“Sshhh…”
“…bad manners…always in…front…walking or…standing…in front of…anyone else…even…rulers of…other…countries…”
“You’re so right,” BigC says. “I’ve seen it. I’ve just never thought about it that way.”
“…a terrible…host….” Pete turns his neck slow-speed to look at Aunt
Stormy. “What’s that…German word…you have for…the shrub?”
“Fahradfahrer. Is that the one?”
He nods.
“Fah——what?” I ask.
“Fah…rad…fahrer.”
“Bush is a Fahradfahrer. It means bicyclist,” Aunt Stormy says. “Feet down, head up, kicking people below, smiling at people above.”
“God, that fits him,” BigC says.
Pete is still nodding. Up one down one up one down…slow-speed.
HE DOES that at dinner too. Nodding. Up one down one up one down…His lips are red from tomato juice.
No one tells him to wipe them.
Halfway through dinner, he’s napping.
We have hollow noodles. I slide two over the tips of my fork. Then suck them up into my mouth. From the refrigerator, the naked bride is watching. Not the bride naked. Me naked. Sitting on the hip of the bride who is not naked but wearing a bride dress. Annie. Who says it’s not a baby under her dress but a pillow. Fake. Annie doesn’t want babies. Mason said so.
When Aunt Stormy is done eating, she stands up. Stands behind Pete. Rubs the back of Pete’s neck. The side of Pete’s neck.
Can he feel it? I think he does because he wakes up. He looks a hundred years older than Aunt Stormy.
That’s what I tell her. “Pete looks a hundred years older than you.”
She smiles. “But he’s two years younger.”
“Mason says—”
Now they all look at me.
Annie’s mouth gets little.
“Nothing.” I don’t tell them what Mason says. That Aunt Stormy and Pete are like wife and husband. But without marriage. And with separate houses.
Slow so slow Pete gets up. One hand against the wall, he lifts his left foot. Takes a baby step. Brings the right foot along. Again with the left. The right. When he gets to the remote, he picks it up, raises it to his eyes, and turns on the news. A woman’s head. Bigger than the screen. Because only part of her hair shows. I know who she is. Laura Bush. Talking about women in Afghanistan. And about voting in Afghanistan. I know where Afghanistan is on the map.
Aunt Stormy goes wild. “The right to vote is not enough, you insipid woman. They have to make sure their votes count. Not like in this country.”
“Insipid…smile…”
“That woman always says ‘chail-tren,’ ” Annie says.
I try it out. “Chail-tren.”
And that’s just how it sounds when Laura Bush says it a moment later: “Chail-tren.”
“She…looks…tired.”
Aunt Stormy nods. “From always carrying that dog. Probably holds him so she doesn’t have to touch that George.”
“A school-yard bully,” Annie says. “You’re either with us or against us. If you play with my enemy, I’ll hate you and get even.”
“Not…looking for…consensus…”
“Grabs what isn’t his.” Aunt Stormy says. “I win I win. A presidency that isn’t his. And the sheep, lining up behind the thief.”
PETE SLEEPS in Aunt Stormy’s bedroom. By morning he’s a bit stronger and not so old.
Odd things happen in Aunt Stormy’s house.
A house hatching a house.
Why doesn’t anyone else see that?
Last night the roof unfolded so I could count the stars.
At breakfast Pete sticks a piece of tape to his wrist.
“What’s that for?” I ask him.
“Grocery…shopping.”
At the store, he unfolds his shopping list. Peels the tape from his wrist. Fastens his shopping list to the cart. He pushes, and I put stuff inside. Only what he tells me. Not sneaking stuff inside like I do with Annie.
At the checkout, it takes Pete ten hours to open his wallet.
Well, ten minutes, maybe.
Or just five.
Long enough so I want to do it for him. Like wanting to help a stutterer finish a word. But I don’t.
AUNT STORMY pulls next to me in her purple kayak. Opens a bottle of lotion.
I know that smell. Tutti-frutti. “No!”
“Put some on, Opal.”
“It’s stinky.”
I have the yellow kayak all to myself. Better than sitting squeezed between Annie’s legs.
Mason’s legs are skinnier than Annie’s.
Annie is at the pond house.
Getting some of our things.
Aunt Stormy reaches for me. “I should have put lotion on you before we got in the boats.”
I paddle away from her. But it’s too late. Smell has become touch. Clings to me. Smothers the smell that is me.
Sticky. Stinky. And I’m little again. Fighting Mason—
“Hey—” Mason. On the beach. Sand on his feet. Pulling me close to him. “Let me put some of Aunt Stormy’s lotion on you.”
I squirm. “No lotion.”
“The sun is hot. I don’t want you getting a sunburn.”
“Stinky!” I scream.
“Oh…hold still, Mophead. Please?” Mason. Smearing lotion on me.
Stomping and wailing and tearing off my skin. “No, Mason—” Running from the smell. And from Mason. Who put the smell on me.
“Put your fingers down, Opal. I’m almost done.”
Tearing it off to the me underneath the smell. Running away down the beach. Never coming back. But when I look, Mason is running behind me. Little steps. Not Mason steps. Staying always a bit behind me. The same little bit. Staying behind me and behind the stinky smell. I run. Run fast. Away. Running fast needs my crying breath. So I stop crying. Run fast with the sun hot. Fast with Mason a bit behind me. But not too close and singing: “My Stardust…my Mophead…” Till I have to laugh. Mason swoops me into his arms. Up up—Swings me. Round and round till we both giggle. Props me on his shoulders. All in one motion. I’m riding. Riding high up on Mason’s shoulders. Fingers slipping across his forehead. Slipping. Clutching his hair. Bouncing—horsey—my feet digging into Mason. Giddy-up, horsey, giddy—
Aunt Stormy. Her kayak right behind mine. “At least wear a hat, Opal.”
Mason—
Oh—
Paddling away from Aunt Stormy. Paddling.
Through the long grasses at Sammy’s Beach.
Seaweeds under my kayak. Waving.
Egrets. An osprey nest.
Paddling away.
Away and suddenly—Mason in the purple kayak right behind me again. Behind me as long as I don’t look. His paddle slicing the water. Scooping water. Right behind me. Mason. Always. As long as I don’t outpaddle him. Always right behind me. As long as I don’t slow down. As long as I don’t check if he’s really there. That always makes Mason disappear.
“Sshhh…,” Aunt Stormy hisses.
Paddling. Away.
“Opal.” Hissing: “Sshhh…”
The purple kayak next to mine. But now Aunt Stormy in it. Hissing: “Don’t move don’t talk. Horseshoe crabs.”
In the shallow water below us. A hundred horseshoe crabs. Or fifty. At least fifty. In clumps.
Our kayaks hang above them.
Each clump has one big horseshoe crab, digging itself into the sand. With a few smaller horseshoe crabs on top of the big one. Some of the shells stick from the water. But their legs and gills are underwater. They don’t scuttle away.
“The urge to mate—” Aunt Stormy sticks one arm into the water. “—is stronger than the urge to flee and be safe.”
Our kayaks wobble. Wobble in the shallow water.
She turns her kayak so she’s next to me. Taking my paddle, she lays it across our kayaks. Her paddle too. Then she fastens
orange rope from the front of my kayak to her kayak. “Now we’re stable. Like a catamaran.”
Reaching into the water, she lifts a small horseshoe crab from the back of a big one. Checks underneath. “A male.”
“How can you tell?”
“Front claws like boxing gloves.” She holds the horseshoe crab out to me.
I inspect the underneath of the male. Boxing gloves.
“That’s how the male holds on to the female. The rest of the claws end in pincers.” She touches the mouth of the horseshoe crab. “The mouth feels all bristly. Want to feel it?”
“The crab won’t like it.” I shrink from the bristly mouth. From those pincers and boxer hands. From the sharp, long tail.
Aunt Stormy smiles and sets the crab back into water. “The females are all pincers. They’re the ones on the bottom. Much larger than the males. Fertilization happens outside the body.”
“How?”
“The female digs a little crater into the sand. Near the edge of the water. Lays her eggs in there. She has thousands and thousands of eggs, Opal. And she pulls the male across the eggs till they’re fertilized.”
“Cool.”
“Look at their shells.”
I lean over the side of my yellow kayak. “Like armor.”
“Right. And each one is different in what it has attached. What do you see?”
“Those little stacking shells…”
“Slipper shells.”
“…and crusty stuff.”
“Barnacles, right. Algae…carrying all that like we carry our history. What have you lost? What have you taken with you?”
“What have I lost?”
“I mean all of us, Opal.”
“Oh—My real mother. My real father.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“Mason. Jake. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Mills. Who won’t be my teacher anyhow in third grade. Sally, who used to play Ice Capades with me on the kitchen floor—”
“You’ve lost so much, Opal.” Her voice, gentle.
Sand in my eyes? They sting. “I want to see Jake.”
“I’ll talk to Annie.”
“She’ll say he’s busy.”
“I’ll talk to her.” She puts a kiss in her hand. Plants it on my lips. “Here. Grab your paddle. Good.” She unties the orange rope. Shifts her kayak away from mine. “You go first.”
I stay ahead of her. Paddle. Turn this way or that way when she tells me to. Paddle toward a fuzzy moon.
“Weird.”
“What’s weird, Opal?”
“The moon. Because it’s afternoon with blue sky.”
“Oh, that’s the children’s moon. That’s what your father used to call a daytime moon. Because the children are still awake to see it.”
STILL DAWN. And Annie is home again, asleep in the big bed.
The roof is closed. Everything is muggy. The air. The blankets. I kick them off. Get out of bed.
Hair across Annie’s face. Chocolate smell in her hair.
“Your teeth will rot, Annie.”
But she keeps sleeping.
In the kitchen, boxes and boxes. On the table. Around the table. In front of the bookcase.
Smell of the pond house.
My belly gets stiff.
Clothes from the pond house.
Toys from the pond house.
Aunt Stormy’s door is closed. But I hear Pete sleeping. He is a loud sleeper. A breather of scratchy breaths.
Someone has set the fruit bowl on top of two boxes. I take an apple. Head for the boardwalk. Air so heavy it shimmers. Like walking through dough rising around me. Sweating though my pajamas. But knowing I can—if-I-want—jump in for a dunk in something wet, not half-wet like the air.
Dawn smudges Aunt Stormy’s house. Makes it all wavy lines. No edges.
How can a house do that, hatch itself?
I bet Mason knows how.
Some days, the front opens like a barn and pulls me inside.
Inside is much larger than outside. Rooms run into rooms into rooms. Long after I think there can’t be any more rooms.
Tall grasses tickle my ankles. On the wooden cradle by the inlet, the kayaks are upside down, their bottoms scratched.
“Designed by a woman. Light enough to be carried by a woman,” Aunt Stormy would say.
Pete would laugh. “So why do you need my help then?” But he’d swing a kayak onto his shoulder and carry it for me to—
But Pete is slow now.
Anything can change in one moment.
From fast to slow.
From alive to dead.
From hairy to bald—But Jake still has hair. Around his third eye.
Not light enough for me to carry, the yellow kayak. But light enough to drag from the cradle by the orange rope tied to its front. The rope is damp. So is the kayak. When I sit inside, the bottom is cold.
I push my hair from my eyes. Stretch my arms like a paddle. My fingers are the ends of my paddle. Like flying.
Mason can fly. Fly through water that splashes up high against the car. Up from the wheels in silver circles. Where it hits the fenders, it sounds like a hose turned up high into the wheelbarrow. Mason let me hose off the wheelbarrow when I helped him build Annie’s studio.
I do some butt-surfing. Jiggle the kayak forward without water.
Sun burns through dawn.
Burns a hole into dawn.
A hole that gets bigger.
Lets the world in.
A waterfall of light.
When are the lumis coming back, Mason?
Behind the seat is the life jacket. I know how to fasten it around me.
I climb from the kayak. Get myself a real paddle. Drag the kayak—light enough to be dragged by a girl—to the water. I remind myself to tell Aunt Stormy.
Then I’m in.
No longer butt-surfing but slicing through the water.
Flying, Mason.
Looking for lumis.
Across the inlet, a white sheet flutters high up in a tree. Higher than anyone can toss a sheet. Like a candle ghost, melted into the tree. Like the day after Halloween. Candle ghost. Still and draped. Then suddenly something rises. A beak. A neck. Long and white. Not a sheet.
I paddle to the left. Where the inlet flows into the bay.
Behind me, pecking. A woodpecker—black and white and some red—on a tree behind me.
How can one little beak make that much noise, Mason?
My hair tickles. I pull it up high, twist until it doubles over into a unicorn horn. My kayak is wobbling. Whoosh…
Under BigC’s boardwalk, ducks are splashing toward the shallow water, away from the swans. One of them is all puffed up and chasing after the ducks.
I tell the ducks, “It’s just showing off.”
They turn their beaks toward my voice.
“It doesn’t want to catch you.”
When I paddle beyond the next neighbor’s boardwalk, the stick heads of turtles bob on the water.
Look look, Mason. Look—
But the stick heads pull back beneath the surface.
I see a cormorant.
And there’s a muskrat. Musk-rat.
Water splashes around me. Whoosh…But I’m only a little wet.
Look, Mason—a musk-rat.
Lots of people are afraid of rats.
But not Mason.
Musk-rat. I bet musk-rats are carnivores. Carne is meat in Spanish, Mrs. Mills says. Car-ni-vores. I bet if plants can be carnivores, rats and musk-rats can be carnivores too. When Aunt Stormy took Annie and me to the Walking Dunes, we saw car-ni-vore plants. I think they were called dew drops. They were not Venus flytraps because Mrs. Mills had those on her desk.
The car-ni-vore plants in the Walking Dunes had little hairs. Hairs like the hairs animals and people have on their bodies. Hairs that stuck to my fingers when I touched them. Nutty. They were long and thin, those plants. And they didn’t eat my fingers. Because I didn’t touch them for lon
g. Not even for almost-long. Just a millisecond. Aunt Stormy said the car-ni-vore plants curl up. Like ferns when they attract a bug. Because that’s evolution.
“They can’t get what they need from the soil,” Aunt Stormy told Annie and me, “and so they attract nourishment from the air.”
I wish Mason could see the car-ni-vore plants at the Walking Dunes.
I bet Mason knows about car-ni-vores.
Because he knows how the house hatches itself. It’s definitely a magical house.
Whoosh…Look look, Mason—another turtle. I bet you’re just hiding from Annie’s hissies. Hiding or disguising yourself away.
Under the boardwalk—four boardwalks from Aunt Stormy’s—a crab is hiding. It has stuck itself to one of the wooden posts underwater. A big crab. Big and blue.
Maybe we can eat the crab, Mason.
Mason? Look—
Whoosh…I try to scoop up the crab with one end of my paddle.
But it won’t budge.
The kayak wobbles.
Mason
—into your robe.
“Is Opal sleeping?” I asked you.
“Yes.” You closed her door, softly.
“I didn’t think you’d do it, Annie, that you’d really do it.”
“you did everything you could to make us do it.”
“I had to know. What it would be like for you both—”
“Why?”
“To understand…and if both of us understand, then we’ll be able to—to get beyond this. Together.”
“You’re sick.”
“We don’t ever have to talk about it again.”
“You mean you…forgive me?”
“And Jake.” The moment I said, it, I knew you’d set me up.
And you clobbered me. “You are so arrogant.”
The beams of Jake’s headlights bobbing on the ceiling as he baked out.
“Finally,” I said.
“I want you out.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Out as in for good.”
I told you, no—begged you, Annie: “Don’t destroy the family Opal has.”
“I no longer know how to be a family with you.”
“Maybe not with me, this minute. But for Opal we’re the family she has.”
You did that impatient little breath, Annie.
“Don’t listen to what Jake makes out of this,” I said.
“I was there too.”