The Different Girl

if they happened to fall down. It took twelve minutes to walk from the buildings to the dock, so I knew that with the return time I had six minutes to stand and look, at the big things and at the little. First, I crouched and studied the wooden planks. I peeled away a splinter and the wood underneath was a different color. I found two boards that had warped enough to open a crack between them, and through it I saw the water. Or I could see shadows, but I knew the shadows were the water—which made me think of the difference between water in the sunlight and water in the dark, and whether, since sunlight went through the water, they were even the same thing at all, and which had come first. Was dark water somehow more natural? Or was the dark ocean incomplete and the sunny ocean the finished version, like a sandwich with the final layer of mustard? Irene liked mustard on her sandwiches except for peanut butter, but she only ate peanut butter when there wasn’t anything else, which is one way we knew the supply boat would be coming: sandwiches without mustard.
    Before I left I looked up and saw two seagulls, so close that I could imagine how soft their feathers would be to touch. I watched until they disappeared around the other side of the island. I knew it would actually take me longer to go uphill than to go down, but still I stayed on the dock, surrounded by the idea of being alone. Another invisible.
    When I did get back, the others were waiting on the porch. I waved as soon as I saw them, and they waved back. Irene sent us all inside, but before I reached the door Robbert touched my shoulder. The other three turned, watching through the doorway. Robbert asked if I knew that it had been thirty-five minutes, not thirty. I said I was sorry—I was looking at the water and there had been two birds. He told me to stop talking. Then he asked again, if I knew it had been thirty-five minutes instead of thirty. I told him that yes, I did know, but that I was in the middle of looking at things and thought that the looking was more important than the getting back. Robbert stopped me again. Then he asked me why I thought that—why did I possibly think that was true?
    I didn’t know. I’d just done it. I said I was sorry again. He sent me in the classroom with the others. Then he saw the others were watching and got sharp and told us to all sit down right now . We did, and stayed there while Irene and Robbert whispered on the porch. Then they came in and Irene asked what we’d seen on our walks.
    I went first and told everything: the gravel, the dock, the splinter, the gap in the boards, the water, the sunlight, the sky, the birds—it took a while. When I finished, Irene said I’d done very well. The others just looked at me. Robbert reminded everyone about how dangerous the water was, and that going to the dock, just like going to the beach, shouldn’t be a habit for anyone . Then he looked at me again, like he had on the porch, not quite with a smile—because it wasn’t a smile—but with something.
    Then Isobel told about her trip to the cliffs, and everything began to change, like the air in a room getting colder when a door is opened, because I realized that I was looking at Isobel like the others had looked at me. This is part of what she said:
    “—one of the black crabs, but it was red on the bottom, bright red like sunburn or like hot sauce, and it was on its back and torn open, with four legs missing and the insides mostly gone, probably from birds except it was also wet, in a way that the cliff rocks weren’t wet, like it had been wet since the tide had gone down. So I asked myself how a dead crab got wet on a rock that was dry, and I wondered if one of the birds had dropped it or if the crab had been wet and crawled out and then been attacked by a bird, or maybe if—”
    And this is part of what Caroline said:
    “—so I kicked it—because it was on the ground, like a ball, and it was old and dried out, so I knew it wouldn’t be too heavy, so I could kick it—and it bounced off the trunk of the palm tree and rolled into the grass. I kicked it again, only this time farther into the grass, and it made a hole in the grass like a path, so I followed, and then kicked it again, in another direction, and it made another path, and I kept on kicking and walking, just where the coconut had rolled, so it wasn’t me making the path but the coconut, and when I looked back the whole patch of grass looked