That same day a letter came for Carrie from Mom. She sent Carrie pictures of the room she was fixing up for Carrie. I found Carrie out on the porch studying the snapshots. She was frowning, and I thought something about the decoration was making her unhappy.
Carrie gave me a reproachful look. “There’s only one bed in this room. I suppose you told your parents you didn’t want to room with me.”
I felt my cheeks burn. Mom had written to ask if I thought Carrie would like to share my bedroom or have a room of her own. Thinking of the mess that was our room in the cottage, I had written back that Carrie would probably like her own room. What I really meant was that I wanted my own room. But it wasn’t just selfishness; I honestly believed that Carrie would be happy to be rid of me.
I managed to get out, “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to room with me.”
“I never said that,” Carrie answered.
“I’ll write to Mom. I’ll tell her we want to be together.”
“That would be très intime.” Carrie grinned.
“Carrie was disappointed not to be sharing a room with me,” I wrote to Mom. Then I added, “We like being together.” Amazingly, I decided it was true. We had grown together like the tangle of lavender plants that had made a hedge in Carrie’s garden.
Labor Day weekend we closed up the cottage. It was a routine we went though each year. We packed our clothes, stored any food in tins so the mice wouldn’t get to it, stripped the beds, and threw sheets over the upholstered chairs and davenport. Grandpa dragged the canoe up from the beach and with Mr. Norkin’s help hoisted the runabout and the Chris-Craft in the boathouse. Grandpa cleaned the ashes out of the fireplace, drained the water pipes, and put up the shutters, shutting the eyes of one room after another.
I thought Carrie would be eager to get away, but instead she seemed uneasy about leaving. Her suitcases were strewn all over the bedroom, so we were always stumbling over them, but nothing seemed to get packed. Carrie spent her time curled up on the porch studying gardening books.
“It says to mulch your garden,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“In a city garden,” Grandma explained, “you would put down a layer of straw, but if you do that here, the mice will make their nests in the straw and nibble all the plants. Just let nature’s mulch do the work. The leaves from the maple tree and the pine needles will settle over the garden.”
At lunch Carrie said, “September might be dry.” She had a worried look on her face, as if the whole world might burn up. “Some of the flowers were transplanted just last week. They’ll need water.”
Mrs. Norkin, who had come over that day to help close the cottage, said, “Ned will be out sailing. I’ll have him stop by every couple of days and give them a watering.”
Carrie blushed. “He probably wouldn’t want to.” I knew she was thinking about his reaction when she’d asked him to run away. She was sure he didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.
“He’ll do it if I ask him. He’d better.” Mrs. Norkin patted Carrie’s shoulder. “That garden’s going to be just fine. Next year with Ned gone, you can come over and give me a hand with my garden.”
We couldn’t all fit into one car, so Tommy, Nancy, and Emily, along with Polo, would be driving back with Grandma and Grandpa. Carrie and I would go back in the bus. A couple of months ago I would have hated the idea of the long ride with Carrie, but now I was looking forward to showing her all the landmarks we watched for. When we returned next year, it would all be familiar to her. Carrie and I had been two islands. Little by little we had moved into each other’s worlds until it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.
There was time for one quick visit to the storm side of the island. Carrie was busy with her garden, so I went by myself. The leaves of the birch trees were turning yellow. Lake Huron nudged the sand, pulling it away from the island and washing it back. The restless gulls flew inland and then sailed back over the water as if they were rehearsing for the day they would leave. I realized it had been weeks since I had come here to dream of adventure in distant places. I hadn’t needed to. The summer had been full of unexpected things happening. We had spent three months away from Mom and Dad. Ned was going off to war. Uncle Howard had been killed. But Carrie had been the real adventure. She had brought out the worst in us and the best in us.
I knew there would be problems when we got home. Carrie would have to get used to Mom and Dad and they would have to get used to her. It was hard to imagine her in our school, walking home with the kids, going to basketball games. But then I hadn’t been able to imagine her before she came to the island. That’s what had been so exciting about the summer. My books were exciting, but they ended. Carrie wouldn’t end. With Carrie you would never know. She would go on changing us and we would go on changing her, but our war was over.
About the Author
Gloria Whelan is the bestselling author of many novels for young readers, including HOMELESS BIRD, winner of the National Book Award, and LISTENING FOR LIONS. She lives in northern Michigan. You can visit her online at www.gloriawhelan.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
also by Gloria Whelan
THE TURNING
LISTENING FOR LIONS
BURYING THE SUN
CHU JU’S HOUSE
THE IMPOSSIBLE JOURNEY
FRUITLANDS
ANGEL ON THE SQUARE
HOMELESS BIRD
INDIAN SCHOOL
MIRANDA’S LAST STAND
The Island Trilogy:
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND
FAREWELL TO THE ISLAND
RETURN TO THE ISLAND
Credits
Jacket art © 2006 by Chris Sheban
Jacket design by Sasha Illingworth
Copyright
SUMMER OF THE WAR. Copyright © 2006 by Gloria Whelan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition NOVEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061975875
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