Chapter 10

For the rest of the afternoon I fretted about my dilemma. Tutu and I wandered through the meadow as I thought about the best way to squirm out of dinner on Friday. I knew that even if I canceled, Birdie would probably keep inviting me, so I’d have to avoid the general store for the entire summer. And I didn’t want to do that.

Something else was bothering me. Why did Stella need a new friend? More importantly, why did Birdie think the two of us could be friends? Stella had to be close to Viva’s age, maybe older since she was an aunt. I didn’t see how I could be friends with the sister of someone who already had a baby.

All at once, that disgusting becoming a woman book popped into my head along with what Mo had said about spotting. Last night, I had noticed a small stain near the seam of my shorts as I got undressed, but I quickly threw my clothes in the hamper without looking closer.

All this pacing and worrying under the hot sun was making me lightheaded. I sat down in the middle of the meadow to rest with Tutu, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Tutu?” I called, then twisted around and yelled, “Tutu!”

To my relief, she stood up at the far end of the field, her stubby tail wagging slowly. She must have grown tired too and plopped down in the hay. I rushed over and scooped her up in my arms, then carried her back to the house, where we collapsed on the hammock together in the backyard.

As we rocked back and forth, I studied the bridge in the distance, trying to figure out how I was going to manage my life as Chloe. From this far away, the bridge looked so tiny it reminded me of the pieces in a board game that my family used to play. The winner was the first one who passed over a plastic moat filled with alligators.

And that’s when everything became clear: This was just a game.

I would never see any of these people ever again after the summer, so why worry? I should have fun with Chloe! Even Mo agreed that pretending to be a butler helped George work through his emotions, and I was essentially doing the same thing.

I could make this work. All I needed was a system to keep track of the details so that Chloe’s exciting new world would stay completely separate from Agnes’s pathetic old life.

Tutu was sound asleep on my stomach, so I placed her down on the patio as carefully as I could without waking her. Then I ran upstairs to get my phone and type up some notes.

It had been a couple of days since I’d checked my phone, so as soon as I powered it up, messages and voicemails from Mo appeared. I knew I should open them, but there were so many. Just thinking about my mother exhausted me. So I powered the phone down again, even more determined to ignore everything to do with my life back in Kettleboro, and shoved it in the nightstand. Then I pulled out a pen and a pad of paper and started a handwritten list:

Game: Who Am I?

Name: Chloe

Age: 14

Home: Topeka, Kansas

Occupation: actress (mostly theater, some TV ads) with dance background

Family: 2 MARRIED parents, 1 older sister

Mom: fashion designer

Dad: bank president

Sister: Viva, college student, not a dropout

Other: family moves & travels often

Goal: living the life I deserve.

Winner: me.

***

I decided to avoid going into the general store for the rest of the week, even though I really wanted to talk to Stella about her mysterious chat with Fin. But that would have to wait. By staying away until Friday, I could give Birdie the only excuse I could think of when arriving alone for dinner.

I did manage to sneak over to the farm stand on my bike the next morning at ten o’clock to get the honey. I figured I would say hello to Fin, and then leave before Stella or Birdie noticed me through the big picture window. But Fin wasn’t there. Instead, a paper bag with a small “C” was perched in the center of the table next to a bucket of daisies. I opened the bag and pulled out a jar of honey with the words Fly Back Farm printed on the label.

The sign, which listed everything for sale, didn’t have a price for honey. So I wasn’t sure if I was expected to put money through the cash box slot or if the honey was a gift. I had a five-dollar bill Dad had given me to buy more donuts at the general store, but I was planning on telling him they were sold out if he remembered to ask. I was really hoping he would forget anything I had ever said about this side of the bridge.

As I placed the honey back in the brown paper bag, I noticed a tiny note with even tinier handwriting taped to the bottom of the jar: Turn right at the fork and find me at the end of the road. It felt like a clue to something else, as if Fin was playing a game as well.

I tucked the bag inside the pouch on the back of my bike seat and took off down the dirt road. After passing the fork at the sign on the tree, I turned right, riding deeper into the woods, until the road abruptly stopped at a barbed wire fence.

A metal gate was partially open, so I laid my bike on the ground and stepped through. Beyond the dense trees, I spotted a clearing where Fin was standing in front of a row of cages. He turned as soon as he heard me walk up behind him.

“What is this place?” I asked.

A bandaged bird, huddling in the corner of one of the cages, made a squawking noise.

“A rehab facility for raptors.”

We had studied raptors in science class, but I couldn’t remember the various kinds other than eagles and owls. I glanced around and saw a total of four birds. Three of them were in similar metal hutches up on a platform, while one flapped around in a huge pen with netting on top.

“What’s wrong with them?” I asked.

Fin removed the thick gloves he was wearing. “A lot of times, they have broken wings. Other times, it can be puncture wounds or head trauma. If it’s something serious, we take them directly to the veterinarian for mending or surgery, and then they come back to us for recovery.”

“What happens when they’re better?”

He smiled and crossed his arms. “We release them and they fly back to wherever they belong.”

As I watched Fin lock up their cages, I imagined them flying free again and I wondered how they knew where they belonged.

“So, it looks like you found the honey?”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” I pulled out the five-dollar bill. “I don’t know how much it costs, but—”

He swatted at a bug buzzing around his head. “No charge. You can have it. That’s a jar left over from last season, but the honey’s still good.”

Even up close, I still couldn’t figure out Fin’s age. He looked about thirteen or fourteen but acted older. And his voice was so smooth and confident, like a grown-up’s voice. The way he tucked his tangled hair behind his ears and slumped a little reminded me of the boys I had seen outside the high school.

He bent over to swat another bug and his shirt hung loose, so I could see more of that scar which traveled down his chest.

“Let’s go down to the river,” he said. “The mosquitoes aren’t as bad over there.”

After closing the gate, I left my bike and followed him along a path to the edge of the water where an old covered bridge crossed to the other side. Fin told me that the Hooper family had bought all the property around this bridge more than a hundred years ago, so hardly anyone knew it was down here.

It was so dark inside, like a tunnel, that I couldn’t see anything. Fin pulled a penlight out of his pocket, which he said he used to examine the birds, and he pointed it at the wall. Dozens of names, initials, and dates were carved into the wooden planks.

“The oldest one is here,” he said, pointing the light toward the railing. “Rob & Sadie ’79.”

“Really, 1979?” I asked.

“Eighteen seventy-nine,” he said. “The bridge was built in 1878 when Rob Hooper lived here with his family. He and Sadie got married a few years later.”

“Wow, that’s a long time ago.” I ran my fingers along the letters and numbers, trying to imagine Rob and Sadie.

We walked to the other end of the bridge and back into the sun. As we sat on the edge of the road, letting our legs dangle over the water, Fin moved closer to me. I could feel the warmth of his arm.

“Do you think people back then thought about the people who would be reading their names more than a hundred years later?” he asked.

That was an odd question. I had to think about it for a bit. “I doubt it,” I replied after a second. “At least, that’s not what I would be thinking about if I carved my name in that bridge.”

“What would you be thinking about?”

“Probably about doing it as fast as I could, so I wouldn’t get in trouble.”

He nodded but didn’t smile. Now I wondered what he was thinking about.

“So you aren’t from around here, right?” I asked, knowing he wasn’t.

He shook his head. “No, I’m from a little town outside of Montreal.”

“Canada?”

“Yep. It’s not far from here. About a two-hour drive north across the border. And you?”

Something made me hesitate before answering, “Kansas.”

He grinned. “Are you sure?”

I could feel myself blushing. For some reason, it was harder to tell these little fibs to Fin. “My family moves around a lot.”

“So you have no idea where you belong,” he said. “I know how that feels.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but he was right. I’d never felt like I belonged anywhere. Not until the day I crossed the stone bridge and became Chloe.

He picked up a pebble and tossed it in the water. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. I assumed he must be feeling very lonely after whatever tragedy destroyed his family.

“I’m so sorry about everything,” I found myself saying without thinking it through. Agnes never would have been that bold.

He pitched another pebble. “What do you mean?”

“I actually heard about your move here last winter after, you know, what happened.”

He turned and looked at me. “After what happened?”

This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected and realized I shouldn’t have brought it up. Other than his name, I didn’t know anything about Fin.

“I don’t know really,” I said. “It’s none of my business.”

“Tell me what you do know.”

All I knew was what Stella had told me. Now I began to wonder if any of it was true. “That you lost your parents?”

His expression suddenly grew so serious I began to worry he might cry or get angry or throw something.

Instead, he burst out laughing. “Is that what people think?” he asked. “That my parents died, and Harriet Hooper took me in?”

“I guess so.” Now I felt embarrassed.

He took one long breath and said, “Funny thing is, I was the one who almost died, not my parents.”

I glanced at the scar, just visible above his T-shirt. I wanted to ask, but figured I’d already said too much.

He threw another pebble in the river and stood up. “Almost lunchtime and I still need to clean the barn.”

“Do you want some help?”

“That’s okay,” he said as I followed him through the wooden tunnel to the other side. “Thanks anyway.”

“What about tomorrow?” I asked, surprising myself again. Chloe was so much braver than Agnes.

He stopped and stared down at me. This time I didn’t look away.

“I have to go out of town for a few days,” he said and smiled. “Stop by the farm stand next Monday. I’ll leave something else for you, something better than honey.”

I smiled back. Monday already felt like a year away.