Elezar crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “Bundle up,” he said softly. “It's cold out there.”
Vernie left, closing the mercantile door behind her. Elezar didn't ask where she was going, and that was good. Because she had no idea.
She didn't know where she was going, what Stanley wanted, or where he'd been for the last twenty years. He could take a flying leap at a galloping goose as far as she was concerned.
She no longer cared.
By the time Salt opened his eyes again, shadows had begun to lengthen in the room. He turned his head and saw Bobby and Brittany sitting before the TV, their faces bathed in a gray glow.
“Hey,” he rasped, feebly waving in their direction. “Did you get something to eat?”
“Yes, sir.” With all the seriousness of a five-star general, Bobby stood and came to his side. “We ate cheese and bread and Froot Loops. Would you like something?”
Suddenly grateful for the boy's precocious independence, Salt closed his eyes. “Just wanted to be sure you were okay. Let me sleep, and I'll be right as rain in the morning . . .”
As his concentration dissipated in a fever-fed mist, he slipped away.
Bobby watched the grandfather's eyes close. Stepping forward, he cautiously extended his hand, then pressed it to the man's lined forehead.
Hot. Burning hot.
“He's sick.” Bobby turned to Brittany. “What should we do?”
Without taking her eyes from the TV screen, Britt said, “Four out of five doctors recommend Tylenol for their patients with fever.”
Frowning, Bobby walked into the bathroom and shivered in the cold space. His teeth chattering, he lowered the toilet seat and stood on it, then reached for the door of the medicine cabinet. Inside, neatly arranged on three glass shelves, he saw a can of shaving cream, a silver razor, a comb, a bottle of cough medicine, and a bottle that said “Aspirin.”
His frown deepened. No Tylenol.
Biting his lip, he hopped down from the toilet and left the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him.
“No Tylenol,” he told Brittany, moving toward the bedrolls against the wall. “We should get ready for bed. Maybe he'll be better in the morning.”
“I know something we can do.” Giving Bobby a confident smile, Britt went to the sink, took the last clean dishcloth from the drawer, then held it under the water. As Bobby watched in fascination, she folded the wet cloth into a palm-sized rectangle, then walked toward the grandfather. Holding the rectangle between two fingers on each hand, she gingerly placed it on his forehead.
The grandfather didn't respond.
“What does that do?” Bobby asked.
Brittany lifted her hands in an I-don't-know pose. “I saw the mother do it on
Little House on the Prairie
when Half-Pint was sick.”
Bobby tilted his head, watching for some response from the old man, but nothing happened. So he and his sister pulled out their bedrolls, spread them on the floor, then went into the bathroom and quickly brushed their teeth.
Leaning against each other, they sat in front of the TV far into the night, long past the time they were usually allowed to watch.
But no one told them to go to sleep.
Salt dreamed that he struggled to handle the dory on a rough, rollicking sea. The oars danced and jerked in his hands, tossed by impact with high swells that looked like rolling hills.
Huddled in the bow, Bobby and Brittany rode with him, their faces drawn and pinched and pale as death. He tried to smile at them, but they weren't looking at him. Their eyes focused on the sea swells as their thin arms hugged their shivering bodies.
“Don't worry,” Salt cried, his voice only a hoarse croak above the howling wind. “We're going to be fine.”
But neither his words nor his tone seemed to assure the children. They kept their faces turned toward the distant shore, their bodies melded together, their manner distant. He had risked his life to perform this rescue, yet they seemed to have no idea who he was or why he cared.
The oars rebelled in his hands, pushing against his palms when he wanted to pull, pulling away when he tried to push. When he finally felt the oars yield to his will, his arms trembled with weakness, having spent all their strength in the struggle.
W
hen Bobby woke the next morning, he thrust his head out from under the covers and blew out a frosty breath. The fire had died during the night.
“I'm freeeeeeezing!” Brittany said, her teeth chattering. She peeked out through a crack between her pillow and her blankets. “It's as cold as a dead man's tongue in here!”
Bobby shushed her. The grandfather said that all the time, but it didn't sound nice, especially not when he was lying over there so sick and still.
Sitting up, Bobby glanced at the man in the bed. He must have gotten up during the night, for now he lay under a blanket. He was curled up in a knot, an odd position for a man so long and tall.
Bobby shivered as a rush of cold air hit the parts of his body that had been warmed by the covers. He drew the quilts about his shoulders, then realized that the grandfather had only one thin blanket over him.
With his covers trailing behind, Bobby stood and walked to the rocker, then pulled the knitted afghan off the back of the chair. Walking slowly, he crossed the room and dropped his own quilts, then quickly draped the afghan over the grandfather's spare figure. When the grandfather was covered, he dove back into his quilts, then crawled to Brittany's bedroll and huddled against her.
Her head reappeared from beneath the blankets. “Is it morning?” she asked, shivering.
“Yeah.”
“It's cold.”
“I know.”
“Colder than an igloo.” Her head vanished beneath the blanket again, and he knew she wouldn't come out unless he did something to warm the room.
But what? He'd never started a fire before. The apartment had a furnace, and Daddy had been really strict about the thermostat on the wall. Bobby hadn't been allowed to touch it no matter how cold the room became because heat cost money and money was something they didn't have.
But grandfather's stove burned wood, and Bobby knew a stack of split logs stood right outside the front door. It would only take a minute to bring in a couple of logs, shove them into the stove, and toss in a match. Then he would shut the door before he or anything in the house had a chance to catch fire.
He looked again at the sleeping man, hoping for some sign of life, but the grandfather seemed as sleepy today as he had yesterday.
Taking a deep breath, Bobby wrapped his quilt tighter around his neck, gripped it with one hand, then tiptoed across the cold stone floor. A bitter burst of wind blew into the house when he opened the door, ruffling the pages of the newspapers stacked against the wall. Dropping his quilt, he twice darted in and out, bringing in a short log each time. Shivering without his covers, he carried the logs, one at a time, to the woodstove.
The polished handle was heavy and the latch tight, but Bobby finally managed to get the door open. A few red embers glowed in the coal dust, and he took that as a good sign. He shoved the logs into the narrow firebox, then looked about for something to start the fire.
A matchbox lay on the mantel above the fireplace, and a few sticks of pine fatwood stood in a bucket on the stone hearth. He'd watched his grandfather light the fire several times, so he thought he could do it.
He had to do it.
With fingers trembling from cold and nervousness, Bobby lit the match, then held it to the end of a piece of fat-wood. After a moment the stick began to blacken and burn.
From within her woolen cocoon Britt called, “Be careful!”
Bobby swallowed his anxiety and tried to act as though his heart weren't pounding.
When the flame burned steadily, he thrust the fatwood into the stove, making sure it landed beneath the logs. For good measure, he tossed in a couple of other sticks, then shut the door and latched it tight.
Brittany's blue eyes were wide. “How'd you learn how to do that?”
Bobby shrugged. “Nothing to it, really.”
He looked at his bed. The temptation to curl beneath the covers was strong, but something told him he couldn't afford to go back to sleep. Grown men should not lie in bed for more than a day without eating or drinking water. The grandfather needed help.
Serious help.
Bobby stood, then ran his fingers through his hair as he moved toward the bathroom. “Get yourself dressed,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We're going out today. The grandfather needs us.”
“But we're not supposed toâ”
“We'll be careful. But the grandfather needs us to go because we don't have any Tylenol.”
After stuffing down a quick breakfast of bread, cheese, and molasses cookies, Bobby led Brittany outside. They'd walked along the beach a few times before, but always with the grandfather keeping watch from the window halfway up the lighthouse, where he could see anyone coming. They knew Puffin Cove, where the grandfather kept his rowboat, and the rocky shore bordering the north end of the island. They also knew the graveled road and had been expressly forbidden to follow it.
“What do you suppose is over that way?” Bobby pointed toward a wind-swept field stretching from the lighthouse to a series of sand dunes.
“Don't know.” Britt lifted her hand to shade her eyes from a bright morning sun. “Hills.”
“But what's behind the hills?”
“Don't know.”
Bobby moved forward, his chin lifting. “Why don't we find out?”
His eyes scanned the field as they moved over the gravelly path toward the dunes. No trees stood here, but tall silvery gray grasses stirred as the wind blew over the sand. The grasses whispered to themselves as they walked toward the town, saying, “Shh! Shh!”
Bobby felt like walking on tiptoe.
A few minutes later they lay on the cold sand, the dampness of the earth seeping through the thin fabric of his jacket. From where they lay against the dune he could see a street bordered by pretty houses, a restaurant, a small brick building, and a white church with a tall steeple.
Brittany pointed toward the church. “Does God live there?”
“Don't know.” Bobby frowned as a man stepped out of the church, locked the front door, then moved across the lawn to a blue house. “Maybe. But why would they lock him in?”
“Look at that.” Britt pointed toward the tall house across the street from the church. A small, puffy figure stepped off the front porch, followed by a tiny white dog. To their amazement, the childâfor that's what the puffy thing wasâbegan to walk in their direction, the dog running ahead, straight toward . . . them.
Brittany's round eyes focused on the animal. “Should we hide?”
Bobby considered. Ordinarily he'd say yes, but they needed help. And somehow it seemed safer to talk to another kid than to a grownup. Surely the grandfather would agree.
Making what he was certain was the most important decision of his life, Bobby stood, climbed to the top of the dune, then waved both hands over his head, catching the other kid's attention.
As the puffy child drew nearer, Bobby saw that the kid was a boy about Britt's age, pink-cheeked and plump, with a tangle of brown curls escaping from the hood of his padded snowsuit. He stared at Bobby and Brittany with eyes as wide as saucers, then grinned.
“Hey,” he called, running toward them with the dog. “You been up to Puffin Cove?”
Bobby nodded. “Ayuh. We've been there. But there aren't any puffins around today.”
“No?” As the little white dog licked Brittany's fingers, the boy stopped and looked Bobby up and down, then pointed at Britt. “Who's she?”
“She's my sister Brittany.” Bobby thumped his chest. “And I'm Bob.”
“I'm Georgie Graham.” The boy did a spin on the toes of his sneakers. “And this dog is Tallulah. I live there”âhe pointed toward the tall house where they'd first seen himâ“but she lives at the fancy house down by the dock.” He paused, then bent to pet the dog. “Are you from away?”
Bobby nodded. “Ayuh. But we're here now. Until.”
“Oh.” Georgie looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned. “Lots of kids from away come here, then they go. But not many come in the winter.”
Brittany crossed her arms in a rare display of defiance. “Well, we're here.”
Bobby slipped his cold hands into his jeans pockets. “We're living in the lighthouse. But the grandfather is sick.”
“Really sick,” Brittany echoed. “And hot. Burning hot.”
“Old Cap'n Gribbon?” Georgie's face wrinkled for a moment, then brightened. “Maybe he has the mumps. My dad had the mumps a few years ago and he got to stay home and eat ice cream. Mom said they made his face all puffy, like he had acorns in his cheeks.”
Bobby shook his head. “It's not the mumps.”
“Measles?” Georgie grinned again. “Does he have spots all over? I haven't had 'em, but my mom told me they can make you really sick.”
“No spots,” said Brittany.
Georgie put his mittens to his mouth for a moment, then slapped his hands to his cheeks. “Chicken pops? I had the chicken pops last year when some kids from away brought them to the island. I wasn't too sick, but Miss Birdie caught them and scratched and itched something awfulâ”
“No pops,” Bobby interrupted, strengthening his voice. “He's hot. And he doesn't move. He's been lying in the bed for two days without eating anything.”
“He needs Tylenol.” Britt nodded wisely. “Four out of five doctors recommend it for their patients with fever. Because ibuprofen can cause stomach distress.”
Turning, Georgie pointed toward the road. “We have Tylenols. My mom takes them every night when Dad gives her a headache.”
Bobby lifted his head as hope sprang up in his heart. “Could you bring us some? I think I could get him to swallow some if you can get them.”