The Different Girl Page 7
“Robbert—”
“We have to know for sure.”
“But if she can’t tell us—”
“Or won’t.”
“Well—exactly.”
He spun the notebook to face Irene, but she only tightened her lips.
“Surely it’s time to eat.” Irene crossed to the counter and took over from Robbert as if she’d been cooking all along. We all went to help and soon it was dinner like normal, with Irene asking us about tomorrow’s weather.
But weather only made me think of the fog around May’s island—hers only because she’d captured it in a picture, not because she lived there, though maybe she actually did, or had. Anything was possible if what she said wasn’t reliable: which was what Robbert thought, if the dock with the crates wasn’t in Port Orange after all. I knew he wondered if the island in the other pictures was the same island with the dock, and that he was switching back and forth to identify it precisely. I didn’t know why that was important because I didn’t know why May was unreliable. When we didn’t say something it was because we didn’t know, or because no one asked the right way. May was more like Robbert or Irene, who didn’t say things for their own reasons, but I thought of Caroline not being able to talk about her dreams and wondered if May couldn’t talk because Will or Cat had given her instructions.
“Are you sure May isn’t hungry?” I asked.
Robbert had his chopsticks halfway to his open mouth. He paused, leaving them in the air, noodles dripping sauce, then set them back in his bowl.
“You’re right, Veronika. You’re absolutely right. Come here.”
“Robbert, we can’t keep pressing,” said Irene.
“I know we can’t.” Robbert had picked up his satchel and reached inside, using both hands to fiddle with something I couldn’t see that snapped and clicked. He zipped the satchel and looped it over my shoulder. Then he scooped the rest of the noodles into a plastic bowl and stabbed another pair of chopsticks in so they stuck up like a bug’s antennae. He held out the bowl for me to take with both hands, then went to open the door. Irene never moved, and the other three just watched.
“Off you go, Veronika,” Robbert said. “Make sure to set the satchel down on the floor when you go in, and then bring it back when you’re done. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Robbert.”
“And make sure May eats the noodles. Stay there and talk until she’s done. Ask her questions.”
“What if she’s asleep?”
That was Irene. Robbert knelt next to me. “Then Veronika should wake her.”
Irene sighed. “Gently, Veronika. Don’t frighten her. Just say her name or very softly touch her arm. And if she doesn’t wake up right away, you come back.”
“And no whispering,” said Robbert. “May is your friend. Don’t be shy.”
• • •
I walked carefully not to drop the chopsticks, especially climbing the classroom steps with no hands. I saw May’s shadow through the screen.
“Who is it?” she asked in her raspy voice. “Which one of you?”
“It’s Veronika,” I said, trying to speak loudly. “I brought you dinner.”
“What is it?”
“Peanut noodles with protein strips and kelp.”
“Leave it there.”
“I’m supposed to make sure you eat it, because you have to recover.”
“I’m fine.”
“Not your feet.”
“Feet don’t matter.”
“What if you fall down? What if you’re on the cliff?”
May snorted through her nose. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Eating.”
May snorted again. “Or not eating.”
“If they’re finished. Then they’re cleaning up, or maybe Irene will ask us to sing.”
May’s voice went soft again. “I heard you last night.”
“Can I come in?” I asked.
May opened the door with its wheezing hinge. “I’ll come out,” she said. “We can look at the stars.”
I sat next to May on the top step and gave her the noodles. I put the satchel between my feet.
“What’s that?” asked May, with her mouth full.
“Robbert’s satchel.”
“Why do you have it?”
“He asked me to bring it back to him.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to look?”
“No.”
May wrinkled her nose. She looked at the bowl and stirred the noodles into a ball. “Why did they send you?”
“I asked if you were hungry.”
“How long have you been here? This place, without anyone knowing?”
I didn’t understand what May’s question had to do with being hungry, but I told her that we’d been on the island for as long as we could remember, and then about the accidental plane crash and our parents. May snorted and at first I thought she’d choked but then I saw her shake her head, which shook her hair. She was smiling.
“It isn’t funny, May.”
“What?” It was like she hadn’t heard me.
“It isn’t funny,” I repeated, firmly. “Being an orphan is very hard.” She didn’t answer. It was important, so I went on. “We girls are very lucky to have Irene and Robbert. We are lucky to have a home, and a school, and lucky to have each other. If we didn’t, where do you think we’d be?”
I heard my loud voice echo across the yard. May didn’t say anything, like she hadn’t even listened.
“Where would you be?” I asked.
“You girls,” May whispered.
I waited for her to say more. Instead she kept rolling the ball of noodles in the bowl. The smell attracted insects, flitting around May’s head.
“When Robbert asks questions it can be hard,” I said.
Then she turned to face me with a different voice. “How is it hard for you?”
“Because he knows what we’re supposed to say.”
“I hate that,” said May.
“That doesn’t make him not know. It doesn’t change what you’re supposed to learn.”
“I’m not here to learn.”
“What else would you do?”
“Talk to a tree.” May put the bowl down and watched the insects settle, then pushed it so they rose in a cloud. “Talk to you.”
“I’m not a tree.”
“You’re not a girl.”
“I’m not your kind of girl.”
“I’m the only kind.”
“Not here. And there are more of us than you.” I stood up, slipped the satchel over my shoulder, and bent down for her bowl. “I’m sorry for your feet, May, and for your boat, and your uncle, and your uncle’s friend Cat. I’m sorry you’re an orphan.”
I walked down the steps, the bowl in both hands. Behind me May stomped back inside and slammed the screen.
“You don’t even know where this is!” she cried. “You don’t even know!”
Ahead of me I could see shapes in the kitchen doorway, and I knew May was wrong. For the first time I understood that Robbert and Irene were like the rest of us, orphans, too.
6.
The next morning Robbert wasn’t there for breakfast. Afterward, when we sat on the porch while Irene drank her tea, Isobel pointed between the two buildings. Just visible in the distance was Robbert, coming down the path. We waved, even though he wasn’t looking in our direction.
“Has Robbert been walking to the cliffs?” asked Eleanor.
“Maybe he has,” Irene replied. “It’s a lovely morning.”
“Will we walk to the cliffs, too?” asked Eleanor.
The screen door squeaked and May stepped onto the classroom porch. She was wearing what she’d worn when I’d found her, canvas shorts and a black shirt with buttons down the middle. Most of the buttons had been pulled off in the water, but May had replaced them with pins. Her feet were still bandaged and in the flip-flops.
Everyone else waved, too, but May didn’t wave back. She came down the steps and across the yard. When she got to the foot of our steps she stopped, possibly because we stood in a row across the top and there was no clear path.
“Good morning, May,” said Irene. “How did you sleep?”
“Well, thank you.” May’s voice was still raspy. Since the rest of her seemed better, I wondered if it was always raspy. “And I guess I’m hungry.”
“Then you should eat,” said Caroline.
May acted like she hadn’t heard, and spoke to Irene. “Where is Robbert?”
“He’s right there,” Irene said, and she pointed. By now Robbert had reached the meadow. This time he saw us and waved his left hand. His right carried his red toolbox. Irene stood and brushed off the seat of her skirt. “Come on in, May. Let’s all whip up a meal.”
“I want to talk to Robbert,” May said.
“About what?” Isobel asked.
May didn’t answer. Irene put a hand on Isobel’s shoulder. “Don’t be rude, May.”
May kicked her flip-flop against the canvas runner that now covered the steps. “That’s my sail,” she said.
Robbert came into the courtyard. He saw us standing together, saw May looking at him, and waved again. Without a word, though, he kept going into the classroom.
• • •
When I’d come back with May’s unfinished noodles the night before, Robbert had taken his satchel away. Now it lay on the countertop, unzipped and shoved to the side, yawning like a big soft clam. Inside lay Robbert’s notebook, but not whatever else had been there the night before, what he had reached inside to click. Was the click to put something to sleep or wake it up? Then I wondered why he hadn’t taken the notebook back to the classroom where it usually lived and decided Irene wanted to use it. When Robbert used the notebook the lines were short and broken and would scroll and hop when he pushed the button. When Irene used it we saw pictures and words.
As it turned out, Irene hadn’t eaten all the oatmeal we’d made, so it was easy to heat the rest and serve it hot to May. May also drank some of Irene’s tea, in a cup we almost never used, like Irene’s but dusty and needing a wash. May kept looking over her shoulder, like she wanted to leave or like she wanted someone to arrive. Then she noticed Robbert’s satchel.
“What’s that?”
“Robbert’s satchel,” said Eleanor.
May looked at me, to let me know that she’d seen it before. “No, inside.”
“Robbert’s notebook,” said Eleanor. “He and Irene use it for working.”
“Does it connect?” asked May.
“Connect to what?”
May stared at Eleanor and her voice got hard. “Why are there four of you? Why does anyone need four?”
“Because we’re the same,” said Eleanor. “And because we’re not.”
“Some do tests,” said Caroline. “And some do control.”
“Do you do tests?” asked Isobel.
May didn’t say anything, then shook her head. “Tests is school.”
“May,” said Irene, with a deliberate slowness that told you to get ready. “How do you tell time?”
May stared again at Eleanor. “What do you mean?”
“What do you use? On the boat. A watch? Navigation instruments? The sun?”
“You can’t always see the sun,” said Isobel.
May was still frowning. “Will had an old watch, with hands. The boat clocks used numbers. But Cat taught me to use the sun. We would do it every day at noon.”
“You can’t always see the sun,” repeated Isobel.
“We would make measurements anyway, and write them down. We would compare them to what we found the next time we did see the sun. And we had the boat clock anyway.” May’s voice had become tighter. She swallowed some tea and turned to Isobel. “How do you do it? Do you just know?”
“Know what?”
“What time it is.”
“Yes,” Isobel replied, though that didn’t answer whatever question May was trying to ask. “Just like everyone.”
May didn’t say anything, and after a moment Eleanor took May’s empty bowl and put it in the sink. May saw Caroline waiting, then finished her tea and put the cup in Caroline’s hands. Isobel collected the spoon. There wasn’t anything for me to collect, so I told May that I hoped she enjoyed her oatmeal. May glanced again at Robbert’s satchel, so I glanced with her. The only thing there was the notebook.
May pushed back her chair with a scrape, but I was still looking at the satchel, blinking because I realized that the thin edge of the notebook, which I’d never had any reason to notice, was lined with numbers, and one set of numbers was 805324776, which Eleanor had seen the night before printed on a crate, which meant that more notebooks like Robbert’s had been inside.
“Well,” said Irene, standing. “I think it’s time for a very special walk.”
• • •
The six of us, Robbert still not having reappeared, stood at the edge of the grassy dunes facing the beach. The tide was coming in, but the upper part of the beach remained dry and firm. The wind was fresh and strong, blowing our hair and whipping May’s even more. Irene called over the sound.
“Since we were talking of time, we’re going to do an experiment. Instead of setting a time limit, I’m going to let you all decide how long your walk should be—as long as, when you get back, you’re able to tell me why. Now, some of you go this way.” Irene pointed up the beach in the direction I’d found May. “And some of you go the other.”
We looked at Irene, wanting her to decide, but she only clapped her hands, which was the signal to set off. No one moved, not even May, who stood with her fists in the pockets of her shorts. Irene motioned to Isobel. Isobel went to her and Irene whispered into Isobel’s ear. When she was done, Isobel walked past the rest of us and down the beach. Irene did the same to Eleanor, and Eleanor set off in the same direction as Isobel, and then Caroline, but Caroline went the opposite way, up the beach toward the grassy dunes. Then she motioned to me.
“This will be like last night on the steps,” she whispered. “You need to walk with May and remember what she says. And you need to catch up to Caroline and make sure she doesn’t fall.”
I wanted to ask why Caroline would fall any more than I would, but Irene was already patting my shoulder and turning me around. “You go with Veronika, May, since you two are friends.”
May snorted and started away by herself. I followed, and even though she walked much closer to the water than I could, so we couldn’t really talk—even kicking her flip-flops through the foam, which I knew was bad for her bandages—May kept her pace slow enough that we stayed together.
But since Irene had told me talking was important, I finally stopped. May went a few more yards, as if she hadn’t seen, but then stopped, too. She dropped to a crouch, picking at some dead coral.
“Isn’t there something you’re supposed to do?” she called, still not looking at me. “Something you have to learn?”
I nodded.
“Then why don’t you go learn it?” May stood, having pried the lump of coral from the sand. She flung it with both hands at an approaching wave, breaking the glassy curl of water. The tumble of foam halted just short of May’s toes.
I took three steps closer to her, making sure the sand was still dry.
“I’m not your friend,” said May, squatting again and speaking to the sand.
Eleanor and Isobel were out of sight, beyond the beach’s turn. Ahead was Caroline, moving slowly, but widening the gap since we’d stopped. I couldn’t see Irene at all.
“I would like you to be,” I called.
“Why? What does it matter?” May pried out another piece of coral, dripping sand. She looked at me and then with a sudden jerk heaved the coral in my direction. It landed with a thump a yard short, kicking up sand, th
en rolled back toward the water.
“What do you think happened to your uncle Will and his friend Cat?” I asked.
May snorted again. “I think they’re dead.”
“But why?”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry you’re sad, May.”
“Shut up about it. Are you stupid?”
“I’m not stupid, May. I’m asking whether it was a storm or something else. But you don’t know, do you? Because you were asleep.”
“There was a storm.”
“I know.”
“So what else could it be?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
“Why?”
“Because of everything, May. Because you said the picture was Port Orange when it was somewhere else. Because the cargo on the Mary was things like Robbert’s notebook.”
May sniffed. “So what?”
“We’re all together now, May. What anybody knows should be for everyone.” But even as I spoke, I knew this wasn’t true.
“They don’t tell you everything.”
“Robbert and Irene tell us as much as we can understand. We learn in pieces, and then we put the pieces together—”
“But you don’t know where he was this morning, do you?” May had a smile, but it wasn’t happy.
“Robbert went for a walk.”
“Who goes on a walk with a toolbox? He went to the aerial!”
I had to admit that I couldn’t remember Robbert ever walking with the toolbox, and I couldn’t think of anything else near the cliffs that would require it. “Was the aerial broken?”
“Don’t be so stupid!”
“I’m not stupid, May.”
“You think they’re so good!”
“Of course I do.”
May turned away, out to the water. I glanced where she was looking to make sure she hadn’t seen anything in particular—like a boat or something floating—and then looked down at May’s feet, half sunk in the wet sand.
“They saved your life, May. We all did.”
The wind pulled May’s hair in black curling streamers. Caroline had vanished around the curve. I remembered what Irene had told me.