Megan's Island (2 page)

“Mom! Why? How come we're going? And why tonight? It's a long way to the lake, and it's almost nine o'clock now. . . .”

Her mother grew very still, so that apprehension crept over Megan and made her still, too.

“Honey, please do as I say and don't ask any questions now. I don't have time to answer them. I've never asked you to do anything unreasonable, have I? Well, trust me now. I'll explain when I can. All right?”

Her mother's attempt at a smile was pathetic. Megan's throat closed, and she couldn't answer.

When her mother crossed the hall and began to give Sandy the same instructions, Megan scarcely heard her younger brother's startled protest.

It didn't make sense. Even though they'd moved around a lot, they'd never skipped the last week of school before. And Annie was supposed to go with them to the lake, after school was out. Mrs. Van Dow would never allow Annie to skip the last week of school and go with them now.

Megan stepped to the doorway. Her voice wavered. “Mom, what about . . .”

“Not now, Megan. Please, just pack your things right away.”

Megan felt tears prickling in her eyes. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

“Megan?”

She turned at the whisper to find Sandy in the doorway. They could hear their mother in her own room as he came toward Megan, staring down at the suitcase she had just closed.

“What's going on?” he wanted to know.

“Your guess is as good as mine. You were home all evening. Did Mom get a phone call or something?”

Sandy shook his head. “I never heard it ring.”

“Or something in the mail that upset her?”

“Nothing but a catalog. Are we really going to Grandpa's without finishing school?”

“It sure sounds like it,” Megan said. “She seemed okay before supper. Then she broke her best salad bowl and cut her feet a little bit, and I went over to Annie's. When I got back she said we were going to leave tonight for the lake, and not to ask questions now. What did she do while I was gone?”

Sandy sank onto the edge of the bed. “She went in her bedroom and closed the door. She took the telephone with her, so she must have called somebody.”

“Jenny.” Jenny Halloway was Mrs. Collier's best friend at the office where they both worked. “She said she'd asked Jenny to put our things in storage.”

She watched her brother's face as that sifted through his mind. “You mean we're not going for just a couple of weeks? We're not coming back here? Ever?”

The fear was stronger now. “I don't know. If the stuff's in storage I guess . . .” Her voice trailed off. She didn't know what it meant. “It was funny, her breaking the bowl that way. She never breaks things.”

“Not like me,” Sandy said, nodding.

“I thought she'd be upset about it. It was the last thing Grandma gave her. But except for telling me to sweep up the glass, she didn't even seem to think about the bowl. What happened to make her drop it?”

“I don't know. I was washing dishes, and she was drying things and putting them in the cupboard. In between, she was watching TV, I guess.”

“What was on?” Megan asked.

“The news, I think. Or maybe it was nearly time for it. I wasn't paying any attention. I was thinking about the ball game tomorrow. I'm not going to get to play now, am I?”

They both jumped when Mrs. Collier spoke from the doorway. “Finished? I'm going to back the car out. Put the suitcases in the trunk, Sandy. We'll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

For a moment after she turned away, they were speechless. “We're really going to go. At ten o'clock at night,” Sandy said, incredulous.

Megan took a few steps after her mother. “Mom, I've got to call Annie. I can't just leave. . . .”

“No. No, don't call anyone. You can get in touch with Annie later. It's too late tonight,” her mother said firmly.

“Well, Annie will be asleep, but her folks always watch the late news—I can just explain to them. . . .” Explain what? she wondered. That her mother had apparently lost her mind?

“No. No phone calls.” To emphasize that, Mrs. Collier stooped and unplugged the telephone from the wall and wound the cord around it on the table where it stood. “Come on, kids, load the car. It's going to take all night to get there, and I want to make it by dawn if we can.”

“Mom . . .” Megan said, pleading, and not only for permission to make the call to Annie. She was scared, and she needed to know what was happening.

She got a hug, but it didn't help. “I know I'm upsetting you. Believe me, it's necessary that we go right away. I'll tell you why when I can. Here, you take that bag, Sandy—Megan and I will get the rest.”

There was nothing to do but obey, though Megan's mind whirled. No finishing school. No last-day picnic. No summer with Annie. What would Annie think when Megan didn't show up to walk to school tomorrow? When she called and there was no answer? When she rang the bell and learned the house was empty? When, after she'd been invited to go with Megan to the lake for a vacation, the whole Collier family just disappeared?

Did Jenny know why they were leaving? If Megan called Jenny right now and asked, would she learn anything?

No, she decided. She probably didn't have time before her mother came back, and even if she did, grown-ups always stuck together. Jenny wouldn't tell her what was going on. She'd say, “Ask your mother.”

The big suitcase was so heavy it took both hands to haul it off the bed. Megan staggered down the hallway with it, and stumbled over a wastebasket near the front door, overturning it. She stopped in disgust to pick up the spilled contents.

The last thing she picked up didn't immediately go back into the wastebasket. She swallowed, looking at it, jumping guiltily when Sandy came back inside for another load.

“What's the matter?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” Megan lied, and dropped the torn envelope in with the other trash. The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Lightner, their landlady, and was torn nearly in half, so that the check inside showed through the tear.

Why was her mother tearing up the rent check she'd intended to mail tomorrow?

The only reason Megan could think of was that they weren't going to live here anymore. They weren't going to pay the rent for the coming month. Whatever was the matter was serious, and they weren't coming back.

The fear inside Megan grew until she felt suffocated with it, unable to breathe. Yet there was nothing she could do except go with Sandy and their mother.

*  *  *

Mrs. Collier turned on the car radio to a program of soft music as they sped through the night. Occasionally they went through a town where there were lights around them for a few minutes. Mostly they were on the open highway with only an occasional set of oncoming headlights to break the darkness, or the diminishing red sparks of taillights as a car passed them at high speed.

In the backseat, solidly surrounded by bundles and boxes, blankets and pillows, Sandy slept. Megan was tired, too, but for some time she couldn't follow her brother's example.

She rested her head on the back of the seat, wishing she dared to press her mother for the answers she was almost afraid to hear. What could have sent them into flight this way, without even telling Annie she was going?

It
was
flight, Megan thought. They were running from something, but what? She couldn't imagine anything that could have caused her mother to be scared enough to run away.

She turned her head slightly, intending to ask if there weren't time, finally, to explain. Her mother's profile showed in the dim light from the dashboard, and something about it made the question die in Megan's throat, unspoken.

She had seen her mother tired, and cross, and nearly sick with worry, but usually the anxiety was over how to pay for something important. Megan had never seen her looking this way.

Her mother, too, was afraid.

Her heart beating a nervous tattoo in her chest, Megan willed herself to be calm. To wait, until her mother was ready to talk.

When they got to Grandpa's, she thought. Then her mother would tell her what was going on.

After a while, she slept.

She woke as the sky was growing pink and gray in the east. Her mouth was dry, and there was a crick in her neck because her head had rolled sideways.

Her mother glanced at her as she stretched and groaned.

“Good morning. I hope you got a good rest.”

Her mother had had no rest. She had driven all night, with only one stop to get gas and use a restroom.

“I was dreaming,” Megan said, aware that she was hungry. Normally she would have had a snack before she went to bed last night, but the turn of events had driven hunger right out of her mind. “About Daddy, when I was a little girl, and he tossed me in the air and laughed.”

Mrs. Collier turned on her flasher and swung the car out around a slow-moving truck. “Do you remember him, Megan?”

“No, not really. He had red hair, though, didn't he? Like Sandy's and mine? And he was strong and good looking.”

“Yes.”

“I knew he was my dad, in the dream. I wish he hadn't died.” Maybe, if he were still with them, they wouldn't be running this way. He would be taking care of whatever the problem was. Daddies weren't afraid of things the way kids and mothers sometimes were. Or were they? Until last night, she hadn't thought mothers got scared, either—not scared enough to drive away from home in the middle of the night without telling anyone.

Her mother didn't answer, concentrating on her driving. “It's only a few more miles now.”

“Does Grandpa know we're coming?”

Mrs. Collier shook her head. “No phone, remember?”

So they hadn't set this up between them ahead of time, through their usual letters. If they had, she'd have told the children before last night. That only made it more peculiar than it already was.

The village sign said
Welcome to Lakewood, Minnesota—Population 840—A Friendly Town;
a big, fancy sign for such a small place. And then they were slowing down to roll through the streets that were deserted at a little after five-thirty in the morning. There were two gas stations, a general store, and a church spire showing above a cluster of houses.

In the other direction, the lake was still pewter-colored in the dawn. Before last night, Megan had been excited about coming here, had looked forward to it. Now she didn't know how she felt.

Behind her, Sandy stirred. “Where are we? Is there any place open to get something to eat?”

“We'll be at Grandpa's cottage in another twenty minutes,” Mrs. Collier assured him. “He'll feed us. It's a pretty lake, isn't it? You'll have fun here.”

Fun. The word was jarring, after what had happened last night. After they'd had to leave home without telling Annie they were leaving. Annie would be hurt, as hurt as Megan knew she would be if the situation were reversed. She didn't want to hurt Annie. Annie was the closest friend she'd ever had.

The air was cool and pine-scented as the road left the water and plunged into a forest of evergreens. Megan sat up straighter. In spite of her anxiety, she was hungry, too, and she looked forward to seeing Grandpa Davis and the lake up close.

“Watch for a red mailbox,” her mother instructed, and then, “There it is! We turn here!”

Sandy glanced over his shoulder. “It's quite a ways from town, isn't it?”

“Six miles,” his mother confirmed. “Too far to walk, but Grandpa goes in once a week for groceries and supplies.”

There wasn't much of anything else to go to town for, Megan thought. She hadn't seen a movie theater or a bowling alley, or anything like that for entertainment. She wondered if there were any other kids living on the lake. A friend like Annie would be wonderful, but Annie probably would never forgive her. Not unless she could come up with a powerful excuse for having simply disappeared overnight.

The trees around them thinned, and they saw the lake again.

Now the sun was red in the eastern sky, and it tinted the surface of the water a shifting pink; on the far side, the forest remained black and seemingly impenetrable.

“The second driveway, Dad said. Ah, there it is.” The car swung to the right, and they went a short distance before coming to a small clearing.

The cottage was nothing special, just a frame building with peeling white paint and dark red shutters. If there hadn't been an old car in the yard, Megan would have thought it was deserted. Beyond it, there was a narrow strip of pale, sandy beach with several outcroppings of dark rock, and beyond that, black on the pink-tinged water, an island.

Megan's heartbeat quickened. An island? It was only a little one, but it was so close to land that surely she could get out there. She wondered if Grandpa had a boat. There was something mysterious and special about an island.

Mrs. Collier let the car roll almost to the screened porch that ran the entire length of the cottage, then turned off the ignition. In the silence they heard a frog croaking, and far out on the lake, an outboard motor.

“Well, we're here. We might as well get out,” Mrs. Collier said, and Megan wondered if she imagined the quaver in her mother's voice.

Megan's uneasiness deepened as they got out of the car. The early-morning air was chilly and out across the lake something gave a wild, sad cry. A loon? Hadn't one of Grandpa's letters said something about the loons?

Obviously Grandpa Davis wasn't expecting them. If he'd known they were coming, he'd have come out to meet them by this time, for he would surely have heard the car.

Mom was uneasy as well as exhausted, Megan thought. That's why she was acting so oddly—fumbling with her seat belt, groping for her purse, and then having difficulty in finding the key for the trunk so they could take out their luggage.