
“Vámonos, I want to shower and change at Carlos’s before we go.” When Dad comes home early some nights, he has to work extra on the weekends. The purple van passed, and we buckled up.
Carlos had an announcement, but he wanted to wait until we got to our grandma’s.
“Go pick up some pan dulce to take to abuela’s while I get cleaned up.” Dad slid me a twenty, which goes a long way in our favorite panadería. Carlos says he picked his apartment to be close to the panadería. I believe him, because he loves that stuff. You can smell pan baking from his balcony. Plus, his apartment isn’t far from our grandma, and he loves her too. We make it to Sunday dinner about once a month, but Carlos is there almost every week. I could be there every day when I moved.
I volunteered to carry the sweet bread to my grandma’s. The bag gets greasy, but it’s the best smell in the world, warm sugar and toasted flour.
We found abuela making tortillas, and Carlos clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“¡Gente, tengo buenas noticias! I got my first promotion at work—I’ll get a raise and be in charge of some new programming!” Everybody cheered and patted his back. I laughed.
“That’s just what you wished for!” I said, but the kitchen was too loud with all the “¡Felicidades!” and no one heard me. I grabbed an oreja and put the pan dulce in the big yellow bread box my grandma keeps filled on the table.
My grandma passed her plate to tía Leti so she could hug me again.
“How’s your mom, mijo?” She smelled like rose perfume and masa.
“She’s sorry she couldn’t come, tía. She had to work. She said to say hi.”
“Take a break, Mama, I got this,” tía Leti said. “Newt, did you get everything you wanted for your birthday?” I did a more-or-less thing with my hand, and she laughed at me. “Pobrecito, what do you need?”
My grandma watched from her chair. I didn’t want to tell them about the truck, because she would get mad at Dad. It was an island thing. I should’ve just said it was fine.
“I kind of wanted a bike, but I didn’t get one this year.” Tía Leti ruffled my hair and laughed again, and my grandma smiled.
“Maybe we can look for one next time you come over,” abuela said.
“Our old bikes are in the garage,” tía Leti said, but abuela looked at me hard.
“He wants his own. A new one.” She squeezed my hand. She sees me. “If you have a bike, you can ride over from Lincoln Bay and have lunch with me, if you don’t mind leaving all your friends once in a while.” It would have been the perfect time to ask her if I could live with her in Lincoln. She would understand. With all my cousins around, I wouldn’t really be a new kid. I took a big breath and opened my mouth just as more cousins spilled into the kitchen.
“Newt! I didn’t know you guys were here. ¿Qué onda?” My cousin Javi stood in the doorway in his puffer jacket and baseball hat. He’s two years older. He tried to teach me to skateboard before the attack, but he doesn’t talk about it anymore.
“Hey, Javi. Just waiting for summer, you know.” Dad snuck in and tried to snag a tortilla, but tía Leti smacked his hand.
“And then middle school. ¡Órale! You gonna be a Bulldog or what?” Javi asked. He was at Lincoln Bay, but he’d be at the high school next year.
“That’s right,” I said, but Dad frowned.
“We’ll see,” he said. Everybody looked at me.
“Yeah, we will,” I said.