Oh, it’s just the tide! thought Christina, utterly disgusted with herself.
She flung open the door, and the bedroom, of course, was completely empty. The huffing continued. Christina crossed the room to close the window, from which a sea wind must have blown the door shut.
“You be quiet, you cove, you,” she muttered out the window.
She considered having a cry. Girls in books often curled up alone in the corners of their rooms and wept till they felt better. Christina had never felt bad enough about anything that she wanted to cry at all, let alone curl up for a weep. This was the kind of day that did it, then. If I’m going to do that, she thought, I’ll need supplies. Kleenex. And a book in case I get bored.
“Christina, Christina!”
She jerked away from the window and ran to the stairs. Anya — Anya must be hurt — the wet suit — the tide —
“I’m so glad you’re home,” said Anya, running up the stairs. “Chrissie, I’ve had the worst day of my life. I have to tell you about it.”
She hauled Christina back into the bedroom before Christina could tell her about the huffing, and flung them both on their beds. “Nobody has ever had a worse day,” said Anya dramatically. She ran all ten fingers up into her hair and pretended to scalp herself.
The huffing stopped.
It’s listening instead, thought Christina. Like me.
“First of all, Blake’s parents say I’m nothing but a wharf rat and they want better for Blake.”
A wharf rat. Girls who worked on the docks, knee deep in fish heads and motor oil, and lost all their teeth before they were twenty-five. Girls who worked in the factories and had babies before they were sixteen and ate ten jelly doughnuts at a time because nobody cared whether they got fat and ugly.
“Anya, you could never be a wharf rat.”
“That’s what Blake says. But if we see each other, we have to sneak. Christina, I’ve never sneaked in my life. Blake’s parents even told the Shevvingtons they don’t want him to date me. They didn’t actually order him not to, but they made it clear that he will upset them if he does.”
Christina knew how it felt to be shunned. “Wait till you hear about my day,” she said, settling in cross-legged on top of her mother’s quilt.
“No. I’m not finished yet. Then I found out that the guidance department re-did my academic schedule. They put me in Public Speaking, Chrissie! Five days a week. Public Speaking. Do you know what that is? Each kid has to get up once a week and give an assigned talk. Out loud.” Anya flung herself backward on the mattress and bounced. “When I filled out my form for Mr. Shevvington,” she said, “I marked speaking in front of an audience as the thing I feared most. And here I am, in it. Mr. Shevvington says it’s good for me. He says I have to learn to face my fears.”
The huffing moved inside Christina’s head like a warning signal. Christina said slowly, “What form?”
“The one we all had to fill out. The personality one for guidance. Those questions were so awful. What did you put for that one?”
Christina’s hands were cold. “I didn’t fill that one out. I’m not afraid of anything.” Liar, liar, house on fire, ran the nursery song in her head.
Anya popped up off the mattress. “You lucky thing. I might have known. Benj and Michael aren’t afraid of anything either. They just laughed when Mr. Shevvington gave them the form.”
“I thought the form was for new students.”
“No, no, the form is new.”
Christina was gasping again. I must have asthma, she thought. Great. One day away from the island and I need glasses and medication.
“Guess what my first speech has to be.”
“What?”
“ ‘Describe your house.’ ”
“Oh, but Anya, that’s an easy topic! You can tell all about the sea captain, and his bride, and the stairs, and the dark, dank, dingy den where we are forced to watch television.”
Anya unexpectedly flung herself over the gap between the two beds and hugged Christina. “Oh, Chrissie, you lifesaver! I was thinking of my real house! My shack with the broken window panes and the chickens that live in the rusted-out station wagon and the privy for when the plumbing fails. I could never tell all these mainland kids about how I really live! Not when Blake’s parents already think I’m a wharf rat!” She huffed a breath of relief. In Christina’s ears the huff echoed and re-echoed, Candle Cove in their bedroom. “Chrissie, you’re always so sensible. Island granite, that’s you.”
“Absolutely,” said Christina. “Nothing throws me.”
Liar, liar, house on fire.
“But I saved the worst thing for last,” said Anya. “First I have to look out the window. Make sure it’s not still there.” She pushed up the glass and leaned out.
Then she began screaming in horror. Her wails were high and thin like a siren in the distance.
Christina grabbed her, getting a handful of skirt.
Anya ripped free. “Chrissie, your house! It’s on fire! Your parents are in it, they’re burning up. Oh, my god, we have to save them, come on!”
Anya leaned farther and farther out the window, climbing over the sill, hanging over the cliff.
Christina hung on, fingers laced in Anya’s blouse, trying to get a grip on her body. Like the sea captain’s bride, Anya tried to go through the glass. “Let go, Chrissie, let go, it’s calling me, they need me,” Anya screamed.
Christina looked around Anya, trying to see the wet suit, or the cormorant, or the sea captain’s bride.
Far out to sea, where they had been born, flames reached into the afternoon sky.
Anya was telling the truth.
My house! thought Christina. I lied, and it did set my house on fire!
Chapter 7
ANYA WAS SCREAMING, SCREAMING, screaming.
Mr. Shevvington was racing up the stairs, Michael and Benj were racing up the stairs, even Mrs. Shevvington was running up the stairs.
Mr. Shevvington got there first.
“Christina!” he shouted. “Christina, stop it!”
Stop it? she thought. Stop trying to save Anya?
“Christina, what are you doing? Shoving Anya out the window?”
Mr. Shevvington jerked Christina by the shoulders, throwing her backward against the wall. Then he hooked his arms around Anya’s frail body and pulled her into the room. He rocked her back and forth. “It’s all right, Anya, you’re safe now, don’t be afraid, I’ve got you.”
Michael and Benj burst into the room. Mrs. Shevvington clumped in moments later. Christina was dazed where her head had hit the door jamb. She lay on the floor trying not to cry out with pain.
“What happened?” cried the boys. “Christina, what happened?”
The burning fog. They, living on the island inside the fog, had never seen it. Christina had finally witnessed the apparition that so terrified generations of mainlanders — Is it a house on fire? A ship in trouble? Are children burning? What shall we do?
Anya, eyes closed, lashes black against her pale cheek, lay in the pillow of her own hair against Mr. Shevvington. A tiny red rim of Anya’s blood decorated the white windowsill like a row of garnet beads.
Voice full of horror, Mr. Shevvington said, “Christina, were you trying to push Anya out the window?”
Michael stood over Christina. From this angle, he was enormous, with feet so large he could step on her, squash her like a bug. She did not recognize him — his folded arms, the underside of his chin, the bagging-out of his jeans at the knees. He was glaring at her.
Christina swallowed a sick dreadful taste in her mouth — a taste of metal, of seawater, of her own blood and bile. Are they actually accusing me of trying to kill Anya?
The huffing noise in the room was replaced by the quivering lungs of Michael, Benj, and Mr. Shevvington, by the strange whimpering of Anya.
“No, no, no,” said Anya. “Christina would never hurt me — she — I — ”
“What then?” said Mr
. Shevvington. “Trust me. Tell me. I won’t let her hurt you.”
But Anya did not seem to remember the fire on Burning Fog Isle, the house she had needed to save, or the “worst thing of all” that she had not yet told Christina. She just mumbled and made no sense.
When Christina tried to tell, the boys said she was yarning, and Mrs. Shevvington said this was beginning to form a pattern, and Mr. Shevvington said he felt the girls should be separated.
“Separated?” said Anya faintly.
“There’s another bedroom,” said Mr. Shevvington. “We’ll move Christina in there. This is not a good situation.”
Above them the poster of the sea looked out the window. The fingers that rode the painted white froth beckoned, and the curl of the waves was like the curve of a smile.
It wanted her, thought Christina. The sea wanted Anya. If they separate us, who will keep Anya from the arms of the sea?
But what could she say out loud? Even Michael and Benj seemed to be wondering if Christina really had been pushing Anya! Not Michael, thought Christina, betrayed. Surely Michael knows me better than that!
Mr. Shevvington sat down on Christina’s bed. He patted her mother’s quilt. It was the flying geese square — tiny, equilateral triangles of calico that flew around and around. Christina made herself think of cloth, needle, and thread; her mother, patiently sewing for Christina, planning something beautiful for Christina. “Sit with me a moment, Christina,” said the principal.
Christina did not.
I hit my head, she thought. I have a huge bump on my head where he threw me against the wall. He liked throwing me. And nobody has asked if I am all right.
“You do not know yourself, Christina,” Mr. Shevvington informed her, standing up. “I am very worried about you. This kind of emotional disturbance is sad and frightening to us all. We love you, Christina. Everybody in this room loves you. Talk to us about what’s bothering you. Do you feel inadequate? Do the mainland children seem much more capable? Are you very, very jealous of Anya?”
Ah, boys. Michael and Benj did not like how the conversation was going. It promised to be full of emotion and blame and they did not want to get involved. They backed out, claiming homework, important re-runs on TV, snacks begging to be eaten.
Mrs. Shevvington smiled.
Anya began brushing her hair. She brushed it with such vigor Christina thought she would pull all her hair out. “I don’t want to be by myself,” said Anya, looking at Christina and the Shevvingtons only through the mirror.
“I’m only thinking of what’s best for both of you,” said Mr. Shevvington gently. “You’re both denying that anything happened, but the fact is that we walked into a very frightening scene a few minutes ago. I am sure, Anya, that you were not screaming for nothing.”
“I told you why she was screaming,” said Christina. “She saw the fire on our island and — ”
“Christina!” said Mrs. Shevvington. “These stories of yours border on the manic. Call it yarning, or call it criminal defense, I wish to hear no more of it.”
“Criminal defense?” repeated Christina.
“Now, now,” said the principal to his wife. “We didn’t really see. We aren’t really sure.”
Mrs. Shevvington snorted. With a flick of her fingers she whipped Christina’s mother’s quilt off the bed and marched into the vacant bedroom beyond the boys’ room. “No need to unpack drawers,” she said. “Michael, Benjamin!” she yelled. “Move Christina’s entire bureau into this room.”
The boys moved the furniture. Mrs. Shevvington supervised.
Mr. Shevvington began to talk about jealousy and how well he understood it.
Christina interrupted him. She would turn this terrible episode into a little package to be set aside — never opened again — perhaps donated to a church fair. “What’s for supper, anyway?”
Michael said from the hall, “Good grief, Chrissie, we run up here thinking you two are being raped or mugged or thrown out the window and all you care about is what’s for supper?”
“You know me,” said Christina lightly.
But he did not know her. Michael, whom she had loved from birth, was a stranger to her; she was in trouble and he was not with her. Anya was a distant cloud. Benj was merely solid, moving furniture, showing nothing. Christina was alone.
It’s what I feared most, she thought. I didn’t fill it in on the form but he knew anyway.
They walked down the stairs like a column of soldiers.
Supper was fish chowder, just the way Christina loved it; thick, with milk and butter and diced potatoes. A huge stack of puffy, fresh-from-the-oven baking-powder biscuits sat in a basket lined with a red cloth. Christina slathered hers with honey, and Anya ate hers plain, and the boys put on butter and maple syrup. Everybody had at least two bowls of chowder; Michael crushed crackers into his and Benj slurped his. Dessert was a wonderful cherry pastry from the bakery on the tourist street.
Food is the answer to everything, Christina thought. Especially if it’s hot.
Her head no longer ached. Michael’s stories about the soccer team he was trying out for were so funny. She planned to go to all his after-school games. She thought about the tape she had to dictate for Dolly. Good thing she had said nothing yet. She really would sound insane talking about posters and wet suits and cruel principals and forms asking if you were afraid.
She thought about her homework. She was eager to get started. She was sure girls like Gretch and Vicki would be perfect at homework; she could be no less.
Christina cleared the table, and Michael and Benj did the dishes. Anya opened her book bag. She looked into her physics lab notebook, with all its blank spaces for her to fill during the year. Anya had gotten an A average in chemistry the year before; no doubt she would do the same in physics. Christina took a little more dessert and nobody objected. Perhaps the Shevvingtons were going to relax the rules a little.
Michael and Benj just sighed. Homework was prison, and the bars had just shut, as they had known would happen, and there was nothing to do now but suffer, do time.
Michael opened to a chapter about comparisons between the Soviet Union and the United States. “Government,” he muttered. “Who cares about government?”
Benj began calculating on Anya’s pocket calculator. “Fifty-eight school days,” he informed them. “Then I’m sixteen. One and a half marking periods. That’s all.”
Anya said nothing. She filled in nothing.
Christina opened her book bag. For English they had to write a poem. It made her sick just to think about writing a poem. About having to read it out loud, while Vicki and Gretch and Jonah listened. Smirking. Talking about island girls on welfare.
Mr. Shevvington said, “Christina, you and I will have our talk now. It cannot be postponed any longer.”
“What talk?” said Christina.
Mr. Shevvington took her by the shoulder and led her into the library.
His blue blue eyes kept trying to look into her ordinary dark eyes. She found other things to look at. She looked at the empty shelf for a while, and then the pattern in the rug, and next the three dull pencils lying at angles on the lamp table. There were dead bugs lying inside the globe of the ceiling light.
She thought, When did he get blue eyes? He didn’t have blue eyes before!
“You’re afraid to look at me, Christina Romney.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” said Christina.
He said gently, “You didn’t fill out that form precisely because you are afraid of everything.”
The room grew thick and wait-full, like the bedroom upstairs, with the poster of the sea.
“Christina, talk to me about your fears. I’m here to help.”
Christina said nothing.
He said, “You want to have no friends? Bad grades? Lonely afternoons?”
His voice softened. It grew thick and sucking like the mud flats. “Then you’re doing just the right thing, Christina.” The voice caught
at her, dragging her down. “It’s going to happen, Christina.”
It was the dream sequence, being chased, feet stuck, and evil catching up. Christina said, “How can you call this a library when you don’t have any books on the shelves?”
“When you try to change the subject like that,” said the principal, “I know it is because you are filled with fear. You cannot admit yet that you are a very disturbed child. Christina, it’s all right. I understand.”
The evening passed.
Michael, Benj, and Anya did their homework at the kitchen table. Mrs. Shevvington prepared her class lessons at the kitchen table with them. Christina sat in the library, waging silent war with Mr. Shevvington.
“I have to do my homework now,” she said to him, her final weapon. What principal could argue with that?
“No,” said Mr. Shevvington. “I want you to go to bed early, get a solid night’s rest, and be able to face the morning with a good heart. I am writing you an excuse to give every teacher.”
In his delicate looping hand, he penned:
To whom it may concern:
Christina has suffered a severe emotional disturbance, and I have given her permission not to do homework until she recovers from her distress.
Arnold Shevvington
Principal
The principal smiled. “Mrs. Shevvington will read this out loud to the class, Christina, so that they will understand why an exception is being made for you.”
Christina sucked in her breath. She would rather die than have Gretch and Vicki and Jonah and the rest hear that letter! “I am not distressed,” she said, “and I would like to do my homework.”
“Now, now,” said Mrs. Shevvington. She appeared as quickly, as silently, as before. There was something subhuman about the way she could appear anywhere — like an ant or a mouse, coming through the cracks unheard. “You heard Mr. Shevvington, Chrissie.”
But how did you hear? thought Christina. Listening at the cracks, as well as arriving by them?
“I think,” said Mrs. Shevvington, “the attitude I will take is that you are just very, very tired. You aren’t used to the fast pace of mainland life and all those people around you, Chrissie. I think we will give you another chance.”