The Different Girl

part.
    O you could make me happy.
    I’d give you all my heart.

    Just we two in the sunset,
    Drifting off across the sea.

    After breakfast we would cross the courtyard to the classroom, but on the way we would take what Irene called a “ten-minute walk.” Robbert’s building was actually right next door, but we always started our trip to school the same way. This meant we could go anywhere we wanted, pick up anything, think of anything, only we had to be at the classroom in ten minutes, and then we had to talk about what we’d done or where we’d been. Sometimes Irene walked with us, which made it strange when we were back in the classroom, because we’d have to describe what we’d done, even though she’d been with us the entire time. But we learned she was listening to how we said things, not what , and to what we didn’t talk about as much as what we did. Which was how we realized that a difference between could and did was a thing all by itself, separate from either one alone, and that we were being taught about things that were invisible.
    When we did a ten-minute walk, we would go to the same place all together—all to the woods, or all peering under the kitchen steps, or all to an anthill.
    One day we finished our ten-minute walk and, like always, each took a seat on our own bench. Irene and Robbert told us to pay attention to little things as much as big—at how little things made big things—so that morning we stood in the grass, which came to our faces, and paid attention to the insects buzzing around the feathered tops of the stalks, and to the warmth of the sun, and how cool the grass still was around our feet, and that there were different insects down there, hopping. That was what Isobel said, because she went first. The rest of us said the same thing, except Eleanor, who saw a little brown bird fly past, looking for bugs.
    Irene said that was very good, and next it was time to take a nap, so we all stretched out on our benches. We could take naps at any time, no matter when or where, and when Irene woke us Robbert was with her, wiping his hands with a towel. She said we were going on another walk, only this would be for thirty minutes. What was more, we would be walking by ourselves. Each one of us had to go to a different place.
    We were always excited to do something new, but it turned out to be harder than we thought, because we kept having the same ideas. Irene clapped her hands, and we all went down the stairs into the red dirt yard. I took a step toward the woods and saw that everyone else had, too. We stopped and, then after a moment, Caroline kept going to the woods. The other three of us were still stopped, but then we all stepped toward the cliffs. We stopped again, and Isobel went on to the cliffs. Eleanor and I both stepped to the beach. We stopped and then Eleanor walked to the beach, and I went the other way alone, the last way—toward the dock. I took three steps, then turned around. The other three had all stopped, too. We stood looking at each other. Irene called out that we were going to run out of time. So I got going to the dock.
    The path to the dock is the only real path—made of crushed red gravel—on the island, instead of the other paths made by wearing down grass or going through bushes. Robbert and Irene needed it to wheel supplies from the dock with their cart, because some of the boxes could be heavy. The supply boat came once a month, but we never saw it. We never knew when it was scheduled, and it always seemed to come when we were napping. We slept a lot, but that was because we worked a lot. We worked very hard. Irene told us that all the time.
    We didn’t visit the dock very often. For one, we had to be very careful about the water, and for two there just wasn’t any reason. The path cut through tall grass and then shorter grass and scrub, and then finally wound down to the shore. The dock stuck out on pilings from a big spur of black rock—there wasn’t any beach—because that was where the water was deep enough for the supply boat. The dock planks had been soaked in creosote and tar but were now bleached by the sun. Walking onto the dock was a little like walking alone into the middle of the ocean, especially when I looked back and saw the island behind me.
    The dock had metal cleats for the boat to tie up but no railing, so I was careful to walk in the exact center and stop before reaching the far end, which was the rule to keep everyone safe