The Different Girl

pointed farther up the cliffs. “What’s up there?”
    We all followed her gaze, and saw—because we saw Irene nodding—that May was showing us something about ourselves. The crest of the hill, in fact the highest point on the island, wasn’t the cliffs proper—they were only the highest spot where we could safely climb. The island itself rose for another hundred yards, above the grass and trees, to a crumbling spike of red stone. The ledges were spattered white from birds, and they flew around the peak in patterns that, just like the waves, would entrance us if we stared too hard—wide loops of numbers in the air, swinging and falling until we lost track of anything else. Instead of looking at the peak, we had learned to focus simply on the path and then on the cliffs when we reached them. So when May pointed up we all looked with her, but just as quickly dropped our eyes away.
    “That’s the peak,” said Isobel.
    “Has anyone climbed it?” asked May.
    “It’s very high,” said Eleanor. “And extremely dangerous.”
    “It’s just as bad as water,” said Caroline.
    May kept looking up. She pointed again. “What is that ?”
    Her finger picked out a spiked metal pole that rose from a squat steel box that had been bolted to the rock.
    “That’s Robbert’s aerial,” I said. “For the satellites.”
    May turned to me, with her mouth crooked. “So he can climb.”
    “It’s extremely dangerous,” repeated Eleanor.
    “Looks like it,” May agreed. She hobbled forward, to stand with Irene and the others, but then all at once she darted past, right up to the cliff edge.
    “May—” began Irene.
    But May was already sitting on the lip and dangling both legs down.
    “May!” Caroline was shouting, and I was shouting with her. “Come back!”
    “What are you scared of?” May looked over her shoulder with a grin. “Nothing’s going to happen . . . or is it?” Then she suddenly lurched, like she was about to launch herself into the air. As we all started to scream we saw she hadn’t jumped after all—that it was a joke, because May was laughing, laughing at us.
    “That’s enough, May.”
    Irene walked to her, closer to the edge than any of us had ever seen Irene go, and took May’s hand, pulling her up. May came along, still smiling, but now to herself, like it was something no one else understood.
    • • •
    On the way down Caroline and I walked with Irene, so there was no more talk of dreams. We barely talked at all, mainly because Irene was thinking, and when we did talk—when she asked us a question—she didn’t ask a second one afterward, like usual. This gave Caroline and me time to think, too, glancing across Irene, me about what I didn’t know and Caroline about what she did. But both of us also thought about May and the edge of the cliff, and about the peak. The truth was, we never did think of the peak, simply because we’d been taught not to—almost as if we’d been taught not to even see it, though we caught glimpses of it all the time. I glanced over my shoulder and there it was behind the palms, the red stone sharp against the sky. Irene squeezed my hand.
    “Just because she’s foolish enough to go to the edge doesn’t mean you should. I hope you know that.”
    She thought I’d looked back at May.
    “I don’t want to go to the edge,” I said, and then so she wouldn’t be worried, “That rule is there for a reason.”
    “And it’s our business to be careful,” said Caroline.
    “It is,” agreed Irene.
    “Is May not careful because she was hurt?” asked Caroline. “Because of the ocean?”
    “Or is it because she’s different?”
    I watched Irene for an answer. Irene glanced at May and the others, who had fallen even farther behind, and lowered her voice, as if she were giving Caroline and me special instructions.
    “Everyone is different—”
    “We’re not,” said Caroline.
    “It’s impolite to interrupt, Caroline. And you are different. Just not in as many ways as May.”
    “But our differences are shared,” I said. “In school.”
    Irene sighed. “Are they, Veronika? Always?”
    “No.”
    “Then why did you say they were?”
    “Because that’s the rule.”
    “And what’s a rule when it’s broken?”
    “A problem to be solved,” said Caroline. “Like me.”
    “No,” said Irene. “No. A person is not a problem.”
    “But when I have dreams—”
    “You aren’t a problem, Caroline.”
    “Is May?” I asked.
    “Of course