The Different Girl

wasn’t. We waited for her to go on and she finally did. “Will traded with them. He and Cat went over and I watched. It kept outside the harbor, just like us—and big, with a dish, and weapons—rockets, and that’s business. When Will and Cat came back I asked what it was like, and they said not to worry, they’d made a good trade. I wanted to know about the boat, how big it was, what it did . Cat said they made things. Will told him to be quiet. I never knew what Cat meant, but maybe now I do. That was the last time we went to Port Orange. Someone saw us trading and we had to scoot.”
    “What is scoot?” asked Eleanor.
    “We had to go .”
    “Where is the big boat now?” asked Isobel. “Did that girl fall off it?”
    “She must have,” I said, “because she washed up. But that doesn’t explain the paint.”
    No one spoke. While the others might have been thinking of paint, I thought of how rarely Irene ever showed us what she felt.
    They had found the head. They saw what had happened to that girl and knew what might happen to us. It must have made them sad and angry and scared, but all we had seen was Irene with her same smile and same voice waking us up and going for a normal walk. And if the boat hadn’t come, what would she have said about their footsteps coming to a stop? Would Robbert have buried the head like he buried the plank, to preserve our ignorance?
    I looked at May, crouched with her knees up to her chin, my story weaving through her thoughts just like her story weaved through mine. Did her silence reflect an Irene I’d never known?
    • • •
    When May came back the rest of us were ready.
    “I looked all around,” said May. “I think it’s safe.”
    “Did you find Irene?” asked Eleanor. “Did you find Robbert?”
    But May only wanted to know who was coming first, telling everyone else how to help and how to be careful and how we could see everything for ourselves when we were finished.
    I went last, as I had been the last to arrive, waiting alone in the cave while May made a special trip with the satchel and blanket and the plastic tubs. The birds glided past outside, waiting to get their cave back.
    “Come on,” May said, swinging into view. “My arms are wobbly.”
    But she was smiling, a tired smile on a dusty face. I followed every direction until I was around the curve, clinging to the rock with May’s free hand to brace me. Isobel and Eleanor waited on the peak, well back from the edge, and waved when I appeared.
    “Don’t wave back,” grunted May.
    I tried to say that of course I wouldn’t, but she just told me to put my hand there . Soon I was next to the others, watching May pull herself to safe ground. She slapped the grit from her hands and sighed.
    “That’s enough of that .”
    The rocks above us were scratched where the aerial had been torn from its perch and dragged down. May began to walk, but the three of us stayed where we were.
    “There’s nothing to see,” May called. “Come on.”
    But we had to look. To be careful we held hands and took small steps toward the edge. The tide was out, so the black rocks were exposed, hard and sharp, but May was right. I picked out the jagged spur where Caroline had struck halfway down and where she would have landed, searching for even the smallest sign. There was nothing. The waves had taken every part of her away.
    “Come on ,” called May, and she started down.
    • • •
    The high grass had been flattened on either side of the path, and we passed spots where it was burnt. I remembered the column of smoke, which was like listening to Irene, when we could predict her whole sentence just by the first few words. The burnt grass and the memory of smoke were the same first hints of what we knew we’d find below.
    We stopped in the meadow.
    “O no!” cried Isobel. All three of us were blinking. “O no!” cried Eleanor and I together.
    That the sky was vast and blue made what we saw so clear, and all the normal sounds of the island seemed like an acceptance of what had happened. Was everything this temporary?
    “We’re lucky the fire didn’t catch across the whole island,” said May. “I don’t think they cared—they just piled things on and let it go.”
    In the center of the courtyard lay a great burned heap of ruined things. It looked like everything from both buildings had been hauled into a pile and set on fire. What hadn’t been burned outright lay twisted and blistered and melted and