Amy watched her warily, then looked fearfully at Josh. “Promise you’ll hold my hand all the way down?” she asked.
“I promise,” Josh replied. “If you stay on the inside and don’t look down, you’ll be okay. Come on.”
He moved out onto the landing. Clutching his hand tightly, Amy took a deep breath and put her foot on the wooden planks.
Was it her imagination, or could she feel them shaking beneath her foot?
Holding on to Josh with one hand, her other steadying herself against the face of the cliff, she started down.
With each step, she imagined herself pitching forward, tumbling off the stairs, plummeting to the rocky beach below.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Josh assured her, sensing her fear. “You’ll see. Just keep going.”
A few minutes later they came to the last turn. Only fifteen more steps separated them from the beach. Amy, her panic finally releasing her from its grip, let go of Josh’s hand. “I did it,” she breathed. “I made it.” Breaking into laughter, she skipped down the last of the steps, picked her way over the rocks and ran down the beach to the water, kicking off the rubber sandals she was wearing as she went.
Brenda, already on the beach, watched Amy go, then shifted her attention back to George Engersol.
Halfway down the steps she’d noticed him, already on the beach, watching Amy’s progress as she crept down the stairs. Indeed, she’d paused for a moment, watching him as he observed the little girl. When he finally felt her eyes on him, and looked directly at Brenda, she ducked her head and hurried on down. But as she waited on the sand, she noticed that he was still watching Amy. And his expression had struck her as odd.
An expression of such intense concentration—lips compressed in a grim line, eyes narrowed into a stare sharp enough to cut bone—that Brenda felt a shudder course through her, as though a chill wind had come off the ocean. By the time she shook off the feeling Amy had finally come to the bottom and dashed off toward the water. Still, Engersol remained motionless. He didn’t turn to speak to Brenda, although she was standing only a few feet away
from him. Instead, his head down and his hands clasped behind his back, he had finally moved away.
She watched him go, uneasiness stirring again inside her. His reaction to the little girl’s conquering of her fear, she thought, was strange.
But before she could analyze it any further, Hildie Kramer approached her, holding out a welcoming hand. “Come on,” the matronly woman said, her warm smile wreathing her face. “There’s a couple of people I want you to meet.”
While Josh headed off after Amy Carlson, Brenda was drawn into a group that included a few of the teachers at the Academy, as well as the parents of two of its students. Within a few moments she was deep in conversation with Chet and Jeanette Aldrich, one of whose sons, Jeff, she’d already met.
“That’s the other one,” Jeanette told her, pointing to Adam, who, with his brother, was bobbing in the water a few yards from the shore.
Brenda stared at the twin faces with undisguised surprise. “Two of them?” she breathed. “My God, when I think of the problems I’ve had with just Josh—” She broke off in sudden embarrassment. To her relief, Jeanette Aldrich only chuckled ruefully.
“Tell me about it,” Jeanette said. “Only double it. Two kids with enough brains for four.” A look Brenda could not quite read shadowed the woman’s face for an instant before she brightened and said, “Believe me, without this place, I’d have been in a mental hospital by now.”
Chet Aldrich handed Brenda an already opened can of beer. Then the questions in Brenda’s mind began bubbling out of her. The Aldriches, apparently having been through all this before, listened patiently. For the first time, Brenda realized she was talking to people who understood exactly what raising Josh had been like.
Even if, in the end, Josh refused to come to the Academy, just spending a few hours talking to the Aldriches was going to make the whole trip worthwhile.
• • •
Josh and Amy were wading slowly along the shoreline, the gentle waves in the cove breaking over their feet. They’d been on the beach for almost half an hour, but neither of them had made any move to join the rest of the kids, preferring to remain by themselves, poking around among the tide pools at the northern end of the cove, Amy showing Josh the various creatures that lived among the crevices and crannies of the rocks. As the tide had begun coming in, and the pools had flooded with water, they started reluctantly back toward the other kids, who were gathered around a man Josh hadn’t seen before.
“Who’s that?” he asked Amy, nodding toward the tall man with blond hair and a beard.
“Mr. Conners,” Amy told him. “He’s the English teacher.”
“What’s he like?”
Before Amy could answer, Jeff Aldrich dashed over to them. “Come on,” he urged. “We’re gonna play volleyball!”
Josh felt his heart sink. He glanced at Amy, who didn’t seem any happier about the idea than he was. He already knew what was going to happen. The teacher would choose the two biggest guys as captains, and then they’d start choosing up sides. And if it happened like it always did in Eden, he’d be chosen last, even after all the girls.
“I don’t want to,” he told Jeff. “I hate volleyball.”
“I hate it, too,” Amy agreed, and suddenly Josh was certain she was thinking the same thing he was. “We’ll just watch.”
The two of them started toward the area of the beach where the blankets were spread out on the sand, but before they’d gotten past the crowd of kids, Steve Conners called out to them.
“Hey, you two, come on! Nobody gets out of this!”
Josh and Amy froze, glancing at each other. What would happen if they said no?
Neither of them was sure.
They both hesitated, as if each was waiting for the other to decide what they both should do. “M-Maybe we better do it,” Josh finally said. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“But I
hate
it,” Amy blurted out. “Nobody ever chooses me, and they all make faces when they get stuck with me!”
“That’s what happens to me, too,” Josh admitted.
“Will you two come on?” Conners shouted once more. “Amy, you stay on this side, and Josh can go over there.”
Suddenly, without anyone choosing up sides, the group split up, some of them going to the other side of the net to join Josh, the rest staying with Amy. “Too many people on that side,” Steve Conners called out after taking a quick count. “Somebody else come over here.” Adam Aldrich, who happened to be standing closest to the net, ducked under, switching teams. “Okay, who wants to serve first?” Conners called. To Josh’s surprise, nobody demanded the ball.
Finally, Brad Hinshaw pointed to Josh. “Let him serve,” he crowed. “If he’s as good at this as he is at chess, maybe we can score some points!”
Before Josh could say anything, Steve Conners tossed him the ball, which hit him in the chest, then fell to the ground. He froze, waiting for the other kids to laugh, but no one did.
He picked up the ball and took it to the end of the court, or at least what he thought might be the end of the court, since there weren’t any lines marking the boundaries. “H-Here?” he asked Steve Conners uncertainly.
The teacher shrugged. “Looks as good as anyplace else.”
Josh felt the eyes of all his teammates watching him.
In a minute, when they found out he wasn’t any good, they’d start razzing him.
Maybe he should trip accidentally-on-purpose and pretend he’d twisted his ankle. Then at least he wouldn’t have to play.
But he’d have to remember to limp around for the rest of the night, and they might even make him go see the nurse or something.
Resigned to what was about to happen, he held the ball in his left hand, then dropped it as he swung up at it with his right.
Just as he knew it would, the ball shot off the wrong
way, dropping into the sand way out of bounds. He felt his face turn crimson as he waited for the laughter he expected.
“Doesn’t count!” Brad Hinshaw yelled.
Josh, baffled, stared at Brad, who only shrugged. “It went out of bounds. It only counts if it goes over the net.”
“That’s not how they play it at home—”
“Well, it’s how we play it here,” someone else yelled. “Try it again, but get closer to the net. And hit it overhand!”
Josh picked up the ball, then moved a little closer to the net. Aware of everyone watching him again, he held his breath, clenched his right fist, and tossed the ball into the air. He swung at it hard—and missed. Losing his balance, he tumbled into the sand and felt the ball hit him on the back as it dropped.
And now he heard them laughing.
Tears coming to his eyes as he realized he’d made an idiot of himself, he scrambled to his feet and ran down the beach, putting as much distance between himself and the rest of the kids as possible.
Brenda, seeing Josh race off, started to stand up, but Jeanette Aldrich, sitting next to her on the blanket, held her back. “Don’t,” she said. “Let Steve Conners handle it.”
“But Josh hates sports,” Brenda protested. “And wasn’t it Mr. Conners who made him play?”
“It’ll be all right,” Jeanette assured her. “Steve knows what to do.”
All Brenda’s instincts told her to ignore the other woman’s words, to go to her son and try to soothe his bruised ego, but then she stopped herself. If Josh was going to stay here, he’d have to get used to not having her around to help him out.
And if she went to him now, given what had just happened, she was sure she knew what he’d say: “See? They’re laughing at me! I’m not going to stay here! I want to go home!”
Checking her urge to mother him, she forced herself to remain where she was.
A hundred yards down the beach, crouched by himself, Josh wondered why he’d ever let his mother bring him here
in the first place. It was going to turn out just like the school at home, with everyone laughing at him. The humiliation of what had just happened wiped out the memory of the chess game with Jeff Aldrich, and the friendliness of Brad Hinshaw.
And now, after he’d acted like a jerk, even Amy probably wouldn’t like him anymore.
He sensed a presence behind him and stiffened. Oh, Jeez—his mother hadn’t come after him, had she? Now they’d all think he was a baby. But the voice that spoke to him wasn’t his mother’s at all.
It was Mr. Conners, and Josh was sure he knew why he was there: to give him a lecture on being a good sport. He hunched further into himself, wrapping his arms around his legs.
“Want to tell me what went wrong?” Steve Conners asked, hunkering down next to Josh.
Josh shook his head, not even looking up.
For a moment Conners didn’t say anything, but finally reached out and ran his hand through Josh’s hair. “Hey, come on, everybody misses serves. Happens all the time.”
“But it
always
happens to me, and everybody was laughing at me!” Josh’s voice trembled, and he tried to duck away from the teacher’s hand.
“Well, I’m not sure they were actually laughing
at
you,” Conners told him. “I think it was more what happened to you. You just looked funny when you missed the ball, that’s all. You should have seen the look on your face. You’d have been laughing, too. It was as if the last thing you expected to happen was that you’d miss it completely.”
“How come that guy told me to hit it overhand?” Josh demanded. “He knew what was gonna happen, and he just wanted to make me look like a jerk.”
“Now, how was Philip Meredith going to know that?” Conners asked. “He never saw you play volleyball before, did he? Maybe he was just trying to help.”
“No, he wasn’t. Everybody always laughs at me when I try to play some stupid game. And if they don’t laugh at me, they yell at me. Just because I’m no good at it.”
“Who said you were no good?” Corners countered.
“Besides, being good at things like volleyball doesn’t count for much around here. As you said, it’s only a game.”
Josh scowled deeply. “I said it was a
stupid
game, and it is!”
“Well, it is if you get upset about it,” Steve Conners agreed. “In fact, if you get upset about it, it sort of stops being a game at all, doesn’t it? I mean, games are supposed to be fun. It doesn’t really matter who wins.”
“But everybody cares who wins,” Josh replied.
“Do you?”
Josh cocked his head, looking up at the teacher. “I—I don’t know.”
Steve Conners’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “What? There’s something you don’t know? Maybe they made a mistake after all. You sure you’re in the right place? All you kids are supposed to know practically everything.” The bantering tone left Conners’s voice. “Look, Josh, I know things haven’t been going too well for you lately. And I’m really sorry everyone laughed at you. Maybe they shouldn’t have. But give them a chance, okay? Don’t forget, they’ve all had exactly the same kinds of problems you’ve had. And believe me, they don’t care any more about volleyball than you do.”
Josh stared up at the teacher. “But at home—” he began, doggedly refusing to understand Conners’s point.
“At home things are different. Which is why you’re here, not there. Now what do you say you just come and watch the game? If you want to play some more, fine. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.”
Without waiting for Josh to answer, Steve gently drew the boy to his feet and started back down the beach, his hand draped over Josh’s shoulder.
As they drew closer to the game, Josh saw that what Steve had told him was true—though the kids were playing hard, doing their best to get the ball over the net, only two or three of them were any good at it. Most of them, like him, missed at least half their shots entirely, and most of the shots that connected went wild.
Catching sight of him, Amy waved wildly. “You should
have seen it, Josh!” she yelled. “I did it! I got the ball over the net! And it was only my third try!”
Before he realized what had happened, Josh found himself back in the game. The next time his turn to serve came up, he, too, managed to get the ball over the net.
Of course, it didn’t go over until the fourth try, which wasn’t as good as Amy had done, but on the third try, when he’d fallen over backward trying to hit the ball after a bad toss, he’d laughed as hard as everyone else.