Megan's Island (6 page)

“Hey! The news is over. You kids want to play Monopoly?” Grandpa called through the screen door.

“Sure, why not?” Sandy was already moving in that direction, and Megan followed. She'd write the letter after the game. She couldn't tell Annie
why
they had moved, but she could explain that she hadn't wanted it to happen that way, and that she was sorry Annie hadn't been able to share their vacation as they'd planned.

Some vacation, she reflected as Sandy set up the board and began to sort out the game pieces on the kitchen table. Somehow, she had to find out the truth of what was behind this hasty trip to the lake, behind the secrecy. She was eleven, not a baby, and she had a right to know, whatever it was.

*  *  *

The bright morning sun glittered on the lake beyond her window the next morning as Megan licked the flap on the envelope and sealed it. Her letter was brief, no more than enough to assure Annie that she was sorry they'd left in the night and she hoped they'd see one another again some day. She hadn't really explained the matter, because after several tries she could see that it sounded worse, not knowing, than simply letting it slide by as a peculiarity on the part of her mother.

She had found stationery and a pen in the folder her mother had left behind, containing everything that hadn't fit into one suitcase. Now Megan looked through it hoping there would be stamps, too. Probably Grandpa had stamps, but somehow Megan didn't want to ask him. She wondered uneasily if he, too, would advise against writing to Annie, maybe even forbid her to do it.

Ah, there were the stamps, mixed in with stuff like Megan's and Sandy's vaccination records and the car insurance papers. It looked as if Mom had grabbed everything out of her desk and crammed it into the folder without sorting it. That in itself showed how urgent the need had been to leave quickly, because ordinarily Mrs. Collier was neat and well organized.

Megan stuck on the stamp, then put the letter in the pocket of her sweatshirt, hoping Grandpa wouldn't ask where she was going.

Grandpa, however, wasn't in the living room when she left her tiny bedroom.

“He's going fishing again,” Sandy announced. “I told him I didn't want to go today; I figured we'd go back out to the island and see what it would take to build us a clubhouse or something. We'll have to take the canoe; he's got the rowboat.”

“Okay. After we mail the letter to Annie,” Megan said, relieved.

It took about ten minutes to reach the mailbox. They put the letter in and put up the flag so the rural carrier would pick it up. By the time they got back to the cottage, it was warm enough for them to get rid of their sweatshirts before they put on their life jackets.

“This is trickier than the boat,” Megan warned. “You get in and sit down with one paddle, and I'll shove us off. You paddle on the left, and I'll paddle on the right, and we should go straight.”

It wasn't quite that easy, because Sandy dipped his paddle more deeply and firmly than she did hers, so they tended to swing to the left, but they decided it was simply a matter of practice.

Sandy stood up as they nosed into the tiny cove on the far side of the island, and the next thing they knew, they were spluttering and coming up for air, their hair plastered to their heads, soaking wet.

“I guess that isn't the way you're supposed to do it,” Sandy gasped. “Wow, the water's cold! I thought these life jackets were supposed to keep you from going under!”

Megan grabbed the canoe, which was easing away from shore, and began to push it out onto the sand. She, too, was gasping from the shock of the icy water. “I don't think that applies when you go in head first. You came back up, didn't you? Come on, give me a hand getting the canoe up on the beach.”

Sandy came over to help, still shivering in spite of the warm sun. “I told you, Megan. We should build a shelter and keep supplies over here for emergencies like this.”

“A change of clothes?” she asked, satisfied that the canoe was safe, and wringing water out of her long hair.

“Why not? And food. So we wouldn't have to go home just because we get hungry.” Sandy peeled off the life jacket, then turned and scrambled up the rock, leaving a wet trail on its pinkish-gray surface.

Home, Megan thought. The cottage wasn't home. Even Grandpa would only be there until his foot healed so he could go back to work. There wasn't any home now, anywhere.

Was that what Mom was doing, finding a new job and a new place to live in another strange town? For a moment anger replaced the fear she had been living with for the past couple of days. Anger toward her mother, who had somehow put them in this bleak position—again. Megan was sure that it was
again,
that this was part of a pattern she and Sandy simply hadn't been aware of before. Running and hiding; when was it going to end?

She thought of the letter to Annie, and the anger subsided into sadness, and a little shame, too. Whatever it was, her mother didn't want it any more than Megan did. Her fingers numb, she unfastened the life jacket and left it beside Sandy's, well above the water line.

“How about over there?” Sandy was asking as she reached the top of the rocky slope. Her hands no longer left wet marks on the stone, though her clothes continued to drip. “We could put some branches over the front of that cave to hide our stuff, and maybe we could even build a fire on the ledge in front of it and cook hot dogs or something like that.”

To begin with, Megan moved sluggishly, her mind on their problems. But gradually she threw more energy into helping Sandy drag pine boughs from the surrounding trees—small ones, because they hadn't brought a knife to cut off the larger ones—until finally all she thought about was the shelter they were building.

It wasn't actually a cave, she supposed, because the sides were open, but the jutting, layered rock provided a roof overhead, and the pine boughs shielded them from the view of any passing fishermen on the water. Not that there were any, except Grandpa, and he was half a mile up the lake.

Their clothes and hair were completely dried by the time they shoved off in the canoe to return to shore. Grandpa was still fishing; he gave them a wave, and they waved back, until Megan said sharply, “Be careful, Sandy, you'll dump us again, and we don't know how to get back in this thing out here in deep water!”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Sandy said sheepishly. He took up his paddle again. “I'm glad Grandpa isn't nervous, like Mom. So he'll let us run around out here, and not keep fussing if he can't see us every minute.”

Megan nodded as the canoe nosed toward the beach in front of the cottage. “Let's get something to eat, and then go and see if there's any mail. There
might
be something from Mom.”

There wasn't, however. There was no mail at all, but the letter to Annie was gone. Megan wondered if she'd get the letter if Annie wrote back to her. She hadn't known what return address to put, and she hadn't wanted to ask Grandpa for fear he'd tell her not to mail her letter. All she had was the name of the town, Lakewood. The first time they went into the village, she'd try to find the post office and ask if they had anything for her.

The rowboat was back at the mainland. Grandpa greeted them with a grin as they entered the kitchen. “Bet you're starving, eh? I'm fixing up a stack of sandwiches, be ready in a minute. You should have come with me, Sandy, the fish were biting pretty good. I got two, and one of them was almost as big as the one you caught yesterday.”

They joined him in buttering the bread, and didn't mention the snack they'd had before going to the mailbox. Being out on the water increased their appetites, Megan decided; Sandy was right about keeping supplies out at their cave.

“You going fishing again this afternoon, Grandpa?” Sandy asked with his mouth full and a milky mustache that Mom would have objected to.

“Nope, thought I'd gather a little firewood. Evenings are still chilly enough so the fireplace is welcome. You kids want to help me, or have you got something else planned?”

“Well, if you aren't using the boat, I thought maybe we'd go back to the island. We're fixing up a cave. Would it be okay if we took some stuff to eat, and maybe a couple of blankets?”

Laugh wrinkles formed around Grandpa's eyes. “A cave, eh? I'd have liked to do that myself when I was your age. Sure, take some fruit, and there's some crackers and peanut butter if you want 'em. I don't know about blankets—I'm not sure we've got any spares—but there's a couple of old sleeping bags in that back closet. Help yourselves.”

The rowboat had more room to carry things, even a lantern Grandpa said they wouldn't need at the house unless the electricity went off, which it never had done since he'd been here. He showed them how to use it safely, and even gave them a little box of waterproof matches.

The boat didn't glide over the water as easily as the canoe, but it was less likely to dump them into the lake. Rowing continued to be awkward. They thought they were getting a little better at it, though their arms and shoulders still ached by the time they'd crossed to the island.

They forgot that as soon as they arrived. It was fun, arranging their furnishings in the cave. They left the sleeping bags rolled up to lean against, and arranged the other supplies on an inner ledge that might have been made for the purpose.

It was so nice when they were finished that they hated to go home to the cottage for supper.

Grandpa had not only put in a supply of firewood, he'd made spaghetti. Tonight Sandy set the table while Megan sliced vegetables for a salad. Even that was a reminder that made her uneasy once more. It had all begun—at least as far as Megan was concerned—when Mom dropped the salad bowl and broke it. That bowl had been a treasured possession, yet Mom had scarcely noticed what she'd done.

She'd been upset, but not about breaking the bowl. And not about cutting her feet a little bit, either, Megan thought. Sandy said she'd been watching TV—the news, maybe—and she'd been startled and dropped the bowl. Only why? What could have been on the news that had anything to do with
them?

Was she crazy, to think that was what had happened? Megan resolved to stay inside tonight and listen to the news with Grandpa.

Only there was nothing on the radio except things that were happening in distant places, to people she'd never heard of. She joined Sandy and Grandpa in a game of Monopoly they didn't have time to finish before they had to go to bed, but her mind kept wrestling with the riddle. What could Mom have heard on the TV news that would have frightened her so badly, when it apparently hadn't frightened anyone else?

The following morning, when Grandpa announced that he needed a few things from town, he took it for granted that they wanted to stay behind and ferry more supplies to the island. He'd come up with an old ice chest—though he said if they took cans of pop they could set them in the water and refrigerate them without needing any ice—and a little grate they could put across a couple of rocks to form a cooking surface. Sandy was full of plans for a weenie roast, and Grandpa said he'd bring back marshmallows, too.

It was too early to expect a reply from Annie, so Megan didn't ask if they could go with Grandpa into Lakewood. The island had worked a spell on her yesterday. She'd managed to forget how frightened she was, at least most of the time. So she couldn't wait to get back to it.

Her anticipation and pleasure were shattered, however, within moments of setting foot on the small beach. In fact, she was still hauling the boat ashore when Sandy's stunned voice brought her sharply around.

“Megan, look! Somebody's been here!”

And there was the evidence, plain to see: a bare footprint in the sand, bigger than either of their own.

Megan's initial reaction was disappointment. Someone had invaded her own private territory!

“It's bigger than mine, but not adult-size,” Sandy said, placing his own foot next to the footprint in the sand. “I thought these islands didn't belong to anybody. I mean, Grandpa didn't say we'd be trespassing if we built a clubhouse here.”

Megan looked around. While it was true they didn't
own
the island, there had been no sign that anyone else ever visited it. Except for the man who was writing a book—the man who threw sticks for his dog—there weren't even supposed to be any other people living on the lake right now.

“Here's another one,” Sandy announced, following the trail across the sand. The footprints vanished when he came to the rock. “I hope he didn't find our hideout! I hope he didn't mess up our stuff!”

He was off, first scrambling up the rock, then running toward their cave. Megan hurried after him. It wasn't fair that someone else should be here, in a place that
felt
like their own, not after they'd worked so hard to fix it up into a refuge, a place where they could almost forget what was happening in their lives on the mainland.

Every time Sandy came to a spot where sand lay over the rock, he paused to look for more footprints. Before they ever reached the cave, Megan knew they were going to find that it, too, had been discovered. Both of the prints her brother had found since they'd left the beach were headed in that direction.

Had someone watched them fixing it up, from the far shore where she could see only dark evergreens and a few contrasting birch trees? She stood for a moment, shading her eyes, but nothing moved on the opposite side of the lake.

“He's been here!” Sandy shouted, reaching the cave ahead of her. “He even came inside!”

Megan ducked her head to keep from bashing it on the rocky overhang. “He must have known it was a private place,” she said bitterly. “He could see we have our stuff here.”

“It doesn't look as if he took anything, though,” Sandy said after a moment. “The food's all here, and the lantern and the sleeping bags.”