The Penderwicks at Point Mouette

by Jeanne Birdsall

  But, oh, it was hard going! Jane asked Dominic about his family, his school, and his hobbies, but Dominic could hardly stir himself to give answers. So she told him about playing soccer and writing the Sabrina Starr books. Nothing. At this rate, she didn’t dare bring up the Love Survey. Discouraged, Jane stopped talking at all, and they both just sat, staring at the view. Jane watched a sailboat as it came into sight—she decided that if it went away again before Dominic said anything, she would say good-bye and leave. She was starting to think that Dominic wasn’t at all mysterious—he was just a terrible conversationalist.

  Suddenly he cleared his throat, and Jane turned expectantly toward him. Was he about to explain why he’d invited her here?

  “That’s—” He cleared his throat again, then pointed out across the ocean, to a dark blurry hump caught between the blue sky and the bluer water. “That’s Gandy Island. It’s got a little house on the other side.”

  Jane was much encouraged by what was for Dominic a vast number of words. Maybe finally this was a topic they could converse on. She forged onward.

  “When I grow up, maybe I’ll live on an island. Writers need lots of solitude.” She stopped and held her breath, hoping he would go on.

  He did. “I don’t want to wait until I’m grown up. I’d like to live there now, all by myself. I’d catch rainwater in barrels and boil it for drinking, and to get clean I’d swim in the ocean, even in the winter. And I’d build skateboard ramps all over the island and practice all the time.”

  “That sounds nice,” said Jane, though she thought the ramps would be out of place on a pretty island.

  “And I wouldn’t bother with furniture.”

  “Except a bed, right?”

  Scornfully, he plucked a rose from a nearby bush and squashed it into nothing. “A hammock.”

  This seemed brave and strong to Jane. She herself would need at least a cot—a hammock might make her seasick. And she’d want a table and chair for when she wrote. She wouldn’t mind sitting on the floor when she ate, but writing was different.

  “And you could have a woodstove for cooking,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t bother with a stove either. I’d cook over an open fire on the beach.”

  Now Jane was really impressed. She could see it—Dominic crouched over the fire, keeping it alive at night, the wary eyes of wild animals just outside the ring of light. She hoped Dominic would expand on this intoxicating picture, but once again he’d lapsed into silence. This silence, however, was different from the earlier one, more relaxed and friendly. Jane felt that she could even launch into her research if she started with an easy question, like—oh, like whether he believed that love was more a matter of head or heart. She took a deep breath, but before she could get a word out, Dominic abruptly leaped off the bench, landing with one foot on his skateboard.

  “See you later,” he said.

  Jane stood up, startled. “When?”

  “I’ll come get you.” With that, he flashed his magnificent smile, then was off and away on his skateboard, not looking back even once.

  When Jane returned from French Park, Skye was behind Birches with a soccer ball, shooting at the seawall, trying to hit the same spot each time. She was glad to see Jane back so soon and without blood all over her. At least this time Dominic’s presence hadn’t made her smash herself with a rock.

  “Where’s everyone else?” asked Jane.

  “Aunt Claire’s inside doing a jigsaw puzzle Turron brought for her. Jeffrey’s at the red house with Alec, playing the piano. And Batty and Hound are over there with him.” Skye steadied the ball. “Jane, do you think Batty has musical talent?”

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s what I told Jeffrey.” Relieved—because Batty had gone so willingly, so enthusiastically to Alec’s—Skye passed the ball to Jane. The next half hour was a most satisfying workout that ranged from the grass to the deck to the beach, the sisters battling fiercely for mastery over the ball and each other. When at last they collapsed, neither could claim victory, which was how they always liked it best.

  “You’re getting better,” said Jane, who had more talent.

  “You are, too,” replied Skye, who worked harder. “So how are Dominic’s depths?”

  Jane threw a handful of sand at her sister. “Let’s cook dinner over an open fire out here tonight.”

  “We can barely cook dinner on a real stove.”

  “Well, maybe we won’t cook the whole dinner. What about—Oh, I’ve got it! What about roasted marshmallows? They’ll be our dessert.”

  “I don’t know. There could have been something on the list about Batty and fire.”

  “Forget the list for once,” cried Jane. “What are we, men or mice?”

  Skye was stung. This was a question she’d asked her sisters dozens of times, but never before had any of them asked it of her. As if to increase her humiliation, the incoming tide chose that moment to drench her sneakers.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll roast marshmallows for dessert.”

  “We’ll roast them over an open fire that we’ve built ourselves,” said Jane. “We’ll be Robinson Crusoe or cowboys in the Old West or Jill and Eustace in The Silver Chair.”

  There was a problem, though, which Crusoe and cowboys had never faced. Because Skye had been tossed out of Brownies at age eight for refusing to wear the hat, and Jane had quit out of loyalty to Skye, neither had learned even the basics of fire building. So they went inside to ask Aunt Claire, who was indeed working on a jigsaw puzzle that showed a scene of Paris. While they helped her find pieces of couples strolling along the Seine, she admitted that she’d made it all the way through the first year of Girl Scouts, although she’d hated the hats, too—Jane decided it must be in their blood—and could tell them what to do.

  “You need to collect lots of dry wood, small stuff for kindling and logs to keep the fire going. Oh, and some straight sticks to hold the marshmallows—you can whittle them to make them sharp enough. Then you dig a shallow pit in the sand and surround it with rocks. I wish I could help.” Aunt Claire looked daggers at her still-bound-and-booted ankle. “But I am known as an expert stick whittler.”

  Skye and Jane promised to let Aunt Claire whittle the sticks and set off on their hunt for wood. Jane suggested they start by looking for driftwood, but an hour of combing the rocks all the way down to the dock, and then another quarter mile past that, yielded only one soggy plank with Jarrett loves Gina scrawled on it in Magic Marker. Disgusted, Skye threw the plank into the ocean and said that it was time to try the pinewood. They had better luck there, picking up plenty of small branches for kindling and marshmallow sticks, and along the way Jane found another six golf balls for Batty’s collection. But the only possibility for logs came in the form of a fallen tree.

  “We need an ax,” said Jane, looking around as if axes lived in pinewoods.

  “Holy bananas, Jane. Do you really think we could chop apart a whole tree without cutting off one or several of our body parts? And do not ask me about men and mice again.”

  “Then what do you suggest we use for wood?”

  “We could burn Dominic’s skateboard.”

  The sisters glared at each other. They were hot, the branches they’d collected were scratching their arms, and a family of mosquitoes had just arrived.

  “Should we forget about the fire?” Jane didn’t want to at all.

  “No,” said Skye reluctantly. “Not yet.”

  Friends again, they trudged back to the house, where they found Jeffrey and Batty in the backyard, perched on a pile of neatly cut firewood.

  “Aunt Claire told us about the marshmallows,” cried Batty when she saw them, “and I know about octaves now!”

  “That’s nice,” said Skye, dumping her kindling.

  “Where did you get that firewood?” asked Jane. “We’ve been searching everywhere.”

  “Alec gave it to us. He’s going to help with the fire,” said Batty. “Skye,
if we go over there, I can show you octaves on his piano.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Alec has a woodstove for winter, which is why he had wood to give us,” said Jeffrey. “Can you imagine how great it would be to come up here in the winter, with no one around and the snow falling into the ocean? Alec says he just plays music for days on end.”

  “I would like that.” Batty mimed playing the piano.

  Skye was seriously considering killing both of them, or at least whacking them with a piece of kindling.

  “Enough about winter,” said Jane brightly, because she could always tell when Skye was thinking murderous thoughts. “We have a lot more to do for this marshmallow roast. Right, Skye? What do we do next?”

  Skye took a deep breath. “Find rocks.”

  “Rocks it is.” Jeffrey slid off the woodpile, then lifted Batty down. “At your command, OAP. Lead on.”

  After dinner, Turron carried Aunt Claire over to Alec’s deck, where they could oversee the marshmallow roast from afar. With them went Hound, because no one trusted him or Hoover—especially Hoover—near an open fire. The others were about to head for the beach, where the fire was all ready to go, when the phone rang. Batty rushed to pick it up, as she always did, in case it was Rosalind.

  “If it’s Rosalind,” said Skye, “don’t tell her about the bonfire and marshmallows.”

  “Or Dominic,” added Jane.

  “Hold on a minute, please,” said Batty into the phone, then turned to her sisters. “What can I tell her?”

  Jeffrey laughed. “Tell her about my stuffed green peppers.”

  Batty went back to Rosalind. “Jeffrey made stuffed green peppers for dinner and they were delicious, but we didn’t have dessert, because—I can’t tell you why.”

  Jane snatched the phone from her and managed to steer the conversation away from dessert—roasted marshmallows—or anything else that might cause Rosalind concern, by asking questions. After the connection failed, as usual, Jane filled in the others while they all walked down to the beach.

  “Rosy and Anna met some girls from Philadelphia to play volleyball with, and some girls from Pittsburgh to do yoga with on the beach. I think I got that right. It could be the other way around. It might be yoga with the Philadelphia girls.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Skye.

  “Also, they’re riding bikes on the boardwalk every morning, except when they sleep in too late.”

  Skye couldn’t remember what it was like to sleep in late. Or what it was like not to fret all the time about younger sisters. And now that they’d reached the beach, she couldn’t remember what had made her agree to go through with this fire thing. Everything was ready—the pit dug, the stones in place, the kindling laid, the marshmallows standing by, Alec up on his deck waiting to be summoned as supervisor—but Skye was ready to back out, more mouse than man.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t light it,” she said.

  “It’s impossible to roast marshmallows over an unlit fire,” said Jeffrey calmly.

  “Then maybe Batty shouldn’t stay.”

  Batty moved closer to Jane for protection. She’d already endured much to be here, and she had no intention of leaving now. First was the afternoon nap she’d been forced to take because she was going to be up past her bedtime. And then, much worse, there was the rope Skye had tied to her orange life preserver. The rope was supposed to be for pulling her out of the fire or the ocean, whichever might be needed, but so far it had only been used by Hound, who’d thought it was a leash and dragged Batty around accordingly.

  “Batty will be fine,” said Jane, also calmly. Earlier she and Jeffrey had worked out this strategy, just in case Skye lost her nerve.

  “We’ll all be fine,” said Jeffrey.

  Skye looked suspiciously at him, then at Jane, and they smiled reassuringly back at her. Unconvinced, she shifted a piece of kindling to what looked like a safer spot, then shifted it back to where it had been.

  “Are you ready for Alec yet?” called Aunt Claire from above.

  “We’re waiting for sunset,” Jeffrey shouted back.

  “It is sunset,” said Batty plaintively.

  She was right. The horizon was glowing pink and orange, and the clouds had turned dark blue. The moon was already gleaming faintly, and soon the sun would be gone altogether and night would come.

  “We did decide on sunset, Skye,” said Jane. “Though we could wait a few more minutes if you want.”

  “We’re sure Alec knows his way around fire?” Skye shook her head. “I’m being an idiot, aren’t I?”

  “Sort of.” Jeffrey waved his arms at the deck—now they were ready for Alec.

  He arrived with a box full of long wooden matches, let Batty select one, and took it back from her.

  “Before I light up, should we have some theme music?” he asked. “How about Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’?”

  “No!” said Skye, snatching up Batty’s rope and pulling her close.

  “Sondheim’s ‘City on Fire’ doesn’t really fit, and we don’t have a soprano for Ravel’s ‘Fire’ aria. Jeffrey, help me.”

  “The ‘1812 Overture’ has cannon fire in it. Does that count?”

  “Close enough.” Alec held up the match like a conductor’s baton. “Everyone, we’ll start with the French horns playing ‘The Marseillaise,’ a minute or so before the first cannon shot. Got it?”

  Naturally, only Jeffrey had any idea what he was talking about, but between the two of them they managed half the orchestra—Alec was particularly good at being French horns—and they could have made it all the way through if Jeffrey hadn’t fallen over laughing when they got to the crashing booms of the cannons. By then, everybody else was laughing, too, and it took a while for them to get calmed down and ready for business.

  “Shall I do it?” asked Alec.

  “Yes,” they all answered.

  He ceremoniously lit the match, then held the tiny flame to the smallest pieces of kindling, mere twigs. At first nothing seemed to be happening, but then all at once several of the twigs were glowing red. Alec blew gently on them, encouraging the fire to spread to the rest of the kindling, and suddenly—a blaze! Cheers went up, echoed by the adults on the deck, and Jane and Batty did a celebration dance, being Robinson Crusoe and cowboys all at once. After Alec fed the fire with two larger pieces of wood, Jeffrey pulled Skye to her feet and made her dance, too, swooping and whooping and, for now at least, not worried about anything at all.

  Then it was time for marshmallows.

  Roasting marshmallows over an open fire is an art. The marshmallow should be evenly toasted all around until it’s a golden brown. A slight puckering of the skin is all right, and some people like that the best. The inside should be hot all the way through and softened, but not melted into messy gooeyness. Not one of the marshmallows roasted that night came even close. Many were burned black at least on one side, and the ones that weren’t were barely roasted. No one cared. They gobbled them up, declaring them delicious, and not remembering about sharing with the missing grown-ups until Turron roared down at them. After that, Jeffrey and Skye took turns running marshmallows up to the deck, where Turron and Aunt Claire devoured them as greedily as the others had, and a few of the blackest were slipped to Hoover and Hound as compensation for not being on the beach.

  When the marshmallows were all gone, and the fire was burning low, Alec joined the other grown-ups on his deck, and the four children were alone on the beach, sated and happy. For a long time, they sat, staring into the flames and listening to the soft slapping of the waves. The breeze off the ocean was cool now, the ocean was as dark as the sky, and the stars were arriving, dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of them, blinking and glowing overhead.

  “We should make wishes,” whispered Jane. “Wishes to the Firegod.”

  “I wish for more golf balls, and to see the moose and her babies,” said Batty, drowsily leaning against Jeffrey. “And I wish for a piano.”
/>   Skye groaned. “What would you do with a piano?”

  Jane went on, warming to her idea. “The wishes must be silent and secret, Batty. And to increase their power, we should each throw something of ourselves into the fire.”

  “Nail clippings,” said Jeffrey.

  “Excellent idea, but I’ve got a better one,” exclaimed Jane. She dashed off to Birches and was soon back with a pair of scissors. “Hair!”

  “We’re not cutting our hair,” said Skye. “And anyway, this is ridiculous. Wishes!”

  “But I’ve got one,” said Jeffrey. “A good one.”

  “What is it?”

  “The wishes must be silent and secret.” Jeffrey imitated Jane perfectly.

  “Thank you, Jeffrey,” said Jane. “And we only need tiny bits of hair.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Batty.

  “One minute, please. I must call up the magic with an ancient spell. Which I haven’t made up yet.” Jane thought for a minute, then chanted:

  “Fire, Moon, Sand, and Sea,

  Listen now and hear my plea.

  Humbly do I ask of thee,

  Please bring what I wish to me.”

  She cut off a tip of one of Batty’s curls and threw it onto the fire.

  “I wish for a piano!” Batty jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Silent wishes, please,” admonished Jane, then took her own turn, with a particularly dramatic recitation of the chant and a properly silent and secret wish.

  Jeffrey went next, and only Skye was left. She couldn’t think what to wish for. She so barely believed in wishes that she hadn’t wished even on her birthday candles since she was seven. But it did seem a waste not to, now that they’d gone to all the trouble to build the fire, so she thought and thought, and hemmed and hawed, until Alec called down to them that he was on his way to help put out the fire.