Children of the Storm

their reading skills and seeing what she might do to improve them. Fortunately, both Alex and Tina were exceptionally bright students, and they needed no encouragement to do their work, for they were as curious as they were intelligent. By noon, when they took a lunch break, the kids were usually a good many pages ahead of the lesson which she had planned for them, like two intellectual sponges soaking up all that she could pour before them. After lunch, around two o'clock, they began work on arithmetic and spelling, some geography and history for Alex and some skill-games for Tina.
        Friday afternoon, when they were studying the map of the United States during the geography lesson, Alex pointed to the eastern seaboard, traced the outlines of one state in particular. “That's New Jersey,” he said.
        “Yes, it is.”
        “Where we used to live.”
        Sonya frowned. “Yes. You see how far away you are from there?”
        “Real far,” he said.
        She found Guadeloupe for him and, though Distingue was not on the map, indicated their general position in relationship to the larger island.
        “I'm glad they scared us out of New Jersey,” Alex said.
        “Oh?”
        “Yeah. It's prettier down here.”
        “Lots prettier,” Tina added.
        “I'd hate to be killed in New Jersey,” Alex said. “Down here, it would be better.”
        Sonya chose not to question this rather macabre statement, but went quickly on with the lesson, drawing the boy's attention to the West Coast, as far away from New Jersey as she could lead him.
        By four-thirty each afternoon, finished with lessons, they were ready for a swim, a game of tag, a walk about the island-always with Rudolph Saine in tow, his burly arms, like the arms of a gorilla, swinging loosely at his sides, his scowl permanently in place, his broad face creased like putty that had been scored with a sculptor's blade.
        He carried a holstered revolver under his left armpit.
        Sonya pretended not to notice.
        And still, nothing untoward happened.
        
        Monday afternoon, when she had been on Distingue for nearly a week, Sonya was given the last half of the day off, for Joe Dougherty wanted to take his kids to Guadeloupe for a couple of movies and-he told her, shuddering as if the prospect utterly repelled him-supper at their favorite greasy hamburger emporium. “I think we set the best possible table here at Seawatch,” he told Sonya. She agreed. “But,” he said, “the kids tell me that our food 'stinks' in comparison to the hamburgers and French fries on Guadeloupe.”
        “Better not let Helga hear them say that.”
        “Never!” he vowed. “I'd rather lose my fortune than lose Helga and her cooking!”
        Because Bill Peterson was to take the Doughertys to the main island, and because he would wait there for them, Sonya was left to entertain herself for the remainder of the day. Bill asked her to come along and promised her a thorough tour of Pointe-a-Pitre, but she said she preferred this chance to get familiar with Distingue.
        At two o'clock in the afternoon, when she would ordinarily have been coaxing the children into getting settled for their second study period, Sonya set out from Seawatch to walk the length of the island and then home again. She wore white shorts and a lightweight yellow blouse, sandals that consisted of little more than a sole and a strap to hold them to her feet. Despite the giant, orange sun and the cloudless heavens, she felt cool and happy, looking forward to the expedition.
        She lifted her long, yellow hair and tucked it behind her ears, to keep it from blowing around her face in the gentle breeze that came in from the open sea. She felt fresh, clean and very alive.
        Several hundred yards from the house, she stopped at a turn in the beach to watch a bevy of sand crabs at play. When they saw her, or sensed her, they bolted up onto their tall, multi-flexed running legs and, looking very silly, skittered for cover, dropping onto the sand and, in an instant, disappearing from sight.
        She studied several parrots that flitted from palm to palm, birds Joe Dougherty had imported and nourished to give the island a sense of color and life.
        She also studied the arrangement of coconuts at the crown of a number of fruit-bearing trees, wondering if there was any chance of her climbing the bowed bole and