THE FIRST FERRY TO THE ISLAND was very early, as soon as they got on board Mum and Aunt Marie staked out a table and produced their books and a thermos of coffee. “We’re on vacation as of now,” said Mum. “Here’s money for breakfast. Don’t fall overboard.”
“Ferry breakfast. Capital,” said Betsy.
Megan, who had managed to stay more or less asleep during the flurried early-morning packing and the trip to the ferry dock, thought about finding a comfortable bench to curl up on. But Betsy and John were full of plans. Besides, the breakfast smells from the cafeteria were tempting.
They pushed their trays around the cafeteria line and met at a table near the window. Megan had sunshine scrambled eggs. Betsy had a chocolate doughnut and green Jell-o. And John had two glasses of water.
“How come you’re not eating?” asked Megan.
“I want to use the money for video games,” said John. “They have great ones on the ferry. But Mum thinks that video games stifle creativity and model inappropriate behavior. Anyway, this isn’t such a bad breakfast. Wait a minute.”
John pushed out past Betsy and went over to the cutlery counter. He came back with a little pillow of ketchup, two lemon slices, a packet of sugar, and two stir sticks. He squeezed the lemon into one glass of water and added sugar. He squeezed the ketchup into the other glass. Then he stirred them both. “There we go, lemonade and tomato juice. All for free.”
The tomato juice looked particularly repulsive. “Free but horrible,” said Megan.
Betsy, however, was staring in fascination. Megan had the feeling that John had just modeled inappropriate behavior with respect to cafeterias.
Megan and Betsy looked at all the souvenirs in the shop while John blasted evil aliens until he ran out of quarters. Then they went outside, to the back deck, to look for sea gulls and whales. There were plenty of sea gulls, and Betsy spotted several dark waves that might have been whales but weren’t.
Megan hung over the rail and stared down into the foaming white wake. With it she tumbled out over the dark green water, time and again.
“Let’s play eavesdrop,” said John.
Eavesdrop was a game that John had made up. Each player was to go around the ferry and, without being obvious about it, listen in on conversations. Then they were to report back with the funniest line that they had heard anyone say.
“Betsy’s too young for eavesdrop,” said Megan.
“Am not,” said Betsy. “It’s one of my best games.”
“Okay,” said John. “This is a sudden-death round. Five minutes only. Meet back at the kids’ playroom.”
Megan wandered off to her favorite eavesdrop area in the bookstore. She pretended to browse through a book called Univalves of the Pacific Northwest while she waited for the perfect overheard remark. But although there was a buzz of conversation around her, she kept listening to the buzz and not the words. She made one last effort to concentrate and then gave up and stared at a picture of a spotted keyhole limpet. Maybe it was still too early in the morning.
A velvet voice wormed into her head. “Please refrain from starting your vehicle engines until the ferry has docked and vehicles in your lane are requested to begin disembarking. . . .” Yikes. The announcement already. They were almost there. Better head back to Mum and Aunt Marie.
“I won,” whispered Betsy as they walked off the ferry.
“Oh yeah, what did you hear?”
‘”Jeff has been posted to Flin Flon.”’ Betsy giggled and skipped beside Megan. “Flin Flon, Flin Flon, Flin Flon . . .”
Megan looked over at John, who shrugged. “What can I say. She’s a natural.”
As soon as they arrived at the cottage, Mum sent Betsy down to the beach. “I don’t want you around the broken glass,” she said, pointing to the smashed window beside the front door.
“I hope there isn’t a dead bird inside,” said Aunt Marie as she pushed the door open over crunching glass.
“That’s why I banished Betsy,” said Mum. “You know how she is. I didn’t want to spend the whole day arranging a bird funeral.”
A careful search revealed no birds, dead or alive, so John got the broom, and Mum and Aunt Marie put on gardening gloves and pulled glass shards out of the window frame. Megan watched.
“Lookit, everybody. Lookit.” Betsy was calling from the beach. Megan and John went out to the deck and looked down to see Betsy holding up a big piece of driftwood above her head. “Come on, there’s lots!”
“Go on, you’re excused,” said Mum. “We’ll just nail some boards over this hole.”
John and Megan climbed down to the beach. Betsy was right. There was a whole new supply of driftwood lying in a tangled, seaweedy line on the sand.
“Hey, these are good,” said John, pulling pieces free from the tangle. “There’s even some long pieces.”
“Let’s make a house,” said Betsy.
John looked at Megan. “Want to?”
Megan shrugged. “Okay.”
John propped up the long pieces against the bank, and they all started to collect wood to lay across them for walls.
Megan gathered a few armloads and then it just started to seem like work. She stopped and stared at the bits of wood piled up against the rocky cliff. She tried to make it be a house, but it wouldn’t go. It was like one of those optical illusions, a black vase that turns into two white profiles after you’ve stared at it for a while. But her mind wouldn’t make the flip. The pile of wood remained a pile of wood. A heaviness crept up her legs as though she were turning into a lump of wood herself.
She wandered away up the beach, staring down at the sand. A piece of green beach glass, part of a broken pop bottle carved by the sea, glinted in the sunlight, and she picked it up and pocketed it. When she came to the big flat rock they called the table, the incoming tide was lapping at its edges. She drew water pictures on its black surface, and the sun came and erased them. She turned her earrings in her ears.
“Megan.” Betsy was coming toward her with a determined look on her face. “Megan, you’re not helping. Come on.”
“It’s not a house anymore,” explained Betsy as they returned to the driftwood. “It’s a store. We made a security gate so robbers don’t steal things.”
John was busy hanging strands of slimy, rubbery seaweed over the entrance. “Welcome to Flotsam and Jetsam ‘R’ Us,” he announced. Megan crouched down and pushed her way through the curtain. Inside were arrangements of shells, wood, and pebbles. Betsy followed her in, making it a tight fit.
“What do you want to buy?” asked Betsy.
Megan reached into her pocket and touched the beach glass. It could be an emerald. And then suddenly it couldn’t. It was just a hunk of glass. She couldn’t even think of anything to say to Betsy except the kind of stupid stuff that grown-ups say when they are only pretending to play. The salt seaweed smell was overpowering and there was a hollowness inside her in the place where her stomach might be. Maybe she just needed lunch. “Betsy, want something to eat?”
Betsy looked offended. “But we just started.”
“I know. Sorry. I’ll come back later.” Megan pushed her way through the seaweed door and headed up to the blackberry patch that lay behind the beach.
The narrow path between the blackberry bushes had a dusty noontime smell. Megan picked her way carefully. How come she wasn’t able to play with Betsy and John? It wasn’t like not wanting to. It was like not knowing how. Was that what it was like for grown-ups? Was that why they didn’t make believe, because they had forgotten how?
She popped three sun-hot blackberries into her mouth and crushed them with her tongue. She was just a step away from the side of the cottage when a stray blackberry branch reached out and grabbed her sock. As she stopped to unhook herself she heard Aunt Marie’s voice.
“What’s the problem?”
Then Mum’s. “Oh, it’s just that know-it-all stage.”
Megan froze.
“She’s just so sure about everything. I feel like I’m always biting my tongue. Oh, Marie, I wasn’t prepared for this.”
Marie laughed. “She’s just like you were at that age. I remember you laying down the law to father about civil disobedience.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make her any easier to take. Nobody told me about this part.”
Megan clenched her fists and her teeth. She hated it when her mum discussed her. What right did she have . . .
The wood heaviness in her legs exploded into energy. She turned and ran pounding back along the blackberry path. A branch whipped across her arm. Once out in the open she turned away from the beach and headed toward the woods behind the house. She plunged in, kicking through the undergrowth of ferns and bushes. Her foot caught on a root and she fell, like a tree. She lay still, winded, gulping in the dark green-brown air of the forest. A rough chunk of bark pressed into her cheek. The sunshine and the sounds of the beach were left far behind.
When she sat up, the bark stayed stuck to her cheek. She picked it off, shook the tears from her eyes, and began to talk to her mother. She talked until the words inside her mouth were polished, as perfect and sharp as pine needles.
A thin glowing band of white on a nearby stump caught her attention. A bracket fungus, growing out of the spongy wood like a little lumpy shelf. She pulled it off and turned it over. The underside was clean, untouched, creamy white. She picked up the piece of bark and scratched a jagged brown line across the fungus page. Then she started printing, holding the bark tight in her fist and pressing the bark point deep into the velvety white. “I HATE”— she paused for a second — “THIS. M.H.”
Holding the fungus carefully, she got up and pushed through the woods toward the sun. She stood in the shadows at the forest edge and looked back toward the house. Movement. John and Betsy and Aunt Marie were getting out the bikes. She watched as they wobbled up the hill and away. Then she walked down to the beach, across the rocks and sand. She put one foot precisely on the high tide line and threw the fungus as hard as she could, overhand, out across the waves. To Asia.
There. Done.