“BUT WHAT do you think it means?” I say, pointing at the inky bird at the bottom of the yellowed page.
Ally studies it through my magnifying glass. “You sure it’s a bird?”
“Looks like a bird to me.”
“Let me see.” Rose grabs the glass and looks, too. “Could be.”
“It’s definitely a bird!” I exclaim.
We’re sitting on the island, much like we did the day we found the clue except today Rose is leaning against our willow. It’s strangely cool, gray clouds threatening overhead.
Rose hands me back the magnifying glass. “So it’s a bird. Are we any closer to understanding any of it?”
“Well, I’m sure she told someone,” I say. “Or else, why would she have written I TOLD YOU SO like that?” I point to the words as if entering courtroom evidence.
“Have you ever thought that the person she told—”
I cut in. “Maybe the police.”
“Maybe the police,” she says, “determined that Girl Detective was not so reliable. Or as I would say, probably cuckoo.”
“Why do you have to be that way about Girl Detective?” I say. “What did she ever do to you?”
“I don’t know,” Rose says. “Maybe it’s because it’s our last summer together and it feels like there are four girls on this island instead of three.”
Ally’s eyes meet mine. “It is our last summer together.”
I feel myself deflating. I know it’s our last summer together. I know we should just be having fun. But I can’t seem to help feeling like Girl Detective is real and somehow calling out to me.
“On a happier note,” Rose says with a sarcastic edge, “my parents have announced our move date. August 14.”
“That’s less than two months away!” I exclaim.
“Do you think it was always their evil plan to move me all the way across the ocean, bide their time, and then, when I’m practically American, rip me right back out again?”
“It’s so unfair,” Ally says, and I know she’s saying it for all of us. The unfairness of being separated. None of us ever asked for that.
“You know how traumatic it was when I first came,” Rose continues. “I didn’t know anybody. I was dressed funny—”
“Really funny,” Ally says innocently. But that’s not how Rose takes it.
“That’s what they wore in England, Al! I couldn’t help it!”
I remember. It was the middle of the year in Ms. Hillbrook’s first grade class. Ally sat in the desk beside me but we weren’t friends yet. When Principal Smith walked through the door with this little skinny girl with jet-black hair and enormous blue eyes, everybody stared at her. Even me. She was wearing a uniform that made me wonder if her last school had been Hogwarts.
Principal Smith cleared her throat and announced, “Class, I’d like to introduce to you a new student, all the way from the United Kingdom.”
Bethany Hopkins raised her hand from the second row and talked before being called on. “She’s from a kingdom? Like a princess or something?”
Everybody laughed and I saw small pink blotches sprout on the girl’s pale white face.
“No,” Principal Smith said. “This is India Ashcroft. She’s from England, which is part of the United Kingdom, which includes the countries of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.”
The girl pulled on Principal Smith’s sleeve. “What is it, India?” she asked, leaning down to listen. “Oh,” Principal Smith said. “I apologize.” She turned to us. “This is Rose. She goes by Rose.” She looked down and Rose nodded. I will forever think of this as Rose’s first act of independence in the New World.
“Remember, she called you India?” I say to Rose as a breeze ripples through the willow tree branches. I found out later that Rose was her middle name.
“Yeah, I remember.” She wraps her arms around her knees. “They better not think they can call me that again when we’re back in England. Because they can’t. I am not a country! I am a human being!”
A rumble of thunder, like a brooding kettledrum, vibrates through the sky. Instantly, Rose jumps to her feet. We linger and Rose’s hands go to her hips. I don’t think it’s the moment to tell her she looks just like her mother when she does that. “Come on. Let’s buzz,” she says. “What are you waiting for?”
Rose is no longer that timid girl from first grade. She is fearless and bold and nobody gives her grief. Not anymore. By second grade she had buried her English accent so completely that no one ever guessed she was British. Not only did she blend in, she became the most popular girl in school.
That’s why it’s always a surprise to me when she’s so afraid of rain and thunder.
We follow Rose back to her house under gray clouds so swollen with raindrops they look like they hurt.
“Cuppa tea, girls?” Mrs. Ashcroft calls out from the kitchen as she hears us bolt through the front door. “Rain’s coming.” What I’ve learned from Rose’s mom is that every event—bad or good—is made better somehow by a cup of tea.
“No thanks, Mum,” Rose says. “Going up.” That’s how you can tell that Rose is actually British underneath it all. Because she calls her mom Mum. As we follow her up the stairs, my eyes glimpse the living room. The moving boxes are multiplying like jackrabbits in there.
As soon as we close Rose’s bedroom door, she says, “I want to show you something.”
Ally plops down on one of Rose’s twin beds and I stretch out on the other one.
“I wonder what Romeo’s doing right now,” Rose calls out from inside her closet.
“I hope he’s beating the crap out of Joey at cards or something,” says Ally.
Rose reappears holding a bathing suit up against her clothes. “What do you think?”
“It’s a two-piece.” My mouth falls open slightly because there’s so little bathing suit there.
“It’s a bikini!” Rose says. “Nobody calls it a two-piece, Bird.”
“I do. Your mom’s going to let you wear that?”
“She said.”
“My mom would stroke out,” Ally deadpans from the bed.
I grin. Because her mom would stroke out. Even Joey’s eyeballs would pop out of his head if he saw Ally in something like that.
Then I realize why the tiny bikini is okay with Rose’s mother. Because in some ways, Rose still looks like a nine-year-old girl. She used to joke, I’m light as a feather, flat as a board. She doesn’t say that anymore.
I fold my arms across my chest. Things are starting to change for me under there, but I haven’t told them yet. My mom is pretty flat-chested, but I don’t take after her. I know that already. I’m like my dad’s mom, my grandma—short waist, long legs, and other stuff I don’t have yet. Stuff that tells me if I were on a highway, I’d be approaching a sign that reads CURVES AHEAD.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” Rose asks as she models in front of the mirror.
“God, I hope not!” Ally beans her with a pillow.
“Al!” Rose yells and throws it back. She places the bikini on a chair and sits down on the foot of Ally’s bed. “If I weren’t moving,” she says thoughtfully, “I think Romeo would be asking me to the sixth-grade dance.”
A knot of guilt twists in my stomach.
The sixth-grade dance is in September at the new middle school where Romeo and I will be going. It’s where Rose would be going if she weren’t moving away.
“It’s not a real dance,” I say. “It’s after school. You’re not supposed to have a date or anything.”
“It would have been a real dance for us,” Rose says dreamily.
“Let’s listen to music,” I say, trying to change the subject.
“Okay.” Rose goes to her computer. “What do you want to listen to?”
“Don’t care,” Ally says.
“Something good.” I lean back against the pillow and for the first time, I almost feel glad that Rose is moving. Because I know Romeo’s not going to ask her to the dance. And that would be horrible to watch. Then I’m struck with a panicky thought: What if he asks me?!
“Check this out,” Rose says, and the music starts. It’s a weird rock song. Twangy, almost country. Something Rose would never play.
Ally and I prop up on our elbows and look at Rose with questioning eyes.
She smiles. “The Allman Brothers Band.”