Megan's Island (10 page)

Ordinarily the prospect of being on their own from breakfast to suppertime would have been great. Now the day stretched ahead of her, endless hours of it, when there would be no adult around in case anything bad happened. The fear was like icy teeth, gnawing at Megan's stomach.

The boys had shoved the boat almost free of the beach. Sandy jumped in, and they were both laughing as Wolf, afraid of being left behind, scrambled wildly after him, nearly overturning the boat, which Ben was holding for Megan.

“Come on, hurry up, before that idiot of a dog swamps us and we have to bail,” Ben called. “Maybe you'd better leave him here,” he added to Sandy, as Wolf rocked the boat again in his frantic effort to reach the bow where Sandy was seated. “I don't want to dump a load of groceries in the lake.”

“Sit, Wolf! Sit!” Sandy commanded. “Wait a minute, Ben. If I can get him to stay in one place, he'll be all right! We can't leave him here, he'd probably try to swim after us, and he might not be able to swim as far as the island.”

Megan rolled up her pant legs and stepped in, wishing she could feel as carefree as the boys. The sound of an engine brought her head around so quickly that she rocked the boat, though it was in no danger of capsizing. A sleek black car showed through the trees, and for a moment panic overwhelmed her, until she realized that it was going out, toward the main road, rather than coming in.

Ben looked, too. “My dad. He said he was having trouble with his typewriter. He's been grumbling about it, and he said if it got any worse he'd have to take it to the city to get it fixed. Boy, I hope they've got a loaner, or they can fix it right away, so he can go on working, or he'll be miserable to live with.” Ben took a few steps, soaking the legs of his jeans, and hopped into the boat as he shoved it off. “I'll row,” he said, as if the decision were his to make.

Megan didn't care about that. Let him make his muscles ache and get slivers in his hands from the old oars. She was thinking about Mr. Jamison going to town. That left the three of them—Sandy, Ben, and herself—completely unprotected here at the lake.

Megan had taken the seat at the stern, facing Ben as he rowed. Wolf had settled down, holding still with Sandy's hand on his collar, and they were about twenty yards from shore when Ben looked directly at Megan, and she saw that he hadn't put their situation out of mind, after all.

“You know what you did when you wrote to your friend Annie, don't you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Megan demanded. Even before he replied, though, her heart had taken on that almost painfully rapid beat. The uneasiness she had been feeling ever since she had put the letter to Annie in the mailbox suddenly congealed in a great guilty lump in her chest. Because she
did
know, even if she hadn't put it into words, even in her own mind. Because she didn't want to be the one responsible for making a bad situation worse.

“You told them where you are. Back there where you used to live.”

The rapid beating in her chest became a thunderous clamor. Megan's fingers curled over the edges of the seat, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “Annie won't tell, if that man comes back.”

“No? Not even if he convinces her he's your uncle?” Ben persisted, dealing more expertly with the oars, sending the boat skimming over the surface of the water. “Besides, she's probably not the only one who saw
your
letter. Saw the postmark. If they track you as far as Lakewood, they'll find you here. The mail carrier delivered the letter from Annie to your grandpa's mailbox, so that means the next time anybody asks in the village, the postmaster will probably tell them where you are.”

Megan swallowed, almost hating him for having said it, yet knowing it was true, that somehow she'd given away the place Mom had hidden them. To keep them safe, that was what she'd said: They'd be safe here.

She wanted to cry, but with Ben watching her she was determined not to. “I'll tell Grandpa, as soon as he comes home,” she said.

She hoped that wouldn't be too late.

Wolf was in and out of the boat several times while they were loading it in front of the log cabin. He left wet footprints on everything, shook himself dry over their supplies, and generally made a nuisance of himself in his eagerness to be as close to his new friends and benefactors as possible.

Ben grew impatient. “He's making a mess of my blankets. Make him get out, Sandy, before he eats any more of that cheese. He already got the bologna. There isn't room for him in the boat, anyway, if we take this last box.”

Reluctantly, Sandy ordered the dog out of the boat, and the others climbed in and pushed off for the trip to the island. Wolf, however, was very unhappy to be left behind.

He ran along the shore, barking and whining. When Sandy ordered him to stay, and then to sit, Wolf ignored the commands, simply driven to further frenzy by the sound of the boy's voice.

“We'll bring him on the next trip,” Ben offered, but then he muttered a curse under his breath.

“What's the matter?” Megan swiveled all the way around so she could see, and there was Wolf, striking out after them, swimming.

“We gotta go back,” Sandy said after a moment. “He can't swim all that distance. He'll drown.”

“He can probably swim it,” Ben said, though since he didn't sound completely confident of that, Sandy was not reassured.

“What if he doesn't? We can't haul him into the boat out here, even if we wait for him. We have to go back, Ben.”

Ben scowled. “And do what? Is somebody going to stay on shore with him? We still don't have room for him!”

“Well, maybe Megan could stay with him, unless she'd rather unload the boat and haul the supplies up to the tree house,” Sandy suggested. “There's a lot of heavy stuff, though, this trip.”

Megan stared back, swallowing hard, watching the dog's dark head as he came toward them, seeing the empty beach behind him. There was no one at home, either at the Jamisons' or Grandpa's. She'd never thought of herself as a scaredy-cat, but she was afraid now of being left behind by the boys.

Still, it was clear that that fool dog was going to drown trying to keep up with them unless someone stayed with him. And if she didn't do it, it would have to be Sandy.

She swallowed again. “Okay. Put it into shore in front of our place. I'll stay. Only come and get us as soon as you've unloaded, all right?”

Ben obligingly lifted one oar out of the water and pulled deeply with the other to turn the boat. Wolf immediately turned to follow the new course, and he was in the shallow water by the time Megan jumped out and waded ashore. He shook all over her, ecstatic that someone had returned to keep him company.

“Come on, stupid,” she told him. “We might as well go out and see if the mailman's come yet. There might be a letter from Mom.”

Anything, she thought, was better than sitting and waiting for the boys to come back for her.

Wolf was perfectly happy now that he hadn't been abandoned. He frolicked around her, licking her hands when he got close enough, his tongue lolling out. He looked silly, this huge beast acting as if he were a puppy, but Megan couldn't quite be amused.

She got annoyed with Ben and his know-it-all ways, but in this case she had to admit, at least to herself, that he was right. She hadn't thought out the business of letting Annie know where she was. If the stranger thought they were here, it could be because of that letter to Annie.

The reason her mom hadn't let her call and tell Annie where they were going, Megan realized belatedly, was that she wanted to prevent just this kind of thing from happening. If no one knew where they were, no one could tell anyone else who came snooping around. And Mom had known there would probably be someone asking questions.

If only she would come home! If only she would explain!

She walked through the silent woods, along the dirt road that led out to the paved main road. It was warm and peaceful; small birds twittered in the surrounding trees, and it should have been a pleasant walk. Yet Megan couldn't forget that something frightening was going on, and that she was all by herself.

Wolf took off after a squirrel, barking ferociously, then returned panting when the small creature scurried up a tree out of reach.

How easily the squirrel had escaped an enemy! It wasn't so easy for people, especially when they didn't even know who the enemy was, or why they were an enemy.

She heard a car coming along the main road. Megan stopped, staring through the remaining trees, every nerve tightening as the approaching car slowed down.

It was white, with a wine-red roof. She could see it clearly through the fringe of birches between two towering pines. And it was stopping at the row of mailboxes.

She felt as if the blood grew thick in her veins, as if she were suddenly unable to breathe, or move. Wolf was now pursuing a tiny yellow butterfly, with no more success than he'd had catching the squirrel. Megan didn't look after him; she was watching the car.

The driver was a man, though she couldn't make out what he looked like, only that he wore a pale blue shirt. He turned and glanced back over his shoulder as he began to back the car down the road.

To turn around, or to drive on this road that led around the edge of the lake?

Megan took several quick steps off the dirt road and dropped to her stomach amidst the ferns as soon as the driver of the white car nosed his vehicle onto the side road.

She lay flat, her cheek pressed against a few twigs atop the mossy ground. Her heart was making so much noise she scarcely heard the car engine until it had passed her. Then she lifted her head enough to peer cautiously over a fallen log.

The car headed toward the lake, then swung to the left, out of her sight. Where was it going? As far as she knew, there was no one living on this road except the Jamisons and Grandpa Davis. Which did he want? Neither of them had names on their mailboxes, because they were only renters for the summer.

When the sound of the motor died away, Megan dared to get to her feet. Wolf came galloping up, nudging her with a wet nose.

“If you give me away, I'm going to wish I'd let you drown,” she told him in a stern whisper. “Come on, and be quiet. I want to know where he went.”

She walked quickly, all senses heightened by the apprehension that had washed over her the moment the car came into view. Maybe it was only someone wanting to look at the rental cottages farther up the lake. Or someone for Mr. Jamison. Please, please, she prayed, let it not be the stranger.

The dog seemed to sense that something was wrong. He whined and licked her hand, and she brushed her fingertips lightly over the big head.

“Be quiet,” she told him, and hoped he'd mind her better than he had when they'd tried to leave him on the beach.

The car had driven into Grandpa's yard.

Megan stood well back in the trees, seeing that the man had gotten out and walked up onto the porch to knock. His back was toward her, but she dropped low anyway, in case he turned around.

He wore navy slacks with the light blue shirt. He had dark hair, and a gold watch glinted on his wrist where the sun struck it.

On her knees, Megan crept forward until she could see the Illinois license plate on the car. She had nothing to write with; could she memorize the number?

Miraculously, Wolf was behaving. He, too, had dropped to his belly, and when she carefully parted a clump of ferns to move closer still to the stranger's car, Wolf moved with her.

The man on the porch knocked once more, then swore audibly and came down the steps again. For a few seconds he seemed to be staring directly at her. Megan's breathing stopped until she realized that looking from bright sunlight into the shadows must have kept him from seeing her. She was thankful she'd worn an old brown shirt today; almost anything else would have stood out from the surrounding forest.

The man walked toward his car, hesitated, then went on toward the lake. He paused to look down at the sand, and Megan knew what there was to see. Footprints, and the marks where the boat had been drawn up above the water.

He studied them for a few minutes, while Megan crouched with one restraining hand on Wolf's massive head to keep him quiet. She was glad of his warm presence, and she wondered if he would try to protect her if the man discovered her.

She was near enough now to see that the license was not from a government agency; she knew they had special plates. It wasn't a police car. Besides, if it had been a policeman asking about redheaded kids, either back home or here in Lakewood, he would have identified himself, the way they always did on TV.

The man turned again, facing her, and once more Megan froze. He was younger than Grandpa, maybe the age of Annie's father, she thought. He had thick black eyebrows and a wide mouth that twisted in what appeared to be annoyance.

For what must have been ten minutes, Megan hid in the woods, low on the ground, watching the man prowl around Grandpa's cottage. He tried the door, which was locked during the daytime for the first time since they'd been there; that was because Grandpa would be away all day, and the kids had intended to be out on the island. If the intruder had known it, the key was hidden under the top layer of rocks in a tin can at the edge of the porch.

Megan didn't know if eleven-year-old kids ever had heart attacks, but her chest really hurt when she kept holding her breath. What if she'd left Sandy here with the dog, instead of staying herself? Would Sandy have had the sense to stay out of sight, or would he have barged over and asked who the man was?

That had been Ben's idea: find the man and ask him what he wanted. Ben had a big mouth. She wondered if he'd be brave enough to do it, himself, if he were the one involved.

Now the stranger was peering in the kitchen windows. After a moment, he went on around the porch, where he was probably looking in the living-room windows.