A Walk Through a Window (5 page)

I’m no idiot
, she thought.
I can read the signs
. Darby had watched enough daytime TV to recognize what was happening. After all, it wasn’t like she was the first kid whose parents ever split up.

But it still felt like a body blow when she found out they were dumping her with her grandparents for the summer. Not that they told her anything. As far as anyone knew, it was all about some stupid household renovation.

Sure.

Darby lay in bed the night before she left for Charlottetown and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be divorced. Would she live part-time with one parent like Sarah did with her dad? Or maybe she wouldn’t even get to see her dad anymore. Caitlyn Morris, from gym class, claimed she hadn’t seen her dad since she was eight.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was …

Something hit Darby on the head.

She shook herself out of the reverie and looked around. Sure enough, there was a chestnut on the ground. But where …? And the feeling was back. Like someone was in the trees watching her.

The branch above her head rustled and Darby looked
up, startled. A large grey squirrel sat staring at her with bold black eyes. In both paws he held a giant chestnut.

“So it was you, was it?” she said to the squirrel, with a shaky laugh. “What is it with chestnuts in this place?”

“Maybe because they taste so good,” said the squirrel.

Darby gasped. But before she could completely embarrass herself by responding to the rodent, a boy stepped out from behind the tree.

“Very funny,” she blurted, trying madly not to blush at the thought of the close call. She scrambled away from the swing and flipped her skateboard into one hand.

The boy stared at her. He had curly hair—black as a raven’s wing—and his blue eyes sparkled from a darkly tanned face.

“You thought the squirrel was speaking,” he said, with barely contained glee.

“Did not.”

“Maybe not, maybe so.” He strode forward and took over Darby’s spot on the swing, leaning back and pushing off hard with his legs. “It’s not nice to tease people,” he said in a reasonable tone. “Better to make friends.”

Suddenly he stopped, planted his feet and stood up with one hand outstretched. “My name is Gabriel.”

Darby stared at his hand for a minute, thinking. At least this guy was willing to talk to her, unlike Red T-shirt.

“I’m Darby,” she said at last, and shook his hand quickly. His skin was cool, which was good because Darby hated sweaty hands. She snatched her skateboard up and stepped out of his way in case he decided to hop on the swing again.

“You are here only for the summer?” he asked.

Darby shrugged. “Not the whole summer, if I have anything to do with it. I’m from Toronto.”

He nodded. “Myself, I have lived in this small place since I was a baby.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “You don’t sound like you’re from here,” she said. “You have a French accent.”

“I speak French at home,” he said, stepping away from the swing and flipping a rock from the ground onto his toe. He kicked his foot sharply and the rock sailed over his head, but before it could hit the ground he kicked it up with his other heel and it slapped neatly into the palm of his left hand.

She refused to be impressed. “You obviously don’t spend enough time watching TV.”

“I do not know about that,” he said. “Me? I just like rocks.” He held out his hand, and the rock sat smooth and flat and red on his palm.

This was turning into another bizarre conversation. Between Gramps and Red T-shirt and now this guy—man, was everyone in this town weird?

“Okay, so it’s a nice rock,” Darby admitted. “And it’s that colour because of the iron in the soil. Everybody knows that.”

The boy laughed. “Yes, the soil means there are no white dogs on the Island, for sure.”

“Or white runners,” she said, looking down at the rust-coloured stain on her new shoes.

Gabriel leaned back on the swing. “You can have white shoes anywhere,” he said. “I think the rocks are red
because they are the heart of this place. And this red island is the heart of the country.”

“Oh, please.” Darby rolled her eyes. “Uh, sorry Mr. Romantic Imagery, but there’s no way that PEI is the heart of Canada. I live in Toronto. Have you ever been there?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“Well, it’s the biggest city in the country. Millions of people all living and working in one place. Way more than live on this whole island, let alone in this stupid little town.”

Darby’s face started to feel hot and she was embarrassed to feel tears stinging behind her eyelids. She blinked them back and to cover up, shouted at him. “Everything is really exciting and there is so much to do. Movies and concerts and theatre and …”

“And?”

She grabbed the rock out of his hand and threw it across the street as hard as she could. It cracked into the high branches of an oak and crashed down to the base of the massive trunk. A few leaves fluttered to the ground.

“And, it’s way better than this lame little place.”

Unexpectedly, the boy didn’t argue with Darby. She thought insulting his town should at least have gotten a rise out of him. But nothing. He just stared at her and picked up another rock.

“There may be more to this place than you think,” he said, at last. “Many cultures have come together on this small island.”

Darby swallowed the lump in her throat. Throwing the rock had helped her get control of the sudden bout of
homesickness. The last thing she needed was to let some local guy see her get all teary.

“In Toronto, we have Caribana in the summer and we have the most amazing Chinatown and the Danforth has awesome Greek food. There’s nothing like that here.”

“I think you need to look more closely,” he argued. “Look just at the people living on this street. I am Acadian, your grandparents—”

“Are from Canada,” she cut him off. She wasn’t going to let the conversation get around to Gramps if she could help it. “And I don’t know anybody on the street, anyway.” No point mentioning she had met Shawnie. Besides, Shawnie wouldn’t have helped his argument anyway because with her Mi’kmaq heritage, she was just another boring Canadian.

“Why do you hate this place so much?” he asked.

Darby shrugged and looked at her watch. Time to go back and help Nan. “I don’t know. It’s boring. It’s not like home and—”

“And?”

“And I’m an outsider, okay? Some lady in the bank today told Nan that I was from away. From away? What a laugh. This little island is a joke. It’s so small you can hardly find it on a map! And yet the whole rest of the world is considered ‘away’? I bet nothing exciting has
ever
happened here. I don’t get why you think it’s so great, anyway. You’ve probably never been anywhere else.”

She looked at her watch again. “I’ve got to go.”

He didn’t argue, just turned to walk away. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime before you leave,” he said,
and a smile lit up his face as he slipped back into the trees. “I live in the blue house at the end of the street.”

Darby nearly dropped her skateboard.

“Wait,” she called out to him. “You mean the house with the gingerbread trim?”

But he was gone.

Two o’clock in the afternoon. The sun beat down on the back of Darby’s neck and she turned her ball cap around to offer some protection. Her back itched. So did her shoulders. Picking raspberries was itchy business. Nan had given her a litre basket to fill and it seemed to be taking forever.

Some job. First she had Darby peel potatoes for an hour before lunch. While they were eating, Nan announced that Darby’s job for the afternoon was to pick raspberries.
And
babysit Gramps.

This last part she didn’t mention until Gramps had left to find his garden tool kit.

“Just keep an eye on him, Darby. I won’t be out for very long and I just don’t—”

“Want him to end up in a tree again?”

Nan looked at her coldly. “Young lady, your grandfather is a wonderful man. He has a few—er—eccentricities, but he has been a kind husband and father for many more years than you have walked this earth. Now, I’m sure everything will be just fine. I’ll be back shortly.”

She pushed the berry basket into Darby’s hands and walked out the door with that red hair of hers practically bristling off her head.

“How ye doing there, kiddo?”

Gramps was back. He’d been rummaging around in Nan’s garden shed. Darby brushed away a raspberry leaf that was stuck to her hat. “All right, I guess.” She cast a wary eye at him. Seemed okay. No sign that he wanted to suddenly climb a tree, anyway.

“Hot work, pickin’ berries.”

Darby nodded and slapped at an insect buzzing near her ear.

“Ye gotta watch out for them blackflies, kiddo. This time o’ year they pack a mean bite.”

She nodded again and held up her arm to show him a dime-sized scab just below her elbow.

“I think one got me last night,” she said. “It felt like a red-hot needle had jabbed into me.”

Gramps reached across the raspberry cane brambles and grasped her wrist in one strong hand. Darby felt a bit startled by this, but almost immediately saw he was just holding up her arm so he could see the bite clearly.

“Yep, looks like one took a fair chunk outta you.” He chuckled. “My dad used to tell me that God put blackflies on earth to improve my reflexes.” He slapped his other hand on his thigh and the sound echoed off the trees like a rifle shot. “Suckers haven’t bit me since I was ten.”

Darby rubbed the sore spot on her arm and turned back to her basket. If she could get this job done before Nan returned she might have a chance to try to find Gabriel.
She wanted to hear how he and his family were able to live in that broken-down old place.

Gramps pulled his hat down low with a snort and shuffled off toward the house.

Now where’s he going?
Darby thought.
We’re supposed to be doing this together
.

She dropped to her knees and kept picking. Gramps seemed fine today. It was stupid that she was forced to keep an eye on him. He seemed perfectly normal—even a little less cranky than at breakfast time when he caught her piling four spoonfuls of sugar onto her porridge.

And what if he did decide to do something wacky? Just what was she supposed to do about that? Not much a thirteen-year-old can do to stop a man the size of Gramps from climbing a tree if he wants to badly enough.

Darby checked her basket. Maybe fifteen decent berries. There were two main problems with berry picking. Half of the things seemed to have a little white worm or two curled up inside. Ugh. And the other half looked so juicy and red—and the day was so hot …

At this rate only one berry out of every five she picked was making it into the basket.

The screen door slammed and Gramps shuffled back across the lawn toward the garden. Good. No tree climbing yet.

He had a pile of old newspapers under his arm. “Gotta love
The Guardian
,” he said. “At least this goddamn paper is good for something.”

Earlier he’d been complaining bitterly about something he’d read in the paper. Nice to see his attitude had
improved. He dropped half the papers on the ground in front of Darby and knelt down on the other half. “I’m going to let ye in on a little secret, kiddo,” he said, his voice muffled by leaves as he stuck his head under the brambles. “The trick to picking raspberries is that ye have to be open to seeing things from a different angle.”

Darby slapped at a mosquito and dropped to her knees. She stuck her head under the brambles, carefully keeping her distance from the little suckers on the leaves that wanted to sting her face and hands. The temperature dropped in the cool shade under the branches, and when she looked up, Darby could see masses of berries just ready for picking.

That Gramps. Full of surprises.

She rolled over on her back to look up at the clumps of red berries, each hanging from a slender stalk and dangling in their hundreds just above her head.

The leaves rustled and Gramps’s head poked into Darby’s little cave under the brambles. “Nan stakes ’em so they’ll grow like this,” he said with a grin. “Should speed up the job—long as you can keep a few of ’em outta yer mouth.”

Darby picked like crazy for about five minutes and just like that her basket was full. She scrambled out from under the bushes to see her grandfather dusting off his knees. “Thanks, Gramps,” she said gratefully. “That took no time at all.”

About then she noticed his own basket was empty. He stuffed it into her free hand.

“Uh, well, kiddo, I’ve a powerful thirst that’s just come
on,” he said, glancing up at the house. “And since Etta is not available to get me a lemonade, I think I’ll just pop down to the Legion for a quick sip.”

Darby jumped to her feet and tried to think fast. This was exactly what Nan didn’t want. “Er—Nan said you were going to—ah—keep an eye on me while she was out,” she stammered.

“Ach—you’re a big strong girl. Ye don’t need old Gramps always hanging over yer shoulder,” he said, already heading across the yard. “Besides, I’ll be back long before Etta makes it home from her bridge game. Now you just get those berries picked, Allie my girl, and I’ll bring home some vanilla ice cream to eat ’em with.”