Moonpenny Island (2 page)

Summer people don't know about the swimming hole. It's hidden away in the old quarry off Moonpenny Road. Sylvie and Flor leave their bikes on the edge and scramble down the steep sides. Their feet set off mini avalanches, and they grab at scrubby juniper bushes to keep from falling. This place got quarried out years ago, and the sides are slowly silting in. Weeds and wildflowers poke through the cracks in the stony floor, and big blocks of limestone lie tumbled around. When you get to the bottom and look up, you're a Cheerio in a giant bowl, or a little fish in a great stone tank. Walk back to that papery screen of
cattails, part them with both hands, step inside.

Silvery rocks, speckled with lichen, warm in the sun. The pool is so deep, so clear and cold, that the minute she sees it, Flor shivers. That water stops your breath. Every single time, it stops your breath.

Of course, they're not allowed in alone. If the island mothers had their way,
NO SWIMMING ALONE
would be tattooed on every child's forehead. People have drowned here, including two star-crossed lovers who loaded their pockets with stones, exchanged one last passionate kiss, and jumped in. Who would be so brainless? Another time, a girl known to be an excellent swimmer sank from view right before the eyes of her hysterical parents, who couldn't save her. Everybody says the hole has no bottom, though how can that be?

The dry cattails sway and rustle, even though there's no breeze. Flor doesn't believe in ghosts. Still, she'd rather die than be here at night. Flor's afraid of the dark, and out here, she can tell, the dark would be that thick, suffocating kind, the kind that rubs against you like black fur.

Boiling hot as she and Sylvie are, they don't dare
go in that water yet. A big toe, that's all for now.

Instead they stretch out on their favorite rock, wide and flat as a refrigerator, and open their books. Flor could read till her eyes fell out. Sylvie's never big on books, and today she can't seem to concentrate at all. She jumps up and prowls around, collecting rocks.

“How can something have no bottom?” says Flor.

“I don't know. Did you ever dream you were falling and falling and you were never going to stop?”

“Eek. No.”

Sylvie's hand goes to her bruised cheek. She's on the slippery edge of the hole, sliding one long, skinny foot in front of the other. For no good reason, a chill knifes through Flor, right there in the crazy-hot sun.

“Careful!” she yells at her friend.

A nature trail rims the quarry, with boring markers describing this and that, and they can hear some clueless summer people up there, trudging through the rising heat. Sylvie arranges her rocks. Flor turns pages. A dragonfly with iridescent wings hovers over her book like it wishes it knew how to read.

“Look,” says Sylvie then.

Flor raises her eyes, catches her breath. Sylvie is always building stuff, but this may be her masterpiece. She's arranged the stones into a cross between a fairy castle and a cathedral. She's made turrets and towers and, at the very center, a round room paved with sparkling pebbles and slivers of slate.

“If only we knew a shrinking spell!” says Flor. “We could live there together.”

Sylvie laughs. Her blond ponytail shoots up like a geyser.

“We'd drink dew and eat wild blueberries.”

“Hitch rides on dragonflies.”

“We'd weave dresses from spider silk.”

“Not the kind with hairy legs.”

“Never!”

Sylvie shows Flor the gray rock she laid on the very top. One corner has a pleat, like a tiny white fan. A fossil.

They put their foreheads together and make a wish, the way they always do when they find one.

Never parted, wishes Flor. Looking up into Sylvie's blue eyes, she knows their wishes match.

Transparent. That's how they are.

Later, a couple of mothers show up with their kids. At last, Flor and Sylvie are officially allowed in the water. They tear off their T-shirts.

Only, what's this? Poor Sylvie has yet another bruise, this one on her shoulder. Seeing Flor's face, Sylvie spins away, shouts, “Ready?”

“Ready!”

Holding hands, they count to three, then, because Flor chickened out, to five. Eyes squeezed shut, screaming to wake the dead, they leap.

The water stops their breath.

T
hat nursery rhyme claims little boys are made of snips and snails and puppy-dog tails, but Flor is certain her brother is ninety-nine percent dirt. Lately he spends all his time with a summer kid named Benjamin, and their main activity must be rolling on the ground. Usually Thomas follows Flor everywhere, so this development is a relief. Except for how disgustingly filthy he is.

Thomas's other new thing is whistling. This is an improvement over when he said everything in what he claimed was Martian, and definitely better than
when his answer to any question was “It's complicated.”

Did you brush your teeth? “It's complicated.”

Why is your shirt inside out? “It's complicated.”

Have you seen Dad's fishing pole? “It's . . .”

You get the idea.

At least when he's whistling, he's not talking.

Today when Flor gets home from swimming, she hears him in the bathroom, whistling softly and steadily. Carrying a tune doesn't figure in. They only have one bathroom, and Flor needs a shower. When she knocks, a two-part rising whistle answers her.

“It's me,” she says. “Come out. Time's up.”

Now it's one long loud note, like a policeman stopping traffic.

“This is ridiculous.” She tries the doorknob. Locked. “I refuse to communicate in whistles.”

The toilet flushes. The sink runs for several centuries. Yet when Thomas opens the door, his face and hands are grubby as ever. A mystery. He saunters down the hall, hands in pockets, a pudgy six-year-old whistling machine.

After her shower, Flor peers into the steamy mirror. She's diligent with the sunscreen, and pale as a
cauliflower. Because she's small for her age, with dark hair like her mother and fair skin like her father, people who don't know her well often ask if she feels all right. Whenever they visit Mama's family in Toledo, Lita forces her to eat fried liver. Lita's convinced Flor has poor blood and sends her home with big jars of iron pills. All Mama's side of the family has beautiful caramel-colored skin and glossy dark hair. It's how Cecilia looks, and Thomas too. But not Flor.

Sylvie says she is unique. This is Sylvie-speak for
ugly duckling
.

Mama's in the kitchen, making dinner. She can peel and chop while gazing out the window, though this makes everyone else nervous.
Chop chop
, those carrots are goners.
Whoosh
, they cascade into the pot. She dries her hands, cocks a look at Flor.

“Fetch the comb and brush,” she says.

Nothing. That's what Flor loves more than Mama French braiding her hair. Usually when Mama pays her particular, undivided attention, it's to scold her for being so stubborn, or flipping her lip, or teasing poor little Thomas. But when she's braiding Flor's hair, lifting the strands and twining them smooth,
Mama's strong fingers do the talking.

You are my girl. My one and only Flor
.

No one else pronounces her name that exact way, stretching it into two emerald-green syllables, making Flor see a vine twisting up a wall, white flowers like stars. It's the way her name is meant to sound.

Just as Mama finishes, Cecilia walks in. Flor's big sister sails straight to the refrigerator.

“And where have you been all afternoon?” Mama's not really angry. Trouble? Cecilia never causes it, never gets into it.

Cecilia selects a single radish. She takes it to the sink, washes it like it's about to have surgery, and takes a bite. Who eats a radish in more than one bite? A sister who's on a diet, though she will never admit it.

“You were at the library again,” Mama accuses. “Don't think you can fool me.”

Mama frets Cecilia doesn't have enough friends, and this is true, though it's not Cele's fault. Besides Perry Pinch IV, the island school has four other high schoolers, and none of them even remotely qualifies as a good, let alone perfect, friend. Once upon a time, Cele and Flor played together. They invented
so many excellent games! Town—that was their best. Good old Town. Let it be said that Flor was not the one to put an end to that.

“I'm getting a head start on chemistry.” Cecilia nibbles her radish. “Considering Mrs. Plum probably doesn't know a molecule from a mole, and I'll mainly have to teach myself.”

“But,” begins Flor, and her big sister shoots her the death ray. The words
The library isn't open today
vaporize.

“It's a whole month till school.
¡Dios mío!
” scolds Mama. “Plenty of time to study!”

Cecilia circles her arms around their mother, rests her chin on Mama's shoulder. She's always been prettier than Flor, but lately? Her dark eyes are bright, her hair shiny as a waterfall. A person would think she was in love, and she probably would be, if she lived anywhere else. Moonpenny has everything a person could dream of, Dad always says. Of course, he doesn't dream of having a boyfriend.

“Whoever heard of a mother discouraging her kid from studying?” Cele says. “You're
loca
! My
mamacita loca.”

Over Mama's shoulder, she smiles at Flor. Lately, Cecilia has become a real smile miser, so this is a surprise. It should make Flor suspicious. Instead, her foolish mouth votes to smile back.

Dad's late for dinner, highly unusual. He is a police officer.
The
police officer. He drives a beat-up SUV with a mail-order clip-on light and carries a gun he's never once shot, except at the targets behind the VFW. In summer, Dad's job is fishing water snakes out of nervous ladies' rain barrels and tipsy tourists out of the lake. Winters, he checks on closed-up cottages, settles late-night arguments at the Cockeyed Gull. Now and then Thomas wishes for a big car chase or a wild shoot-out, like on TV, but Thomas is only six, plus a boy, so what can you expect.

Flor is grateful their father's job isn't dangerous. And she's proud of him. Everyone on the island likes Dad, except when they don't, and that's always because they did something they shouldn't have and got caught. Getting caught is guaranteed, on Moonpenny.

Today he's gone out to check on old Violet
Tinkiss, who lives alone. Dad makes sure Violet and her two-legged dog, Minnie, have food and her roof's not leaking too bad.

No way that should take this long. Mama's fussing over her dried-up chicken frijoles when tires crunch the gravel driveway. Dad comes in and collapses into a kitchen chair. He looks terrible. Thomas sounds an alarmed whistle.

“What happened?” cries Mama. “Where were you?”

Dad is big. His dangling arms practically touch the floor.

“Accident,” he says. “Out by the neck. That fool Perry Pinch flipped his car.”

“Oh, no!” everybody cries—everybody except Cecilia, who goes statue still. “Is he all right? How did it happen? Was there another car?”

Flor remembers how she and Sylvie hollered at him to slow down. Sylvie! Poor Sylvie. She'll die if anything happens to her brother.

“He'll be okay,” says Dad. “Looks like he broke his arm and bruised a couple of ribs. Perry Senior is flying him over to Toledo General. The car's totaled. He must've been going like a bat out of you-know-
where, on that narrow, winding road.” Dad runs his hand from the back of his head to the front. His reddish-brown hair leaps to attention. “At least he didn't have anyone with him. The passenger side was stove in.”

Cecilia starts crying, so quietly only Flor notices.

“Was he drinking?” Mama's hands fly to her hips.

“Could be.”

“You didn't do the test?” Mama's voice whittles to a point.

“Now what'd be the good of that?” Dad pulls at the skin under his jaw. “Trust me, that boy has learned his lesson.”

“Just like I was saying last night! He could've hit someone! What if a child was in the road?”

Mama would've made a good lawyer or judge, the kind who throws people in jail for life. Thomas gives a
here-they-go
whistle and crawls under the table. The tears roll down Cecilia's cheeks faster than she can wipe them away.

“Well, he didn't,” says Dad. “And Perry Senior's not likely to let him drive again anytime soon.”

“That boy needs to suffer some real consequences.”

“He's suffering, guaranteed,” says Dad. “Cracked ribs are no joke.”

Dad never starts these arguments, so far as Flor can see. And once they get started, he tries to end them as quickly as possible. A mistake. When's he going to realize that only makes Mama angrier? When's Mama going to realize he is who he is?

“Smells great, Bea.” He lifts the lid from the skillet, trying to distract her. “I'm so hungry I could eat my own arm.”