The last day of freedom. School tomorrow!

I sat on the edge of the wharf, legs dangling, holding my pad and pencils.

I drew a kid with red hair and green eyes, brows a little thick. I used quick lines for a pointy nose, and a squirrely nest of corkscrews for the hair.

It was turning out to be a girl like me, Judith Ann Magennis.

I tapped the pencil. What was missing?

Of course, the mouth.

My pencil hovered over the blank space. I tore the paper out of the pad, scrunched it up, and tossed it into the water.

Maybe like a mother who’d toss a kid away.

I hid my pad and pencils under a rock and slid down under the wharf to cool off. Water swished in, and I spread my hands like starfish to capture bits of shells.

Noise exploded above me—pounding on the wooden planks.

“I’m going to get you!” a voice yelled.

Me? I ducked under the water and came up dripping. I listened as feet barreled out to the deep end. Not me after all.

“Yeow!” someone yelled, and there was a huge splash.

I peered out from behind a splintery piling. What was going on?

“Serves you right, Mason!” the voice shouted. “Keep your hands off my books. Fingerprints all over them!”

Mason. I knew who he was. He was always a mess. Once I’d seen him rolling down the hill with his brother. He was on the bottom, then winning, on top, grass stains and mud all over him.

I glanced up through the spaces in the wharf and caught a glimpse of his brother, Jerry, who walked away, acting as if he owned the world.

In the water, Mason was a perfect cartoon, mouth open, sputtering, hair plastered to his head.

He swam around the side of the wharf and scrambled up onto the sand. Then he was gone.

I climbed up to the wharf and shook my hair dry. I loved this island. In the distance I could see the coast of Maine, a misty purple blur. And across from me were wooden walls that creaked and groaned when the ferry edged into the slip.

My mother had left on that ferry when I was a toddler, dropping me off at Aunt Cora’s as if I were a bundle of laundry.

She sent presents at Christmas and cards on my birthday, postmarked Oakdale, or Vista, or even Apple Valley. She signed them Mom, or Mother, or her name, Amber. She didn’t even know what to call herself.

A small boat sped by, sending up a curved wake. A man at the tiller turned off the motor and shouted back at me. “Hey, kid!”

I raised my hand to wave.

“Want a dog?”

Before I could move, he’d picked up a dog and dropped him into the water. “Can’t keep him.” He switched on the motor again and veered toward open water.

The dog struggled, paddling against the boat’s wake.

Poor dog.

Without thinking, I raced along the wharf and dived into the water.

There was a fierce riptide here. It made no difference to me. Gideon, the ferry boat captain, had taught me to swim by the time I was three.

“Swim with the tide, then around it,” he’d told me. “Don’t fight it.”

But the dog was fighting; I could see how tired he was. And soon he’d pass the end of the island and be swept out to sea.

I couldn’t speak, but I could certainly swim! I took long, sure strokes and kicked hard and evenly.

When I was close to him, I grabbed the narrow blue collar around his neck, but it came apart in my hand. I gripped a handful of his thick fur; then, with one arm around his neck, I swam back to shore.