Megan's Island (13 page)

Ben spoke for the first time, helping himself to a chicken thigh from the cardboard container. “Get out and go somewhere else,” he said with his customary assurance of being right.

Grandpa shook his head. “If we leave here, there's no way for Karo to find us, and we don't know how to contact her. Besides, what's a crippled-up old man . . .” he thumped his cast on the floor, “. . . with no cash to speak of, going to do with two kids on the run? I have credit cards, but they're easy for a detective to trace.”

“A detective?” Ben asked, pausing in his chewing. “Is that guy from Illinois a detective?” He seemed pleased with the idea.

“That's my guess. Hired by Daniel . . .” Grandpa broke off abruptly.

“Is that our grandfather's name? Daniel Collier?” Megan asked. She was extremely uncomfortable, as if she couldn't breathe properly.

“If I'm not careful I'm going to usurp your mother's right to explain things herself, the way she wants. Anyhow, I don't think running away again is a viable option. Besides the lack of cash, two redheaded kids and an old man in a cast are going to be noticed wherever they go. We wouldn't be hard to trace for a professional, only for my daughter.”

“What'll he do if he finds us?” Sandy persisted. That question remained to be answered.

“I don't know. I only know that your mother doesn't want him to find you, doesn't want your grandfather to know where you are. It's her decision to make, not mine.”

“Is that why we've been running away for eight years, ever since Daddy died?” Megan asked. She was still totally bewildered. Why should they have to hide from a grandfather they didn't know?

Grandpa took so long to reply that she almost gave up hope he was going to do it. “This is all very complicated, child. I don't know how to explain part of it without explaining it all, and I can't do that, not yet. When your mother comes, you can ask her anything you like.”

“You just going to sit here and wait for the man to come back, then?” Ben wanted to know. He had helped himself to salads and more chicken, and was buttering a biscuit, the only one eating with any real appetite.

“If I knew any place to send the kids, I'd do it,” Grandpa said, almost as if to himself.

“The island,” Megan murmured. “We were on the island all day. There's no reason anyone would look for us on the island.”

Grandpa's eyes were very blue under his thick gray eyebrows. “It might be for four or five days. . . .”

“We built a house,” Sandy offered eagerly. “It's big enough for three sleeping bags, and we've got food out there. Well, it's Ben's food, but we could take some of our own. Nobody'd know where we were. You could come out there too, Grandpa!”

“No. I have to stay here. I can deal with this detective, or whoever he is. But if you think you want to try it, there's no danger out there that I can see.”

“You could rig up some signals,” Ben said. “Fly a red flag from the tree where you hang the life preservers if you wanted them to stay away. Fly a blue one if you wanted them to come in.”

“If you fly flags somebody will figure out they're for signals,” Megan pointed out.

“Hang up laundry in those colors,” Ben said promptly. “A red shirt for a warning, a blue one meaning come ashore. String a clothesline between two trees right on the water, so we can see it from the tree house.”

Grandpa thought it over. “All right,” he said. “Maybe that would be a good idea. Just for tomorrow, to begin with. If the man comes back, I'll have a better idea of what to do after that, depending on what he says.”

They ate then, though neither Megan nor her grandfather displayed a normal appetite. Grandpa found a box and began to put bread and peanut butter and strawberry jam and fruit into it. “You kids better pack up what you'll need to stay until at least tomorrow afternoon,” he said over his shoulder. “How about you, Ben? You going to go home, or stay on the island, too?”

“I'll run home and leave a note for Dad, telling him I'm sleeping in the tree house,” Ben said, without having to think it over.

It must be nice, Megan thought, to be able to decide so quickly and be sure you're right.
She
was confused, and just as apprehensive as she'd been before, because Grandpa Davis was obviously taking this matter very seriously. Somehow she had assumed that once she'd confessed to him, he would have everything under control.

“I'm going to take something to read,” Sandy said, “and my pajamas.”

“Take a clean set of underwear, too,” Megan suggested. “And a clean shirt. You spilled catsup on that one.”

She turned on the light in the small bedroom. It wasn't dark yet beyond the window that faced the lake, and she could see the island. She stood for a moment, studying it, trying to make out any telltale sign of the tree house, but it was too well hidden in the branches.

She sighed and picked up the tote bag Mom had used to carry various odds and ends. She couldn't imagine being relaxed enough to enjoy reading, but it might be a very long day if they couldn't come back to shore. She dropped the book she had been reading last night into the bag.

The packet with the writing materials was lying on the edge of the dresser, and as Megan opened the top drawer to find a clean set of clothes, she brushed against the packet. It slid to the floor, its contents scattering on the linoleum.

She muttered under her breath, packing clean jeans in case she got this pair wet again, a knitted shirt, and underwear. Maybe she'd better take a sweatshirt, too, she thought, in case it got cooler.

Finally, the small bag packed, she knelt to pick up the stuff that had spilled. Should she take some stationery so she could write to Annie? She had to thank her for the warning, even if it did come too late, even if she had to wait to mail her letter from some other place. This time she'd get permission to do it from Mom or Grandpa.

Some of the papers in the folder had slid under the edge of the bed. Megan, on hands and knees, scraped together everything she saw and began to put it all back together. Car registration papers, insurance papers, an official looking document. . . .

Megan paused, sitting back on her heels. She'd never seen this before; it made her curious enough to look more closely, because it seemed to have been caught in something and damaged, so that only part of the original remained.

Certificate of Birth, she read. The name was Margaret Anne Kauffman. Nobody she knew, she thought, and was already putting it into the folder when her eye caught the date—May sixteenth—and the year. . . .

Something constricted in Megan's chest. The birthdate was her own.

What did it mean? Why was her mother saving a birth certificate for someone named Margaret Kauffman, who had been born the same day and year as Megan?

She made a hasty search through the materials in the folder, looking for anything to shed more light on the matter, but there was nothing. Not her own birth certificate, nor Sandy's.

Megan's own middle name was Ann. She sat staring at the paper, then held it closer to read the rest of the information it contained, and felt a chill born of uncertainty and fear creeping over her.

Megan Ann and Margaret Anne. The same initials, though the last name was different. Collier and Kauffman.

Born of Caroline and Daniel Kauffman, read the smaller print.

Daniel . . . Grandpa Davis had said Daniel was their other grandfather's first name; he'd stopped before speaking the last name.

On the rare occasions when she'd spoken of him at all, her mom had called Daddy “Dan.” But his last name hadn't been Kauffman, had it? Wasn't it Collier?

Megan whispered the names aloud, then sat in a frozen lump until Sandy shouted, “Come on, Megan, let's go! We can leave as soon as Ben gets back! We want to get settled on the island before it gets dark!”

“I'm coming,” she said, then folded the mysterious birth certificate and put it into the bag with the book and her clothes to study later, wondering if the wild suspicions that coursed through her mind could possibly be true.

Megan felt numb, empty inside. She had never wanted to move away from one town where she had made friends to another place where she had to start all over again. But she had trusted her mother, had accepted the idea that the moves were necessary. Though theirs was a single-parent family, it
was
a family. And she had felt secure and safe within it.

Now she didn't feel safe or secure at all. She'd heard of kids who were abandoned by a parent, and she didn't think Mom would ever do that. She still believed her mother was really concerned about her and Sandy. But something was wrong, and there was no doubt that Karen Collier had been less than honest with her kids about any number of things.

How could that be, when Mom had always preached honesty? Oh, Mom had explained that one hundred percent honesty wasn't always the best policy. It was permissible to tell someone her new hat looked great on her, even when you thought it was horrible. You didn't have to be truthful when you ate a neighbor's gift of a pie with a crust that couldn't be cut with a knife, let alone a fork. You didn't have to tell people they looked awful, even if they did, because that only made them
feel
awful, too. It might be a kindness to say you had another engagement when you just didn't want to do something with someone but hated to tell him that.

Megan knew about little white lies. Everybody told them, Mom had admitted, at one time or another. It could be okay when it was intended to protect someone else's feelings, though not when it was to protect yourself from the consequences of a guilty action.

Which category did Mom's lies fall into, Megan wondered as she loaded her small bag into the boat. If what she suspected was true, there was more involved here than
little
lies.

Wolf was jumping around, barking, ready for another ride. It didn't matter to him that jumping around in a boat had already dumped him into the water twice. In his eagerness to go, he nearly knocked Sandy down, and made him drop a thermos jug into the lake.

“Sit! Darn it, Wolf,
stay!”
Sandy howled. And the dog did sink onto his haunches.

Ben had returned, carrying a big flashlight and a flight bag that bulged with mysterious contents. He scowled. “We're not going to take him, are we? What if he starts barking like an idiot while we're out there, and the guy who's looking for you is here? He'll get a boat and check the islands.”

Grandpa had come out with the box of supplies, which he handed over to Sandy. “He may have a point. Maybe the dog had better stay here with me. He might bark and give me a little warning if anybody comes snooping around again.”

Sandy looked disappointed. “His name's Wolf,” he reminded Grandpa. “He won't like it if we leave him here.”

“I'll take him inside and give him something to eat,” Grandpa offered. “Now, you kids be careful. I'll string a clothesline as soon as you're out of sight, and hang a few things on it. I've got a bright red towel. If that's hanging up, don't come in to shore. Chances are if that fellow is seriously looking for you, he'll be back tomorrow. Then we'll know where we stand.”

Ben, who seemed to be enjoying all this intrigue, said, “Come on, are we ready? Let's shove off.”

Grandpa reached down to take Wolf's collar. “Come on, fella, let's go inside.”

Wolf, however, knew perfectly well that he was being left behind. He barked more loudly than ever, trying to pull away.

Sandy's face was glum. “He doesn't understand why he can't come.” He pushed off, then settled himself in the stern as Ben took up the oars.

Megan was in the bow, facing shore as they headed out across the water. Her mind was in a turmoil. The small bag she had packed was resting against her feet, and in it, she could not forget, was a birth certificate for someone named Margaret Anne Kauffman, who had the same birthday as her own. It couldn't just be coincidence, could it?

Her first thought was that it was her own birth certificate, that she'd been named Margaret Anne, and then her parents had adopted her and renamed her Megan. It made her feel strange, half sick and frightened. Lots of kids were adopted, of course, but their parents told them so, right from the beginning. Why shouldn't they? It was okay to know that your parents had
chosen
you to be their child.

Once, when they'd lived briefly in Milwaukee, Megan had gone to school with a girl named Shirley who had learned, at the age of ten, that she was adopted. She'd been very upset when she overheard two aunts discussing the matter. It had taken her some time to settle down, even after her parents told her they'd intended to tell her when she was grown up. Why, Shirley had asked, did they have to wait until then? Was there something shameful about being adopted?

Megan hadn't known Shirley very well, but she'd been sympathetic and curious, as well. She'd talked to her mother about it. Megan still remembered that Saturday afternoon when she and Mom had discussed adoption while they shared milk and warm oatmeal-raisin cookies in their sunny kitchen.

It wouldn't bother her to know she'd been adopted, Megan had thought, not if her mother was honest with her. After all, it meant her parents had wanted her, even if she hadn't been born to them in the first place.

Grandpa had dragged the protesting Wolf into the cottage. Megan watched them go without conscious thought, her mind on more important things.

No, it wasn't a question of adoption, she decided. She and Sandy looked so much alike that even strangers knew they were brother and sister. And her father had had red hair. There were no pictures of him. She'd often wished for one, and she'd asked about that once. Mom had said they'd been lost during one of their moves, she guessed.