Summer of the War

by Gloria Whelan

  Now Grandpa said, “You’re right, Caroline—there must be something more cheerful to talk about. Tommy, why don’t you tell us about the whistling swans you saw this morning?”

  Tommy was eager to describe waking up to strange woo hoo sounds. “I could hear them a long time before they settled down on the channel. There must have been a dozen of them.” Whistling swans were rare; you only saw them migrating through, and all day Tommy had gone around with a small smile on his face as if he had been let in on a wonderful secret.

  Grandma told a story about black swans. “All the black swans in England are owned by the king. There is a man who works for the crown whose job it is to travel the rivers and count the black swans.”

  “Do you have to be English to do that?” Tommy asked. We could all see he would love the job.

  Emily described a strange duck she had seen. “Its face was painted white and black in a funny pattern, like a clown.”

  “Wood duck,” Tommy said. Carrie appeared to be listening to us, but you could see her mind was on something else. I wondered if it might be her father. I missed my own dad a lot, but I heard from him every week and I knew he was safe in an office only a few hours away from us.

  When the whitefish was done, Grandpa divided it up and presented a portion to each of us with a flourish.

  “It’s very good,” Carrie told Grandpa when she tasted the whitefish, but that wasn’t compliment enough for Grandpa, who was used to raves for his planked whitefish. He covered his disappointment, but we could see his feelings were hurt.

  Carrie saw it too. Later that night when we were getting ready for bed, she said, “I guess I should have said more about Grandpa’s whitefish. I was thinking of something else.”

  “Your dad?” I asked.

  Carrie was silent for a moment and then said, “Yes, I was thinking of Papa.”

  Nine

  The next afternoon Grandpa took the little runabout to the mainland to pick up letters. He would have liked to take his Chris-Craft with its polished Philippine mahogany planking that gleamed in the sun, but the Chris-Craft used more gas than the smaller boat. When he returned, he passed out the letters, handing one to Carrie. He glanced at the return address. “Brad Nelson. Looks like you’ve made a conquest, Caroline. I hope for the Nelsons’ sake that that young man pulls himself together.” Carrie took the letter and hurried up to our room. Grandpa looked after her for a minute and then, shrugging his shoulders, asked, “Who’s going to help me bury the garbage?”

  Grandpa heaved a shovel over his shoulder like a soldier marching off to war. Emily, Nancy, and Tommy marched along behind him, each lugging a bag of onion and potato peels and other disgusting stuff that had to be buried. Stones would be placed over the burial spots so raccoons and skunks couldn’t dig it up. Nancy convinced Grandpa to let her scatter some of the garbage for the animals. “A little doesn’t hurt,” she pleaded. I begged off, and the raggle-taggle army, busy with their errand, went on without me.

  I wandered down to the dock, picking my way quickly over boards hot from roasting all morning in the sun. I stuck my feet in the channel’s clear water to cool off. I could see a school of silver minnows flashing first one way and then another. A silent message of bubbles percolated up from a clamshell. A crab scuttled by looking like a dead hand. Farther out a gull dove at the water and came up with a small fish in its mouth. I counted the days on my fingers until Carrie would go back to Washington. I didn’t see how I could put up with her. My room was always a mess—her clothes spilling out of the drawers, her makeup taking up every inch of dresser space, the floor cluttered with piles of stupid magazines. There was nothing left of me in the room. I felt I was disappearing.

  Tommy had left a fishing pole on the dock. I reached down for the minnow trap and captured one of the tiny silver fish. I hooked the minnow and cast out. Though it was hard to keep my mind on fishing, I felt like I had to do something or burst. On the third cast I hooked a good-size perch. I debated throwing it back. The rule was whoever got the fish had to scale and clean it, a job I hated. I kept it and the next five perch I caught. Grandma would fry them for breakfast in the morning. Four of the perch were in the water on the stringer; the last one was thrashing around on the dock. I headed for the boathouse to get the scaler and the gutting knife. There was a light on. The light came from the runabout. It was immediately switched off. I saw a figure scramble out of the boat. It was Carrie. She must have entered from the door on the other side of the boathouse.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Nothing. Now that you’re letting me handle the runabout, I just thought I’d get familiar with all the switches.”

  “Well, the running lights are for fog or dark, and I’m not allowed to take the boat out then. Actually you shouldn’t be touching the boat at all.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Carrie said. “I’m not hurting Grandpa’s precious boat.” She ran out, upsetting an empty gasoline can next to the runabout and slamming the door behind her.

  I stood there forgetting all about the fish that was slowly cooking in the sun. I had been right. Carrie planned to take the boat out so she could see Brad, maybe even pick him up and go over to the Shanty with him. I knew what I should do—tell Grandpa. Of course she would deny it and I had no way of proving it. That didn’t matter. I still had to tell. Carrie didn’t know the channel well enough to take the boat out at night.

  If I said nothing and she took out the boat, Grandpa might send her back to her precious Louise and we could all get back to normal. The summer wouldn’t be entirely spoiled. But if something happened to her? What then? Standing there in the murky light of the boathouse, I put together a plan. I would pretend to be asleep. When I heard her get up I would watch out the window. The minute I saw the boat I’d awaken Grandpa and I’d tell him. He would go right after her with the Chris-Craft. It was much faster. He’d catch her up in no time and bring her back. Then she’d have to leave. It seemed so simple. I told myself I was doing what was good for the whole family.

  I went back to the dock. After the shadowy boathouse the bright sun made me blink. I felt as if I had been in the boathouse for a long time, but it could only have been a minute or two, for the perch was still slapping its tail against the dock. I picked it up to slam it against a board but something made me stop. After a minute I slid it back into the water. I hauled up the stringer and let the other four fish go too. I think I wanted to do something kind, something good. I think I wanted to even things out.

  That night Carrie didn’t put her hair up in curlers, didn’t slosh goo on her hands and put on her white gloves. As soon as she climbed into bed, she gave a great yawn, turned down her lamp, and slid under the covers. I did the same.

  Lying there awake, I could feel her like something light balanced in the air, just waiting to fall to the ground. Emily, Tommy, and Nancy were already asleep. I heard Grandpa listening to the eleven-o’clock news, and then he and Grandma came up the stairway and went into their room. Their bedroom door closed.

  All the while I was lying there, I was changing my mind back and forth. The minute Carrie got out of bed, I could threaten to tell on her. That would end her adventure. Of course she would hate me, but if I waited until after she left, she might never know how Grandpa found out.

  I heard Carrie get up and slip into her clothes. I could feel her breath as she bent over me to be sure I was asleep. I didn’t move, keeping my breathing regular. Through half-closed eyes I saw her tiptoe out of the room holding her shoes. She went down the stairway so carefully there wasn’t even a creak. She must have practiced. I ran to the window. The moon was nearly full, and I could see her crossing the yard and running down to the boathouse. She disappeared inside. Now, I thought, now is the time I should call Grandpa. I waited another minute. The runabout moved out into the channel, its light making a narrow road of gold on the water.

  “Grandpa,” I called. “Grandpa, wake up quick! Carrie’s gone. She took
the runabout. I saw her from the window.”

  My shout awakened everyone. Polo was running back and forth barking. Grandpa came out into the hallway in his blue striped pajamas. Grandma had thrown a robe over her nightie; her hair was neatly caught up in a net. Nancy, Emily, and Tommy stood in the hallway, half asleep.

  I wanted Grandpa to start out at once. It worried me that he was just standing there. If he waited much longer, it would be hard to catch Carrie up.

  “Mirabelle, what are you talking about?”

  I repeated my story about hearing some noise and finding Carrie gone. “I looked out of the window, and I saw Carrie running down the path. Then I saw the runabout come out of the boathouse. You have to go after her in the Chris-Craft. She doesn’t know the channel.”

  “There’s no gas in the Chris-Craft. I left the can in the boathouse. I was going to take the runabout in tomorrow and get some.” Grandpa looked at me. “When did Caroline learn to use the runabout?”

  I was too upset not to tell the truth. “I taught her.”

  Grandfather was staring hard at me. “Without my permission!”

  I nodded.

  Everything had fallen apart. Grandpa couldn’t go after Carrie. She was alone out there in the dark. It was all my fault. “I think she was going to see Brad,” I mumbled. “Maybe they were going to the Shanty.”

  Grandpa was still looking at me. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you say something, Mirabelle?”

  “I wasn’t sure.” One word stuck to the other.

  “Oh, Belle,” Grandma said, but her look said a lot more.

  I ran into my room and threw myself onto my bed, sobbing. Nothing Carrie had done was as bad as what I had done. I saw the runabout crashing into a boulder or running aground on a shoal. I saw her alone on the channel in the dark, the boat sinking.

  Grandpa pounded down the steps. Grandma came into my room and sat down beside me on the bed.

  “It’s my fault. I could have stopped her. What if she drowns?”

  “Your grandfather’s got the canoe out. He’s going to paddle over to the clubhouse and use their phone to call Mr. Norkin. Mr. Norkin will come and pick your grandfather up. They’re certain to find Carrie. I’m sure she’ll be all right—she’s a resourceful young woman—but Belle, whatever were you thinking of to teach her to use the boat and then to let her go out at night alone?”

  “She’s changed all of us,” I blurted out. “I would never have done something like that before Carrie came.”

  Grandma spoke in a quiet voice. “Carrie doesn’t have the power to change any of us. Carrie didn’t make you behave in this thoughtless way. You have to take responsibility for your own actions, Belle. Carrie did a foolish and dangerous thing, but you not only let Carrie do it, you made it possible for her to do it.” Grandma went out of the room and closed the door behind her. It was as if she had shut me away from the whole human race.

  From the same window I had watched Carrie take off in the runabout, I watched Grandpa maneuver the canoe out into the channel. The pale light of the moon turned Grandpa and the canoe into something vague and blurred, something that might melt right before my eyes.

  Downstairs I heard everyone moving around and talking. I didn’t want to face them, but I had to know what was happening. I went slowly down the stairway. Emily and Tommy were in chairs, their feet drawn up under them. Nancy, half asleep, was on the davenport leaning against Polo. I could hear Grandma in the kitchen. She appeared with glasses of milk and a plate of cookies.

  Grandma passed around the glasses of milk. Her hand was shaking. When she came to me, I said, “no thanks,” but she held a glass out to me anyhow. “It may be a long wait, Belle; you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.” Half to herself she said, “I don’t know what Howard will say when he hears about this business.”

  I knew Grandma was thinking that Uncle Howard had sent Carrie to us to be safe from the bombs in England. Now, because of what I had let happen, she was in danger. I put my glass of milk down on the table. I couldn’t choke a drop down my throat.

  Grandma tried to get Nancy and Tommy and Emily to go back to bed, but they refused. “I wouldn’t feel right,” Emily said. “I haven’t been very nice to her.”

  I stared at a framed map of the islands that had hung on the wall as long as I could remember. One summer the rain had leaked down that wall and left a stain on the map. Silently I traced the path Carrie might have taken. Although I could have followed the path in my sleep, still I studied the map as if the route through the channel to Brad’s house might have changed since the day before. If you stayed within the buoys, you were all right, but at night they were difficult to see. Several boulders and a small sandbar lay just outside the buoys. If Carrie was going fast and hit a boulder, she could knock a hole in the runabout. It was twenty feet to shore. I had only seen her jump in and out of the water and didn’t even know if she could swim. I tried to remember if they had a lake near Paris or Washington where she might have learned to swim. I wondered why I hadn’t thought to teach her.

  Nancy had fallen asleep next to Polo. He lay still, but his eyes were open and his ears stuck up. I started to chew on my nails. I hadn’t done that since Mom had taken me for a real manicure in sixth grade.

  Grandma was sitting down with her hands folded, and I wondered if she was saying a prayer and if I should, too. I wanted to ask God to keep Carrie safe, but I was afraid to call God’s name. I was afraid to have him notice me.

  Polo heard it first. He began to bark. If it had been during the day, he would have paid no attention; the sound of boats on the channel was no more uncommon than the sound of the gulls. Now we all looked at one another. I was the first one up and out of the cottage. I felt the sharp prick of the gravel path under my bare feet. I got there just as Mr. Norkin was throwing a line over the post on the dock. Grandpa and Carrie were in the boat with him.

  “Well, here she is,” Mr. Norkin said, “just a little the worse for wear.”

  Carrie was huddled in the back of the boat. Grandpa reached over and, taking her hand, helped her out onto the dock. She was carrying her shoes, and the hem of her skirt was wet and clinging to her legs. Grandma put an arm around her.

  Mr. Norkin explained. “I picked up Everett at the club, and we found the runabout stuck on that shoal over near Birch Island. She’d climbed out of the boat and was trying to push it off the sandbar. Good thing she didn’t succeed. If the boat had got loose, she’d never have gotten back in it.” Mr. Norkin looked around at our worried faces. I guess he decided he wanted to get out of there before the questions started. He reached for the line Grandpa had just fastened and unhitched it. “Well,” he said, “it’s past my bedtime. I’ll leave a can of gasoline for you, and you can meet me at the sandbar in the morning, Everett. We can throw out an anchor line and kedge the runabout off the shoal.” He winked at Grandpa. “I must say you made pretty good time in that canoe.”

  “I’m indebted to you, Jim,” Grandpa called after Mr. Norkin. “I don’t have to tell you how much we appreciate your help.”

  Mr. Norkin switched on his motor and waved his hand. “Glad to do it. Better keep that girl on a string.” He laughed and steered his way out into the channel. I was sure he would go home and tell the story to Mrs. Norkin and Ned. I wondered what they would think. Did he know what I had done?

  Grandma was leading Carrie up to the cottage, with Grandpa right behind them, like he wasn’t letting Carrie out of his sight.

  I followed them to the cottage. Halfway there Grandpa stopped and turned around to face me. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Mirabelle, but keep in mind Caroline is under our protection. We’re all responsible for her. Her father trusts us to care for her. I’m not just talking about her physical welfare. If she’d been happy here, she’d never have done something so foolish and dangerous.” He turned and stalked up the path, not holding the screen for me but letting it slam shut in my face. That was the worst moment of my life.r />
  Grandma sent Tommy, Emily, and Nancy to bed and led Carrie upstairs to get out of her wet clothes. I dragged up the stairway, thinking I’d spend the night on the sleeping porch. I didn’t want to face Carrie, but Grandma found me there.

  “Belle, you belong in your own room tonight with Carrie.” She waited until I went into the room, closing the door behind me, shutting me in.

  Carrie looked up. She was in a robe, drying her feet. She had a furious look on her face. I felt like Grandma had put me in a cage with a wildcat and locked the cage door.

  “I suppose you’re the one who told on me?”

  I nodded.

  “I hope you’re satisfied.” She threw the towel on the floor.

  I stood there at the doorway, afraid of coming any farther into the room. “I should have kept you from going.”

  “It was none of your business.”

  I couldn’t forget Grandpa’s words. “We’re responsible for you,” I said.

  She stared at me. “I don’t want you to be responsible for me. I’m not some poor relation. I’m used to civilization, not to some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere.” She flung herself onto the bed and pulled the sheet over her head.

  I didn’t care what Grandma said. Carrie was wearing us all down like the water nudged the stones in the crib, loosening them one by one, until if you didn’t rebuild the crib, everything was washed away.

  Ten

  When I awoke in the morning, the reflection of sun and water was dancing on the ceiling. For a second I looked forward to the summer day. Then I saw Carrie lying there, her blond hair spread out on the pillow, her mouth open a little. I remembered. What I had let happen to Carrie would be on everyone’s mind. I decided to sneak out of the cottage and make my way to the storm side of the island without anyone seeing me.