“Have other boys died?” I ask to find out what he knows.
His face tightens. “I told Miss Latigue everything I know about that. You’ll have to ask her.”
“She left this morning. I guess she was satisfied nothing’s wrong.”
He eyes me and Dorchy and says, “So what qualifications do you two have to be counselors?”
“Miss Latigue hired us,” Dorchy snaps. It’s like a sparring match and she has to throw a fast punch. She doesn’t seem to like him as much now. “Why do so many kids here get the flu?” she says. “It’s an island.”
“Fresh air releases the germs they were exposed to on the way here or at the Home or orphanage they came from.” Tom shrugs. “Or so Dr. Jellicoe says.”
“That isn’t true,” I say. As the boys’ counselor, Tom needs facts. “My doctor, Dr. Friedlander, says fresh air, healthy food, and rest protect you from disease.”
“‘Dr. Friedlander says,’” Dorchy mimics me. “Too bad he’s not here and Dr. Jellicoe is.”
“Jellicoe’s wrong about a lot of other things,” I snap. I don’t like being mocked.
“Well, I’m healthy,” Tom says. “Most of the campers have been. If you had the flu, you can’t get it again.”
Dorchy and I speak at the same time, “I had it.”
“Well, you’re all right then.” He smiles at us.
Magdalena comes over to us with two huge bouquets of goldenrod and cornflowers just as Reuben and Nurse Blunt pull up in the truck. They greet Tom and Dorchy, ignoring me. I guess they still think I am Cecily’s assistant. Finally Dorchy says, “Rowan is a counselor like me now. She’ll be sleeping in the gym with us. It’s Miss Latigue’s idea.”
Nurse Blunt’s eyes light up, and an actual smile creases her usually ironclad face. I look to see if Tom notices. He gives me a what-did-I-tell-you look.
Then she says sourly to me, “So Mrs. Van Giesen has had enough of you, eh?”
Posy takes the lunch basket from Reuben and carries it over to a block of granite Tom designated as the table. He hands out ham sandwiches and apples, first to the girls and then to the boys. Reuben ladles cold water from a bucket into two tin cups that get passed around.
“Not very sanitary,” I say to Dorchy.
She shrugs. “They can stick their heads into the quarry lake and drink straight from there, for all I care,” she says. “They look happy. That’s what counts.”
She’s right. The twins are speaking their own language with animation. Elsa eats daintily without dropping a crumb, and Magdalena talks nonstop to Christophe, waving her hands, one holding a sandwich. Posy sits between two of the boys on a boulder by the lake. They eat while watching Tom point out the different layers of exposed granite on the quarry walls.
“Hey, boys,” Reuben says, “where are the fish you caught for supper?”
The boys look at Tom and stay silent, except for dark-haired Jack whom we met in the gym the first day. He says, “You ever catch anything in that empty hole?”
Reuben laughs. “Only a twelve-pound catfish.”
Tom says, “Then you’re the one we need. Show us how it’s done. Fellows, give Reuben here a rod.”
Nurse Blunt frowns and looks away, disapproval radiating from her. Suddenly her face changes and she stands up, straight-backed. “On your feet, campers. We have visitors.”
Viking, with Vera on his back, steps carefully toward us across a field of stones. Dr. Ritter, in a white coat and straw hat, hurries along behind. “You were supposed to pick me up,” he yells, jabbing his finger at Reuben.
Vera says, “Don’t worry, Doctor. The walk was good for you.” She slides off Viking as Dr. Ritter sinks down on a block of granite and fans himself with his hat.
“We’re here to evaluate the campers,” Vera says to Nurse Blunt and Tom. She turns to Dorchy. “It’s standard procedure after they’ve been here a day or two.” She smiles at the air over our heads. “Tom will attest to that.”
“Yes, Miss Van,” Tom says. He stands like a condemned man, feet together, head hanging. His voice is expressionless.
Dorchy starts to introduce me as a co-counselor, but I grab her hand and squeeze. I want to be a fly on the wall as long as possible.
Vera swats the fly. “So Mother has consented to let you mix with the unfit, Rowan,” she says. “How unlike her. This must be Miss Latigue’s idea.”
I nod.
“Well, watch and learn from Tom,” Vera says. “So very talented, yet so modest.”
Then she claps her hands and shouts, “Campers, on your marks, run to the tents and back. Dr. Ritter is the judge. I’m starting my stopwatch. Go now!”
The boys tear off, slipping on the loose rocks. Tom cheers them on, cupping his hands around his mouth.
Vera and Dr. Ritter talk quietly, never taking their eyes off the boys.
Nurse Blunt says, “Girls, hurry up now. Show us how fast you can run.”
Posy and the twins take off, their good mood still intact. But Magdalena and Elsa shrink back toward the lake. Dr. Ritter scribbles something in his notebook. I wish I could steal it and find out what he wrote.
Without looking up from her watch, Vera says, “Rowan, get those girls in the race. If you start off with that crutch, they’ll realize they can easily beat you.”
Dorchy says something under her breath, but I smile. “Of course, Miss Van.” I cup my hands around my mouth and yell, “Magdalena and Elsa, try to catch me!”
They giggle and look at Dorchy. “Go on,” she says.
Before polio I could have outrun them, but now I go slowly, making sure my crutch doesn’t slip. The two girls stroll past me laughing. The other runners dash back; Jack gets the prize, a slice of cake that Reuben produces from the truck. Jack shares it with Posy and the twins, the three winning girls, who crossed the imaginary finish line together. Dr. Ritter and Vera talk quietly for a minute and then call Reuben over.
“Miss Van shouldn’t have done that,” Tom says when I finally finish the “race.” His eyes burn. “She had no right to say that to you.”
I shrug. “Picking on the weak is what she does. Why else would she be here?”
“Come get more treats,” Vera calls, and the campers gather around us. Dorchy pours lemonade, and I hand out sugar cookies made by Louise and delivered by Reuben.
Then I look up and freeze. Dr. Ritter and Reuben are walking away from us with Elsa between them. I’m the first one to notice. I touch Dorchy’s arm, and she starts off after them, yelling, “Where are you going with Elsa?”
Now Magdalena screams. Immediately Vera grabs her arm and steers her down to the lake.
Before Dorchy can reach her, Elsa climbs into the cab of the truck, followed by Dr. Ritter. Reuben gets in the driver’s seat and guns the truck away from the quarry.
I look around for Tom. “They took Elsa,” I tell him.
“It’s probably just a precaution,” he says, but his eyes don’t meet mine.
“Like they took Ratty from the ferry dock?” Dorchy is back now, her hands balled into fists.
“Yes. They are very careful about influenza here. Why are you so upset?”
“Why aren’t you?”
Magdalena screams as she pulls away from Vera and runs after the truck. Viking whinnies from the meadow.
“Get her back, Tom,” Vera yells.
He easily catches up with Magdalena who first slaps his face and then collapses in his arms. Dorchy looks at me. “Magdalena trusts me,” she says and walks over to talk to them. After a moment Tom steps away, and Dorchy and Magdalena walk back to the lake.
“Where are they taking Elsa?” I ask Vera, my voice rising in panic. “She isn’t sick.”
“If that’s the case, she’ll be back tomorrow.” Vera sounds bored. “More lemonade, everyone.”
Tom picks
up the pitcher and starts filling the cups.
Vera walks out to Viking and rides away without looking back.
I want to ask Tom, “Is this how they took your boys?” But his face is closed, mouth tight.
The truck returns and bounces to a stop. Nurse Blunt yells, “Girls, get into the truck.”
Magdalena starts screaming again, and the twins kneel on the rocks clinging to Posy’s skirt. Reuben gets out of the truck. “Stop that caterwauling,” he shouts. “We’re just going back to the gym.”
“Rowan, stay here and help Tom clean up,” Nurse Blunt says. “Dorchy, come with me.”
“How will Rowan get back to the gym?” Tom asks.
“She can walk.” Nurse Blunt heads for the truck.
“What did they do with Elsa?” I yell after her.
Tom says, “Well, you’re free of Nurse Blunt for a while. Enjoy it.”
“But poor Elsa. She wasn’t sick.”
“The doctor will decide that.”
Vera’s words exactly.
The boys drift back to fishing. They don’t seem upset at all.
“They’ve taken two now,” I say. “Ratty and Elsa.”
“Well, Miss Latigue investigated,” Tom says. “So it’s all on the up-and-up.”
“You visited the boys,” I say. “I want to see Elsa.”
“You can try, but the rules have changed.”
“Draw me a map.”
He clears away scattered stones with his hand and scratches a map in the dirt with a sharp one.
I don’t mention it, but determination is forming in me. Let Tom trust the doctors and Vera. I’m going to see for myself.
I wash the plates in the quarry lake. The sea is out of sight beyond the quarry’s high walls, but the roar of the surf is a familiar sound. I think longingly of Eastham, the closest Dorchy and I have been. At least we’re finally working together.
I’d like to tell Tom about the pictures in the file, but it feels wrong to tell him before Dorchy.
He fills a canteen with water for me to take on my walk back to the gym. “You’ll be bringing the girls back here tomorrow,” he says. “I’m glad. They seemed to like it.”
“They did like it, until Elsa disappeared.” I catch his eye. “Who will they take tomorrow?”
Chapter 35
The evening air is cool, a hint of fall. Despite everything, I enjoy my walk. At the Boston Home our time outdoors was strictly limited. A few times a week we were allowed out in the yard, closely watched. Other than that, we occasionally had doctor and dentist visits, trips to the library, and once as a special treat, a movie. But meeting Dorchy has meant fresh air every day. And fresh air nights too, when we were on Cape Cod.
Bands of sunlight and shadow stripe the woods as I follow the path away from the quarry lake. Birds sing and the wind rustles in the tall pines and shorter birches. About halfway back to the gym, my legs start to ache, so I step off the path and choose a birch stump to sit on.
When I look down, I freeze.
Two eyes stare up at me out of a pile of leaves. Red-rimmed, human eyes.
A boy pushes the leaves away and sits up. His thin face is dead white except for those enflamed eyes, dark red patches on his cheeks, and blue lips. Heat radiates off him, and his body is shaking.
“You got water?” he says in a strangled voice. He cocks his head, listening for something behind me on the path.
I unscrew the top of the canteen and offer it to him. His hand brushes mine as he takes it, and my stomach lurches. I need a mask. This boy is deathly sick. When he’s through drinking, I put down the canteen and scrub my hand with leaves.
I have a lot of questions—What’s wrong with you? Why are you out here in the woods? But I only ask one, “What’s your name?”
“Ratty.”
Now I recognize him. But he’s changed so much since he was taken away from the dock. “What happened to you?”
He sucks in a wet-sounding breath. “They took me to the medical tent. You saw me go.”
I nod. “We asked where you were, and no one would tell us anything.”
“I had to sign a paper.” After a fit of coughing, he wipes blood off his chin with the back of his hand. “So somewhere they have the names of all of us.”
“All of who?”
“The ones they killed.”
I grip my crutch tighter as if to protect myself.
“Like you and all the others will be, if you don’t do something.”
I go ice-cold, lean toward him, and force myself to speak, “Killed how?”
“A shot.”
“From a gun?” But he looks sick, not wounded.
“A needle. A vaccine ‘to prevent flu,’ they say. I said I already had the flu. They didn’t believe me and gave me the shot.”
“And then what? After the shot?”
“They tied me to a cot.” His voice fades to a whisper. The heat coming off him could singe my eyebrows. He starts a desperate, body-shaking cough. When he stops, I ask, “How did you get away?”
“They untied me because that lady came to the tent. ‘Close your eyes and lie there,’ they said. I just took my crutches and walked out when no one was looking.”
“Did she talk to you before you left?”
“She wanted to, but they told her I was too sick to talk. But I was fine. Then.”
He spits on the ground; blood gleams in a patch of pale sunlight. He lies back down, staring up at me. His cheeks are flushed darker now. “Now I’m dying.”
I force a smile. “You survived the flu once. You’ll survive it again.”
“This is”—he shakes his head—“different.”
I hold the canteen so he can drink and leave it next to him.
“You need help, Ratty,” I say. “I can get Tom. He’ll know what to do. You can’t stay out here.”
“No.” His voice flares like a struck match. “Don’t tell anyone. They’ll take me back. I don’t want to die there.”
“What did you mean about killing?” I ask. “They’re just inoculating the ones exposed to the flu.”
“No.” He flares up again. “It’s true. That doctor”—he coughs again and blood spills from his nose—“said to that witch Vera, ‘No one leaves the island alive.’ They thought I was asleep.”
I know Ratty’s feverish, but I can imagine Dr. Jellicoe saying that. The thought makes my stomach clench. “If that’s true, then I have to tell the others. Dr. Jellicoe has to be stopped.”
“Don’t tell anyone where I am.” He spits more blood on the leaves and lies down. “Promise you won’t and then cover me.”
I mutter a promise with my fingers crossed and then scatter leaves over his body to hide him again. It feels like a burial.
As I turn to go, he grabs hold of my skirt. In a voice as thin and sharp as a needle, he says, “Blue kills.”
Chapter 36
What is “blue?” How can I help Ratty?
As I get closer to the gym I speed up. Dorchy is standing in the road in front. I have to tell her first. Ratty is important in a way none of my other discoveries about Loup Island have been. Those burning eyes, that terrible accusation, and those haunting words, “Blue kills.” Whether we believe him or not, we have to help him. But how?
Dorchy grins as I come panting up to her. “What took you so long?” she says. “I want to explore the lighthouse before it gets dark, so I waited for you.”
I hold up my hand, still trying to catch my breath.
“Nurse Blunt fell asleep,” Dorchy says. “I told Magdalena I was coming to meet you.”
Finally I manage to get the words out.
“I found Ratty. He says he’s dying.”
Dorchy’s eyes narrow. “Found him where? In the medical tent?” She sounds horrified.
&nbs
p; “No. He got away from there. He’s in the woods.” I point down the road. “Lying in the bushes.”
“Let’s go find him.” Dorchy is all business. I knew she would be. As we walk back the way I just came, Dorchy matches my pace even though I can feel her impatience in every step.
As we go by Cecily’s house, I grab her arm. “Act like we’re just out for a stroll. We don’t want any of them following us.”
Dorchy smiles at the house and takes my arm. “A beautiful night for a stroll,” she says loudly. Then she whispers, “Tell me what he said.”
Once we pass the house, I use my normal voice. “He said they’re—” I stop. “It sounds crazy.”
“Spit it out.”
“He said the doctor is killing the campers by giving them the flu. He overheard the doctor say to Vera, ‘No one leaves here alive.’”
Dorchy stops and chews her bottom lip. “Does Ratty have a fever?”
“He’s burning up. Why?”
“He’s delirious.” She walks on ahead of me. “That was the fever talking, and it’s why we need to get him help. When his fever’s down, we can get some sense out of him.”
The woods thicken, shadowing the road. I stop to peer deeper into the woods. “I think it was here. Yes, there’s the stump I sat on.”
Dorchy plunges into the bushes around the stump, calling, “Ratty. Ratty. We’re here to help you.”
“Stop,” I say. “You’ll scare him. He’s hiding for a reason.”
He moved since I spoke to him last. Broken bushes and scattered leaves show his desperate effort to get away. He didn’t believe my promise. For good reason. I can’t imagine the effort it took for him to crawl away.
Dorchy says, “He’s gone.”
“He’s here. Buried in leaves like last time. He can’t go far. Wait here.”
She sighs, impatient.
I move carefully into the dusky shadows of the taller trees. Drifts of fallen leaves. Low bushes hugging the ground. He could have crawled under one, and unless we crawl under all of them, we won’t find him.
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