“We promise,” said Skye.
Alec nodded, satisfied, and turned to go.
“Actually, there is something,” said Skye, nudging Jeffrey, who nudged her back threateningly, shaking his head no, but she pressed on regardless. “When Jeffrey took Hoover to your house, he saw your piano. That is, Jeffrey saw it, and he also played it.”
Jeffrey flushed. “I couldn’t help it. It’s such a good piano.”
“Oh, yes, Claire told me you’re a musician,” said Alec. “Piano, clarinet, and what else?”
“A little cello, and I’ve just started on the clarinet, really.”
“Don’t let Jeffrey’s modesty fool you,” said Jane. “He’s a genius.”
“I like geniuses.” Alec smiled. “Use the piano whenever you want, Jeffrey. I mean that. Come this afternoon, if you’d like.”
“Thank you, I will.” Jeffrey shook his hand fervently. “Thank you very much.”
This time Alec did leave, and Skye sagged with relief. Gaining Alec’s trust made her trust herself more. Maybe they really could manage all this on their own.
“ ‘Sol, a needle pulling thread,’ ” sang Aunt Claire in her sleep.
Or maybe not, thought Skye. Her work had just begun, and she was already worn out and wondered longingly if she dare take a nap. Of course not—what kind of a message would that send to the others? She needed to do something practical and soothing.
“All right, troops,” she said. “Let’s have lunch.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Another Accident
BY THE NEXT MORNING, Aunt Claire had stopped singing and was able to hobble for short distances on her crutches. Even better, she didn’t want to leave Point Mouette either.
“But if any of you want to go home, I should be able to drive soon, since it’s my left ankle, not my right,” she told the children. “Staying here will be harder on you four than it will be on me. My ankle and I will be lolling around while you do all the work.”
“We’ve split it up,” said Skye. “Even Batty’s helping.”
“I can sweep now.” Batty got the broom from the kitchen and waved it around to prove her proficiency.
“We really want to stay,” said Jane. “Don’t we, Jeffrey?”
“Yes, please.” Jeffrey was drawing on Aunt Claire’s plastic boot with Batty’s markers. He didn’t have much space—the girls had taken their turns before him—but he was managing a decent picture of Hound playing the piano.
“All right, then it’s settled,” said Aunt Claire. “We’ll stay as long as there are no problems.”
“There won’t be.” Skye crossed her fingers for luck, though in normal times she didn’t believe in luck. Just in case it did exist, she figured she could use as much as she could get. She was greatly relieved that Aunt Claire was willing to let her be so completely in charge. That had been her first goal for the morning. Her second goal was to convince Alec to stop fussing. He’d come by half a dozen times the day before, and Skye expected him to appear again soon, making sure that Aunt Claire hadn’t died or had her leg amputated during the night.
And moments later, Alec did arrive, bearing many gifts—a pile of books and magazines for Aunt Claire; a plate of warm cinnamon buns that everyone dove into, though breakfast was a very recent memory; and an invitation for them all to have dinner with him that evening.
“A friend of mine will be here who’s visiting for several days,” he said. “Please come. Feeding all of you is the least I can do since Hoover maimed your primary cook.”
“Really, you don’t have to,” said Aunt Claire. “You’ve forgotten about Jeffrey’s stuffed green peppers.”
“But Turron—my friend—would enjoy the company.” Alec turned to Jeffrey. “He’s a drummer. Maybe the three of us could make some music after we eat.”
Jeffrey, in the middle of his second cinnamon bun, made a strangled kind of sound that combined pleasure, humility, and excitement in equal measures.
“That means he wants to, Aunt Claire,” said Skye. Taking up Alec’s invitation the day before, Jeffrey had spent several hours at the piano and had talked of little else since.
“Then we will accept for Jeffrey’s sake,” said Aunt Claire. “And so that he doesn’t have to make stuffed green peppers.”
“Good,” said Alec. “Now, what else can I do for you?”
“Nothing, thank you. We’re all organized.” Skye didn’t mind Alec cooking dinner for them, but she could handle things until then. It took a while to convince him they would continue to survive without his help, but finally he was gone.
“I really like him,” said Jeffrey.
“We all like him,” said Skye, “but we don’t need him. Besides, we have chores to do.”
The kitchen needed cleaning after breakfast, and because Jeffrey had made omelets and Batty had cracked open all the eggs for him, that meant a lot of cleaning. Skye took that on for herself, since the OAP should always volunteer for the worst. Jeffrey and Batty were assigned sweeping duty because, though it had been done just the day before, somehow Birches was full of sand all over again. That left Jane, who offered to help settle Aunt Claire on the deck, complete with an ice pack for her ankle.
“Would you like me to bathe your forehead?” Jane asked when her aunt was comfortable.
“No, thank you. Just talk to me. How’s your new book coming?”
“I’m still doing research.” Jane plopped down beside Aunt Claire’s chair. “I’ve thought of putting together questions to ask people. Here’s the only one I have so far: Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“That’s an interesting question.”
“Well, do you?”
Aunt Claire stared out at the ocean, pondering. “I guess I must, since it’s happened to me. In high school, there was a French exchange student named Stéphane. I fell for him the very moment he walked into my biology class.”
“What happened?” asked Jane, enthralled. She’d never met a real French boy.
“Not much. He ended up dating Marjorie Wright, who broke his heart. But I fell at first sight another time, with Leon, a friend your father brought home from college. And after him was Bill the basketball player. There were a number of Bills, now that I think about it, except not every one of them was love at first sight. Hmm, who was next? I think my art history professor. Oh, and I forgot about Charlie! Mad Charlie. I adored him. Does any of this help, Jane?”
“Yes, keep going!”
“This could take hours.”
“Well, then, what happened to them all?”
“Different things. I almost married one—I’ll tell you that story when you’re older.” Aunt Claire stopped to shift her ice pack. “But don’t put them all in the past. I’m not too old to keep falling in love, first sight or second or third.”
Jane had a thought, interesting and scary at the same time. “Not Alec!”
“No.” Aunt Claire shook her head. “I like him, but not to fall in love with.”
“But how do you know? How do you learn how to know?”
“So many questions! Let me think—how do I know when I’ve fallen in love? It’s hard to explain without sounding silly. Like being struck by lightning, except nice. Or like having your heart sing.”
“Singing heart. That’s good. May I use it for Sabrina Starr?”
“Use away. I’d be honored.”
Skye came out through the sliding door, sponge in one hand and dish towel in the other. A supply run to Moose Market was needed, and since Jane wasn’t doing anything important right now—book research didn’t count—it was up to her. Jane didn’t mind. Aunt Claire had already given her a lot to think about. She set off down Ocean Boulevard with the grocery list in her pocket and her imagination on fire.
Sabrina Starr was fuming. Her sprained ankle was a disaster. If she didn’t rescue the Chinese ambassador from his kidnappers within the next forty-eight hours, discord would spread, countries would fall, and World War III would loom. And
here she was stuck in the hospital. “Ms. Starr? I’m Dr. Albert, Ankle Specialist.” Sabrina gazed up at the doctor and her heart sang.
No, that wouldn’t work, not with Sabrina on crutches and wearing that awkward plastic boot. There could be no dancing by moonlight, for example. In the movies that Jane had seen, people in love were always dancing. But was it like that in real life? That was a good second research question: Does being in love make you want to dance? Jane wished she had her notebook with her.
She passed Alec’s house and came to the long stretch of rocky coast, with the great piles of boulders guarding the ocean, just as they had for hundreds of years, Jane thought, or maybe thousands or even tens of thousands, all the way back to the dinosaurs or the Ice Age—she never could remember which came first. The idea of treading rocks so ancient was too tempting to pass up. They weren’t hard to get to. She just had to slide down a pebbly slope for about five feet, cross a narrow band of coarse sand, and there she was at the rocks, a whole landscape of them, all tumbled together. Jane leaped from one to another until she came close enough to the ocean to feel the spray from the crashing waves.
“Great and powerful Neptune,” she said, raising her arms in supplication, “grant me …”
But she couldn’t think of anything sea-related that she would like to have granted, and Neptune never bothered with anything else, like helping writers with their projects. Mermaids were a possibility, but even if Jane believed it possible to be turned into one, she probably shouldn’t bother. In the books she’d read, mermaids were never that bright, worried only about combing their hair and driving sailors mad with passion. Of course, Jane’s hair was almost long enough now to be mermaid-like, and that thing about sailors could be a way to learn about love. Jane again raised her arms.
“Great and powerful Neptune,” she cried, “let me be a mermaid just long enough to research my book.”
Nothing happened—no fishtail or scales—which Jane figured was just as well, since Skye would be annoyed if she didn’t return soon with the groceries. She made her way back toward the road, stopping only to pick up a few smooth stones that were the right size for paperweights. But when she reached the slope, she found that going up was more difficult than coming down had been. Her sneakers couldn’t get a grip on the pebbles, and the few tufts of weeds she grabbed tore away under her weight. Jane stubbornly persevered, however, and was almost to the top when she heard the rattle of a skateboard. Eagerly she looked up, and yes, there was Dominic, waving regally to her as he sailed by.
“Hello,” Jane called to him, and if she’d been content with calling, all would have been well. But she just had to wave back, and what with the paperweight rocks in her left hand and her right hand now flailing around at the rapidly departing skateboarder, Jane lost her balance, teetered for a panicky moment, then was spinning and falling, arms and legs and paperweights flying everywhere.
Her first thought upon landing was that she hoped Dominic hadn’t seen her be so clumsy. Her second thought was that someone nearby must be in pain, because that someone kept saying “Ouch,” except that it was more like “Ouuuuuch.” Jane would have liked to help the person, except that she herself was having difficulty with her nose, mixed up as it was with sand and paperweights and something else that was warm and sticky—and then Jane realized that she was the one making all the noise.
So she stopped. Sabrina Starr never said ouch. Even with a nose that, Jane realized, hurt as much as any part of her ever had, including the time Skye had accidentally stabbed her with a barbecue fork. At least the damage seemed to be limited to her nose. Jane tested her limbs one at a time. All was well there, which meant she should be able to stand up. But because she was dizzier than she would have liked, it took a while to get upright, and once she was there, the pain got worse.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch,” she said because she just had to, Sabrina or no Sabrina.
The next task was to climb up to the road. But if it had been tricky before, it was close to impossible now. She kept getting partway up the pebbly slope and sliding backward again. Maybe Jane would have done better if she’d had the use of both hands, but she’d lost most of the paperweights in her fall and wasn’t thinking straight enough to throw away the one she had left. Once, twice, three times she tried, and was about to give up and go beg old Neptune for help when a car stopped on the road above her, and soon after that a man was lifting her up as easily as if she were Batty. He gently set her down beside his car.
“I can stand,” she said, wobbling.
“Not very well,” he said. “Sit.”
So Jane let her legs collapse under her, and the man guided her to the ground. A minute later, he was handing her a water bottle.
“Drink,” he said.
She drank half the bottle of water, which did nothing for her hurting nose but did ease the dizziness enough to let her focus on her savior. He was a dark man, tall and strong, with kind eyes and no hair at all. Not having hair suited him, Jane thought, and made him look even stronger. No wonder he could lift her so easily.
“Thank you,” she said. “You rescued me.”
“What happened?”
“I think I smacked my nose with this,” she answered, showing him the paperweight rock. “Not on purpose.”
“Do you know you’re covered with blood?”
Jane looked down at her shirt, which was indeed a mess. “Oh, boy. My sister is going to be furious, especially if my nose is actually broken. Do you think it is?”
“Can you breathe through it?”
“Yes.”
“It looks straight, so unless it used to be crooked, I’d say it isn’t broken. Come on, I’ll drive you to this furious sister of yours.” He stopped and frowned. “But of course you don’t know anything about me, so you can’t get into my car. What a world.”
Jane was glad he’d mentioned it first. “Tell me about yourself, then.”
“My name is Turron Asabere and—”
“And you’re Alec’s friend! My family is staying next door to Alec, and we’re having dinner with you tonight.”
So Jane, safe now, let Turron help her into the car and drive her back to the house—without the groceries she’d been sent to buy, and with a face that would have looked just right on a heavyweight boxer. But for the moment she wasn’t worried about the groceries, her nose, or her bloody shirt, because it had occurred to her that if she could come up with enough questions for her Love Survey, maybe Turron and Alec wouldn’t mind being her first real test subjects.
Skye gave the kitchen counter one final polish, then stepped out into the main room and looked around. Not bad. Jeffrey and Batty had done a good job with the sweeping, and if they were now obviously messing around with that stupid harmonica on the sleeping porch, that didn’t necessarily mean Skye’s authority was being flouted. A good leader knew when to let her people relax from their duties.
“You’d better be finished with your sweeping,” she called.
Jeffrey’s voice roared back at her. “Sir, yes, sir!”
“Not funny.” But it was kind of funny, she thought, and went out onto the deck to check on Aunt Claire.
“Hello, niece of mine,” she said.
“Are you ready for another ice pack yet?”
“No, thank you.”
“Anything to drink?”
“Nope.”
“Am I too bossy with the others?”
“What?”
“Because the true measure of a leader isn’t just how she handles herself in a crisis, but how she manages herself in the day-to-day, right?”
Aunt Claire reached out and took Skye’s hand. “You’re an excellent OAP, Skye Magee Penderwick.”
“Thank you.” Skye chewed on her lower lip to keep from looking too proud. “I guess I’m doing okay.”
She wandered back into Birches, wishing her father could see her right at that moment, calmly adjusting after a disaster and even keeping everyone properly fed. Or R
osalind. If Rosalind called now, Skye would certainly pick up the phone and say that everyone was just fine and everything under control. She did a half dozen celebratory deep knee bends and decided that it was time to have some fun. Like a good round of soccer on the beach when Jane got back from Moose Market, and after that a chapter of Death by Black Hole, by which time they would all be hungry again.
Her musing was interrupted by a quiet knock at the front door. Alec again, she thought, though he usually came around the back. But when she opened the door, she found a big, strong-looking bald man who was certainly not Alec.
“Skye?” he asked. “I’m Turron Asabere, a friend of Alec’s.”
“Oh, the drummer. Nice to meet you.” Skye shook his hand. “But if Alec sent you to check on us, please tell him that honest-honest-honest I don’t need his help right now.”
“I’m sure you don’t. But Alec didn’t send me. I’m here to make a delivery.”
“What kind of delivery?” She noticed now that as large as Turron was, he seemed to be trying to make himself even larger. But not quite successfully, because it was becoming obvious that someone was standing right behind him. “Jane, is that you?”
“Don’t be furious, Skye.” It was Jane.
“About what?”
“Turron, you’d better let her see.”
When Turron shifted to one side of the doorway, revealing Jane in all her blood-soaked glory, Skye shrieked. Then shrieked again and clutched at her sister, searching frantically for the source of all that blood.
“It’s just my nose, honest, and I have a perfectly good explanation.” Jane held up one of her paperweight rocks and was about to launch into the explanation, but Skye’s shriek had brought Jeffrey and Batty running, and then came Aunt Claire, heaving herself along on her crutches, and there were introductions to make for Turron, and damp cloths to be fetched to wipe up Jane’s blood, and Hound to force onto the sleeping porch because he was as panicked as Skye herself at a battered Penderwick. So it wasn’t until several minutes later that Jane started to tell her story, and by this time Skye had at least started breathing normally, until Jane came to the part about why she fell.