“Now, let’s—” Officer Levee began, but Natalia rolled right over her. She took a step closer to Sheldon. Sheldon was a tall man, and Natalia was short, only a few inches taller than Jax, but she looked like she was going to deck him.
“You realize what’s going on here, right? This is outrageous!” she said.
Sheldon fell silent, but Kark began to bluster. “You can say what you want, but those kids have been following me around for weeks and I have to wonder what they were doing outside the door in the first place!”
Jax gulped, and Alex looked at her shoes.
“They’ve been lurking around my boat, following my car, and generally disrupting my peace when I’m trying to paint! I don’t know if their intent is criminal or just mischief, but I’ve had enough!”
Natalia opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“Kids?” she said, looking over at them.
Dad spoke for the first time. “Jax, do you want to say anything?”
Jax silently shook his head.
Dad stared at him for a minute, then turned his gaze to Kark and Sheldon.
“Well. Whatever the kids have been doing—and I’d like to remind you that they’re kids—we, as their parents, will handle it. Meanwhile”—he shot Sheldon a dirty look—“I suggest you think long and hard about whom you accuse of being a criminal in the future.”
Natalia broke in, taking Alex by the arm. “Indeed. Especially as I have a team of lawyers and publicists that would love to hear about how my daughter and her friend were treated by…” She paused. “Who are you exactly, again?”
Sheldon flushed an ugly purple. “Sheldon Drake. Drake Investments.”
Kark coughed. “I’m sorry for any misunderstanding on our part. But the larger story—for your publicists—might be that these kids are harassing visitors and tourists on Rock Island. So. I think we’re done here.” He turned his back on them with an air of finality.
“Okay then,” Officer Levee said, sighing. “I think that’s about it. Gentlemen, have a nice day. I’ll walk my young friends out.”
She stepped out of the office, and Jax and Dad followed, with Alex and Natalia right behind them.
Alex started to speak.
“DON’T!” Natalia said sharply. “Just don’t. I’m too angry to talk or listen right now.”
“But Dad—” Jax started.
Dad held up his hand. “We will talk about this at home. With Papa. What that man…” He trailed off. “That was disgusting. I’m just heartsick that this happened.”
Natalia shot him a rueful look. “Was that a first for Jax? All over the world, my girls have been stared at, asked to bring cocktail peanuts, or followed by hotel detectives. America’s not the worst place for it, but it’s not the best either. A new employee in the Chicago office called security when Alex ran in screaming one day. Turned out Val had fallen in the lobby and knocked out a tooth.”
Dad looked defeated. “It’s not like race hasn’t come up before, but we live a pretty sheltered life, I guess. Shipton is an easy place to live, but of course, the rest of the world isn’t Shipton.” He sighed.
Jax felt terrible. Now that it was all over, the weight of Sheldon’s accusations felt embarrassing and gross.
Dad put an arm around him and pulled him close. “We’ll talk about this at home,” he repeated. “But in the meantime, and I’m sure Natalia will agree, there will be no more lurking around Chase Kark. Trouble like that we don’t need.”
Frog wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but everything—and everyone—was weird all of a sudden. Jax and Dad had come home the evening before looking grim and upset, but nobody was talking about what went wrong. At least, nobody was talking to Frog. Jax and Dad and Papa had holed up in Papa’s office, where voices had gone from soft to loud, then soft again. Frog had no idea what was going on, but then Dad had come out and told Frog, Eli, and Sam, who was home from rehearsal and jamming a post-dinner taco into his mouth, that whatever spying game they had been playing with Chase Kark needed to end.
Eli had spoken up, explaining their hypothesis…at least, Frog thought that was what he’d called it: that Kark was a bad man who didn’t just want to buy the lighthouse but wanted to have it torn down for some reason. But that just made Dad even angrier, and he went on and on about how you can’t accuse someone of things like that and not get in trouble and Eli got red in the face and said that’s why they were trying to get proof and Dad got red in the face and said people were innocent until proven guilty, even if they wore ugly green shorts, and they needed to back off. Then Eli stormed outside.
Frog sighed. Sam was supposed to be researching lessons on teaching a kitten to swim, but between all the yelling Frog was sure he’d forgotten. He sat forlornly, wondering what had gone wrong.
“Come on, let’s see what we can find about turning Lili into a swimmer,” Sam said, suddenly appearing next to Frog in the living room. “We still have over a week left on the island—I bet we can do it!”
Frog leapt to his feet. “Really? You have time?” His heart lifted. He SO wanted to try to teach one of the cats to swim! He didn’t even remember why anymore, but it felt important. Even more important now, with the whole summer collapsing around them—mad brothers and the closed lighthouse and everything messed up and different.
“Sure, buddy.” Sam looked down at him, and Frog smiled for what felt like the first time in forever. “Let’s do this!” Sam clapped his hands, loudly, like it was a big sports play, then grabbed Frog around the middle and ran around the room.
Frog shrieked with laughter, then, when they had made a full circle, tumbled out of Sam’s grasp and back onto the couch. “Let’s look! Let’s see what it says!” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.
They hung over the kitchen table, where Dad had said they could use his laptop.
“Hmm…it says here to get them used to the water with a dripping faucet or a sponge….” Sam kept reading while Frog watched breathlessly.
Sam clicked and read and clicked some more. Frog thought he was just pretending to read, he was moving so fast. But Sam was amazing like that.
“Okay,” Sam said suddenly, standing up straight. “Here’s the deal. These experts—and they seem pretty smart—suggest we get into the water with her, like in a pool or something. NOT a bathtub!” he added quickly. “She’d claw us to ribbons. But we get in the water, then gently lower her in and support her as she starts paddling.” He paused, apparently lost in thought.
“But we don’t have a pool,” Frog said finally.
“True. But we do have Cove Beach,” Sam answered.
Frog considered this. It was very calm there, not that that had helped Zeus like swimming. Frog winced at the memory of Zeus clawing his way up and over Jax, trying to get back to his cat carrier.
“Do you think Dad will let us go?” Frog asked. “After all, he said all that stuff about couch arrest—”
“House arrest, not couch arrest,” Sam corrected. “Well, I don’t have rehearsal until this afternoon, so let’s at least ask if he’ll take us down there. I’m sure Jax and Eli will want to get out too.”
Dad, when approached on the back deck, agreed readily. He didn’t seem any happier about house arrest than they were. Jax and Eli, however, were harder to pin down. Jax had gone over to Alex’s house, and Eli was up in the loft on his bed, and refused to go anywhere.
“You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face,” Dad called. “Come on, E-man. Let’s get outside.”
“I don’t need my nose to know that this is unfair, and that we’ve lost our last shot to know what’s really going on with the lighthouse,” Eli said. He sounded mad.
Dad sighed, and Frog knew that it was hopeless. Eli got mad and stayed mad.
“Okay, let’s head out,” Dad said finally, giving up on Eli. “We’ll drive. It’s easier with the cat.”
They were pulling out of the driveway when Val ran up. “I was just on my way over! Sam, I was fina
lly able to talk to Alan last night. I told him about my ideas for the costumes. I didn’t mention the state of the wig—may it rest in peace—”
“Or pieces,” Sam interrupted.
“—but he was definitely intrigued. He seemed kind of distracted, to be honest. But he basically said if we had a better costume to bring it to the rehearsal and he’d see what he thought.” She paused and looked into the van. Frog and Lili looked back at her.
“Where are you guys going? Can I come?”
“Hop in,” Dad said, sliding open the van door. “We’re headed to the cove for Operation Wet Cat.”
Val laughed and shook her head as she climbed in. “You are tenacious!” she said to Frog, as she settled next to him. “Can’t wait to see how this will go. Good thing I have my camera. Actually, Frog, I have something even better! Hey, Tom, hold on a minute!”
Dad stopped, and Val jumped out of the van and ran back to her house, her floppy beach hat flying off.
“Here,” she said breathlessly as she got back into the van, having picked up her hat on the return trip. “Do you know what this is? It’s a waterproof video camera you wear on your head. I use it for skiing. But you can wear it in the water and film Lili’s attempts.”
Frog grabbed the camera and wrestled it onto his head, while Sam turned sideways in his seat to ask Val about skiing. Frog pressed all the buttons he could feel, a few times each, just to see what happened, but nothing changed. He would have to ask Val how it worked. Lili reached out a curious paw, touching the camera once, and Frog bounced with excitement. This was going to be awesome!
—
Frog barely waited until the car stopped moving before he raced down to the water. Lili was a natural, he thought. Unlike Zeus, she was curious about the water, so they let her bat at it with her paws and splash it before Sam gently lowered her in, keeping the kitten far from his body as he did so. But Lili didn’t flail wildly or try to climb back up his arms. She began to move her little paws, tentatively at first, then harder, until she was swimming with just a little bit of help from Sam.
“Can she swim to me? Can she?” Frog was electric with excitement. Lili’s orange face was held up proudly out of the water, and she looked, he thought, pleased and happy.
“Let’s see. Just be careful. Don’t hug her to you, in case she gets freaked out,” Sam said. He was grinning, looking almost as proud as Lili.
Frog nodded, and Sam let go, pushing the kitten gently toward Frog. Without the slightest effort, Lili swam toward him while Dad and Val whooped from the shore.
“Okay, head over to the rocks,” Sam said. “See if she’ll swim over to you.”
“What if she gets tired?” Frog asked anxiously. The rocks were pretty far away. It was easy for him….He was a big kid and could walk there over all the rocks and crabs and broken shells. But Lili looked so tiny!
“I’ll stay close,” Sam promised.
Frog started walking, turning away from Sam and heading around the edge of the cove. The water was higher here, up to his waist almost, but the tide was going out and he could still walk easily enough. From time to time, he bent to watch the schools of minnows swimming around his legs.
It took only a few minutes, but now he was out of sight from Sam, Dad, and Val. Frog looked up at the rocks. There, perched on a high ledge, was Kark’s easel. The canvas on the easel was blank, Frog noticed, and the artist was pacing around, talking on his phone.
Frog froze. Was he going to get in trouble for spying? He wasn’t even spying! He was swimming! But what would Dad think? He stood still, wondering what to do.
“This bloody island! I half wish we’d stuck with Nantucket. This place is too small, and too backward, to do anything! I’m out on a rock, still with this stupid easel, because there’s no cell phone reception anywhere!” Kark ranted into the phone.
Frog closed his eyes, hoping he would stay invisible.
Kark fell silent, and Frog opened his eyes. Had he been spotted? No, the man was just pacing, listening to whoever was talking.
Then he spoke again. “Hah! No, I was only kidding. It’s worth it, even with all the provincial yahoos. We’re ninety percent there. The inspectors are on-site as we speak, and I have them buttoned up.” He paused. “Not to worry. They’re airtight. They’re not even taking real estimates. They’ll go with whatever I give them. It’s in the bag. Once I own the land outright and turn in their results that the structure is unstable, there’s nothing in the town’s bylaws or building codes that states I can’t build what I want there, as long as the Coast Guard has access.”
He laughed, and Frog thought it was a very unfunny laugh.
“This time next year there will be gorgeous top-shelf condominiums where that broken-down piece of rock is! The Coast Guard can attach whatever they need, but the rest of the land is free and clear. And once the condos are up I don’t ever need to come back here. So hang in there…we’ve almost got it. And believe me, with the kind of restrictions they have on building here, we can easily charge three to four million apiece. Easily! Everyone wants in on this place, because it’s so ‘unspoiled’!” He laughed again, then fell silent, listening.
“A week or less, hopefully. By Labor Day at the latest. I’ll keep in touch,” he said finally.
Frog didn’t wait any longer. Moving as carefully as he could, he turned away from the rocks, where he’d been staring at the pacing Kark, and waded back around the cove to find out where Sam and Lili had gone.
He bumped into Lili, closely followed by Val.
“Sorry! That took longer than we thought. But she’s doing so well! I can’t believe how much she likes it!” Val exclaimed. “She even tried to catch a minnow! It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” She gestured toward shore. “There was a bee out there and Sam totally freaked out, so I took over following Lili.” She laughed. “Boy, he really hates bees!”
Frog waved his hand impatiently. Who cared about that now? Breathlessly, he told her what he could about the conversation he’d overheard.
“And he said by this time next year the big chunk of rock would be gone! No, wait, he didn’t say that exactly. But he said something about combinations being there and millions of dollars!” Frog was near tears with frustration. Why hadn’t any of his brothers been there? He couldn’t remember the words Kark had used, and he knew they were important.
Val eyed him. “Combinations?” she said.
“Something like that! And he said this place is unspoiled and that’s why people would pay millions,” Frog went on.
Val shrugged. “That doesn’t sound great, but I don’t think we can do anything,” she said. “I’ve barely ever seen my mom so mad. I’m not kicking that hornet’s nest unless we have real proof.”
Frog shuddered. “Don’t talk about hornets,” he begged
Val just laughed. “You’re as bad as Sam! Listen, bud, I don’t think we can do much unless you can remember more.”
But Frog stomped his foot, splashing the water. Lili tried to catch the wave as it sloshed her, but Frog barely noticed. “I heard him!” he shouted. “He said the pile of rock would be gone, and that the inspectors were going with what he gave them! Or something like that!”
Val stopped laughing. “Are you sure?” she asked. “You’re sure he said that?”
Frog nodded miserably. “I can’t remember his words exactly, but he said, ‘It’s in the bag.’ I don’t know what bag, though.” He paused. “And he gave a mean laugh. Not like something was funny, but like…mean.” He sighed. He wished so hard that Val had heard it all too.
Val and Frog stood there while Lili splashed around them in tiny circles. It was a gorgeous August day, brilliantly sunny with a tiny cool breeze to remind them that summer was coming to a close.
“Well,” Val said finally. “I guess I can try and tell Mami and Dad. They’re not mad at me for spying. Or not yet, anyway.”
Frog sniffled. “Tell them he said it would be gone,” he repeated.
; Val nodded. “I’ll try,” she said. “I don’t know what you heard, Froggie, but it doesn’t sound good. It doesn’t sound good at all.”
Of course it would rain, Jax thought. It would rain during the last week of their vacation, while they were still under house arrest. And Alex and the rest of the Galindo-Green family seemed to have disappeared. Val had been over yesterday, after she and Sam and Frog had taught Lili to swim. Unfortunately, when Frog had taken off the video camera headset it was dead, which bummed Val out, since she had been sure it was charged. But she had shown them the video she shot, which, Jax had to admit, was seriously awesome, and had promised to send Papa the link to her finished “film” so they could watch it on the computer. Then she’d gone home, promising Frog—Frog, of all people—that she would talk to him tomorrow. But now it was raining and no one was answering at the Galindo-Greens’ place, and Alex hadn’t come over as planned, and everything was awful.
Frog was still babbling. He had been ever since they had gotten back from the beach yesterday. “You GUYS!” he whined. “You’re not listening. I heard Kark talking on the beach yesterday! And he’s…” He paused. “I don’t remember what he’s doing but he said the lighthouse would be gone next year!”
Sam was at rehearsal, where he had no new costume to show his director, so he had left the house freaking out. Eli and Jax were playing a lackluster game of Connect Four. Jax shifted his weight on the sandy couch. When it rained like this, everything in the Nugget felt damp and sticky, and Jax stared miserably out the window at the lighthouse, which he could barely see through the driving rain.
“Did you hear me? GUYS!” Frog whined again.
Jax whirled on him. “We heard you, okay? But what are we supposed to say? There’s nothing we can do about it, so why don’t you shut up?”
Frog’s lower lip trembled. Jax felt like a jerk, but he didn’t care. Things had gotten so bad so quickly! Like pressing a bruise, his thoughts darted back to the scene at town hall, when Kark’s weirdo friend had thought he and Alex were some kind of criminals. Natalia’s words played over and over in his head, as did Dad’s reply: “My girls have been followed by hotel detectives,” she’d said. “We live a pretty sheltered life,” Dad had answered.
The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island Page 13