August Isle

by Ali Standish

  I looked forward to the evenings at Sammy’s house almost as much as I did the afternoons at Mr. Taylor’s.

  The day after we made our peach cobbler, Aunt Clare went out and bought me an apron of my own, green with red hibiscus flowers, and a blue-and-white pie dish she said would both be mine to keep at the end of the summer.

  Every night since, we had tried a new kind of pie together. First cherry, then strawberry, and then chocolate chess. Sometimes Sammy helped, too, but other times she just DJed from her laptop, playing her favorite pop songs, both Indian and American. Meanwhile, Jai taught Caleb—who followed us home pretty much every night—different chords on his guitar.

  Before I started to mix the dough for the piecrust, I always remembered Betsy’s advice. I took a deep breath and tried to push everything—especially Mom—from my head. If I let myself start thinking about her, I would start to wonder what she was doing at that very moment, and if she missed me at all, and when she was going to call again.

  At first, I was really nervous about letting everyone try our pies. They never came out just right—the crust was too thick or the filling too runny. But then I reminded myself that I wasn’t just supposed to be brave now. I was supposed to be bold, too.

  Brave was sailing farther away from shore every morning, and keeping my eyes open on the roller coaster as we plummeted toward the ground.

  But bold was something different. Bold meant not always trying to blend into the background. It meant that sometimes you had to stand out, even when you didn’t know what people would think of you. Like sharing the pies I had worked hard on even though they might not be very good, or entering a big contest even though I probably wouldn’t win.

  And anyway, Uncle Amar always swore our newest attempt was the best pie he had ever tasted. Aunt Clare never seemed to mind that the kitchen looked like a disaster zone when we were done, either.

  Sometimes I remembered what I had overheard them say the night after our first sailing lesson. Maybe they still thought I was a burden, and they were just doing a really good job of hiding it. But I had started to convince myself that I was changing the way they thought of me. Which meant maybe I really could change the way Mom saw me, too.

  “Thanks for helping me so much, Aunt Clare,” I said one night, as we were sponging flour off the counters. “It’s really nice of you.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “You’re helping me! I never would have learned to make a pie if you hadn’t come to stay. Maybe now I’ll finally be allowed back into my mother-in-law’s kitchen! I’m still not sure we’ve found the right pie for the festival, though. We need to think of something really special.”

  I nodded. A question hovered on my lips.

  I hadn’t forgotten the names in the sidewalk. Especially Ben. Every day, I thought about asking Aunt Clare who he was, but every time I came close, I remembered how much it hurt to see those photos of Mom. And even though the brave thing to do would be to ask the question, I swallowed it down instead.

  “Everything okay?” Aunt Clare asked.

  I didn’t say anything. Instead I flung my arms around her. She gave a surprised laugh as she looped her arms around my back. “I’m so glad you came this summer, Miranda,” she said. “You’re a good kid.”

  To my surprise, she kissed the top of my head. And when she pulled away, she wore a sad little smile. A bittersweet-chocolate smile.

  24

  One morning, Jason and I watched from our boat as Sammy and Caleb practiced capsizing theirs. The two of them stood together on one side of the boat and wrapped their hands around the mast until the hull keeled over and they fell, laughing, into the water.

  I felt a tiny pang of jealousy as Caleb gave Sammy a boost up to reach the daggerboard—this little plastic wedge that cut through the bottom of the boat. She grabbed it and pulled the boat sideways, then climbed up to stand on the daggerboard and tugged the boat the rest of the way up.

  Jason whistled through his fingers. “Great job, guys!” he called. Then he turned to me. “Sure you don’t want to try?”

  I hooked my fingers through the flaps of my life jacket. We were already deeper in the harbor than we had ever gone before. Definitely too deep to touch. On the boat, I could avoid thinking about that if I kept myself busy. But in the water, I knew, my toes would thrash to find the bottom, and when they couldn’t, I would start to panic.

  “I don’t think I’m ready,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “That’s okay,” Jason said. “You’re doing great, Miranda. Really. You’ve got a knack for this.”

  He probably had to say that, since he was my sailing instructor and all, but it felt good to hear anyway.

  As I turned my gaze back to Sammy and Caleb, my eye caught something rippling through the water.

  I gasped. There was a dark shape down there, gliding along beneath us. I clutched at Jason’s wrist.

  “What is that?” I asked, jabbing my finger toward the thing.

  He looked down at the water. “Sammy, Caleb!” he called. “Come here! There’s a sea turtle!”

  “A—sea turtle?” I asked, letting go of Jason and peering over the side. Wasn’t the thing below us too big to be a turtle? It was almost as wide as our little boat.

  But then a leathery head popped up to the surface, just long enough for me to see the turtle’s solemn teardrop eyes and the way its skin was chocolaty brown, latticed with narrow ribbons of white. I gasped.

  “It’s so—” I started. For a minute, I couldn’t find the right word. Beautiful wasn’t quite it, and neither was magic. Then I remembered. “August. It’s so august.”

  The turtle was already off again, gliding through the water toward Caleb and Sammy, who dove down together to swim alongside it for a few strokes.

  I felt another squeeze of jealousy. Because of the sea turtle.

  Mostly because of the sea turtle.

  “Sure is,” Jason said. “That was a big one.”

  “Maybe she’s the one who made the nest on the beach!” I said. I knew it probably wasn’t true, but it made me feel happy to imagine that the turtle mother might be biding her time, waiting for her eggs to hatch so she could guide the babies to safety.

  Just then, Caleb surfaced next to our boat. “Look what I found,” he said, flopping something orange down beside me. “I, um, thought you might like to see it.”

  I felt a spark of delight as I realized it was a starfish. When I picked it up, it was soft and squishy.

  “It’s still alive,” Jason explained, “so be careful.”

  “Oh, wow!” I breathed, watching wide-eyed as it wrapped one of its little legs around my finger. I had a tugging feeling that it reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think of what. “Thanks!”

  I held it for a minute, wondering what life was like as a starfish, then passed it back to Caleb, who dropped it gently into the sea.

  That afternoon, while Sammy and Caleb were feeding Safira macadamia nuts, Mr. Taylor asked me how I was enjoying my stay on August Isle.

  “I love it here.”

  Mr. Taylor smiled. “That’s good,” he said. “Not too homesick?”

  “No,” I said honestly.

  “Do you hear much from your mom?” His eyes rounded with pity in the corners, and I wished I hadn’t ever blurted out anything about Mom to Mr. Taylor. These afternoons belonged to Sammy and Caleb and me. I didn’t want to share them with Mom.

  I hadn’t thought much about her at all that day. And not thinking about her had made me feel lighter somehow.

  “She texts me sometimes,” I said. To be exact, she had texted me three times and called me once since sending me the mountain picture. The line was all funny and echoey when she called, though, so we hadn’t talked for long. “She doesn’t have a lot of cell service. But my dad calls me a lot.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Taylor, one corner of his beard twitching.

  “We saw a sea turtle today,” I said, to change the subject. “It was huge.”r />
  “Oh, yes?” Mr. Taylor said, blinking. When he opened his eyes again, the pity in them was gone, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “They’re amazing creatures, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah,” said Sammy, drifting over. “Caleb and I swam beside it for a while. It was so cool!”

  “But not you, Miranda?” Mr. Taylor asked.

  “She’s scared of the water,” Caleb said, still stroking Safira.

  “Caleb!” Sammy clucked.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s true. I am scared of water.”

  “Are you, now?” Little thought lines appeared between Mr. Taylor’s bushy eyebrows. “Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone is scared of something.”

  “Like my fear of Swiss cheese,” Sammy said, giggling.

  “That’s a stupid fear,” Caleb said.

  She scowled. “Is not. All those holes are disgusting. Anyway, what are you afraid of? It’s probably even weirder.”

  For a second, Caleb’s face seemed to crumple. Then it was back to normal, like an umbrella that had been turned inside out by the wind and then back again. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Sammy opened her mouth to argue, but I touched her arm and gave a slight shake of my head.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I’m trying not to be so scared anymore.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Taylor said. “Well now, there I think I may be able to help.”

  Then he cast his eyes over the remaining crates. I saw, with a sad squeeze of my stomach, that they were over halfway gone. He pointed to one at the bottom of a stack. “Try that box there. Could you bring it over, Caleb?”

  Caleb heaved the two top boxes to the side and then pushed the bottom one across the ruby-and-sapphire rug. Mr. Taylor leaned down and opened the lid, pulling out a small object wrapped in newspaper and tied with twine.

  He unwrapped the newspaper to reveal a silver dagger, its blade slightly rusted, its handle inky black.

  When Caleb saw it, he stopped dead. “Whoa,” he breathed. “What’s that for?”

  25

  I once stayed for a month in a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Every morning, I went to the one café in town, and every morning, I had the same waitress, a young woman with kindness in her eyes.

  One day, when I had been there a few weeks, we began to talk, and I realized that she spoke quite good English. It had grown rusty from disuse, she said. “So has my voice,” I told her, for I had not had a real conversation with anyone since I arrived.

  From that morning on, I came to the café early, before it officially opened, and while she prepared for the day, the young woman and I would have long conversations. When I told her that I was a collector of stories, she hesitated for a moment, then nodded in silent decision.

  “You will come,” she said, “and eat with my family. My grandmother, she has many stories that should be remembered when she is gone. She is very sick already and has not much time.”

  The next night, I found myself in her home, surrounded by her family and the feast they had cooked for me. When we were done with our beef dumplings and noodle soup and butter tea, she led me to the room where her grandmother lay. With the young woman’s help, her grandmother sat up and began to speak a language I did not understand. Her granddaughter translated her words for me.

  The grandmother wanted to know what questions I had for her. I thought for a moment, then asked if she was afraid to die. She considered my question and then, to my surprise, pulled something out from under her narrow mattress. I saw that she was holding a small knife with a black handle.

  “When my father was a young boy,” the old woman said, “he lived in a nearby village surrounded by a dark forest. Most of the boys in his village did not go to school, but instead helped their fathers with their farms and livestock. But my grandmother insisted that my father should get an education, so every day he walked miles through the forest to get to school and back.

  “One winter, yaks began to go missing from the farms. The farmers whispered that some fearsome beast was attacking them and dragging them into the forest, where it would feast on its prey. One brave farmer strode into the forest with a machete, determined to kill the beast. But he never returned.

  “My father grew very afraid, but my grandmother insisted that he carry on going to school. So my grandfather fashioned a dagger, which he gave to my father for protection. Every morning and every afternoon, my father clutched the dagger tightly inside his warm pocket as he walked.

  “Soon my father began to feel that something was following him. He felt hungry eyes upon him. But whenever he looked over his shoulder, nothing was there. Still, his heart pounded with fear every time he stepped into the trees.

  “Then one day, my father heard the snapping of a twig not far in front of him. He raised his dagger in fear that it was the beast, but instead two men stepped into view. Before he could say anything, the men cried out and pointed over his shoulder. My father turned to see a huge snow leopard, its fur bristling and its mouth curled into a ferocious snarl, standing at his heels.

  “My father knew at once that this leopard had been the thing that had stalked him for weeks. He knew he was staring his own death in the face. But when the leopard moved, it leaped past my father and pounced on the first of the two men, who let out a horrible cry and then went silent. The other man lifted a machete and swung it at the leopard, but before he could strike his mark, the beast had grabbed his thigh in its jaws and dragged him to the ground.

  “Stunned, my father remained frozen, dagger still raised in his fist. When the leopard had finished with the two men, it looked back at him. Their gaze met for a moment in the snowy forest, and then the leopard brushed past him, flicking its tail gently against his belly, and disappeared into the trees.

  “My father went to the fallen men to see if either was still alive. It was only then, standing over their bodies, that he recognized the coat around the shoulders of the second man. It belonged to the farmer who had gone bravely into the forest. My father was standing over two dead bandits, who had stolen livestock from the village and killed the farmer who had stumbled upon them. They would surely have killed my father, too.

  “He realized then that the snow leopard had been following him all those weeks to protect him from these evil men. The thing he had most feared was the very thing that had saved him. He saw then how his fear had blinded him to the true nature of the thing he was afraid of.”

  The old woman turned away from the past and looked at me with her clouded eyes. “As a young girl, I was scared of death,” she said. “But now I wait to embrace him as I would a loyal friend. So I have no need for this any longer.” She slowly handed me the dagger and closed my fingers around it. “Now tell me, young man, what is it you fear?”

  The next day, as we sailed out into the harbor, I remembered what the old woman in the story had said about fear.

  And I thought that maybe there were different kinds of fear. There was a good kind of fear that made you careful. The kind that kept you on your guard when walking through a dark forest, or that made you remember to wear your life jacket on the water.

  And then there was the kind that held you back. The kind that kept you from going to school and had kept me frozen on the beach that first lesson. If you let that kind of fear take over, you could stay frozen forever—never changing, never growing. Never feeling the wind on your face or leaning down to let the water rush between your fingers as you skimmed over the waves.

  So I pulled the sail tight against the wind and imagined the turtle we had seen the day before keeping close by, ready to save me if I fell into the water.

  I thought about Sammy telling me to remember all the good things about the ocean, like the seahorses and the dolphins and the rainbow coral reefs Mr. Taylor had seen on his travels.

  And I remembered how at night, the surf sounded like a lullaby rocking me to sleep.

  I took a deep breath. “I think we can go farther out today,�
�� I said to Jason.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Think you’ll be ready to sail past the harbor soon?”

  I stared at the mouth of the harbor. Beyond it, the ocean stretched on forever.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Soon.”

  26

  As the end of my third week on August Isle hurtled nearer, I started to notice a sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach. Every day, as the number of boxes at Mr. Taylor’s house dwindled, the feeling got a little bit bigger, like the thunder that comes as a storm draws closer and closer.

  I felt it most during quiet moments, like when we were all sitting around after dessert at Sammy’s table, too stuffed to talk anymore.

  And I felt it at the end of that week as Caleb, Sammy, and I walked to Sundae’s before heading to Mr. Taylor’s for the afternoon. It was so hot that it was hard to catch my breath, and the drone of the cicadas in the August Oak made me feel drowsy as we passed underneath its limbs. Everything felt slow, like the tails of Spanish moss swaying back and forth in the breeze.

  But time is going by fast, I reminded myself. And there aren’t many days left now.

  The sickly feeling crept closer. I must have looked sick, too, because Sammy stopped and turned to me as we reached Sundae’s. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Except, well, I was just thinking how much I was going to miss all this.”

  “All what?” Caleb asked.

  “Well, you guys, for one,” I said, stealing a glance at him. Had he thought at all about missing me when I was gone?

  “Nothing will be the same after you leave,” Sammy said, sighing.

  “True,” Caleb said. “Who will we break into old people’s houses with? And who’s going to make us pie every night?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sammy elbow him.

  “Ow! I’m just kidding,” he said. “This summer started off pretty bad, but it turned out okay. It kind of sucks that you have to leave. You’ll come back, though, right?”