The Different Girl

didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t have known, either—whether to follow or to call out to Irene and Robbert or whether to keep quiet. By the time I’d reached the path, they’d all seen May, too. Behind me the hammering had stopped, but Robbert and Irene didn’t call out. As I came near, what had been a shadow became a face, with two bright eyes. This time I waved. May didn’t wave back, but she didn’t run, either. Since she was faster, maybe she thought she could run whenever she liked.
    May rose halfway, hunched like she was ready, so I stopped.
    “How are you feeling, May?”
    May looked past me and I glanced back. Caroline, Eleanor, and Isobel had followed, but just to the foot of the meadow path. Robbert and Irene watched from the roof.
    “Everyone is worried, May. We thought you might have been hurt.”
    May shrugged, as if to say she wasn’t hurt, and didn’t care about our worry, either.
    “Can I come closer?” I asked. “I need to tell you something. If you get scared, you can always push me over again.”
    “I said I was sorry.” May didn’t say anything else, so I came nearer.
    “Did you enjoy the rice?”
    “What are they doing?”
    “Making a rain trap.”
    “Why?”
    “To catch water.”
    “Why now ?”
    “Because there’s going to be another storm.”
    “When?”
    “Soon. You should come inside with us. It isn’t safe where you are.”
    “You don’t know where I am. No one does.”
    “But inside it will be warm. We’ll make soup and hot tea.”
    May shrugged.
    “You’ll be cold.” I took another step and May drifted backward.
    “What is wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”
    “It’s them.” She meant Robbert and Irene. “They’re going to hand me over.”
    “They won’t,” I said.
    “They will. I heard them. You don’t know what would happen.”
    “What would happen, May?”
    “They know. Everyone knows. Will had seen it. That’s why we were so careful. You have to be careful. You can’t just meet people.”
    Her words were like islands, just the visible tips of mountains underneath.
    “But I’ve thought about it, May. They can’t send you away. You’ve seen us.”
    May glared downhill. “Then that’s even worse.”
    I could see her chin shake, how ready she was to run. But to where, and for how long?
    “Come with me, May. Let’s take a walk, just us.”
    I held out my hand. May didn’t say anything, but when I took another step she didn’t run. I kept going until she was near enough to take my hand, even though she didn’t. But that was fine. I started to walk up the hill. May walked with me, and neither of us looked back.
    • • •
    While I was worried I would say the wrong thing and May might really push me down—and not on soft sand but on hard rocks or even near the cliff—I had other thoughts that kept me walking.
    “Do you think about your uncle Will and Cat?”
    May’s eyes went darker. “Why?”
    “Because I think we feel the same.”
    “No we don’t. You can’t feel like I do.”
    But I shook my head and explained what Robbert had told us, about the two planes and the explosion and our parents and the people who would be very frightened and angry if they found us. “Just like you were frightened. You saw me and you screamed.”
    “You can’t blame me for that. Anyone would have.” May’s eyes focused on her feet as we walked, but she also peeked over, like she was trying to see me for the first time all over again. I stopped walking and let her look.
    “I’m your friend. I’m a girl like you.”
    May glanced back down the hill. The other three were where they’d been, still watching. I waved to them, and they waved back.
    “Why do you do that?” May asked. “Wave.”
    “Irene says that saying hello is a nice way to make sure everyone is okay. Waving says ‘I see you’—and when someone sees you, it tells you where you are.”
    “I know where I am.”
    “But where is that, May? Where is that without anyone to help you?”
    She looked like she wanted to push me.
    “I heard them!” she shouted. “Of course she’s going to tell! Of course they’ll come! We can’t take the chance!”
    May made a croaking sound in her throat and spat, stabbing her head forward to send the spit as far as possible. I had almost never seen anyone spit, and didn’t know that it could be another kind of speaking, angry and hard.
    “They were worried, May, because of the explosion that happened with our parents. And