Eleven (9 page)

“I'm sure-handed.” Sam went into the small office. He pressed the On button and moved the cursor to get to the Internet.

Muskie.

He whispered it, trying to sound it out. “Muskie.”

“Are you talking to yourself back there?” Ellie called.

“Listen and learn,” Sam called back. One of Mrs. Stanek's favorite things to say.

But Ellie was singing, something about ants going up a hill, while she rattled around in drawers.

Sam tried the word with an
a, maskie
, then an
e, meskie
, and ano,
moskie.

It was when he spelled it with a
u
that the printing came up, filling the screen. Small print, line after line of it, shape after shape. He felt the impossibility of it, anger bursting in his chest. It was right there in front of him, but he couldn't read it. Some of it, of course,
cold water, game fish
, but as for the rest—

If only he could read.

He must have said something aloud, made some kind of sound, because he heard Ellie say, “Sam?” and her heavy footsteps came around the kitchen table toward the computer room.

Sam reached out to hit the Escape button but missed, hitting one of the letter keys, and then she was looking over his shoulder and pointing. “Ah, it's the Thousand Islands.”

He sat entirely still.

Her fingers went to the screen, to the map in the right-hand corner. “Here's where Dad and Mack grew up, and me, too. Where the Iroquois lived. The St. Lawrence River.”

His throat was too thick for him to say anything.

“Remember the legend of the masks?”

“All of them different, but with crooked noses—” He swallowed, found his voice: “—to honor the giant who chased the Spirit of Sickness away.”

“And the other one, of course.”

“The Thousand Islands,” he said.

“Yup,” Ellie said. “Right there in the St. Lawrence River.”

There between his own state, New York, and Canada.

He pressed the Escape button, and all of it disappeared.

“How about a sandwich?” Ellie asked. “A hero, maybe, or some chicken parm? Some of the soup?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks, I have to get back.” He turned and gave her a hug.

“What's that for?” she asked, smiling.

“That's for nothing.” He went back to the woodworking room and saw Caroline's green notebook on top of his table.

He flipped it open to the back, seeing the list Caroline had written, and the paper with his words: I WAS
THER.

It needed an
e, there.
Yes. He'd been there. He added J
000 ilands…
something wrong with that, but never mind. And
St. L.

He closed his eyes. He saw Mack sailing under a bridge
that he felt sure must be there, white sails, a double mast. He pictured the huge fish underneath like gray shadows, the muskies.

And not far from there must be the place where the woman had given his boat away, the place that terrified him, the Children's Home.

It was so hot that Mrs. Stanek threw up her hands after collecting lunch money. “Let's go outside and have an extra recess, before I melt away.”

Eric ran to the closet for the bag of soccer balls, and the rest of them lined up, almost falling over each other.

It was the chance Sam had been waiting for. Telling Caroline what he'd found out was almost as good as knowing it himself.

He watched while a soccer game started and kids began to choose up sides for a baseball game. “Come on, MacKenzie,” Eric yelled. “We need you at third base.”

“Too hot,” he called back. “Sorry.” He went to look for Caroline.

She was leaning up against the Cyclone fence, her finger in her book to mark her place.

“The Thousand Islands,” he said. “Not ten thousand. They're in the St. Lawrence River.” The words tumbled out as if he couldn't say them fast enough. “I should have known.”

She was turned away from him, staring out at the street. “I'm glad you found that much.” Her voice sounded odd.

He moved around to see her face. She wasn't crying, but she had been. Her eyes were swollen, the lids pink, and her golden eyelashes were clumped together, darker than usual.

“You left the notebook in the workroom,” he said, holding it out.

She reached for it absently and put it in her pocket.

“We're almost ready to put the roofs on the castle.” He was hardly thinking of what he was saying. “I just want to paint the room I made for you.” He stopped and began again. “We can do some of it this afternoon.”

She took her finger out of her book; it closed with a tiny snap. “Go away, Sam-I-Am. Please.”

Had he heard her right? He reached back, poking his fingers into the fence's chain links. “What is it? What's the matter?” he asked, even though he was sure he knew.

“I told you I had no time for friends.” Her eyes welled up with tears, and she turned away from the yard to face the fence again. Her voice was muffled. “Why did you want me to be your friend?”

He didn't know what to say. How could he say it was because he wanted her to read the papers in the box? How
could he say it was the castle? How could he say it had just happened? And that afterward, being her friend was as important as everything else? More important. “You're leaving, aren't you?”

She sounded breathless. “Sunday.”

“But tomorrow's Saturday.” He stopped. “We haven't finished the castle.”

“And we don't know all about you. Listen, my mother pulled the suitcases out last night. Most of the boxes were never unpacked.”

The kids were yelling as they played ball, and Mrs. Stanek stood in front of the brick wall of the school, her eyes closed. He wished he could yell at everyone to stop, yell at them to do something.

He kept shaking his head as Caroline spoke. “We'll roll up the sheets and the blankets, put everything from the medicine cabinet in a plastic bag.” Her bracelets jangled against each other. “We've done all this before. But my father promised it's the last time. He's going to teach sunsets instead of drawing them. He promised.”

She brushed at her face. “On Monday, I'll be in a new school, the third this year.”

“But the castle.”
Bringing it to school. The two of them putting it on the table in the back of the room. What
Mrs.
Stanek might have said, what the kids would have said. The new kid and the kid who could hardly read had done this. The best project in the room, the first time for him.

A
ball bounced across the yard toward them, and he
picked it up and tossed it back. “Come with me first this afternoon. We'll finish the castle. You'll take it with you.”

Who cared about what the class thought? She could have the castle, keep it in her room, she'd remember—

“Oh, Sam, I have to help my mother.” She walked away from him, keeping close to the fence, her back straight. She was crying again.

He wanted to go after her, or call after her, but he didn't know what to say. Mack had told him once,
“Onji always knows what to say, but it's hard for me.”

Mrs. Stanek blew her whistle; it was time to go in.

“You're going to miss the medieval feast,” he called after Caroline, trying to make her smile.

“Pease porridge hot,” she said over her shoulder. Marcy Albert said that twenty times a day.

They were the last ones in the schoolyard. Mr. Ramon was coming across the yard and waved at them to hurry.

They followed the rest of the class up the stairs and into the classroom. “I have something for you,” Caroline said. “I made it myself. Not so great, but anyway—you'll see when you get home.”

The day went by in a blur. They sat together at lunch, and when it was time for him to go to Mrs. Waring's room, he whispered, “Don't leave before I come back.”

But she was gone by the time Mrs. Waring finally let them go; the room was empty, except for the small package on his desk.

One day left.

In the workroom, Sam unwrapped the package. It was a horse, with one leg a little shorter than the others, the face goofy. He held it up; it was just the kind of thing Caroline would make. He patted its clay back and leaned it against the plane so it would stay upright.

He took the cloth off the castle. It still needed the roofs for the towers; the pie-shaped pieces were spread out next to it.

He looked inside at the room he'd made for Caroline. Why should he finish it now? But how could he not?

Mack had sample cans of paint on a shelf under the window near the front door. Some of them were metallic: gold and silver, and a tangerine color almost like Caroline's hair. He opened that one and painted the room with a small
brush, bending over, angling his head to see into the corners.
“The brush you use is so important,”
Mack always said,
“the size, the shape.”
Sam tried to concentrate on that, the brush, the strokes, the look of the hidden room, instead of Caroline's leaving.

The bell jangled over the door behind him, and a woman came in holding a small oval table in her arms.

Sam might have called Mack to come down. He was just upstairs in the kitchen having a cup of tea. He'd been here working all day while Sam was in school. “Tired feet,” he'd said as he went up the stairs. “Bone tired.”

Instead Sam took the table from the woman. She showed him a cut on the top. “The dog chased the cat through the living room, the lamp went over. I was so furious—”

“Pine,” Sam said. “Soft wood. Easy to cut into. Too easy.”

“But the dog's more important than the table, after all. Can you fix it?”

He ran his thumb over it. Deep. It would take layers of filler, days of sanding, staining. “We can do it.”

The phone rang.

“Just a second.” He went to the window table and picked it up. “Mack's Woodworking.”

“Sam?”

It was Caroline. He felt himself smile. “Yes.”

“Listen.”

The woman with the table cleared her throat.

“There's something we have to do tomorrow.”

“I'm in a bit of a hurry,” the woman said. “Who knows what the dog is doing now?”

“Can you hold on?” he asked Caroline. “Just for a second?” He put the phone down and gave Mack's work pad to the woman. “Just your name and a phone number.”

“I don't have my glasses.” The woman pushed the pad back at him.

There was always something to remind him about the reading. But Mack had taught him to ask customers to spell their names. And if there was something special that needed to be done, something that wasn't obvious, he just had to remember.

“Your name?” He tried not to sound impatient.

“Marie Judson,” the woman said absently as she went around him and walked toward the castle. She reached out.

He didn't want her to touch it. “The paint is wet.” He could spell
Judson
, two pieces to it. He didn't have to bother with the first name, but hurry, he told himself, Caroline was waiting.

“That's a beautiful model,” the woman said. “I've seen a castle like that.”

He looked back at the phone.

“Is it the one on Heart Island?”

He spread out his hands. “It's just—” He shook his head. “We'll call you as soon as the table's ready.”

She smiled. “Hope you don't have a dog.”

“A cat,” he said, holding the phone again.

“My mother gave me the table years ago. It was in her living room.”

He motioned with the phone. “I have to get this. Sometimes people won't wait.”

“No patience,” she said, and went out the door.

He put the phone to his ear. “Caroline?”

“Tomorrow's Saturday, and we can have the whole day together. My mother said she doesn't need me, that I can come over to the workshop.”

He looked toward the castle. All day tomorrow.

“We can't do that, though.” She was whispering, her voice rushed.

He shook his head. “Wait a minute.”

“I've looked up the bus schedule. I have babysitting money.”

“Whoa.”

“I've found the Children's Home, Eleventh Street. I'll meet you at the bus stop in town. Nine o'clock.”

The phone clicked and she was gone. He ran his fingers over the woman's table, his mouth dry.

Was he really going back to that house tomorrow, back to the woman, and maybe to the boy with the flapping hands?

And then another thought. What was he going to tell Mack?

Sam was awake half the night. Did he really want to do this?

He stumbled out of bed in the morning, and dressed. Mack was in the workroom. Sam took a breath. “I'm going to see Caroline. It's her last day.”

Mack nodded. “Nice. Go ahead. It's warm, sunny. A good idea.”

If Mack knew, really knew
, Sam thought. He ate a quick breakfast of juice and muffins at Onji's, and asked for an extra sandwich for Caroline. “Her last day,” he said again.

Onji looked up, a roll in his hand. “A picnic. Good.”

Five minutes later, Sam was jogging along the road. Breathless, he reached the stores at the edge of town. Caroline was just ahead of him, wearing a purple hat, and a
wooden necklace over her sweater. She grabbed his hand and tugged as she started to run. “We're late,” she said.

He'd never held hands with a girl before. Her hands were warm, and a little smaller than his. It made him smile even though he couldn't imagine how this day would end.

“We may have missed the bus,” she said. “We'll have to wait a half hour for the next one.”

They crossed the street in front of the bank, and went to stand at the stop in front of the Circle Diner. The bus was nowhere in sight. “I'll ask inside,” he said as Caroline bent to close the Velcro on her sneakers.

He poked his head in the door. “Did the bus leave yet?”

Tom at the counter hardly looked at him. “New York City or west?”

“West,” Caroline called in.

“Just missed it.”