Izzy walked back and forth, stepping over pieces of wood, bones, and shreds of sea lion skin.
“You could do anything, Izzy,” she was muttering, “if only you’d set your mind to it.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “A big guy like you giving up without even trying?”
Hands on her hips, she tapped her feet against the packed-earth floor. Her glasses were cracked, her hair stringy; she was a mess. She bumped into the fishing gear propped up in the back corner.
But I thought of what she’d done: she’d half-carried me up the mountain, brought me water. She’d gone to the village more than once to bring back food and things to keep us warm.
So maybe she was right about trying to fix a kayak.
It was our only hope…until, maybe, the Americans came.
“Izzy the Mosquito,” I said, but I said it nicely.
She smiled. “A mosquito that stings,” she said. “So now, let’s find the kayak that’s the least damaged and work on that.”
We spent the morning picking over each one. Some were too big, impossible for me to paddle alone. Three could never be repaired.
But…
There was one with two seats, upright, leaning against the back of the shed!
I could teach Izzy. We couldn’t make a long trip the way Pop had planned, but yes, we might make the far end of the island, away from the battle.
I pointed at the kayak. “This one.”
Before I could say another word, she was pulling kayaks out of the way, and I rushed to help her drag the two-seated one to the center of the space.
We stood there, staring at it. Whoever had ruined the others had almost missed this one. The frame seemed fine; it was only the covering that was damaged.
I pointed to it. “Here’s the problem,” I said. “We could never—”
“Mrs. Dane would have a problem with you,” Izzy said.
I didn’t ask who Mrs. Dane was. I could guess.
Izzy was squinting at the skin. “If I had a needle, curved, large, and some kind of thread, waxed maybe…”
“Maybe you could steal that stuff from a fisherman’s house,” I said, but I grinned at her.
She held up her hand. “Listen,” she whispered.
We could hear the soldiers’ voices as they came close, and we saw a hand begin to push the heavy shed door farther open.
We didn’t stop to think. Izzy slid under one kayak, and I slid under another.
I didn’t breathe.
I wondered if they could hear my heart pounding. It seemed to be up somewhere in my throat.
From where I was, I could see a patch of light on the floor next to me and boots covered with mud. The soldiers were speaking, but I had no idea of what they were saying.
Then they were gone, leaving the door open behind them. We waited, whispering to each other after a few minutes, from one kayak to the other, not sure how close they were.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I slid out from underneath and, still on my hands and knees, went to the door.
They were at the harbor. They’d have to pass here on the way back.
We waited.
An hour? Two?
Then at last they walked past and I could breathe again!
WE were more than cautious, moving only at night, peering around the corners of the houses, standing still until we were sure we were alone. We could only be certain that one soldier was friendly.
It was hard to find what we needed to sew the kayak; most of the time it was too dark to see, until one night, there was a dusty moon. I could see!
I found a long curved needle in the grandmother’s house, and then waxed seal thread still hanging on a line in back of one of the fishermen’s houses.
I remembered Mrs. Rizzo’s sewing class in my old school. What a torture that had been!
But I could sew, slowly and awkwardly, maybe the way I read, but bit by bit, a little at a time, when I thought we were safe. I managed to attach the sea lion skin to the top of the kayak’s frame.
And Matt? Fishing from the shore, to get whatever he could for us to eat. My mouth watered, thinking of fluke or flounder.
Imagine. At home I wouldn’t even touch a piece of fish.
Every night he baited the hook with a small piece of salmon, and sometimes he brought in a small fish. Not much more than a bite each. But even so, it was something. Our old food supply had dwindled to almost nothing.
At last the kayak seemed ready. He began to teach me to paddle. He had almost no patience. “Not like that, Izzy,” he’d say, sitting behind me in the kayak. He’d move his hands, showing me. “Faster,” he’d say, or, “Slower.”
I felt as if I’d burst. “Do you have to complain every minute? Do you enjoy being so irritable?”
“I just want…” he began. “I can’t help…” His hand went to his mouth. “You think I’m irritable?”
“Are you kidding?”
He turned away from me. “Oh, Pop,” I thought he whispered. Were there tears in his voice?
One night, we managed to move the kayak from the shed, carrying it over our heads, taking a huge chance that we’d be caught. It took forever, moving slowly, trying not to make a sound.
He chose a cove that was sheltered, and maybe, fingers crossed, a place that the soldiers didn’t bother with.
“This time,” Matt said, “we’ll be careful of the rope.” He sounded almost as if I’d been the one to lose his boat.
It was time to try the kayak in the water, for me to sit in one of the cockpits and paddle.
“You know how, I think,” Matt said, almost gritting his teeth.
But I didn’t. It was a disaster. But we kept working at it, Matt muttering, “One. Two. Right. Left. Terrible.”
And then I had it.
I really did.
I smiled. “I love this,” I said.
He smiled back at me. “You’re good, Izzy.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out: “Sure. You were going to take your kayak and leave me.”
He shook his head. “I wanted to feel the water, to see what it was like. I knew there wasn’t room for both of us, and I was trying to think of what to do.”
I thought about it. “All right.” And then we smiled again.
It was dawn as we tied up the kayak. “All right,” he said.
“All right,” I echoed.
I glanced up at the sky. It was dark with birds coming toward the island. Coming back to nest? Was it spring?
Please let it be spring.
IZZY sat across from me, in the teacher’s house, her hair in knots. Too bad she didn’t have a comb. But then, neither did I. Her hands rested on Willie’s broad head.
Izzy, that mosquito, paddled really well. Could we make the trip together?
I must have said it aloud.
“We have to try,” she said. “You can do it, Matt. I’m not worried about that. And I can do it too.”
I almost laughed. Izzy had no idea of what it would be like: storms brewing, flipping over.
She had no idea of how we would right ourselves.
I looked down at her dog. Willie’s eyes were shut. He was stretched out, comfortable, not realizing what danger we were in.
“What can we do about the dog?” I asked her.
Izzy pushed at her glasses. I noticed a small part of a lens had fallen out. She looked even stranger than usual.
Her hand was raised over the dog’s back now. “What are you talking about?”
“I hate to leave him.”
“Of course I won’t leave him. He’d starve without me.” She stopped. “We belong together. In all this time…” She didn’t finish.
“There’s no room.”
“Certainly there’s room. We’ll squish together. Willie and me. That’s the way it has to be.”
“Stop tapping your foot for once,” I said, shaking my head. What difference did it make if we took the kayak out and headed away? It might never work anyway. We might be back here i
n hours.
And then what?
“All right,” I said, knowing I could never have left my own dog to starve. I could never leave any dog to starve!
As soon as we had a clear day, we went to the cove. I carried the bits and pieces of food we had left. I wedged them under my seat in the kayak, saying, “You get in first. Sit down and I’ll hand Willie to you.”
She looked worried. “He’s pretty heavy.”
I didn’t answer. What was the use? I hauled the dog up, his legs scrambling against my chest, and managed to drop him into the kayak on Izzy’s lap.
“Nothing to it,” she said.
But the dog looked terrified as the boat rocked in the water.
I gave Izzy a paddle and slid into the kayak.
It was a perfect day, and we could see that the island was smudged with green. It really was spring. But the water was rougher than usual, the waves high.
Izzy dipped her paddle in too gently; she just wasn’t strong enough for this, even though she was trying hard. She’d be better off rowing on the Sound. As if that would ever happen.
She stopped paddling and looked at a gull.
It swooped down over the water and came up with a small fish in its mouth.
“Bonaparte’s gull,” she said with satisfaction.
She’d been looking through her mom’s bird book most of the time we were stuck in the cave. I’d watched her moving her lips, repeating birds’ names. That, or lips still moving, reading The Call of the Wild, a book I’d read about four times. Sometimes, her head bent, she’d write.
Pay attention, I told myself fiercely as the kayak turned on its own. “Hey, Izzy,” I added. “Paddle!”
“Sorry,” she said.
We didn’t talk then; keeping the boat facing the waves took up all our energy. And for Izzy, there was the added weight of Willie, who was panting, trembling.
We heard the thunder of the plane before we saw it. It flew low over us, and even lower over the island.
We looked up, shading our eyes. Still, we couldn’t see. I thought I saw the round red circle of the enemy.
It was a good thing we were only a dot in the water, with waves spilling over the sides of the kayak, soaking us.
“Paddle faster,” I told Izzy, even though I knew she was doing the best she could. Then, “Sorry.”
I thought of Pop, his blue eyes, the beard he’d grown when we first got here. If I ever saw him again, I’d tell him…tell him how much like him I was.
If only he were here, my grouchy, grumpy father.
How different it all would have been.
THE sound of the plane must have frightened Willie. He struggled in my arms; his claws dug into the side of the kayak.
I tried to hold him, but he dove over the edge and was in the water. He paddled away from me, waves hitting his head, waves that would be too much for him.
I looked back at Matt, terrified. “We have to go after him!” I yelled. “We have to go back. Please…”
I didn’t see him nod; I didn’t hear him say anything, but he pulled hard on the paddle, turning us, and I dug hard at my own paddle until we were next to the dog, close to the island, the boom of the surf in our ears.
Willie’s paws looked so large on land, but in the water he was almost defenseless, trying to fight the current…
Until a wave pushed him along, up and up, tossing him onto the sandy shore, and our kayak scraped bottom moments later.
Out of breath, I climbed out of the boat, smashing onto the sand, drenched and scraped. I reached out to the dog, who lay next to me, panting.
I took a quick glance around to see what Matt was doing. He was pulling the kayak up along the sand, close to us. “We’re not going to let this one get away,” he said.
I coughed and managed to nod against a pale sun in my eyes.
Matt stood over me. “Are you all right?” His gloves were soaked. He shook his hands to get them off. And I did the same thing.
Willie was up now, shaking himself. Icy droplets flew across the sand.
“Oh, Willie,” I said, and then, “Oh, Matt.”
What would we do now? We could never have tried it again with the dog in the boat, and even though we’d been out less than an hour, I realized I couldn’t try it again myself.
OVERHEAD, I heard the thunder of planes. I looked up. Americans, at last.
We were safe, but only for the moment. We had to get away from the village. And we had to go by tomorrow.
We hadn’t seen the four soldiers, but they might be here somewhere.
I had to think. How to move, how to leave.
Even for spring, it was cold. We needed coats, gloves, blankets.
What about food? Was there enough still in the kayak to get us through? I had to gather mussels from the pier pilings before we left. And maybe crabs scuttling along the sand. So we had to stay near the water, but still be able to gather eggs from the gulls’ nests.
But the hardest thing was shelter!
How could we survive outside?
Izzy was watching me. “Towels first.” Her lips were blue with cold, and she was shivering.
We went back to the village, the dog still shaking off water, and went up the steps to my house, quietly, watching.
I pulled dirty towels off the hooks in the bathroom and we wrapped ourselves in them. Izzy knelt on the floor, rubbing the dog down until his fur was dry and gleaming. “We’ll be all right,” she said. But I heard the fear in her voice.
I couldn’t waste time worrying. Food, I told myself again as I listened uneasily to the sound of planes overhead.
I zipped up my jacket, still damp. My stomach was turning over with hunger. It was getting late, and we had to have something to eat tonight. “I’ll be back,” I said. “I want to check the pier pilings for mussels.”
Willie’s ribs were showing, curved under the fur. I had to find something for him too.
And we had to leave.
It was our only hope.
I stopped shivering at last, and Matt was back with mussels. Then something tugged at my mind. Something about Maria.
Poor Maria, so far away. Would I ever see her again?
But what was it? Then I remembered. That day on Thor Hill. What had she said? Just an overhang under the rocks, but cozy. She’d waved her hand. The other side of Thor Hill.
At least, something like that.
I grabbed Matt’s arm. “I know where we can go. It’s not far, but I think it may be safe. And we might be able to find it.”
He looked up, really listening. “Are you sure?”
“Sure!” A mussel slid down my throat. “We have to gather everything together and go!”
I hardly listened to the rest of what she was saying. I was thinking ahead. She could walk with Willie; I could take the kayak, the front cockpit filled with everything warm we had.
I kept nodding at her, at that mess of a girl, who might be saving our lives.
“Yes,” I said. “Oh, yes,” because I realized it must be on the side of the cove I had found first.
Not too far. At home, I would have thought it was impossibly far. But we could do this.
I was glad we had a plan, something that was possible. At least something to try.
Again, we went from house to house. A large red scarf under someone’s bed. A quilt rolled up behind someone’s couch. A warm glove, just one, under someone’s table.
And that was it.
Before dawn, I shoved everything warm we had into the kayak. With the food, it was piled high. If the kayak turned over…
I couldn’t think of that.
In the early morning, before light, we were ready to go.
WE left when it was still dark. I waved at Matt as he headed toward the harbor.
“Come on, Willie,” I said. “It’s time to go.”
The dog looked up at me, considering, but I patted his head, and he decided he’d come with me.
We stayed away from the path and wa
lked along the edge of the field. Even though it was still cold, green covered the earth, and there was the constant sound of birds.
Ahead of me, Thor Hill rose up against the sky, Gulls circled in the wisps of mist, and I thought again about that day with Maria, long ago.
Planes went overhead steadily and once, I heard the explosion of what must have been a bomb. The sound was faint, so not the village. Not yet.
Willie and I circled the hill and reached the other side while it was still light. I had to find that overhang. So many rocks. So many places to search.
But a miracle. Matt was there ahead of me, yelling something above the surf, pointing.
And there it was, just under the shadow of the hill, protected. Almost a cave, but not quite. An overhang, exactly. We could anchor blankets on the sides to keep out the wind. And there would be just enough room for the three of us, covered with scarves and blankets, Matt and me wearing our coats.
We could do it.
But Matt was looking at the sky. It was almost dark with planes now. So many of them.
“American,” I breathed. “At last, ours.”
He looked at me irritably. “American bombs could kill us just as well.”
He was miserable.
I turned away from him and began to cover the sides with blankets, weighing everything down with rocks.
I should have said I was sorry. I opened my mouth a few times, but she paid no attention. “Good job with the sides,” I said, and helped her wedge the last rocks against the blankets.
She didn’t answer. And after the sides were secure, she crawled underneath and curled up with Willie almost on top of her.
I sat outside, listening to the blankets flap. The white one blended in, but the blue one really would have stood out, if it hadn’t been covered by rocks. I hoped it might not be seen from the sky.
I thought about today. I’d been lucky, first because the waves were gentle, the trip was easy, except…
“Except what?” Izzy’s voice was muffled; she was still turned away from me.
Island War Page 9